Is there more to the story on Matthew 27:50-53?

Since Easter is coming up, I’ve been reading those parts of the Bible. Out of the four Gospels, only one mentions something really different:

Matthew 27:50-53
And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus’ resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people.(NIV)

It’s really the 52-53 part that has me curious. Surely this would be newsworthy for the other Gospels to mention, if not Josephus saying that some formerly dead holy people are appearing to the townfolk. They’re not mentioned again in Mark so I’m curious what was that about? What happened to them?

Not to mention that just maybe someone in Jerusalem would have seen fit to mention earthquakes and an infestation of zombies.

Worrying about this is like worrying about the wind direction when Washington threw the dollar across the Potomac. It just got added to sweeten the story. It isn’t true.
Which should make you wonder about the rest of the story also.

There was no lice…without the lice it was just a parlor trick to the jews. :wink:

Re: Exo 8:17-19

Man the Bible is full of unexplained unaccountable events. I stopped taking the Bible seriously years ago because other than the illogical stories and mirak codes, the Bible wasn’t getting me anywhere in life. Now, I just worship God and basically believe that whats good and evil is common sense

I’m not sure what you’re asking. It doesn’t necessarily follow that the other gospels would have to mention the event just because of its magnificence. Let’s remember that the gospel writers wrote to different audiences. Mathew had in mind the believing Jew, one who was looking for raising the dead as a sign of The Messiah.

Didn’t Quadratas mention this event?

Anyway, it’s also not clear how many people we’re talking about. But I think it is clear that we are talking about significant, authoritarian Jews - i.e. Jewish “saints”.

Perhaps you could be more clear with what you’re asking?

Matthew has always been unusual compared to Luke and Mark; it’s the same basic story as those two, but adds a lot of unique details to it. The wisemen/Magi from the nativity are mentioned only in Matthew, to cite another example. afaik, the leading theory is that Matthew was really just a compilation of various sources of Jesus’s life, using the overall framework of Mark, rather than one “book” like the other three gospels seem to be.

Yeah, everyone who knew that Matthew guy in high school knew he was a plagiarist and an embellisher.

Agreed. And “Matthew” is clearly the most melodramatic of the four. If you take the segment literally the “resurrectees” lingered for days before entering the city to appear to people.


Here is some more:

In “Luke” (Gospel #3) the women entered the tomb and examined the grave cloths before encountering any angels; the angels then spoke to them. In “Matthew” they could not have done this, because the angel who moved the stone was sitting upon it as they approached.

In Acts, supposedly written by Luke, it was Judas who purchased the Field of Blood with the thirty pieces of silver. But according to Gospel #1 he could not have done this, because he had flung the silver down on the floor in anger, and the chief priests used the money to purchase the field for burial of the poor.

“Matthew” also seems to not understand Hebrew idiom, because he has Jesus fulfilling an alleged prophecy by sitting on both a donkey, and a colt. This raises the question of how an Apostle, a Jew, could know so little.

It just seems that if others, especially holy men, were brought back to life and met the city folk that then something would have become of them. Did they ascend into heaven, join Jesus in America, or just crumble away. So what I’m looking for is simply more details on what that was all about.

Biblically speaking, we don’t know. So we would have to make assumptions. I think one can glean from the totality of the Bible that these men lived natural lives thenceforth. They may have lived another 6 mos., or6 years, or 60 years. However, given that Jewish holy men were, generally, older, one might assume that they didn’t live too much longer after the event.

This is also one part of the reason why Christianity was able to gain the foothold that it did (see acts). Imagine a Jewish authority coming back from the dead and resuming teaching in the synagogue. Of course he would preach that Jesus is the Messiah.

cfr

I’d guess something like the transfiguration story. They just vanish at one point.

It honestly sounds like Matthew was confused about the teaching about the dead saints joining Jesus in heaven, and decided to describe it as an earthly event.

Although there is another option by the reading: a bunch of people came to town that claimed they were old holy men, and since no one knew what any old holy men looked like, very few believed them. Or even just a bunch of people came by, and some claimed they were the prophets of old.

To the OP:

I had a hard time keeping up with the problems with the theory above. It would seem you have two choices: 1) treat the text as telling us what it wants to tell us; or 2) the text is completely made up. Both are worth investigating.

I’m an atheist, so you can see where my opinion lies. I’m just curious for those who believe or if there’s more scripture out there that might give more insight into that passage.

[quote=“stpauler, post:14, topic:617167”]

Fair enough. I’m certainly not as qualified as you to comment on atheism. Thank you for your Grace.

Christians believe in a closed cannon, for a variety of reasons. And, yes, even the RCC believes such. So, no, we have only the Bible to go on.

Interesting screen name though, for an atheist. I’ll assume you’re a Viking fan? :slight_smile:

[quote=“hoopified, post:15, topic:617167”]

canon yes, dogma no.

The Pope is quite free to have change dogma, as one did when he banned abortion in the late 1800’s

  1. the text was written down more than 50 years after the events by anonymous persons who were not first person witnesses, nor did they directly know first persons witnesses.

(The writer of) Matthew was addressing a Jewish audience, so he went to great lengths (I would say extremes) to find Old Testament tidbits that might in some way relate to the life of Jesus. Trans Fat 0g already mentioned the misunderstanding of riding both a colt and a donkey, but there’s lots more. A prominent example is how he takes a prophesy about something that was supposed to happen seven centuries earlier (Isaiah 7) and applies it to Jesus. You ever wonder about how he mentions that Mary named the baby Immanuel - what’s up with that? It’s because that’s what’s in Isaiah. And the whole virgin thing is from a Greek mistranslation of the Hebrew almah, which means a young woman but was mis-translated to the Greek work for virgin. This also shows that the writer of Matthew was literate in Greek but not Hebrew, and further removes him from the actual disciples of Jesus.

Isn’t that #2? I’m not sure what you’re saying.