Jesus Again Appears to the Disciples

John tells us that Jesus appeared to the group a second time, eight days later. Many translate this as a week later, making it the next Sunday.1 This seems to be more a result of sentimentality for the establishment of meeting on Sunday than on textual fact. In fact, when John says it was eight days later, was he counting from Jesus’ appearance or from when they reported it to Thomas?

We also wonder what they were still doing in Jerusalem. The second Sabbath of Unleavened Bread had passed some days before and Jesus’s initial message, brought by Mary Magdalene, had been that he would meet them in Galilee.

Alfred Edersheim suggests that they might not have been willing to leave until they could do so with a unified proclamation of the resurrection. If so, they may have been waiting until they could convince Thomas that Jesus was more than a ghost.2

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1 A week can be expressed by using the plural of Sabbath, making the Sabbaths bookends, so to speak, to hold the week. Here, however the Greek is literally eight days, not “Sabbaths.”

2 Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, Grand Rapids Michigan, 1971, pg. 646.