# Why did Lazarus have to die again?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-lazarus-have-to-die-again/514593
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
**Created:** [October 21, 2009, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-lazarus-have-to-die-again/514593 "2009-10-21T11:54:48Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2009, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-lazarus-have-to-die-again/514593/1 "2009-10-21T11:54:48Z")
If Jesus brought Lazarus back to life(and he was dead longer than Jesus), why wasn’t he mentioned more in the Gospels, surely one who had been brought back could be very convincing in spreading the good news than the ones who hadn’t yet experienced death? I wonder why he didn’t write some of the Gospel stories. Why did he have to die a second time? If Elijah could just be carried off to heaven, then why not Lazarus?
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### Author:  [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2009, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-lazarus-have-to-die-again/514593/2 "2009-10-21T12:08:17Z")
[The Staff Report](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2902/what-happened-to-lazarus-after-his-resurrection) presumably prompting the question.
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### Author:  [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2009, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-lazarus-have-to-die-again/514593/3 "2009-10-21T12:47:53Z")
A word about context, first.
The question being answered in the Staff Report presupposes at least the historicity of Lazarus, if not the truth concerning his four-day flirtation with death. It is answered in that same general context: this is what the New Testament and subsequent writings said about the guy.
By analogy, we might ask, “Whatever happened to Miss Kitty Fantastico after Willow and Tara first got her? She’s never mentioned again in the series…” And an answer might point out that the cat is actually mentioned in the second-to-last episode with dialog implying she was accidentally killed by a crossbow, and perhaps mention some Season 8 comic book reference whose canon bona fides are hotly debated.
And in that analogous discussion, it’s not impossible to imagine someone dropping into the thread to say, “Duh - the cat was fictional. It didn’t exist. Nothing ‘happened’ to it. The writers just stopped using it.”
Which observation is both true and remarkably unhelpful. Obviously the Kitty Fantastico discussion is meant to occur _in the context of the show_. And no less obvious should be the context for this discussion: the general Christian belief system.
All that having been laid as foundation, I can offer some personal guesses in answer to the questions you pose.
Elijah was perhaps the most powerful of the Old Testament prophets. He calls down fire from heaven on soldiers sent to arrest him, anoints new kings in Syria and Israel, ends a famine by calling down rain, and goes all Chuck Norris on the prophets of Baal. He was, in other words, a go-to guy for Old Testament God. And so when it’s time for him to go, God spares him the indignity of death; he sends a chariot of fire, drawn by horses of fire, and sweeps Elijah away from the banks of the Jordan river.
Lazarus, on the other hand, was not so much a go-to guy for God. He is seemingly resurrected not because of his own merits, but because of the pleas of his sister. Indeed, upon hearing Lazarus was gravely ill, Jesus explicitly says that Lazarus will be saved from death to show God’s power: "Jesus said, ‘This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it.’ "
Why isn’t he mentioned more in the Gospels? Well, your point is certainly true: one who had been brought back could be a pretty effective spokesman, and it’s clear that the high priests thought so as well, given their nascent plans to shut Lazarus up by re-killing him. But Jesus himself much more effectively filled that role: he, too, died and came back to life, a much more public death than Lazarus’ was. So I suspect that when it came to airtime for dead guys come back to life, Lazarus’s story lost out to Jesus’.
Why didn’t he write his own story? Who knows? Perhaps he was an awful writer, or perhaps he did and it’s been lost to time. Given the lack of copiers and e-mail, not to mention dreadful data retention policies, the truth is that much of what may have been written 2,000 years ago is simply gone now.
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### Author:  [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2009, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-lazarus-have-to-die-again/514593/4 "2009-10-21T13:25:33Z")
As to the question of why Lazarus was never mentioned again, or used more widely as an example of Jesus’ power, there is an interesting parable told by Jesus in Luke chapter 19 about a rich man and a begger named (probably coincidentally) Lazarus. They both die at the same time; the rich man finds himself in torment while Lazarus rests in the bosom of Abraham. The rich man, after being told that neither can cross over the gulf between them, asks to have Lazarus sent back to warn the rich man’s family. The parable ends (emphasis mine):
> [@](#):
>
> "He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father’s house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’
>
> "Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’
>
> " ‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’
>
> "He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, **they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead**.’ "
Another thing to point out is that Lazarus is not the only person Jesus apparently raised from the dead, but the others had not been dead nearly as long and had not yet been entombed.
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### Author:  [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2009, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-lazarus-have-to-die-again/514593/5 "2009-10-21T14:50:44Z")
> [@Bricker](#):
>
> A word about context, first.
>
> By analogy, we might ask, “Whatever happened to Miss Kitty Fantastico after Willow and Tara first got her? She’s never mentioned again in the series…” And an answer might point out that the cat is actually mentioned in the second-to-last episode with dialog implying she was accidentally killed by a crossbow, and perhaps mention some Season 8 comic book reference whose canon bona fides are hotly debated.
>
> And in that analogous discussion, it’s not impossible to imagine someone dropping into the thread to say, “Duh - the cat was fictional. It didn’t exist. Nothing ‘happened’ to it. The writers just stopped using it.”
>
> Which observation is both true and remarkably unhelpful. Obviously the Kitty Fantastico discussion is meant to occur _in the context of the show_. And no less obvious should be the context for this discussion: the general Christian belief system.
Kitty Fantastico and her friends have no other relation to the outside world, which cannot be said to be the case for Christianity.
Nobody is trying to convince anyone that Kitty Fantastico has any bearing on reality, and reality should be the context under which all religious debate takes place.
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### Author:  [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2009, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-lazarus-have-to-die-again/514593/6 "2009-10-21T15:33:05Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#):
>
> Kitty Fantastico and her friends have no other relation to the outside world, which cannot be said to be the case for Christianity.
>
> Nobody is trying to convince anyone that Kitty Fantastico has any bearing on reality, and reality should be the context under which all religious debate takes place.
Perhaps. But without conceding the point, I would offer the observation that this is not a debate. It’s a discussion about an answer to a question, a question that began: “Whatever happened to Lazarus? As Scripture says…”
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### Author:  [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2009, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-lazarus-have-to-die-again/514593/7 "2009-10-21T15:55:10Z")
> [@monavis](#):
>
> If Jesus brought Lazarus back to life(and he was dead longer than Jesus), why wasn’t he mentioned more in the Gospels, surely one who had been brought back could be very convincing in spreading the good news than the ones who hadn’t yet experienced death? I wonder why he didn’t write some of the Gospel stories. Why did he have to die a second time? If Elijah could just be carried off to heaven, then why not Lazarus?
I’ll just throw out that there is another way to answer your question.
Nobody even wrote _Jesus_’ story down for 30-40 years after His death. This was a doomsday sect - why write anything down? The world’s about to end.
Then, when somebody realized, hey, the people of this generation are dying off, maybe we should write this down, the first version of the gospel didn’t have even Jesus being resurrected ([cite](http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx?book=34&chapter=16&lid=en&side=r&zoomSlider=0)).
Then we have versions where Jesus is resurrected, then, lastly, the Gospel According to John, written a hundred years later, which is the first and only version of Lazarus being brought back to life. So one easy answer to your question is it didn’t happen.
Finally, Lazarus isn’t the only time somebody was ‘dead’ and then came back to life. That’s what wakes (used to be) for. If this miracle happened, it could have been explained away as ‘another case of poorly diagnosing death.’
Jesus, on the other hand, wasn’t just merely dead, He was truly most sincerely dead. If that cat came back, there’s no explanation other than supernatural ones.
Edit: although the ‘cite’ I put is highlighting, and the coding looks right to me, the click isn’t working. Here’s the url: [Codex Sinaiticus - Home](http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx?book=34&chapter=16&lid=en&side=r&zoomSlider=0)
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### Author:  [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2009, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-lazarus-have-to-die-again/514593/8 "2009-10-21T16:58:03Z")
> [@bup](#):
>
> Then, when somebody realized, hey, the people of this generation are dying off, maybe we should write this down, the first version of the gospel didn’t have even Jesus being resurrected ([cite](http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx?book=34&chapter=16&lid=en&side=r&zoomSlider=0)).
That isn’t so; the text goes on for another page, and contains a plain statement of the Resurrection.
It is true that the very early text of Mark in the _Codex Sinaiticus_ leaves out the actual post-Resurrection appearances, and that the last part of the later, now standard, version that does mention them is a summarizing, bird’s-eye view that is clearly not part of the same text as the rest of Mark, which is far more graphic and particularizing, but it is also true that the original text breaks off suddenly in a way that no sensible writer would ever tell a story. Clearly the original ending is lost. But the Resurrection is there without it. (It is also to be found in the Epistles, which are older than any of the Gospels, and in various other early Christian texts that are older than the _Codex Sinaiticus_.
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### Author:  [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2009, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-lazarus-have-to-die-again/514593/9 "2009-10-21T17:03:00Z")
As to the original question, we don’t really know for sure that Lazarus _did_ die again, but, assuming that he did, the general attitude of the first and second generation of Christians seems to have been, “I don’t care what happens to me. I don’t matter; only the Message matters.” Lazarus would have been more certain of that than anyone else.
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### Author:  [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2009, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-lazarus-have-to-die-again/514593/10 "2009-10-21T17:50:45Z")
Didn’t Jesus raise a couple of other people from the dead? And some of the apostles after Jesus had left the premises did the same. There must have been quite a few like Lazarus. Maybe they formed a club. The Grateful Undead perhaps? 🙂
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### Author:  [@SiXSwordS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SiXSwordS)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2009, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-lazarus-have-to-die-again/514593/11 "2009-10-21T18:14:30Z")
> [@bup](#):
>
> Then we have versions where Jesus is resurrected, then, lastly, the Gospel According to John, written a hundred years later, which is the first and only version of Lazarus being brought back to life.
> [@John\_W.Kennedy](#):
>
> That isn’t so; the text goes on for another page, and contains a plain statement of the Resurrection.
Is it accurate to say that the story of Lazarus did not appear for a hundred years?
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### Author:  [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2009, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-lazarus-have-to-die-again/514593/12 "2009-10-21T18:43:37Z")
I thought I heard once that the story of “The Wandering Jew” was based on the apocryphal story that since Jesus raised him from the dead, Lazarus was not allowed to die but had to wander the earth until the second coming.
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2009, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-lazarus-have-to-die-again/514593/13 "2009-10-21T18:55:01Z")
> [@John\_W.Kennedy](#):
>
> That isn’t so; the text goes on for another page, and contains a plain statement of the Resurrection.
>
> It is true that the very early text of Mark in the _Codex Sinaiticus_ leaves out the actual post-Resurrection appearances, and that the last part of the later, now standard, version that does mention them is a summarizing, bird’s-eye view that is clearly not part of the same text as the rest of Mark, which is far more graphic and particularizing, but it is also true that the original text breaks off suddenly in a way that no sensible writer would ever tell a story. Clearly the original ending is lost. But the Resurrection is there without it. (It is also to be found in the Epistles, which are older than any of the Gospels, and in various other early Christian texts that are older than the _Codex Sinaiticus_.
The oldest manuscript texts for Mark end only with the empty tomb, not, strictly speaking, with a resurrection narrative, and it contains no appearances.
Only a few of the Epistles are older than the Gospels (most are 2nd century, and pseudoepigraphical). The handful of letters that are accepted as authentic to Paul do mntion a resurrection of sorts, but Paul is vague as to the nature of this resurrection, and to the extent he describes it at all, he describes it as visionary appearances rather than physical. He does not mention an empty tomb and does not reiterate or describe any of the (mutually contradictory) accounts of Jesus’ physical appearances in the Gospels.
The first unambiguous claim of a physical resurrection does not occur in Christian literature until Matthew’s Gospel around 80 CE.
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2009, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-lazarus-have-to-die-again/514593/14 "2009-10-21T18:56:25Z")
> [@SiXSwordS](#):
>
> Is it accurate to say that the story of Lazarus did not appear for a hundred years?
More like 70. The Gospel of John dates from around 100 CE (i.e. ~70 years after the crucifixion).
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### Author:  [@zamboniracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zamboniracer)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2009, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-lazarus-have-to-die-again/514593/15 "2009-10-21T18:57:39Z")
> [@bup](#):
>
> If that cat came back, there’s no explanation other than supernatural ones.
Absolutely correct! The cat in Buffy that came back - and didn’t really come back so much as it was zombified - was Patches, not Miss Kitty Fantastico. Buffy season 3, episode 2 “Dead Man’s Party.”
About the Bible & Gospels, I’ve got nothing, but about zombie cats on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I’m right on it! 😃
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### Author:  [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2009, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-lazarus-have-to-die-again/514593/16 "2009-10-21T19:42:11Z")
> [@John\_W.Kennedy](#):
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > the first version of the gospel didn’t have even Jesus being resurrected
>
> That isn’t so; the text goes on for another page, and contains a plain statement of the Resurrection.
Oops. I didn’t notice the\* over-\> \*on the bottom of the folio. :o
So it matches with my Revised Standard Version - which notes that the last several verses of Mark are cobbled together from Matthew and Luke. That’s an embarrassing mistake on my part - I thought the _Codex Sinaiticus_ actually differed from even the ‘snipped’ Mark.
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### Author:  [@jmatrixrenegade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jmatrixrenegade)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2009, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-lazarus-have-to-die-again/514593/17 "2009-10-21T23:16:28Z")
Biblical expert [Ben Witherington](http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/2007/01/was-lazarus-beloved-disciple.html)and others suggest the “beloved discipline” referenced later in John (e.g., at his side at the Last Supper) was actually Lazarus.
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### Author:  [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2009, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-lazarus-have-to-die-again/514593/18 "2009-10-21T23:30:00Z")
> [@md2000](#):
>
> I thought I heard once that the story of “The Wandering Jew” was based on the apocryphal story that since Jesus raised him from the dead, Lazarus was not allowed to die but had to wander the earth until the second coming.
I suppose that version may have existed sometime, somewhere, but it is neither the usual version of the “wandering Jew” legend nor the usual version of the fate of Lazarus, and I’ve never heard of it.
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### Author:  [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2009, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-lazarus-have-to-die-again/514593/19 "2009-10-21T23:35:46Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#):
>
> The oldest manuscript texts for Mark end only with the empty tomb, not, strictly speaking, with a resurrection narrative, and it contains no appearances.
But it _does_ have an express statement that Jesus has risen and departed the tomb.
> [@](#):
>
> Only a few of the Epistles are older than the Gospels (most are 2nd century, and pseudoepigraphical).
That “most” is by no means universally accepted.
> [@](#):
>
> The handful of letters that are accepted as authentic to Paul do mntion a resurrection of sorts, but Paul is vague as to the nature of this resurrection, and to the extent he describes it at all, he describes it as visionary appearances rather than physical. He does not mention an empty tomb and does not reiterate or describe any of the (mutually contradictory) accounts of Jesus’ physical appearances in the Gospels.
He _does_ say “resurrection” and “risen from the dead”. And the accounts are not “mutually contradictory”, they are merely different; they can _all_ be wrapped up in a consistent story if you just imagine a number of frightened apostles and women running around in the early dawn.
[/QUOTE]
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### Author:  [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2009, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-lazarus-have-to-die-again/514593/20 "2009-10-21T23:40:44Z")
> [@jmatrixrenegade](#):
>
> Biblical expert [Ben Witherington](http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/2007/01/was-lazarus-beloved-disciple.html)and others suggest the “beloved discipline” referenced later in John (e.g., at his side at the Last Supper) was actually Lazarus.
That would seem to contradict the statement that the Beloved Disciple is the source of the 4th Gospel within the Gospel itself.
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