Who was the first person to see the risen Jesus?

According to John 20:11-16 and Mark 16:9, Mary Magdalene was the first person to see the risen Jesus, weeping outside the empty tomb before recognizing him.

All four Gospels agree that women were the first to discover the empty tomb, and John's Gospel gives the most detailed account of the very first resurrection appearance. In John 20:11-18, Mary Magdalene lingers at the tomb after Peter and John have gone home, weeping. She turns and sees a man she assumes is the gardener - until he speaks her name, "Mary," and she recognizes Jesus and cries out, "Rabboni." Mark 16:9 states this plainly: "Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils." That the risen Christ's first appearance, and the first Gospel proclamation ("I have seen the Lord," John 20:18), was entrusted to a woman was culturally striking in the first-century world, where women's testimony was not always given legal weight - a detail many scholars point to as evidence the accounts are not later fabrications, since fabricated stories of that era would have been unlikely to invent such a witness.

Key Passages

Mary Magdalene meets the risen Jesus

John 20:14-18

¹⁴ And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. ¹⁵ Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away. ¹⁶ Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master. ¹⁷ Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God. ¹⁸ Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the LORD, and that he had spoken these things unto her.