Expository Thoughts (continued)
appearance of concert or collusion about them. How to reconcile the seeming discrepancies in their narratives has exercised the skill of commentators in every age. Dean Alford says flatly that he "attempts no harmony of the accounts," and that he "believes all such attempts to be fruitless." I do not agree with him at all, and I think the statement to be unworthy of the able writer who makes it. I think the accounts can be harmonized and reconciled, and that too without any unfair violence to the narratives of the four Gospels. The order of Christ's eleven appearances between His resurrection and ascension
I believe to be as follows:
1. To Mary Magdalene alone (Mark 16:9, John 20:14).
2. To certain women returning from the tomb (Matt. 28:9,10).
3. To Simon Peter alone (Luke 24:34).
4. To two disciples going to Emmaus (Luke 24:13).
5. To ten Apostles at Jerusalem and some other disciples, Thomas being absent (John 20:19).
6. To eleven Apostles at Jerusalem, Thomas being present (John
20:26-29).
7. To seven disciples fishing at the sea of Tiberias (John 21:1).
8. To eleven Apostles on a mountain in Galilee, and perhaps some others with them (Matt. 28:16).
9. To over five hundred brethren at once (1 Cor. 15:7).
10. To James only (1 Cor. 15:7).
11. To all the Apostles, and probably some others, on Mount Olivet at His ascension.