Empty Tomb Puzzle

[Neo-Scholastic]

I have my doubts if they were all present during these events.

I agree with that. Matthew does not mention anyone other than the guards being present at the tomb when the earthquake happened. And the ‘earthquake’ must have been like a .05 Richter, just the ground shaking in that area. Most likely many of the ‘undead’ (pretty funny, I’ll probably use that one!) stories are rumors like you said. There incorporation contributes more to the symbolism, and not to the accuracy. (Like the miracle of the two fish and five loaves, like no one is a huge crowd brought lunch. C’mon.)

Mark seems to not care about earthquakes though. It's strange that his perception limited him from experiencing the supernatural.

I doubt Mark was a direct witnessed to the earthquake. Most of his account sounds second hand to me as well. Perhaps Mark was more skeptical about certain events than Matthew. I don’t know. Any modern reporter would collect information from multiple sources. But we will never know how thoroughly they evaluated the reliability of those sources or whether they excluded things even they found too incredible. In my scenario, each of the accounts excluded details found in the others. That may have been intentional. Maybe not.

I remember reading that he correctly describes some 300+ places. This doesn't make it any more real than a fiction writer using real places and even events in their stories. It can't be taken as evidence for or against.

You are correct. Merely mentioning locations does not lend credibility to the original account. It undermines the assertions of older archeologists that believed none of the places actually existed.