Glimpses of the Quiet Witnesses
I recently read a paper by the "out there" liberal church leader Francis McNabb which claimed (amongst other things) that the prayers of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane were speculative because all the disciples were asleep, and that most of the events surrounding the trial and death of Jesus were speculative because all the disciples ran away. The bible, in his view, clearly had many sections that were simply made up. But were there really no witnesses? Thanks to the cowardice of the twelve, the unnamed disciples of Christ that had followed him all the way from his home town of Galilee are finally named late in the gospel of Matthew. As the events around the crucifixion of Jesus are described, we suddenly read: Ch. 27:55 Many women were there, watching from a distance. They had followed Jesus from Galilee to care for his needs. 56 Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee's sons. The invisible disciples throughout t...