Timeline of Resurrection Appearances

The New Testament records a number of appearances of Jesus after his resurrection.  I will try to summarize that here.

The women visit the tomb

Luke 24 has the women visiting the tomb, followed by Peter.  Matthew 28 has the women seeing Jesus before they visit the eleven remaining disciples. (It also records that they saw one angel.) Possibly we have two visits to the empty tomb. The first visit involves two women, both named Mary (Matt 28: 1-10). Mark (in Mark 16:1-8) records these two women visiting the tomb, along with a woman named Salome.

John and Peter

According to John, Mary Magdalene saw the empty tomb (with a stone rolled away.) She then told Peter and John about this. They go to the tomb, John first, but John does not go in. Peter does. (No angels are mentioned.) John believes that Jesus has risen from the dead. They leave the tomb and then Jesus appears to Mary (after she tells the disciples the tomb is empty) and Mary sees two angels, one at the foot and one at the head of the tomb.

Evening visit by Jesus to the disciples in Judea

Later that evening Jesus appears to a number of disciples, including two unnamed followers who are walking to nearby Emmaus.  A week later (John 20: 24-29) he appears when Thomas is with the others. This seems to all occur in Judea.

Appearances is Galilee

Later (John 21, Matthew 28: 16-20) Jesus appears in Galilee to the disciples, after they have returned to their homes.

Paul, in I Corinthians 15: 3-7, records that after appearing to Peter and the other disciples, at one time Jesus appeared to more than 500 followers, many of whom are still alive in Paul's day.  After that, Jesus appears to James, his brother and then much later, on the Damascus road, Jesus appeared to Saul/Paul.

Resources

Here are some online sources that attempt to work through the various appearances.

1. From a Catholic scholar, a blog post.
2. This post, from biblestudy.org, even attempts to give precise dates, although leaving out the appearance of Jesus to Peter.  (The exact dates should be viewed with suspicion.)
3. Grace Fellowship Church in Toronto has a webpage that offers a chronology from the crucifixion to ascension.
4. BlueLetterBible.org has a similar webpage.
5. And, of course, there is a Wikipedia article.

Tomorrow we return to the last few chapters of Luke.