The Resurrection Narratives in Matthew’s Gospel

Abstract

THE HISTORICAL PROBLEMS OF MATTHEW 28 Of the four versions of the Easter story preserved in the canoni-cal gospels Matthew's is probably regarded by scholars as the least reliable historically. His account is thought suspect in at least three ways: (1) He alone of the evangelists describes the opening of the tomb by the angel and the accompanying earthquake. Mark by comparison has an unadorned description of the opened tomb, and it is supposed that Matthew has introduced legen-dary elements into the story in accordance with his known partiality for the sensational and miraculous. 1 In describing the angelic action and the earthquake Matthew comes nearer than any of the other canonical evangelists to describing the resurrection event itself (as distinct from the discovery of the empty tomb and the appearances of the Risen Lord), and this together with Matthew's supposed heightening of the mira-culous encourages some scholars to associate Matthew here with the apocryphal gospels. The gospel of Peter, for example, which has a number of notable agreements with Matthew, describes the emergence of three men from the tomb, two of them helping the third and the cross following them. The heads of the two men reach the heavens and that of the third surpasses the heavens. 2