Bible Contradiction? How many women came to the sepulchre?

 

For today’s post we will tackle the question the Skeptic Annotated Bible asked: How many women came to the sepulchre?

Here are the two answers which the skeptic believes indicate a Bible contradiction:

One

“Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene *came early to the tomb, while it *was still dark, and *saw the stone already taken away from the tomb.” ( John 20:1)

Two

“Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave.”” (Matthew 28:1)

Three

“When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices, so that they might come and anoint Him.” (Mark 16:1)

Five and more

“But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared.” (Luke 24:1)

“Now they were Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James; also the other women with them were telling these things to the apostles.” (Luke 24:10)

(All Scriptural quotation comes from the New American Standard Bible)

Here’s a closer look at whether or not there is a contradiction:

1. When dealing with skeptics’ claim of a Bible contradiction it seems one can never be reminded enough of what exactly is a contradiction.  A contradiction occurs when two or more claims conflict with one another so that they cannot simultaneously be true in the same sense and at the same time.  To put it another way, a Bible contradiction exists when there are claims within the Bible that are mutually exclusive in the same sense and at the same time.
2. One should be skeptical of whether this is a Bible contradiction given the Skeptic Annotated Bible’s track record of inaccurately handling the Bible.  See the many examples of the error with the Skeptic Annotated Bible which we have responded to, such as our listing of “100 Alleged Bible Contradictions Answered.”  Of course that does not take away the need to respond to the specific claim of a contradiction mentioned here, which is what the remainder of this post will do.  But this observation should caution us to slow down and look more closely at the passages cited by the Skeptic Annotated Bible to see if they interpreted the passages properly to support their conclusion that there is a Bible contradiction.
3. There are five claims given above.  Formally the claims would be contradictory if one or more claims used the term “only” such as “only one,” “only two,” “only three,” etc.  Yet here we see even with the skeptics stating their own claims they didn’t say “only one,” “only two,” “only three,” etc.  So on the surface of what the skeptics have given us in terms of claims we see they are not contradictory.
4. The next question is whether the Bible verses cited state in any way there were “ONLY” one, two, three, five women, etc.  The passages quoted doesn’t say that either.
5. In John 20:1 naming one woman who went to the sepulchre is not the same thing as saying there’s “only one woman who went to the sepulchre.” Likewise with Matthew 28:1 naming two woman and Mark 16:1 naming three woman and Luke 24:11 naming more women; they don’t mean “ONLY” those women went to the sepulchre and no one else.  This is to go beyond what is written.
6. Also different passages naming different amount of women who went to the sepulchre does not mean those passage are contradictory.  Luke 24:10 allude to five or more women who went to the sepulchre but if some of the other passages focus on different individuals by naming them while omitting the names of the other women that does not mean there’s logically a contradiction.
7. Let me illustrate with an example of point 6.  I have given this illustration in the past.  Some time ago I was talking to some kids.  I was amazed at how young they were.  They were born after September 11th, 2001 which  was a turning point at a crossroad in my life.  So I asked them if they knew about 9/11.  They said yes.  I asked them what they knew.  They knew about two building being hit by airplanes in New York.  As we talked some were surprised to hear about another flight that crashed in the fields and also another flight that attacked the Pentagon.  Mind you, just because certain documentaries and narratives focus on the Twin towers that doesn’t mean they were denying the other things that happened that day.  Just because one set of witnesses describe the New York incident doesn’t mean they are saying that’s the only thing that happen.  Likewise to read one book whose author decided to focus on New York and another book whose author focuses on both New York and the Pentagon doesn’t make them in of itself contradictory.  They made the decisions of what to leave in and what to leave out.  But that’s not a contradiction at all.  The Scripture and particularly for our case, the four Gospels, are similar in that regards.
8. We shouldn’t miss that worldviews are at play even with the skeptic’s objection to Christianity.  The worldview of the author of the Skeptic Annotated Bible actually doesn’t even allow for such a thing as the law of non-contradiction to be meaningful and intelligible.  In other words for him to try to disprove the BIble by pointing out that there’s a Bible contradiction doesn’t even make sense within his own worldview.  Check out our post “Skeptic Annotated Bible Author’s Self-Defeating Worldview.”

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