How do we reconcile Jesus appearance in Luke & John passage relating to Thomas?

Question

How do we reconcile Jesus' appearance in the Luke & John passages relating to Thomas:

• Matt 27 - Judas killed himself before Jesus' resurrection
• Luke 24 - Jesus met the rest of the disciples eleven & 51) Jesus ascended to heaven on the same day
• John 20 - Thomas story eight days later - but Jesus has already seen Thomas in Luke

If Judas killed himself already, there are only 11 disciples left, and Luke says Jesus met the eleven (include Thomas) & Jesus ascended to heaven on the day. Yet eight days later we have the Thomas story in John.

Matthew 27:3-5

³ Then Judas, who betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, ⁴ saying, I have sinned in that I betrayed innocent blood. But they said, What is that to us? see thou to it. ⁵ And he cast down the pieces of silver into the sanctuary, and departed; and he went away and hanged himself.

Luke 24:33-36 & 51 (ASV)

³³ And they rose up that very hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them, ³⁴ saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon. ³⁵ And they rehearsed the things that happened in the way, and how he was known of them in the breaking of the bread. ³⁶ And as they spake these things, he himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.

⁵¹ And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he parted from them, and was carried up into heaven.

John 20:24-26

²⁴ But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. ²⁵ The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe. ²⁶ And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them. Jesus cometh, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.

Note:

1. John is the only one that mentions this story Clearly, one passage has to be wrong.

2. Luke 24:40 And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. - it is astonishing that Luke does not even mention anything about Jesus marks / injuries or any one else.

3. Twelve - some say it is a general term used for the Group and not a specific count - there doesn’t appear to be any passage to support this. if anything the passages show the opposite, some examples;

John 20:24 - But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.

Matthew 26:14 - Then one of the twelve, named Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests

Matthew 26:47 While He was still speaking, behold, Judas, one of the twelve, came up accompanied by a large crowd with swords and clubs, who came from the chief priests and elders of the people.

Mark 14:43 Immediately while He was still speaking, Judas, one of the twelve, *came up accompanied by a crowd with swords and clubs, who were from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders.

Luke 22:3 And Satan entered into Judas who was called Iscariot, belonging to the number of the twelve.

Luke 22:47 While He was still speaking, behold, a crowd came, and the one called Judas, one of the twelve, was preceding them; and he approached Jesus to kiss Him.

1 Corinthians 15:5 and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

Finally - why would Thomas not believe when in - Matt 10:7-8 he and the disciples had the power to raise the dead. "As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ 8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give."

Answer 1

Chronology

The timing of the ascension is the easy part of this question to answer - the ascension did not take place the same day as the resurrection; Luke himself acknowledges this in Acts chapter 1.

One of the known, narrative features of Luke's Gospel is that he is not providing a play-by-play narrative, and skips around chronologically a number of times. Some object to this because Luke says he's writing an orderly account (Luke 1:3), but it is our western eyes that see "orderly account" and demand that must mean "chronological order".

Much of Luke's Gospel is arranged geographically, not necessarily chronologically. Luke will relate the key events, people, etc. in this town, then that town, and so on. Luke regularly name-drops key witnesses. It is as if Luke is challenging his readers to fact-check him: here's where to go and here's who to talk to, you can validate this story for yourself.

The geographic arrangement of much of Luke's Gospel facilitates this kind of fact-checking.

In Luke 24 there are several apparent discontinuities, where Luke jumps seamlessly from one set of contiguous events to another (he also does this throughout the passion narrative, e.g. compare the passion account of Mark to that of Luke - Mark is careful to log every day; Luke is less concerned with telling us what day it happened than he is about telling us that it happened).

• There may be a chronology break between verses 43 & 44 (two different post-resurrection appearances)
• There is probably a chronology break between verses 48 & 49 (initial teaching vs. later teaching, as further elaborated upon in Acts 1)
• There is almost certainly a chronology break before verse 50. Jesus appeared to the disciples in the evening; the trip to Bethany for the ascension is almost certainly not that evening (and, according to Acts, is 40 days later)

So the ascension does not happen the same day as the resurrection; this becomes more apparent when we see how Luke has structured his account.

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Where was Thomas?

The answer to this portion of the question is less clear. 3 possibilities present themselves:

• It's a genuine contradiction: Luke says Thomas was there the first time the apostles (as a group) saw Jesus; John says Thomas was not there
• "The eleven" was used the same way "the twelve" is used elsewhere -- it's the way the apostles as a quorum were referred to, even if not exactly 11 or 12 are present at the moment. That is, "the eleven" is a term that was used to refer to "the apostles" during the interval between Judas' death & Matthias' call, but it does not actually tell us how many of the 11 were present
• Thomas was present in verse 33 but has gone somewhere else prior to verse 36. If the apostles were gathered together and significant news such as this had reached them, it is not unreasonable that one of their number would have hurried to share the news elsewhere (or perhaps even to check the tomb for himself).

Answer 2

I dont think there is a chronological contradiction here.

The issue is that Thomas did not think Jesus was truly ressurected in body and flesh.

He was convinced that Jesus had only appeared as a spirit.

When Jesus appeared to the eleven, Thomas saw that, but he didnt believe that Jesus was ressurected in body. This was an important distinction, appearing as a ghost versus being ressurected body, as Jesus prophesized about himself.

Essentially, simply appearing as a ghost would not qualify as truly being ressurected in body.

So Jesus appeared to Thomas and showed him he was truly ressureccted in body.

Answer 3

When the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, returned to Jerusalem reporting their encounter with Jesus, "They found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together" (Luke 24:33). So there were a lot of people there, and I am sure they were more eager to tell their happy encounter, instead of identifying who were in the room. Luke collected the details from witnesses, likely never from John, who could provided accurate details in his Gospel on that particular night, as he could recall exactly a week later, Jesus reappeared to strengthen Thomas.

Answer 4

Remember that by the time these books were written, the disciples of Christ became a famous and honored group among Christians. Probably the single most important and honored group in all of Christianity.

It was not a casual thing to say that you had met with "the twelve" or in Luke's case, "the eleven".

So I read "the eleven" as the name of a group, not as a count. And in this case, Jesus came upon "the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them", so it was a meeting of the eleven that Jesus came to. Now if we adopt the assumption of the question, then it would be impossible for a disciple to miss a meeting of the eleven, since there wouldn't be eleven if not all were there. But obviously a disciple can be absent from a meeting, and it remains a meeting of the group, just one in which not all were present.

On the other hand if I say "I saw eleven disciples" without the article and a qualification of disciples, it would mean that I had counted and saw eleven disciples. But if I say "I saw the eleven" (with an article and no "disciples" as in the Greek), then I am likely referring to the group, just as a meeting with the Sanhedrin remains a meeting with the Sanhedrin even if a few are absent, or a meeting with the Senate remains a meeting even if some senators are absent.