I have long been puzzled about the lacluster coverage 9in the Gospels) of this very unique achievement. Lazarus dies, is buried, and jesus brings him back to life! This would tend to be the most impressive miracle of jesus-yet the gospel authors treat it rather cavalierly, in my opinion. I’m also struck that how little is related of Lazarus’ subsequent life-you would think the guy would become a real celebrity. What’s your take on this? Is the story just a fumbled retelling about a guy who THINKS he’s dead? Or, why is the story so little celebrated?
In some ways, a more impressive feat that Jesus’ own resurrection-Lazarus was dead for a longer period.
The gospel writers may have been silent on the later life of Lazarus, but other Christian writers took up the story with gusto.
From Wikipedia
"According to Christian teaching recorded in the 13th-century Golden Legend, Lazarus was the brother of Martha and Mary Magdalene, a Pharisee, but because of the rumoured plots fled for his life to Cyprus. There he later became the first bishop of Kittim, appointed directly by Paul and Barnabas, and lived another thirty years. Further establishing the apostolic nature of Lazarus’ appointment was the story that the bishop’s pallium was presented to Lazarus by the Virgin Mary, who had woven it herself. Such apostolic connections were central to the claims to autocephaly made by the bishops of Kittim—subject to the patriarch of Jerusalem—during the period 325–413. The church of Kittim was declared (or confirmed) self-governing in 413. Stories say that he would always include something sweet in every meal, but that he was only known to have laughed once in that time. That was when he observed someone stealing a clay pot, causing him to smile and say with a laugh, “clay stealing clay”.
There’s also an early legend, mentioned on the site, that Lazarus was the first Bishop of Marseilles, Mary, Martha and Lazarus having gone to France after the Crucifixion.
Thus, from all the legends that accrued around him, I don’t think one can say he was uncelebrated.
Actually, it gets quite a bit of acclaim. When Jesus comes into Jeruselem, it’s one of the main wonders people are chatting about.
You are aware there are even less celebrated ressurections than this one? Jesus did raise the centurion’s child and a poor widow’s son…right?
And there are still more resurrections inthe Apocrypha. the Infancy Gospel of James contains some accounts of him resurrecting a dead bird and a playmate (IIRC) at least, and explains on some elements of the Lazarus tale (like the Saducees’ reaction ) that I had previously found completely puzzling. YMMV
It also reports that, as a child, he would create birds from clay and bring them to life. To me that’s even “more miraculous” than resurrection.
Well, Jesus’ greatest miracle is generally regarded as His own resurrection, but after that, the most impressive are generally regarded (at least in the Catholic tradition) as the calming of the storm on the Sea of Galilee, and the curing of the man blind from birth. A few of the Old Testament prophets have raisings of the dead to their names, but the calming of the storm and the cure of the blind man were regarded at the time as unprecedented.
You’re right, of course. There is a long Jewish tradition/lore (though it may be post-Diaspora in origin–does anyone here know) lof learned bene elohim (“sons of god” of godly men") bringing mannikins of wood or clay to life as golems, so I suppose that wouldn’t have been seen as completely unprecedented in his time.
I was speaking of what must impressed me as a boy raised in the Christian tradition. Then again, I may have had a bias. I ended up going into molecular bio and medicine.
The ressurection or restoration of life to another dead person, is recorded in Luke 7:11-16. That of Lazarus in John 11:1-43.
In both instances the miracle was to confirm Jesus’ status as the son of God.
And the story always felt to me like kind of a scam job- Jesus knowing that Lazarus was dying, but not going to him. The disciples begged him to go to Lazarus, reminding him that the family were friends of his and that he could heal Lazarus. But Jesus refused, (I thought) because he knew he neede a “big” miracle and had always planned on raising Lazarus from the dead.
So he waited a few more days, then when word came that Lazarus was dead, THEN Jesus set off.
It read like Jesus let him die on purpose, so the raising of the dead man would serve to glorify Jesus even more.
AFAIK The stories of golems don’t appear until you had Jewish communities in Europe. Then, you get tales of the Bal Shem Tov (keeper of the Name) and the Maharal of Prague and such making golems. Secondly, golems were not living things. A golem could move, and think in a crude manner. But, due to the lack of a soul, it could not speak. As only G-d can truly create life, golems were not living things.
Centurion’s child? No, he healed a centurion’s sick (not dead) servant by merely willing it so from a distance, in response to the centurion’s plea, something like “Only say the word, and my servant will be healed; for I too am a man with authority, and I say to a man ‘Do this’ and it is done”.
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Oh, the old ones are the best aren’t they? Good old, Laugh-a-minute Lazarus…
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OB
The story of the resurrection of Lazarus–which appears only in John’s Gospel–was indeed celebrated historically, as the Wiki article shows. But the fact that it does not appear in the Synoptics–generally considered better from a historical standpoint that the mystic Johannine account–is problematic. Some scholars, for example, have tried to reconcile this by conflating the Lazarus resurrection with others in the Synoptics (e.g. the resurrection at Nain, Luke 7:11-17).
Whether or not you believe the events as described by John actually took place, the position of the story in John’s Gospel is important; Christian scholars generally consider it the pivotal, catalytic event that led to Jesus’ crucifixion. Prior to John 11, when the Pharisees conspired to arrest him (e.g. John 7:30), they fail because “his hour had not yet come”. Immediately after the resurrection, large crowds come to see both Jesus and Lazarus; the account in John 12 is peppered with references to Lazarus and the fact that crowds grew to believe in Jesus specifically because of this miracle (John 12:9 and 12:18). The Pharisees recognize the danger and plot against both Jesus and Lazarus (12:10-11), and it is only then that Jesus rather dramatically predicts his own death (John 12:23-35).
Scholars generally take this to mean that John is using the Lazarus episode to argue that Jesus himself put into motion the subsequent events of his Passion; that he was ultimately in control. Again, I’m not vouching for the history, just pointing out how the episode works in the full context of the story, which I hope illustrates it’s importance to Christians.
Thanks. Again, it seems that the resurrection of Lazarus was far more moemntous than the others, chiefly because lazarus was known to be dead for more than 3 days. Reviving someone who has just died (the widow’s son0 is impressive, but not anything like lazarus. So i am surprised that there is nothing more about the man-did he ever tell what he experienced? As far as I know, Jesus never cautioned him about talking about the experience.
The Bible is notoriously brief in details of many an amazing story… Sometimes I think the guys writing it were at the end of their papryus and had to fit the rest of the story in a really tiny space, thus cutting it short. For example, after Jesus’ death on the cross, this was recorded in Matthew 27 :
“51 At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. 52 The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. 53 They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus’ resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people.”
Talk about your resurrections! And it only warrants two sentences… quite understated.
Is that the one that shows Jesus as really… a shitty kid? He gives a neighbor facial sores for being rude to him. He kills a friend for the fun of it just to bring him back. I read that in a book called “Lost Books of the Bible” that included a lost gospel but I can’t remember whose.
If not James, it could have been the Infancy Gospel of Thomas (not the better-known gnostic Gospel of Thomas).
One of the intriguing things to come out of Biblical research in the past century is the discovery of many “lost texts”. One that I find fascinating is “The Lost Gospel of Mark” , discovered by Morton Smith and written about by him in both scholarly journals and popular books.
The so-called “Lost Gospel” is actually a very brief quotation of lines that an early Church Father thought to be untrustworthy and even blasphemous additions to the canonical gospel of Mark, along with that father’s commentary upon it. The words were found by Smith in a Near Eastern monastery, transcribed on the back pages of an 18th century printed book, and are tantalizingly incomplete.
What makes it fascinating is that the section quoted seems to tell the story of Lazarus (although the person raised from the dead remains nameless). There are a lot of parallels with the story of Lazarus beyond the raising of the person from the dead – his family comes to Jesus to tell him of his demise, and says that he has lain in the tomb for days, for instance. It looks a lot like a synoptyic telling of the story of Lazarus.
Of coyurse, one could wish for a better pedigree. We have Smith’s articles and photographs of the book, but not the parchment or papyrus it was copied from. Some writers have gone as far as to charge Smith with Forgery. Even if the text is genuine, it says that the commentatror himself believes the addition to be a fiction.
And even if it’s fully on the level, Smith frequently seemsd to go off the deep end in interpreting it. Smith is, after all, and expert in this area, but I can’t help thinking that many of his assertions go beyond the existing evidence and are unsupported. Still, this shows a possible synoptic parallel to the incident in John:
Here is someone writing an Apology for Smith from which you can infer the objections to him. (turning the usual Christian ‘apology’ on its head – as Smith and his defender are unorthodox)
Two points re Lazarus:
A.
Lazarus is always popping up in Gnostic Literature. In answering the OP I would note that most Gnostics today understand Lazarus rising symbolically – ether his resurrection is an initiation ritual of some sort or, more commonly, I think they see Lazarus as representing humanity and Jesus symbolically raises him. I think the latter view has a better historical Gnostic provance behind it (but IANAGnostic History expert).
They point out that in Matthew 10 Jesus sends out his disciples with he power to “raise the dead” and that this “resurrection” can’t be read any other way but symbolically.
B.
Jesus himself talks about resurrections to proclaim himself Messiah when John asks if he is the Messiah “Tell John what you have seen, the blind see ….(snip) the dead are raised …
B.
Lazarus is also the central figure of the Santeria Religion. What has that got to do with the price of apples you ask? Find me another time/place it will be even REMOTELY appropriate to impart that say I.
You have a cite for that? While initiation into Santeria is clearly a symbolic death, stay in a tomb, and rebirth, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a special emphasis on Lazarus before.
NICE short SDGQ summary
http://www.philomuse.com/kingfisher/lab/lazarus.htm
Not being chesty or short – just didn’t need a lot of explaining …
but now I am worried it looks both CHESTY *and * SHORT so here are some more to make TMI
His aka Santeria name
http://cuban-exile.com/doc_326-350/doc0338.html
Nice Reuters piece of Santeria-Catholic co-worship mingle in Cuba
http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y98/dec98/17e2.htm
First prayer of the ritual goes to him
http://www.rickross.com/reference/santeria/santeria2.html
Now it looks like I am smarting off – right Doc? Can’t win – wanted to thank you for your help teaching me many things