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Friday, February 5, 2010

Matthew 27:51-53, the Jewish concept of the resurrection and the resurrection of Jesus

N.T. Wright, among others, point out that the disciples belief in the resurrection of Jesus was remarkable given the concept of the resurrection in Jewish theology. In the first century, Jews believed that the resurrection would not occur until the end of the age. At that time, some of the more righteous believers would be resurrected (Daniel 12:1-2). The idea that someone would be resurrected before the last day was inconceivable in Second Temple Judaism. Therefore, the resurrection of Jesus must be factual, according to Wright, because the disciples would not have invented something that was contrary to their understanding of the resurrection.

That brings us to Matthew 27:51-53.

v. 51--At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split.

v. 52--The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life.

v. 53--They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people.


Matthew is the only gospel writer to mention this event. Why is that? Matthew is commonly believed to be written to a Jewish audience to convince them of the messiahship of Jesus. Thus, these Jews needed something to overcome their objection about the timing of the resurrection. I believe Matthew 27:51-53 was inserted for this purpose.

Did the resurrections mentioned there literally happen? It seems extremely unlikely. Even such a staunch evangelical apologist as William Craig doubts the literalness of this account. He says:

Suppose Matthew didn't mean for this to be taken literally? Suppose it's just part of the apocalyptic imagery typical of Jewish apocalyptic writings, a way of portraying how age-shifting Jesus' death was? Then our problem is that we're taking literary imagery in an inappropriate, literalistic way, and the problem is not with Matthew but with us.

If the resurrections mentioned in Matthew really occured, don't you think there would be some mention of it somewhere else? How could such a momentous event go unnoticed and unmentioned by the other gospel writers, by Josephus or any other source. It is inconceivable to me that someone would not have mentioned these resurrections.

A blogger, Jason Engwer, responds to this objection:

Matthew only mentions the event briefly, which undermines the critic's assumption that anybody who believed in the event would have thought so highly of it as to be sure to mention it in our extant literature. Matthew mentions it, as he mentions many other things, but he doesn't seem to have thought that it deserves as much attention as critics suggest.

Some Christians writing shortly after the gospel of Matthew was composed (Clement of Rome, Polycarp, etc.) didn't comment on the event of Matthew 27, even when they were discussing the topic of resurrection. We know that it was common for the Christians of that time to interpret the gospels in a highly historical manner, so it seems unlikely that they didn't comment upon this passage as a result of viewing it as non-historical. Apparently, these early Christians, writing shortly after the time when Matthew's gospel was composed, didn't think that mentioning the event of Matthew 27 was as important as some modern critics suggest.


I am sorry but I can't buy that response. If the resurrection of one man, namely Jesus, shook up Jerusalem as the apologists claim, why wouldn't the resurrection of "many" not have shaken it up even more? The passage says that these newly resurrected saints appeared to many people. How could something like that go unnoticed and unreported? It couldn't.

So, if Matthew 27:51-53 did not literally happen, which even Craig leans towards, why should we accept Matthew's account of Jesus' resurrection as literal? The fact is we shouldn't. The apologist cannot "have his cake and eat it too." Either both resurrections were literal or both were metaphorical.

N. T. Wright in The Resurrection of the Son of God, p. 636 concludes his discussion of this passage by saying:

It is impossible, and for our purposes unnecessary, to adjudicate on the question of historicity. Things that we are told by one source only, when in other respects the sources are parallel, may be suspect, especially when events like earthquakes were (as 24:7 makes clear) part of the stock and trade of apocalyptic expectation. But it remains the case that the events Matthew describes in 27.51-53, as well as being without parallel in other early Christian sources, are without precedent in second-temple expectation, and we may doubt whether stories such as this would have been invented simply to "fulfil" prophecies that nobody had understood this way before. This is hardly a satisfactory conclusion but it is better to remain puzzled than to settle for either a difficult argument for probable historicity or a cheap and cheerful rationalistic dismissal of the possibility. Some stories are so odd that they may just have happened. This may be one of them, but in historical terms there is no way of finding out.

First, note that Wright (as Craig) does not want to defend the historicity of this passage. He says it might just have happened but we can't know. By the way, I would say the same thing about the resurrection of Jesus.

Second, he says that no one would have invented this story. Oh really? I beg to differ. Because the Jewish expectation was that the resurrection would not begin until the end of the age, some Jews might have objected to the idea of Jesus being resurrected. Matthew's inclusion of the resurrection of many of the saints would answer the objection (at least to some degree.) That would also explain why its contained only in Matthew's gospel. The apocalyptic language does not work against this interpretation but rather in favor of it.

As Robert Price in The Empty Tomb (p. 11)humourously remarks: "when we see multitudes of local saints rise from their tombs in the vicinity of Jerusalem, are we to suppose that they were on a mere furlough from Sheol, due back after Easter vacation? Surely for this writer, the general resurrection had begun." .

9 comments:

  1. So, this is literal, that is not, this happened, but that's just allegory, and as to why I should believe you on any of this- Shut up, that's why!

    Yeah, reason #167 I no longer believe.

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  2. This piece of your blog post really jumped out at me:

    "Did the resurrections mentioned there literally happen? It seems extremely unlikely. Even such a staunch evangelical apologist as William Craig doubts the literalness of this account. He says:

    Suppose Matthew didn't mean for this to be taken literally? Suppose it's just part of the apocalyptic imagery typical of Jewish apocalyptic writings, a way of portraying how age-shifting Jesus' death was? Then our problem is that we're taking literary imagery in an inappropriate, literalistic way, and the problem is not with Matthew but with us."

    Also Bart Erhman's book "Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium" says some of Jesus teaching comes out of all various strands of jewish apocalyptic thinking and writings. Is there a book(s) that explore this idea more?

    David McBride
    prometheus1@charter.net

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  3. David,

    Albert Schweitzer was one of the first to recognize Jesus as an apocalpytic prophet. His book, The Quest for the Historical Jesus published in 1906. Its a good starting point for the subject.

    Also, for contrary views, you might want to look at: The Apocalyptic Jesus: A Debate by Dale C. Allison, Marchus J. Borg, John Dominic Crossan, Stephen J. Patterson.

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  4. Wright's constant hammering on this point gets irritating. He says the resurrection story must be historical because Jews of that time expected the resurrection at the end of the age. Well ... the early Christians thought it WAS the end of the age. I can't believe Wright misses that point. Every NT book expresses a belief (not just a hope) that Jesus was returning very soon, probably in their lifetimes, to raise all the dead. Paul said Jesus' resurrection was the "firstfruits" before the harvest (general resurrection). The end of the ages was upon them.

    Another thing I never hear addressed by Wright and his adoring devotees. If the notion of a pre-apocalypse resurrection was SO foreign to the first century Jew, why did some think that Jesus was John the Baptist RAISED again?? How could that be?

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  5. Steve,

    Good points. Of course they argue that some thought John the Baptist had been resuscitated (as supposedly Lazarus was)not resurrected. Again, I find this less than convincing.

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  6. "So, if Matthew 27:51-53 did not literally happen, which even Craig leans towards, why should we accept Matthew's account of Jesus' resurrection as literal? The fact is we shouldn't. The apologist cannot "have his cake and eat it too." Either both resurrections were literal or both were metaphorical."

    Untrue. The Gospel writer could have written about a metaphorical rising of the dead as an allusion to the prophecies regarding the Messiah as a way of proclaiming his belief that Jesus was the Messiah. Your all or nothing options of either both resurrections being literal or both being metaphorical are not the only options. You may not agree with the possibility of one resurrection being metaphorical and one being literal, but it is still a possibility. It may be a cop-out response, but it is still a possibility.

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  7. Anonymous,

    Possiblity does not equal plausibility. Just about any explanation is possible but the real question is which explanation is most plausible? It seems that the explanation that the resurrection of the saints is metaphorical but the resurrection of Jesus is literal is a case of "special pleading." The conclusion is only arrived at due to one's prior faith commitment to the resurrection of Jesus being literal.

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  8. I don't think it's a case of trying to have one's cake and eat it too. There's nothing wrong with suggesting that the raising of people from their graves may have been an apocalyptic metaphor, whilst the resurrection of Jesus was in fact a real and literal event. For one thing, you correctly point out that the raising of these anonymous individuals is only mentioned in Matthew's account. The resurrection of Jesus is attested in all four of the gospels. For another thing, we don't hear of the early church preaching the resurrection of these unamed individuals; however, the resurrection of Jesus was central from the very beginning. My point is that I don't think the two episodes are equal, as if we had to decide that the one was metaphorical on the basis of the other. The fact that the resurrection is given such central historical weight suggests that it was something that - according to the early church - actually happened. The passing reference to people being raised from the grave suggests a possible apocalyptic allusion. I see no conflict.

    SteveJ, you seem to have actually confirmed Wright's point. If the early Christians did not think that Jesus had been raised from the dead, then there was no reason for them to think that the end of the age had actually arrived. If Jesus' body was actually interred in the tomb and left to rot, why was there this talk about the passing of the old, evil age and the coming of the new? You have to account for why the early church believed the end of the age was approaching. Is it possible that the resurrection of the man Jesus may have generated this belief? I guess you can argue about whether the early church was correct, but the fact that they believed that the end of the age had come demands a response. Hope that makes sense.

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  9. One way to solve exegetical problems with this passage is to use the text in Codex Sinaiticus: και2532 πολλα4183 σωματα4983 των3588 κεκοιμημενων2837 αγιων40 ηγερθησαν1453 και2532 εξελθοντες1831 εκ1537 των3588 μνημειων3419 μετα3326 την3588 εγερσιν1454 αυτου846 εις1519 την3588 αγιαν40 πολιν4172 και2532 ενεφανισθησαν1718 πολλοις4183 (The text [but without the Strong numbering] was taken from that given along with digital images of the manuscript at http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/.)

    Since Sinaiticus leaves out the words “and the memorial tombs were opened” and “entered,” a much easier to understand translation is possible: Literal rendering: “And many bodies of sleeping holy ones were raised up, and, projecting from the tombs, after the raising of Him, in the holy city also they were made known to many.” Paraphrased rendering: “And many bodies of holy ones were thrown out and projected from their tombs. After Christ’s resurrection, they also became known to many in Jerusalem.”

    That “projecting” (εξελθοντες1831) is an accurate rendering of the Greek is shown by its usage elsewhere with this meaning. εξελθοντες1831 is from ἐξέρχομαι1831, which has this as one definition: “Of inanimate entities go out … Of a sword ἐ. ἐκ τ. στόματος came out of [projected from] the mouth Rv 19:21” (BDAG Lexicon). That “made known” (ενεφανισθησαν1718 is passive voice; from ἐμφανίζω1718) is an accurate rendering is also seen from a definition of it: “Declare, make known” (Thayer Lexicon).

    It was no doubt due to restricted sabbath day travel that some who saw the dead heaved up from their tombs at the time of Jesus’ death did not come into Jerusalem and report the occurrence until the first day of the week, after Jesus was raised. Those within a sabbath day’s journey (3,000 feet) of Jerusalem would not have gone out to a burial area on the first day of the festival of Unfermented Cakes, for by doing so they chanced contracting ritual uncleanness by touching or being close to a grave, which would make such a person not able to enjoy the festival and fellowship.

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