GakuseiDon

According to Matthew 27:52, the "bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep" were raised:

50 And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit.
51 Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split,
52 and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised;
53 and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

I see that the word for "saints" is "hagios", meaning "holy ones", which is fair enough. But "[the saints] who had fallen asleep" (at least to me with no knowledge of the Greek) seems to possibly imply people who had died recently.

So my questions are:
(1) Who are the "holy ones" supposed to be? Does the passage hint at recently deceased people?
(2) Are there any parallels from the OT or elsewhere that this passage is supposed to have been derived from or influenced by?

gregor

GD
I've no clue, but it's imagery seems loaded with potential for either an OT reference, myth-borrowing, or some other significance.

S.C.Carlson

The cross-references in the critical texts of the NT are pretty good (either UBS4 or NA27) for a preliminary look. They both suggest a cross-reference to Ezekiel 37:12-13.

Stephen

Koyaanisqatsi

Only "many" of the bodies of the saints and not "all" of them?

Curious. One wonders what they did to not have their bodies raised up, too, considering they were also "saints?" Too decayed? No, that wouldn't do it. Oh, only the "recently" dead saints. I guess that's it.

Though it almost sounds like someone who doesn't really know what mythologies he's referencing. Like it was just, you know, all made up, or something by somebody who didn't know what the hell he was talking about. Judeo-Theologically.

You know, like whoever wrote Mark?

:huh:

GakuseiDon

Thanks Stephen, that's what I was looking for!

jakejonesiv

The many (pollus) and sleeping seem to reflect Daniel 12:2 LXX.

Jake Jones IV

Malachi151

BTW, here is the passage from the OT:

Here is the passage from Matthew:

James Brown

Assuming the English is correctly translated, verses 52 and 53 states that as soon as Jesus "gave up the spirit" the bodies came to life. "They came out of the tombs" implies that only people buried in tombs in the first place were resurrected. No saints, presumably, were ever buried elsewhere. I'm not familiar with first-century Palestinian body disposal, but was every corpse buried in a tomb? I had thought that tombs were only for the wealthy. Or is tomb a generic term for gravesite?

Verse 53: "and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city...."

So they came alive the instant Jesus died, and they immediately came out of their tombs, but then...what? Did they just mill about for a day and a half until Jesus could be resurrected? What did they eat and drink during this period? Did anyone see them sitting on their tombstones waiting for Sunday morning?

This seems like a slipup on Matthew's part. It's one thing to have a bunch of amazing natural wonders occur the instant Jesus died (darkness, earthquake, torn veil, etc.) but he brought out the secondary characters too soon in this scene. It would have been unseemly for these ordinary, nameless saints to have resurrection appearances before Jesus, so he had to have them resurrect, then hang around in suspended animation for 36 hours, and then go into town. It would have been far better to have the saints resurrect at the same time that Jesus did, sort of a spill-over effect of whatever magic resurrected their Lord. Imagine all the sermons if Matthew had edited this properly: "When Jesus comes, everything around him comes to life!" Still, why have I never seen a single Passion Play include this bit?

Also, Matthew gives away the ending in verse 53. He's just set up the gruesome death of Jesus accompanied by groans of nature's lamenting, but before the body is even buried we're told he's going to be resurrected, so the reader can relax.

And what in the world happened when these moldy corpses walked back into town? Did they try to track down their families? Did they assert that their widows should leave their new husbands and renew their marriage vows? Did they ask for their old jobs back? Did they kick out the people who were living in their homes, using their former possessions, etc? Were these resurrected saints, and not Mary and the other women, actually the first people to tell others that Jesus was alive?

Sadly, Matthew doesn't say. Why is that, do you think?

Koyaanisqatsi

Oh, well that explains it. In the "OT" it's specifically referring only to Jews being raised as the chosen people and purely as a metaphor for Israel ("bones are the whole house of Israel"); some Roman moron interprets that literally and changes it to "many saints" will actually rise bodily from their graves.

Again, as if he had no clue what the hell he was talking about.

:huh:

Jukia

Are there any extra Biblical contemporaneous references to this seemingly incredible event? The dead rising and walking around? Seems that someone else should have noticed this.