J. B. Phillips (1906-82) is one of the great modern translators of the New Testament. In 1967 he wrote a small book entitled Ring of Truth: A Translator’s Testimony, in which he comments on the wonderful verses in Luke’s Gospel describing what happened on the road to Emmaus. (24: 13-35).
Let us freely admit that the stories of the rising from the dead of the man Jesus are not mounted or arranged as evidence for any court of law – or for that matter for any critic. I should be highly suspicious of them if they were. People who are frightened and despairing, suddenly confronted with evidence which contradicts all their previous experience of life, can hardly be considered to be ideal witnesses. Wouldn’t you be shaken to the marrow if a young man, whom you had seen die publicly and in agony on Friday, greeted you with a cheerful greeting on the following Sunday?
Does it matter whether there was one “man in white”, or two, who spoke to the bewildered women at the opened sepulchre? Can we not understand that a woman half-crazy with grief and with eyes nearly blind with weeping should mistake a male figure in the early morning light for the gardener? Have we never been so overwhelmed with grief or disappointment, or both, that we literally do not see anything else?
I am therefore not in the least worried by the story of the walk to Emmaus (recorded only by Luke, and possibly recovered by him in his patient researches). I see no difficulty in believing that the minds of Cleopas and his companion were so utterly preoccupied with the collapse of their hopes and dreams that they did not recognize Jesus. Obviously all the time that they had been walking with him their despair was melting, and their faith in Jesus, God’s Christ, was coming back to life. But the “psychological moment” came when they were relaxed at a friendly table, and a familiar gesture brought instant recognition. It all “clicked into place” as we say in modern slang, or, as Luke records, “their eyes were opened and they knew him.”
Now no one makes up a story like this. No one ever has, or ever will. This rings true: this certainly happened.
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