The Reasons why "Just Following Jesus" Doesn't work

[Rekeisha]

Ok, this part of the story is where it really starts getting messy, but I'll try to cover everything I see wrong here.


First off, in Matthew Jesus appears to all the women at the same time (inlcuding Mary M), so there's no real support for separate encounters or for splitting the women up. The only account that makes it sound like Mary was by herself at any point is John, and that one doesn't really mention the other women at all. Splitting the women into two groups is mostly just scholars trying to force-fit the varying accounts into a single narrative that vaguely makes sense; it's not in the text, though.


Also, there's a discrepancy about who says what, and to whom (and in my opinion, it's actually kind of an important one). In Mark, the women do not encounter Jesus. The angel they encounter tells them to deliver a message to his disciples telling them to go to Galilee so Jesus could meet them there. In Matthew, they get the same message, but from Jesus himself. If you're the all-powerful, all-knowing, and infallible creator of the Universe and you're trying to deliver a message to your people, how are you going to mix up whether something was said by your son or one of your angels (or let the human writers mix it up)?

I want to give you some history about the writing of the gospels that I learned when I looked into your objections with the resurrection accounts. My post is long so I am going to post it in sections. Also If you don't want to read what I wrote in here you can watch this video by Michael Licona. He isn't a bad lecturer and I got a lot for my response from this. https://youtu.be/ns35f93WTuw

So the gospels are written in the genre of Greco roman autobiography that were written in that time. These were not concerned with the chronological order of events but in a narrative that flowed easily for the reader (or listener/s). So they may move certain accounts in the persons' life to other places, allowing the narrative to make sense of the dislocation, in order to give the events more impact. In college we were tasked to a paint "still life paintings" and I would omit or crop out things I didn't want to paint. In the room everyone saw the same objects but they would paint it from a different angle and choose to paint the objects based on their own abilities, talents and artistic discretions. If you put all of our pictures together they would not look the same but they would all be our take on the objects we saw and that would not disqualify the images representing what was actually there or not.
 
Another thing to consider is that the gospels had some constraints on how long it could be because it was to be read in front of a group of people. They likely used a set size of scroll to write on, the telling should take about an hour, and certain literary devices, like time compression, were used to shorten their story (as well as the very "flow" being passed to bring the attention of the listeners back to the story).  
 
The fact that the stories aren't all the same lends credibility to the gospel accounts because eye witness accounts of the same event always have some variation and each person focuses on different elements of an event. What all of the accounts agree upon is the fact that women were the first to find the tomb, angel(s) were present, disciples were informed, and someone (the women) saw Jesus. If this account was a fabrication why wouldn't the authors get their story straight? They had time before they wrote the gospels. Why wouldn't they say a man was the first to see Jesus.
During the time a of Jesus' death a woman's testimony was not accepted in court. The earliest account was Mark and they have found it in 2012 on a papyrus that dates to the AD 80s, and this is a copy, so there had to be accounts told before that. If these accounts were incorrect the people whose names were written in it, had plenty of time to reject or correct the story.  Yet there is as of yet any evidence this has happened.
 
So on to the objection of these differences. Were there two angels?  Well one is talked about in one account and two are talked about in another account; this doesn't' make it a contradiction just a difference in the accounts.  It is the same way with the women; it shows that there was a group of women there at the tomb that day, no matter if only one person was mentioned or more than that.  Your main concern with the account of John, and Mary's account in it,  should be relieved by looking further down in the scriptures, when she meets up with John and Peter what she says infers that she was not alone.
 
Also, Very early in the morning, at dawn and while it was still dark could all be around the same time or they could be compressions time. They are not trying to give you an exact play by play they want you to know it was in the morning. When Mary left in John's account the sky could be mostly dark and then have gotten brighter as she walked. She may not have set out with all of the women. Again the authors could be compressing time and just be saying in the morning as a general time period. 

Matt 28 Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. 2 And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. 4 And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. 5 But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. 6 He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.

Like I spoke about before they were not concerned in the 1st century biographies with chorological order as we are, so I see verse 2-4 as an aside or flashback. If you notice in the account the women don't react to the earthquake or the fainted guards. When the angel says "don't be afraid" he is talking about himself. Another thing to consider is that the guards fainted because of the angels but these women didn't? I believe it works better if they come up to the tomb with the guards gone and then poke their heads in to see the angels in there. Then the angel/s tell them to not be afraid.  Or you could be right and they came up to the tomb with the guards fainted and that is why Mary assumed that Jesus' body was stolen.
 
We may not know when the guards left the tomb still that doesn't mean that all of the accounts should be thrown out because we cannot discern when the events took place. There is more evidence backing up the account than going against it. When they spoke to the people who witnessed the Titanic going down, they found a contradiction in their accounts (did it break in half then sink or sink in one piece). This didn't call into question the fact that the Titanic sank. Unlike the titanic account, when it comes to the bible there are differences but not contradictions. What I am learning is the more we understand the styles of the bible, and the culture from which it was written in/for, the more these accounts make sense.