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Dear Friends,
What
actually happened on that Easter morning 2000 years ago? We’ll
never know exactly. All four Gospels cover the event but each
differs slightly in their telling; there are discrepancies in the
accounts. Were there three women, as Mark records, two as Matthew
or one as John says? Was the stone rolled away after, as Matthew
says, or before they arrived as the other three have it? Were
angels present, as the first three writers say, or not, as John
suggests?
It
matters not really! Such factual discrepancies don’t cut much ice.
They don’t obscure the basic fact: it was an empty tomb that was
discovered. And that discovery forever changed the lives of those
early-morning visitors and those who believed their report. Even
the most sceptical Biblical scholars, some of whom travel in
corridors of doubt, concede that something extraordinary happened in
Jerusalem after Good Friday to account for the radical change in the
behaviour of the disciples, who at Jesus’ arrest had fled to their
own homes in fear. Only an empty tomb could account for the fact
that within a few weeks they were boldly preaching their message to
the very people who had sought to crush them. |
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