Our gospel accounts of the resurrection indicate that although Mary Magdalene and another Mary[1] were the first to discover the empty tomb, they were part of a larger group of women including Salome (Mar 14:1) and Joanna and at least one more (Luk 24:10) who had arranged to meet at the tomb on Sunday morning. They were coming to complete the burial custom for Jesus’ dead body which, due to the start of a sabbath at sunset as required by the first day of Unleavened Bread, was hastily interred Thursday evening by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. Due to the seventh day Sabbath on Saturday it was the first opportunity they had to attend to His body. The two Marys immediately noted something was awry upon arriving at the tomb, for there were Roman soldiers present who seemed agitated, and the large stone set in place to seal the tomb had been rolled away. Upon entering the tomb they found Jesus’ body was gone, but had a vision of an angel telling them He had risen. They then fled from the tomb in fear, unnerved themselves by the angelic vision, but also from their own human thoughts of what had happened to Jesus’ body and the potential danger they sensed they could be in from the soldiers, since they were followers of Him Whom the authorities had just executed as a “terrorist”. As the two Marys fled, the other women would still have been on their way to meet them. Jerusalem was a large city whose population swelled many-fold during the Jewish feasts to perhaps well over a million people so that many of the Jewish pilgrims of the diaspora visiting from around the world would had to have “camped out” in the surrounding region as Jesus did with His disciples on the Mount of Olives where He was arrested. Others would have stayed with extended family or friends in the area. After Jesus’ crucifixion, His followers would especially have been scattered (Mat 26:31) so we would not expect them all to be in the same location, or for the women to have all been coming the same way or for the two Marys to have fled together in the same direction from which they came to inform the disciples of what they had discovered.
In addition to the arrival of the other women at the tomb that Luke seems to describe (Luk 24:1-10), what two additional events does Scripture record that would have been happening during the same time frame that morning? See Mat 28:11, Joh 20:2-10. What other event does Matthew describe in the context of the two Marys’ initial discovery of the empty tomb that John, writing later, clarifies to have actually happened sometime later that day and not immediately after they had fled from the tomb? See Mat 28:9-10, Joh 20:11-18. Besides Jesus’ appearance to two disciples on the road to Emmaus later that day, what other resurrection appearance does Luke also mention that happened sometime during that day, but before He appeared to the eleven that evening? See Luk 24:33-34; cf. 1Co 15:5.
Notice the great stir the discovery of the empty tomb immediately created. After that initial discovery, in what order of time would some of the guards have gone to inform the religious leaders, the other women arrived at the tomb, and Peter and John arrived at the tomb? How long would the soldiers guarding the tomb have waited to send one or more of their number into the city to report what had happened? Why would they have gone and reported to the chief priests rather than their Roman commanders or Pilate? See Mat 27:65 and note that Pilate had placed the guard under the authority of the religious leaders to do whatever they thought was necessary. Think too: Since the body they were meant to guard came up missing, who would their Roman superiors hold responsible, likely at the cost of their lives? And why would the chief priests, as opposed to their Roman leaders, have had an interest in covering up the disappearance of Jesus’ body? After the body was found to be gone, how long might the other guards have remained at the tomb? Cf. Mat 27:64.
After the two Mary’s fled, how long would it have taken the other women to have arrived at the tomb, compared to how long it would take Mary Magdalene to have ran to tell Peter and John and for them to have run back to the tomb? Consider: unless the distance Mary had to go to find Peter and John was quite small, it seems more likely that the other women who were already enroute and planning to meet the two Mary’s at the tomb would have arrived before Peter and John. Also note that Luke inserts Peter running to the tomb after describing what seems to be a different experience at the tomb by the other women, but closely related in both time and events to that described by Matthew. Since Matthew’s account was already in circulation at the time Luke wrote, we surmise that Luke summarized the two separate experiences together while including the additional information from the second group of women; see Luk 24:10-12.
After informing Peter and John, what did Mary Magdalene do? See Joh 20:10-17. Who does Matthew say was with her when Jesus appeared to her? See Mat 28:9, indicating that by the time Peter and John left the tomb, the other Mary had rejoined her, perhaps having met the other women on her way to inform others and even joining them again at the tomb to show them what they had found. After the additional experience at the tomb that Luke records, she may have remained at the tomb to keep watch while the other women went to inform others, thus allowing her to reunite with Mary Magdalene who from John’s account seems to have followed Peter and John back to the tomb.
[1] The mother of James and Joseph / Joses, and likely the wife of Clopas, Mat 27:56, Joh 19:25.