. . . you have to go into the Gospels with a skeptical
framework already to come away from them feeling that the core narrative
isn’t deeply rooted in eyewitness testimony, in things that either the
authors or their immediate sources really experienced and saw.
More.
Was eyewitness testimony ever more unreliable than in the case of Mary, who we are told really did experience and see, according to the Fourth Gospel?
And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She,
supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have
borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him
away.
-- John 20:14ff.
The idea that only prejudiced skeptics read the Gospels and come away doubting "eyewitness" testimony is quite the cope. Many former true believers have come to doubt what they once firmly believed to be true, their carefully constructed apologetic frameworks dismantled piece by piece until at length the whole structure imploded.
But Mary wasn't such a one. She did not believe in the resurrection promise in the first place, and her eyes utterly failed her when there it was, staring her in the face.
It's as if Jesus had never preached resurrection at all, so that "the apostle to the apostles" was from the beginning to the end as ignorant as they.
