Witnesses of the Resurrection in the Synoptic Gospels

The synoptic gospels tell us similar stories about the appearances of the Savior after His resurrection, but we need to bring them all together to get a fuller picture of what occurred.  Matthew’s account gives us the least amount of information on the subject, telling of only two appearances: Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary” saw the angels at the sepulcher and then as they went back to the disciples, “behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him. Then said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid: go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me.”  Then, some time later, “the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped him” (Matt. 28:1-10, 16-17).  So, if we only had Matthew’s account, we would say that Christ appeared to two women in Jerusalem and then eleven disciples in Galilee. 

               Mark’s account is fairly similar to Matthew’s, but he added some additional detail.  Like Matthew he recorded the two Mary’s going to the tomb and (using the JST) their encounter with the angels.  Instead of telling that the two Mary’s saw Jesus together, he wrote only of Mary Magdalene seeing the Savior, “Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils. And she went and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept.”  Mark also added another appearance of the Savior that Matthew didn’t: “After that he appeared in another form unto two of them, as they walked, and went into the country” (this was presumably the same two that Luke wrote about in detail who met the Savior on the road to Emmaus).  Mark then also wrote how the Savior appeared to the apostles: “Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen” (Mark 16:9-14).  Unlike Matthew, Mark didn’t name a location for this last occurrence, and so he could have been referring to Jerusalem or Galilee. 

             Luke’s account also recorded the visit of the women to the tomb.  He named more than just the two, though, writing, “It was Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them” (Luke 24:10).  With the addition of the JST Luke also recorded the encounter with the two angels, but he did not tell of the women actually seeing Jesus.  Luke did tell at length, though, the visit of the Savior to the two travelers on the road to Emmaus (one named Cleopas and the other unnamed) and how Jesus taught and dined with them before they finally realized it was He (Luke 24:13-35).  Luke recorded directly after this how these two immediately went to Jerusalem and “found the eleven gathered together” and told them what had happened.  We then read, “And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you” (Luke 24:36).  So Matthew’s account tells of how the Savior visited the apostles in Galilee, Mark’s record doesn’t give a place for the appearance to the apostles, and Luke’s words tell us that the Savior visited the apostles in Jerusalem.  Putting them all together I think we see that Christ appeared to Mary Magdalene and other women near the tomb first, He subsequently appeared to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus that same day (since it was the “third day” still since the crucifixion), and then that same evening He appeared to a group of the apostles in Jerusalem.  From Matthew’s account we know that at some point later He also appeared to the apostles in Galilee, and John gave us more detail about that.  While each of the synoptic gospels differs somewhat, they are all powerful witnesses of the resurrection of the Savior.