iations common to the Gospels, and amplified in the more contemporary translations (such as the New International Version, The Living Bible, or the New American Standard Bible). The common response is frequently that the translators have tinkered with the material for their own purposes, and use this line of reasoning to justify their singular use of the King James Version of the Bible as the only "authorized" or acceptable text. [As the old joke goes, "The King James Bible is the one that Jesus quoted Scripture from, and that's good enough for me."]
For the liberal believer, the matter of the resurrection is just as settled, although not as literally as for the fundamentalist. The resurrection is a factual event--and forms the basis of the Christian faith. However, there is some minor internal conflict between the accounts recorded in each of the Gospels as to the sequence of events, and this raises the potential problem of biblical accuracy.
For example, in Matthew, just as the two Marys--"Magdala and the other Mary" (Mt 28:1, JBNT, 44)--approach the tomb, an earthquake occurs and rolls back the stone. The women are greeted by an angel, sitting on the stone, who tells them that "[Jesus] is not here, for he has risen, as he said he would" (Mt 28:6, JBNT, 44). And as the women are returning to inform the disciples, they encounter the risen Christ, who instructs them to tell the disciples to go to Galilee, where he will meet them (Mt 28:9-10, JBNT, 44).
In Mark, while the women ponder who will roll away the stone, they discover that it has already been done (no mention of an earthquake). Inside the tomb, they encounter "a young man in a white robe" who also informs them, "[Jesus] has risen, he is not here" (Mk 16:5,6, JBNT, 68-69).
According to Luke, we are initially told "they" found the stone rolled back--we do not learn that "they" are "the women" until a few verses later--and upon entering the empty tomb,...