[quote=“rat_avatar, post:17, topic:617167”]
Which is why I used the words I used.
Actually Christianity didn’t gain much of a foothold at all in Judea. It did much better far away from the supposed events. If these things happened you’d think that the locals would be convinced instead of saying “meh.” That is kind of expected when the supposed Messiah, instead of becoming King as the prophecy called for, didn’t last a week in the Big Town.
Jesus as Messiah is kind of like “Moose Murders” as a Broadway play.
Aha - maybe your username should be “stpaulie” to avoid confusion.
I’ve always liked this passage because it is such arrant nonsense. It is kind of like basing a religion on the appearance of glowing angels at the pitcher’s mound of Game 1 of last year’s World Series - and then explaining away the total lack of press coverage.
Matthew was the fool who based the entire virgin birth myth on a misreading of the Bible. He’s kind of the Pel Toro of religious works.
Odd, an atheist saying that something can be passed down verbally and not be false.
It does reduce the credibility of the exact wording but there are several Christian sects that hold this as their belief. Thus the “parable” vs being biblical literalists.
Pentecost?
LOL, I used to live in St Paul, MN. St Paulite is the proper term, but I preferred that. Unfortunately, I’ve moved over to Minneapolis now and Minneapoliser is even worse. I’m gonna have to think up a better screenname.
From $14 to $30, depending on where you shop.
I don’t blame you for wondering about this; I wonder too. It’s not a verse that often gets written about or preached about (in my experience), and the first time someone really notices it they’re likely to go “Wait—what??”
It’s as though Matthew (and/or God?) decided the story needed some dramatic special effects at this point. And yet, it’s sort of a throwaway line, with nothing more made of it. I suppose there could very well have been more written elsewhere about this incident, but it hasn’t survived. As far as I know, we don’t have any more information about this incident or about any of the “holy people” who were raised to life. Now I’m tempted to do some research and try to find out what Biblical scholars and commentators have to say about this verse.
One thing, though: it’s hard not to read this without thinking of it as some sort of zombie apocalypse, but if you take it at face value, it says the dead people were restored to life, i.e. they were once again living human beings, not shambling reanimated corpses. And such resurrection is not totally unprecedented in the Gospels; it happened to Lazarus, for example.
It makes one wonder why they had to die a second time. If they were truly alive then they would still be here,or would have had more written about them…that is my perspective.
If I remember the transfiguration story correctly, Jesus was seen with Moses,Elijha and some one else who had died centuries before, and it puts doubt on the story of needing to be saved in order to live in paradise with God, so then where were they all that time?
Basically this.
You have, indeed, had your trials. I’ll pray for you my brother.
And I’m a Packer fan.
I know a place where it’s a free gift.
Wasn’t it Moses, Elijah, and Jesus makes 3?
I would have to look it up again, I think it was Abraham but I do not remember just that I always wondered why,'If people who had died hundreds of years before Jesus time. were then seen with Jesus, where they had been for all the centuries, since no one was to be saved until Jesus died for them!
This too makes one wonder where Lazarus was, and why he wasn’t an active Apostle,it seems to me he could have made a good wittness for the people about an after life!
I think it was only Peter, James, and John who saw the transfigured Christ. That’s not to say the three kept the event a secret in any way, rather, if you’re saying, the event was not witnessed by anyone else but the three.
Because, apparently, Lazarus was not taught by Jesus and did not travel with Him. Why? Who knows.
Matthew is my favourite Gospel. Matthew 6 is my favourite part of the Gospel. It starts a little unusually though.
You misunderstood me, I guess i wasn’t too clear, I know that the 3 apostles were said to have witnessed the transfiguration of Jesus, but Jesus was seen with Moses,Elijha and I think Abraham at the time, and all three had died centuries before Jesus was said to have been born!