Are you saying the original Gospel writers weren’t written by a human who wanted to glorify the passage? Obviously they’d have a bias to want to illustrate glory, especially Matthew to whom the glory passage is referenced. Do you think he just forgot that he wrote that earlier?
The Emmaus passage and the gardener passage speaks to me that people couldn’t imagine Jesus to be arisen even though He may stand right before you. The idea of resurrection was beyond their minds. At Emmaus when the to disciples realize it is He, he disappears and re-appears when they run to the other disciples. Christianity has held this to be a great event in the church, not a shameful one - demonstrated by the number of ministry groups, church, Walk to Emmaus, etc, named after Emmaus.
As for Thomas, he wasn’t with the disciples in the first coming in the Emmaus story, and wasn’t convinced (likely he thought they desperately wanted it to be true and so made themselves believe it). It is after that when Jesus suddenly appeared and spoke to Thomas to which Thomas immediately replied “My Lord and my God” (John 20:24-29).
Anyways, I don’t think anyone will convince anyone on this point, so I’ll say again YMMV and leave it at that.
Stupid 5 minute edit window… insert this after the discussion on Thomas:
Christian thought has been, from Scripture onwards, that the resurrection was Christ’s glorification (John 7:39 says the Holy Spirit had not come at that time since Christ wasn’t glorified yet, indicating the Spirit came after glorification - we know due to Acts that the Holy Spirit came 50 days, aka Pentecost, after the Resurrection)
Thomas didn’t recognize him as resurrected until he put his fingers in the wound. If it took the Apostles that long to recognize him, it was hardly a glorious coming in his father’s glory, and where were the angels that were supposed to be with him?
If Jesus was quoted correctly, he said he would COME in his father’s glory WITH his angels not have angels be seen later on. He had supposedly came in secret. One would think he would first appear to his mother to ease her mind, and not dress as a gardener and not be recognized by the closest people to him. It seems a bit strange that he would leave behind his burial wrappings, fold the head piece and somehow get gardener’s clothes. He of course maybe didn’t want Mary M. to find him naked so zapped on some clothes, it the guards were watching the tomb, why would they give him a gardener’s clothes and not see the angels etc. when he resurrected, of course they were not expecting Jesus to come out of the grave, and also if Jesus could go through walls why did the removing of the stone that covered the grave be necessary?
Where does it say this in the quoted text of John? Thomas didn’t have a moment to not recognize Jesus when He suddenly appeared. “Doubting Thomas” is about Thomas not trusting the disciples when they told him they saw Jesus.
The angels were met in the tomb. Wouldn’t it be likely that they came with Jesus?
In Matthew (Ch. 28), we don’t find the gardener narrative:
I think the John narrative of the gardener and the Luke narrative of Emmaus speaks to how we try to reject what is right in front of our faces (and at the same time how utterly mindbending it was to consider Jesus was alive when he so evidently seen to be dead).
Speaking of forgetting what Matthew had just written, the idea of resurrection should have been what everybody in Jerusalem was talking about, after all the saints came out of their tombs and walked into town.
Semi-related, Matthew 14 tells about Jesus feeding the five thousand with a few loaves and fishes. One of his most famous miracles.
In the VERY NEXT CHAPTER, apparently just a few days later, Jesus has another big crowd listening to him, and he tells his disciples he wants to feed them. And they say (paraphrased), “All we have are a few loaves and fishes, how in the world do you expect us to feed them?”
Matthew is writing, I think, to emphasize the miraculous. It appears the Gospel writers love to make the disciples look like idiots in order to further the story (Peter, for one, comes across looking like a complete moron - though at the same time, he walks on water with Jesus and gets the keys to the Kingdom). The 2nd time, Jesus is standing on a mountain - which is highly symbolic (ie, Mount Zion).
No it doesn’t sound like they came with Jesus , they seem to have appeared after he was said to come to life. Why the secrecy and hiding from even the people he knew well, and why not appear to his mother first? She apparently didn’t think he arose from the dead, even though he said many times that he would. and the apostles when they learned Jesus was said to have risen, were skeptical when they heard he had arisen!
The great Revolutionary War writer Thomas Paine made the same point, centuries ago. If Jesus was dead and then risen in Glory, then the Jewish and/or Roman authorities couldn’t touch him. There was no need to skulk around in hidden rooms, or remote countrysides, appearing only to his inner circle. All the alleged crucifixion miracles were public spectacles – the darkness, the earthquake, and above all else, the saints coming out of their tombs. And Jesus told his disciples to spread the news to all the world.
So why didn’t he make a public appearance himself?
The disciples were skeptical when he said the “many times” he’d come back. The famous “Get thee behind me Satan” when Peter couldn’t believe Jesus was telling the truth speaks to this. It wasn’t something they could get their heads around when he was with them and telling them.
In those days Messiahs came and went (Judas Maccabee ~150 years before Christ’s birth, Simon bar Kokhba, 100 years after Christ’s death) - but no one followed them as Messiah after their death. (actually a better list here: List of Jewish messiah claimants - Wikipedia ) The whole bit in Monty Python’s “Life of Brian” where the guy says he knows Brian is the Messiah because “I’ve followed a few” is more true that most folks think - so when Jesus died, it was natural to accept that no, He wasn’t the promised one, and not expect Him to actually come back.
But if you don’t believe it, you don’t believe it.
The disciples allegedly saw Jesus raise at least two people from the dead, and perform various other miracles almost daily. They didn’t believe it when their best friends told them; they had to see Jesus with their own eyes. Since they are the greatest saints of Christendom, I think we should follow their example.
That of course is that it is strange the Lazarus was supposed to have been dead, and was never mentioned again, Where was he at the Crucifixion? Why was there no writings about his life after he is said to have risen, where were all the people he was said to have cured of illness?
I wonder if the translators later on made a lot of stuff up to try to convert people!
What could possibly motivate churches to embellish ancient fairy tales? Oh wait…
The real question is: Why would anyone still believe this crap? I guess it’s true that Jesus is Santa for grownups. Only Santa brings goodies and Jesus brings hollow promises and guilt.
That’s like theorizing that Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny were secretly gay lovers. It may be fun to over but it’s nothing more than recursive imagination.
