Why Didn't They Know?

From *The Skeptical Review*, Autumn 1991:

by Farrell Till

John's account of the resurrection has Peter and another disciple running to the empty tomb after hearing from Mary Magdalene that the body of Jesus was gone. The unnamed disciple, outrunning Peter, arrived at the tomb first and waited:

Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes (20:6-10, NRSV).

Luke also indicated that the disciples of Jesus had not expected his resurrection, for Luke said that after Peter looked inside at the linen cloths, "he went home, wondering at that which had come to pass" (24:12). Numerous references to the apostles' skepticism of a resurrection appear elsewhere in the New Testament (Lk. 24:11,38; Jn. 20:24-25; Matt. 28:17).

What Third-Day Prophecy?

The New Testament has both Jesus and Paul claiming that the Old Testament prophesied that the Christ would be resurrected from the dead on the third day. The problem for inerrantists is that no such prophecy can be found in the Old Testament. Farrell  Till covers this problem and others. From *The Skeptical Review*, March-April 1996:

By Farrell Till 

New Testament writers claimed that the resurrection of Jesus was prophesied in the Old Testament. The weakness of this claim is apparent in the fact that none of these writers ever cited an Old Testament prophecy whose face-value meaning was so obvious that no reasonable person could deny that the prophets were indeed predicting that the Messiah would rise from the dead. The best they could do was distort a statement in Psalm 16:8-11 to try to make it mean something that the psalmist never intended:

I have set Yahweh always before me; because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore, my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices. My flesh also will rest in hope. For you will not leave my soul in Sheol, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy: at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Pardon my ignorance, but if there is a clear cut prediction of a resurrection in this passage, I simply cannot see it. Yet the apostle Peter, in a sermon that Luke put into his mouth, quoted this scripture on the day of Pentecost and said that it was a prophecy of the Messiah's resurrection. "Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Therefore, *being a prophet,* and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, he, *foreseeing this,* spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption" (Acts 2:29-31).