Luke24chapter 24

The women come at first light on the first possible morning, since the Sabbath had blocked any work from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset. They bring the spices they had prepared, which is the ordinary attention paid to a body that had been buried in haste.

Their report is dismissed as nonsense by the apostles, and Luke says so. That is a strange thing to include in a persuasive account unless it is what happened — and it reflects the low weight given to women's testimony in that world, which makes their being the first witnesses harder to explain as invention.

Emmaus is placed about sixty stadia from Jerusalem, roughly seven miles, and the site is not certainly identified; several villages have been proposed and the manuscripts even vary on the distance. The walk would have taken a couple of hours, and pressing a traveller to stay because the day is far spent is ordinary hospitality on a road where nightfall meant danger.

The evening scene in the room is deliberately physical. He shows his hands and feet, invites them to touch, and asks for something to eat — and Luke specifies broiled fish. In a Greek world where educated readers might be more comfortable with a surviving spirit than a raised body, that detail is doing work.