It is easy to read one Gospel and understand on a surface level what happened. What happens when you read a different Gospel and it has an appearance of the same story but includes bits and pieces that are completely different from the previous Gospel you read? You begin to ask yourself, whose story is more accurate? Did one Gospel writer have an agenda and that agenda would be the reason for the additives? What really happened at the tomb? This is exactly what happened to me when I read the Gospel account of the Empty Tomb from all three Synoptic Gospels, Matthew 28:1-15, Mark 16:1-8 and Luke 24:1-12. With the help of White and comparing the Gospels side by side, there are some major differences worth pointing out.

The earliest written Gospel is Mark whose Empty Tomb account is rather short. In Mk 16:2-4, the women go to the tomb and on their way they said to another “who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb?” this implies that no one was present at the tomb.

In contrast, Matthew has mentions soldiers involved in the story twice in his Empty Tomb account. The first is in Mt 28:2-4 “²And behold, there was a great earthquake; for angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone, and sat upon it. ³ His appearance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow. ⁴ And for fear of him the guards trembled and became dead like men.” This is significant! First because in Mark there is no mention of an angel OR guards, but in Matthew, there is. The second mention of soldiers is at the end of the chapter, Mt 28:11-15. “¹¹ While they were going, behold, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place ¹² And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a sum of money to the soldiers ¹³ and said, “Tell people, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ ¹⁴ And if this comes to the governor’s ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” ¹⁵ So they took the money and did as they were directed; and this story has been spread among the Jews to this day.” Why would Matthew add the guards? And why would he add that end story? White gives some insight and I think that I could agree with as well.

Obviously upon hearing that Jesus’ body had been resurrected, the Jews didn’t believe it. The ending story in Matthew is the rumor that the Jews knew of and believed in what had happened to Jesus’ body. That his disciples came by night and stole him away while everyone was asleep. Matthew would have known this and this could have been the socio-historical explanation of why Matthew had a lengthier version of the Empty tomb. To squash any rumors that the Jews would have heard and to ‘seal the deal’ that the resurrection is true. By having the soldiers present, it not only added more witnesses to the appearance to the angel but ALL who were present were amazed at the angel and by having the chief priests and elders paying the soldiers a big sum of money, it makes them look like they were covering up something.

In Luke, there isn’t a vast difference like Matthew, but there is in fact a difference. There is no mention of the guards at the tomb. The instructions given to them also differ. They are not to tell the disciples to go to Galilee, where they will see Jesus. This is important in the context of Luke, according to White, because all of the post resurrection appearances occur in and around Jerusalem.

It is apparent that the writing practices of early Christian story tellers wrote their Gospels the way they did on purpose. Each additive or removal is significant and it would make sense to believe that there was a reason for it. For Matthew specifically, I think he added what he did to simply squash the rumor that the Jews were spreading and believing and to show that the resurrection actually did happen. I think it would be fair to say that early Christian storytellers would write their stories in a way that would reflect their beliefs and encourage the readers after reading it to question any beliefs they have that are contrary to what they read and be “proof” for those who already believe it.