I thank you for bringing this in; as stated, it is logical to assume someone making up a story about their long awaited great Messiah would never make up a verse like this -- thus it is logical to assume it wasn't made up but true.
And are you saying there aren't good looking, tan, in shape, gardeners out there?
Against my better judgment I'm making another post on this thread. DOC, please explain the following discrepencies in the New Testament accounts ofthe Resurrection, if they were
not in fact, made up:
Mark: Jesus appeared to nobody after the Resurrection. It's only evidence was the empty tomb.
Matthew: At the empty tomb an angel tells Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary" that Jesus is risen and to tell the disciples he will meet them in Galilee. Then Jesus appears to the two women and tells them
to tell the disciples to go to Galilee to meet him.
The 11 disciples go to Galilee and meet Jesus on a mountain there, where he gives them the great commission.
Luke: Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Mary the mother of James, along with other women go to the empty tomb and are told by
two angels that Jesus has risen. The disciples don't believe them. Then Jesus appears to two unnamed disciples on the road to Emmaus. They return to Jerusalem, and, as they are telling the other disciples Jesus is risen, Jesus appears in the room with them. He leaves them at Bethany after telling them
not to leave Jerusalem.
John: Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb
alone and is the first to meet Jesus,
alone. After that Jesus appears to the disciples twice
in Jerusalem. Then, inexplicably, the disciples seem to have returned to Galilee and have taken up their old trade as fishermen. Jesus appears to them there,
at Lake Tiberius, where he tells Peter to feed his sheep.
Paul (or possibly a forger), in 1 Corinthians 15: Jesus appears first to Cephas (Peter), then to the 12 (Judas, too?), then to more than 500 brethren at one time [the gospel writers don't appear to have heard of these 500], then to "all the apostles," then to Paul.
So, tell me, DOC:
1) Did the resurrected Jesus appear first to Mary alone (John), first the Mary and some other women (Matthew), first to two unnamed disciples on the raod to Emmaus (Luke), first to Cephas (1 Corinthians), or to nobody at all (Mark)? These accounts are mutually contradictory. So, only one of them can possibly be true, though they all could be false.
2) Did he tell the disciples to go to Galilee, and did he meet them there (as Matthew has it); or did he meet them in Jerusalem and explicitly tell them
not to leave the city (as Luke has it); or did he meet them in Jerusalem, but apparently not tell them to stay in the city, and later meet them in Galilee (as John has it)? As with question #1, these accounts are mutually contradictory. So, only one of them can possibly be true, though they all could be false.
3) Why, if Jesus appeared to 500+ brethren at one time, according to 1 Corinthians, did all the gospel writers leave this important even out of their accounts of the Resurrection? Here are two possible answers to this:
a) The account of the 500+ in 1 Corinthians was truly from the hand of Paul, but not considered valid by the authors of any of the four canonical gospels.
b) The account of the 500+ was added to 1 Corinthians by a forger after the canonical gospels had been written.
