The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all share the story about the empty tomb, however there are differences in their tellings of the story. Since Mark is said to be the first gospel to be written, Matthew and Luke have supposedly taken Mark’s stories and “retold” them in their own words combined with their own perspectives on the stories.

In Matthew’s telling of the empty tomb, he seems to write in a more descriptive way than Mark and Luke and uses information that is not spoken of in Mark’s telling. For example, when speaking of the stone, Mark writes: “and looking up, they saw that the stone was rolled back; it was very large.(Mark 16.4). In the gospel of Matthew, he states: “and behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone, and sat upon it.(Matthew 28.2)” This shows how Matthew took what was told in Mark and told it differently. In Mark and Luke, it is told that the an angel of the Lord is the only one who told Mary and Mary Magdalene to go tell the discipled the good news about Jesus being resurrected, however, in Matthew it say that Jesus came to them and told them himself. “And behold, Jesus met them and said, “Hail!” And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him”(Matthew 28.9).

Another big difference in the synoptic gospels over this story is found in Luke. Matthew and Mark both tell of their being one angle that approaches the women when they arrive at the tomb. However, in the tellings of Luke, there are two angels that approach the women. “While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel..”(Luke 24.4).

As talked about in White, there is a Jewish “rumor” talked about in Matthew that suggests that the body of Jesus was stolen. This rumor started after the gospel of Mark was written and before the gospel of Matthew was written. It is said that when the gospel of Matthew was written, this was taken into account. There are many differences between the gospels of Mark and Matthew when telling the story of the empty tomb. This could have been a factor in this.

There is a question raised about why the early Christians didn’t go and visit the tomb where they believed Jesus rose. Back in this time, burials were not very common and White states that “there is no evidence for commemoration of such a place for centuries after the death of Jesus”(pg. 152).

Throughout the synoptic gospels there are passages where older traditions and tellings seem to be revisited. An example of this comes from the story of the apostle Paul. When Mark writes that Jesus rose after three days, it seems that he took into account the story of Paul when mentioning three days. In the story of the apostle Paul, he became blind and his sight was restored in three days. This often happens in stories throughout the gospels, where older traditions are used to emphasize stories.