Q: Where did Jesus tell his disciples to meet him? In Matthew 28:10, Jesus tells the women to tell his brethren to leave for Galilee. In Mark 16:7 (and Matthew 28:7), the women are told at the tomb to tell Jesus disciples (and Peter, in Mk.) that He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see him. But in Luke 24:49 and Acts 1:4, Jesus instructs the disciples to stay in the city [Jerusalem] until you are clothed with power from on high, and He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for that which the Father had promised. Since Jerusalem is in Judea, not Galilee, this must be a contradiction.
A: The equation that the objection sketches out has excluded some important factors. Luke states plainly in Acts 1:3 that Jesus appeared to the disciples over a period of 40 days after His resurrection. So Luke clearly took for granted that his readers would understand his account of Jesus post-resurrection appearances in Jerusalem to be a compressed account. Luke completely omitted any mention of the disciples rendesvous with Jesus in Galilee -- partly because the post-resurrection appearances which occurred in or near Jerusalem on Easter-day were sufficiently interesting, and partly because he wanted to make a smooth literary transition between the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts by having the one end, and the other begin, strongly focused on events in Jerusalem.
The resolution, once one remembers that there was a period of 40 days between Jesus resurrection and ascension, is not difficult to see: on Easter, the angels and Jesus delivered instructions for His disciples/brethren to go to Galilee. Jesus Himself appeared to Mary Magdalene, then to the women as a group, then to Simon Peter, then to Cleopas and his fellow-disciple, and to the eleven (technically ten, since Thomas was absent, but I understand the eleven in a titular sense). And at some point He appeared to James. Eight days later He appeared to Thomas in the presence of the other disciples.
Then, He appeared in Galilee -- after the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. If this mountainside meeting involved not only the apostles but all of Jesus Galilean disciples, then this may be the appearance to over 500 which Paul refers to in I Cor. 15:6. Jesus also appeared to eight of his followers -- all apostles, it seems, though two of them go unnamed -- at the Sea of Galilee, as related in John 21. After this meeting, the main group of disciples (and believing brothers of Jesus, it seems, since theyre present among the believers in Acts 1) returned to Jerusalem.
At that point, Jesus appears to them again and instructs them to stay in Jerusalem until they receive power from on high. Then on the Mount of Olives He commissions them to spread the good news, and ascends to the Father. When the events are considered in this sequence, there is no contradiction about the question about where Jesus told His disciples to meet Him: first He told them to meet Him in Galilee, and then, later in Jerusalem, He told them to remain in the city.
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
A: The equation that the objection sketches out has excluded some important factors. Luke states plainly in Acts 1:3 that Jesus appeared to the disciples over a period of 40 days after His resurrection. So Luke clearly took for granted that his readers would understand his account of Jesus post-resurrection appearances in Jerusalem to be a compressed account. Luke completely omitted any mention of the disciples rendesvous with Jesus in Galilee -- partly because the post-resurrection appearances which occurred in or near Jerusalem on Easter-day were sufficiently interesting, and partly because he wanted to make a smooth literary transition between the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts by having the one end, and the other begin, strongly focused on events in Jerusalem.
The resolution, once one remembers that there was a period of 40 days between Jesus resurrection and ascension, is not difficult to see: on Easter, the angels and Jesus delivered instructions for His disciples/brethren to go to Galilee. Jesus Himself appeared to Mary Magdalene, then to the women as a group, then to Simon Peter, then to Cleopas and his fellow-disciple, and to the eleven (technically ten, since Thomas was absent, but I understand the eleven in a titular sense). And at some point He appeared to James. Eight days later He appeared to Thomas in the presence of the other disciples.
Then, He appeared in Galilee -- after the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. If this mountainside meeting involved not only the apostles but all of Jesus Galilean disciples, then this may be the appearance to over 500 which Paul refers to in I Cor. 15:6. Jesus also appeared to eight of his followers -- all apostles, it seems, though two of them go unnamed -- at the Sea of Galilee, as related in John 21. After this meeting, the main group of disciples (and believing brothers of Jesus, it seems, since theyre present among the believers in Acts 1) returned to Jerusalem.
At that point, Jesus appears to them again and instructs them to stay in Jerusalem until they receive power from on high. Then on the Mount of Olives He commissions them to spread the good news, and ascends to the Father. When the events are considered in this sequence, there is no contradiction about the question about where Jesus told His disciples to meet Him: first He told them to meet Him in Galilee, and then, later in Jerusalem, He told them to remain in the city.
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
