Source basis: Gospel text links into the hosted reader; history, prophecy, and world-perspective pages cite records inline and separate evidence from belief or lore. Sources
The accounts do not tell one unbroken story. This room follows the events in order — death, burial, the silent sabbath, appearances, and ascension — then places the source differences beside them.
Before you start
Friday, the third hour to sunset
What do the sources actually report in those hours?
The third hour
Mark gives the hour. All four place two others beside him.
Reported by: All four Gospels
Where the accounts differMark has him on the cross by the third hour; John still has Pilate giving sentence at about the sixth.
The sixth hour
Three hours of it, until the ninth hour.
Reported by: Matthew, Mark, and Luke
The ninth hour
The opening line of Psalm 22, cried in Aramaic.
Reported by: Matthew and Mark
At the death
Torn in two, from the top to the bottom.
Reported by: Matthew, Mark, and Luke
Before sundown
The soldiers break the legs of the other two, find him already dead, and pierce his side instead.
Reported by: John only
Where the accounts differJohn alone reports it, and stops the narrative to insist on an eyewitness for it.
Before sundown
A member of the council takes the body, wraps it, and lays it in a tomb cut in rock.
Reported by: All four Gospels
Before sundown
Named women watch the burial and mark the place.
Reported by: Matthew, Mark, and Luke
Across the hours
Forgiveness, the promise to the criminal, his mother and the disciple, thirst, the cry of dereliction, “it is finished,” and the commending of his spirit.
No single Gospel records all seven
What needs explainingThe traditional seven is a harmony, not a source. Luke carries three, John three, Matthew and Mark one — the same one.
At the death
Rocks split, tombs opened, and bodies of the saints raised — appearing to many after his own resurrection.
Matthew only
What needs explainingNo other source mentions it, inside the New Testament or outside it.
At the death
The officer in charge of the execution says something. What he says depends on the source.
Matthew, Mark, and Luke
What needs explainingMatthew and Mark: “the Son of God.” Luke: “a righteous man.”
By sunset the body is in a rock-cut tomb, and the women know where it has been laid. Then the narrative goes quiet.
Friday evening to Sunday before dawn
Where was he?
The next day
The chief priests ask Pilate to secure the tomb until the third day.
Reported by: Matthew only
Where the accounts differMatthew is also the only Gospel that names the counter-story it answers — that the disciples stole the body.
The sabbath
Luke says the women rested according to the commandment. Then the record goes quiet for a full day.
Reported by: No Gospel narrates the sabbath
Said from the cross
Said to the criminal beside him; later readers asked how “today” relates to the three-day interval.
Luke only
Said in advance
The sign of Jonah, given before the fact.
Matthew only
What needs explainingFriday evening to Sunday dawn spans parts of three calendar days but two nights; readers usually appeal to inclusive Jewish day-counting.
Read backwards
The clearest New Testament statement that something happened while he was dead — and the most argued over.
1 Peter
Read backwards
Paul reads a psalm about ascent, and infers a descent behind it.
Ephesians
What needs explaining“The lower parts of the earth” has been read as the grave, as the underworld, and simply as the earth itself.
Read backwards
Peter's Pentecost sermon applies Psalm 16 to him: his soul was not left in Hades, nor his flesh left to decay.
Acts, quoting Psalm 16
Read backwards
Said by the risen Christ in the opening vision of Revelation.
Revelation
Read backwards
Paul's rhetorical question — that is, to bring Christ up from the dead.
Romans
The prophets waited for him as their teacher, and when he came he raised them from the dead.
He goes down to Sheol; the dead run to him, ask to be led out, and he sets his name upon their heads.
The Beloved descends through the seven heavens unrecognized, taking the form of each as he passes, and afterwards rises with every heaven watching.
Two figures whose heads reach heaven bring him out of the tomb, the cross follows them, and a voice from heaven asks whether he preached to those who sleep. The cross answers yes.
The risen Christ answers the apostles' questions directly, including what he did for those who had already died.
Two sons of Simeon return from the dead to testify: the gates of Hades broken, Adam and the patriarchs led out, and Hades arguing with Satan over who let him in.
He descended to the dead.
When the story resumes before dawn, the tomb is open and the body is gone. The accounts now turn from absence to reported encounters.
Sunday, and the weeks after
Who saw him, and where?
Sunday, before dawn
Every account arrives at a tomb that is already open.
Reported by: All four Gospels
Where the accounts differNo source in the New Testament describes the rising itself. Not one.
Sunday, early
A figure, or two, tells the women he is not there.
Reported by: All four Gospels
Where the accounts differMatthew has an angel and Mark a young man — one figure. Luke has two men, John two angels.
What happens next
Sunday, early · The garden, at the tomb
She takes him for the gardener until he says her name.
Sunday, early · On the road back to the city
He meets them as they run to tell the others.
Sunday · Not stated
Two sources report it. Neither narrates it.
Sunday afternoon · The road to Emmaus
He walks with them unrecognized, and they know him when he breaks the bread.
Sunday evening · A locked room in Jerusalem
He shows them his hands and side, and asks for something to eat.
Eight days later · The same room
He offers Thomas the evidence Thomas asked for.
Not stated · The Sea of Tiberias
A night of empty nets, then breakfast on the shore.
Not stated · A mountain in Galilee
The commission — and the note that some doubted.
Source clock
Died, buried, raised on the third day, appeared — to Cephas, the twelve, five hundred, James, all the apostles, and last of all to Paul.
| Who saw him | Matt | Mark | Luke | John | Acts | 1 Cor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mary MagdaleneThe garden, at the tomb · Sunday, early | Not reported here | Mark 16:9 | Not reported here | John 20:11–18 | Not reported here | Not reported here |
| The women returning from the tombOn the road back to the city · Sunday, early | Matthew 28:9–10 | Not reported here | Not reported here | Not reported here | Not reported here | Not reported here |
| Simon PeterNot stated · Sunday | Not reported here | Not reported here | Luke 24:34 | Not reported here | Not reported here | 1 Corinthians 15:5 |
| Two disciples, one named CleopasThe road to Emmaus · Sunday afternoon | Not reported here | Mark 16:12–13 | Luke 24:13–32 | Not reported here | Not reported here | Not reported here |
| The eleven and those with themA locked room in Jerusalem · Sunday evening | Not reported here | Mark 16:14 | Luke 24:36–43 | John 20:19–23 | Not reported here | Not reported here |
| Thomas, with the restThe same room · Eight days later | Not reported here | Not reported here | Not reported here | John 20:26–29 | Not reported here | Not reported here |
| Seven disciplesThe Sea of Tiberias · Not stated | Not reported here | Not reported here | Not reported here | John 21:1–14 | Not reported here | Not reported here |
| More than five hundred at onceNot stated · Not stated | Not reported here | Not reported here | Not reported here | Not reported here | Not reported here | 1 Corinthians 15:6 |
| JamesNot stated · Not stated | Not reported here | Not reported here | Not reported here | Not reported here | Not reported here | 1 Corinthians 15:7 |
| All the apostlesNot stated · Not stated | Not reported here | Not reported here | Not reported here | Not reported here | Not reported here | 1 Corinthians 15:7 |
| The elevenA mountain in Galilee · Not stated | Matthew 28:16–20 | Not reported here | Not reported here | Not reported here | Not reported here | Not reported here |
| The apostles, over forty daysJerusalem and around it · Up to the ascension | Not reported here | Not reported here | Not reported here | Not reported here | Acts 1:3 | Not reported here |
Beyond the forty days
He puts his own sighting on the same list, and calls it last of all.
The reports move from one Sunday to repeated encounters over a span Acts alone numbers as forty days. Then Luke brings the witnesses to Olivet.
The fortieth day, and ten days after
How did it end, and what began?
Forty days
Acts alone gives the span, and says he spoke of the kingdom of God through it.
Reported by: Acts only
The last day
He lifts his hands, blesses them, and is parted from them.
Reported by: Luke only
The last day
They are still watching when the cloud takes him out of sight.
Reported by: Acts
The last day
Two men in white ask the question, and promise a return in the same manner.
Reported by: Acts
The last day
A sabbath day's journey from the city — the one geographic detail given.
Reported by: Acts
Ten days later
The record stops following him and starts following them.
Reported by: Acts
The last day
Received up into heaven, and seated at the right hand of God.
Mark's longer ending
What needs explainingThese verses are absent from the earliest complete manuscripts of Mark.
Reception history
Narratives that make visible what the New Testament leaves offstage.
Works that use an encounter with the risen Jesus to authorize further instruction.
Texts that stretch the setting into Hades, cosmic revelation, or years of secret teaching.
Where the accounts differ
As we have it in the oldest complete manuscripts, no. Mark ends at 16:8 with the women running from the tomb, afraid, saying nothing to anyone. The twelve verses that follow — the appearances, the ascension, the signs — are absent from Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, and read in a different style. Most printed Bibles carry them with a note. This room marks them wherever they are used.
Matthew and Mark send the disciples north to Galilee, and Matthew's climax happens on a mountain there. Luke keeps them in and around Jerusalem and has them told to stay in the city. Both cannot be the whole picture; harmonies exist, but they are readings, not sources.
Matthew has an angel and Mark a young man in white — one figure. Luke has two men in dazzling clothing, John two angels seated where the body had been. Some readers harmonize this by saying one writer mentions only the speaker; others treat it as variation in retelling. The sources themselves do not explain the difference.
Luke 24 reads as one continuous day that ends with the ascension at Bethany. Acts 1 — the same author, writing to the same reader — gives forty days. Luke's Gospel compresses; Acts spells it out. The forty-day figure rests on that one verse.
Paul's list is the earliest written account of the appearances, and it begins with Cephas. The women, who come first in all four Gospels, are not in it. Readers have explained this by the conventions of a formal witness list; the plain fact is that the earliest source omits the first witnesses, and the later sources put them first anyway.
No New Testament source does. Every account begins at a tomb that is already open. The first text to narrate the exit is the Gospel of Peter, in the second century, and it is not a witness — it is a story written later, by someone filling the same gap everyone else felt.
Where the record lands
Across the Gospels, Acts, and Paul, the shared claim is that Jesus died, was buried, and was afterward reported alive. The books differ over who arrived when, where appearances occurred, and how the sequence unfolded. History can date and compare those claims; it cannot reconstruct the resurrection itself.