Peter didn't know where the tomb was

Luke 24:12 tells how Peter ran to Jesus' empty tomb, a Johannine flourish. Since March I've been asked to suspect Luke 24:12 as not being, er, Luke's. Underappreciated, I think, might be what Peter himself will report in Luke's second volume, which we Latins call the "Acts". It being the Easter season still, we heard Acts 2:22f.

Here is one of those famous (in the scholarship) speeches which Luke makes up and puts in the Apostles' mouths. Luke's penchant elsewhere is to take Paul's doctrinal-summaries and to have Peter say them, smoothing over the disputes which we know - from Paul - the Apostles held (note Jesus' genealogy here, from David, as Paul's royal Lord). Also here is a Lukan creed, such likewise scholar-famous, not least for their parallels with Josephus' "Testimonium". One more interesting point is the use of Psalms, like Barnabas. Indeed Luke 24:14 has "anticipated" such what-does-this-mean discussions.

We're not getting into all that, this morn. It's only nine AM MST as I start this; I'm not drunk enough (Acts 2:15). Instead I'm interested in how Luke is portraying Peter's experience. Peter is averring that, contrast with patriarch David, we don't have the last Christ's tomb.

In Luke, some can claim they do have that tomb. Namely, the women can claim that, have claimed that since Mark's Gospel. Here in Acts, by contrast, Peter has constructed an entire argument around not having that tomb, from Psalm 16:8-11 LXX. Acts 2 doesn't quite contradict the empty-tomb narratives. Acts is, however, a witness against exactly Luke 24:12 (and John 20 by the way).

It may be that a reader of Luke+Acts together would take this tension for motive to omit Luke 24:12. This was certainly a motive for, say, Bezae to copy MSS without that verse. Except. Once we get into Marcionite circles, and Bezae was assuredly curious about Marcion's take on Judaism, we're not copying the "Judaisers'" Outdated Testament. We've ceased caring about Acts' arguments from Psalms, much less as Davidic prophecy. We are also not copying John 20 and might not even be copying Acts. Without John 20 or Acts 2, a Tatianist might mine these for harmonising supplements, as majority-text Luke 24:12; although we're hearing that Marcion might not have done so, perhaps making a point. Note that Bezae, owning John, doesn't mine those other Gospels for harmony here.

Also the omission of Luke 24:12 comes along with a slate of other minuses in the Western tradition. Old Syriac followed those minuses. Jan Joosten would say that Tatian had included John's race-to-the-tomb, alone, this time not incorporating any Luke 24:12 language. Whether or not Tatian knew the verse, the Old Syriac (re)translator of the Gospels could not find in his own Greek for Luke any verse about Peter's run, any more than in Mark or in Matthew. So the translator duly left it out, with the other minuses.

So let's look to the "harmony" behind the C, S, and P synopsis. These east-Syrian MSS all agree against Bezae for Luke 23:56 - but hold off on that, for now. Also hold off on the Palaestinian Melkite lectionaries which all include 24:12 and don't bother from 23:50f.

Other Eastern parallels include the Dura-Europos empty-tomb harmony, and the Arabic harmony; these lack Luke 23:56 entirely. If the latter be true Tatian, as Tatian's presumed anti-Jewish leanings would lead us, Tatian had made no mention of the righteous women following (Jewish) custom. Only the archons of this world follow the Sabbath, for him; with the same effect as in Bezae.

I have to conclude against Jan Joosten, for Luke. Old Syriac owned a Bezae-like text of Luke 24, alongside the Diatesseron in parallel. I expect - for the Theodosian Age - only Antiochene texts available to the Orient, that is John Chrysostom's text including our Luke 23:56 but also our Luke 24.

I agree with the Syrians themselves that Christians had reached the Euphrates before Tatian did. Leaving aside the "Thomas" lore, Marcion's sect were among the first apostles of Luke - and of Luke's text of Romans. I think that their variant of at least Luke 24 was translated to Syriac ahead of time where no-one much cared about (say) Spain. Dura-Europos does show an Eastern interest in the post-resurrection events, contemporary with that Gospel of Peter in Upper Egypt. Luke 24 would fit well in a post-Easter qeryana lectionary.

To return to why Luke 23:56 exists in all Old Syriac witnesses, where it was not Tatianic: here was an intrusion from the Antiochene Greek newly introduced. It was enough to restore the Judaism in the original Luke 23. It was not enough to overhaul the chapter after that, which the Old Syriac chose to leave alone.