1. Cf. BDAG 874.
2. See Jan Van der Watt, “Angels in the Gospel according to John,” JECH 1 (2011): 185–204.
3. Keener, John, 2:1188.
4. Cf. Beasley-Murray, John, 374.
5. Cf. Carson, John, 640.
6. Ridderbos suggests their location is “to mark the emptiness of that space” (John, 636). Morris suggests that “the angels do not play a major part; their one function is to ask Mary why she is crying” (John, 739).
7. Augustine, John, 121.1.437.
8. Aquinas, John, 3:260–61.
9. Die Bibel nach der Übersetzung Martin Luthers (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1999).
10. The following is adapted from Nicholas P. Lunn, “Jesus, the Ark, and the Day of Atonement: Intertextual Echoes in John 19:38–20:18,” JETS 52 (2009): 731–46.
11. Cf. Westcott, John, 291.
12. Lunn, “Jesus, the Ark, and the Day of Atonement,” 734.
13. See George Carey, “The Lamb of God and Atonement Theories,” TynBul 32 (1981): 97–122.
14. Lunn, “Jesus, the Ark, and the Day of Atonement,” 736. Lunn makes an important qualification: “The significance of such an image, though implicit, is unmistakable—of Jesus, not as the typological, but as the actual means whereby atonement is attained.”
15. Chrysostom offers an imaginative suggestion that “while she was speaking, Christ suddenly appearing behind her, struck the Angels with awe . . . and this drew the woman’s attention” (John, 86.1.323).
16. Cf. Marianne Meye Thompson, “Jesus: ‘The One Who Sees God,’ ” in Capes, Israel’s God and Rebecca’s Children, 215–26.
17. Alison Jasper, “Interpretive Approaches to John 20:1–18: Mary at the Tomb of Jesus,” ST 47 (1993): 107–18 (111). There are several parallels with 1:38 (e.g., “turning” and “Rabbi”).
18. This interpretation of this allusion is given little credence by the majority of interpreters, who prefer a more strictly historical interpretation. A few older commentators suggest that the theological connection is intentional (Lightfoot, John, 322; Hoskyns, Fourth Gospel, 542). See also Adele Reinhartz, “To Love the Lord: An Intertextual Reading of John 20,” in The Labour of Reading: Desire, Alienation, and Biblical Interpretation, ed. Fiona C. Black, Roland Boer, and Erin Runions, SBLSS 36 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1999), 53–69 (63).
19. Contra Brown, John, 2:991; Hoskyns, Fourth Gospel, 543.
20. Cf. Karl Kastner, “Noli me tangere,” BZ 13 (1915): 244–53; Bultmann, John, 686–87; Michaels, John, 999.
21. See O’Brien, “Written That You May Believe,” 296, who argues that the narrative intends for the reader to identify with the misunderstanding of the characters.
22. Carson, John, 641–42.
23. Wallace, Greek Grammar, 724.
24. Ibid., 721, 725.
25. David C. Fowler, “The Meaning of ‘Touch Me Not’ in John 20:17,” EvQ 47 (1975): 16–25. Cf. Schnackenburg, John, 3:317–18; Brown, John, 2:992–93.
26. Cf. Origen, John, 6.37.378.
27. Mary Rose D’Angelo, “A Critical Note: John 20:17 and Apocalypse of Moses 31,” JTS 41 (1990): 529–36 (531–32).
28. Michaels, John, 1001.
29. D’Angelo, “A Critical Note: John 20:17,” 532.
30. See Sandra M. Schneiders, “Touching the Risen Jesus: Mary Magdalene and Thomas the Twin in John 20,” in Koester, The Resurrection of Jesus in the Gospel of John, 153–76.
31. Our interpretation of the two angels in the tomb of Jesus in v. 12 is also relevant here.
32. Sandra M. Schneiders, “John 20:11–18: The Encounter of the Easter Jesus with Mary Magdalene—A Transformative Feminist Reading,” in “What is John?” Readers and Readings of the Fourth Gospel, ed. Fernando F. Segovia, SBLSymS 3 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996): 155–68 (157–58).
33. Cf. Minear, “We don’t know where,” 134.
34. Contextually, as long as the group was mixed gender, the masculine plural would extend to both genders.
35. The Gospel’s account is in conformity with the account of the ascension given elsewhere in the NT (Luke 24:51; Acts 1:9–11). Cf. Reimund Bieringer, “ ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’ (John 20:17): Resurrection and Ascension in the Gospel of John,” in Koester, The Resurrection of Jesus in the Gospel of John, 209–35.
36. Spencer, “Women,” 1013. Cf. Schneiders, “John 20:11–18,” 168: “Mary Magdalene, contrary to what generations of condescending male commentators would have us believe, is by all accounts an official apostolic witness of the resurrection.”
37. Lincoln, John, 495.
38. Cf. Douglas Farrow, “Ascension,” Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible, 65–68.
39. Wyatt, “Supposing Him to Be the Gardener,” 38. Cf. Schaper, “The Messiah in the Garden,” 25.
40. The first woman tells the serpent that God had commanded that the tree not be touched (Gen 3:3), paralleling the command not to touch in v. 17.
41. Aquinas, John, 3:267.