Evidence: The Gathering

[Randy Carson]

The account goes as
- women go to the tomb
- The tomb is empty
- Some guy is inside and that guy is reported to say "he has risen", Don't forget to tell his disciples about it... he's going that way.
- And the women told no one.

And there ends the story.

Yes, that's where the original ending leaves it.

With the clear message that HE HAS RISEN.

Now, based on that, can you agree that Mark MUST have known of the resurrection? Otherwise, he would have simply had the young man say, "He is not here." and left it at that.

Maybe Mark was going for a second volume and wanted to keep the audience in suspense, huh?

No, Mark was the traveling companion of Peter, and he was fully aware of the full gospel message that was being PREACHED. He wrote a brief account of what Peter was teaching, and Matthew, Luke and John filled in some of the blanks later. But the audience was not "kept is suspense" because they heard the oral teaching from the apostles.

[quote[If the women told no one, how did anyone come to know about that exchange in order to write it down?
Either they did tell someone and the account is true, but not the last bit (the most believable bit)

Or they told no one, and this account can only be fictitious!
[/quote]

I think it is reasonable to think that the woman did not say anything to anyone IMMEDIATELY - not that they never said a word EVER for the next 20-30 years before dying and taking the secret of what happened that morning to their graves.

Since Jesus later appeared to the apostles (and the women) in the upper room in Jerusalem, the "secret" was let out of the bag eventually. It seems reasonable to assume that SOMEONE would have asked the ladies what happened that morning.

More likely, however, is that Mark was simply trying to wrap up his gospel (maybe he was running out of papyrus! I'm kidding.) without having to continue the story. It had to end somewhere...otherwise, he would have continued writing his own book of Acts. But that was left to Luke.

That's how circumstantial evidence works, or am I doing it wrong?

I think the way it works is that investigators consider ALL of the eyewitness accounts and piece together what actually happened from testimony that may actually be in disagreement on some points.

Like how the survivors of the Titanic disagreed over whether the ship broke in two. Or like how the witnesses in Ferguson, MO disagreed over whether Michael Brown was running toward or away from Officer Darren Wilson.