Quake reveals day of Jesus' crucifixion

by Vidqun 41 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Vidqun

  Heathen, I’m with you on this one.

  mP, we have been blessed with a brain more advanced than any computer. I think the idea is to use it. As to the distribution of Greek NT MSS, not much need to be said. As to uncials, there’s approximately 257, 93 papyrus MSS, and roughly 2795 miniscules catalogued. This tally excludes lectionaries and translations. So there’s a cloud of witnesses to choose from. The message is remarkably similar with few deviations. That’s good going.

  Leolaia, I realize gut-feeling does not fly on JWN, so I was forced to do homework. Not much has been written on the subject in the commentaries at my disposal, except for it being a mystery, or the text being inserted at a later date. I put my money on an ancient transcription error. Nowhere in the Synoptic Gospels is a mass-resurrection mentioned except here. Would Mark and Luke not have mentioned such a significant event? So, what did Matthew mean? The general word that he uses for the “resurrection” is anastasin (cf. Matt. 22:23, 28, 30, 31). Here, at Matt. 27:52, he uses eigerthesan from egeirou (cf. Matt. 26:32). One of its meanings is to enter into or to be in a state of life as a result of being raised. It can also mean to move to a standing position (BDAG). [The noun egersis appears in the NT only in Matt 27:53, whereas anastasis, on the other hand, appears 42 times (EDNT).]

  Thayer also have a few interesting comments on some of the meanings of egeirou:

  3. in later usage generally to cause to rise, raise, from a seat, bed, etc.; passive and middle to rise, arise .

  4. To raise up, produce, cause to appear ; a. to cause to appear, bring before the public (anyone who is to attract the attention of men).

  So Liddell-Scott:

  I. Act. to awaken, wake up, rouse, Il., Trag.

  2. to rouse, stir up,to stir the fight, Il., etc.

  3. to raise from the dead, N.T.; or from a sick bed, Ib.

  4. to raise or erect a building, Ib.

  II. Pass., with pf. act., to awake, Od., Hdt., etc.: in aor. 2 also to keep watch or vigil, Il.:-in pf. to be awake, Hom., Att.

  2. to rouse or stir oneself, be excited by passion, Hes., Thuc.

  As you pointed out, a redactor could have added it, following the Ezekiel tradition. However, I don't think that is Matthew's style. I still prefer an ancient transcription error, being the culprit. It had to have happened early in the MS tradition, for it not to have been duplicated in the existing MSS. Whether it was because of the continuous script and/or lack of punctuation, or homoioteleuton/homoioarcton, I cannot say. A problem for the Greek scholars to solve. I don’t have a problem with the theological aspects, because if these were resurrected, they would have died again (as Lazarus). Jesus, as first fruits from the dead, would be the first to gain immortality. People, hiding amongst the graves because of the earthquake, would have come out and reported what happened. This is logical, and makes a lot of sense.
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  Witness 007

  Doesn't prove he ROSE from the grave though does it?
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  cantleave

  FFS it is the same old ......

  
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  mP

  Vidqun:

  Again your making sweeping statements that surely you must know are wrong. Ive copied a few samples, there are literally hundreds of mistakes in the gospels. If you want to learn follow the links i provide and read the material with scriptures which you can verify by yourself.

  The only miracle in the BIble is that it lasted soo long with its countless mistakes.

  http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/passover_meal.html

  When was Jesus crucified?

  After noon on the day before the Passover meal

  Mid-morning on the day after the Passover meal

  John 18:28 Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas unto the hall of judgment: and it was early; and they themselves went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled; but that they might eat the passover. John 19:14-16 And it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King! But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar. Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified.

  Mark 14:12 And the first day of unleavened bread, when they killed the passover, his disciples said unto him, Where wilt thou that we go and prepare that thou mayest eat the passover? Mark 15:25 And it was the third hour, and they crucified him.

  http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/apostles.html

  What were the names of the apostles?
  Matthew 10:2-4	Mark 3:16-19	Luke 6:14-16	Acts 1:13
  Simon (Peter) Andrew James (son of Zebedee) John Philip Bartholomew Thomas Matthew James (son of Alphaeus) Lebbaeus (surname Thaddeus) Simon the Canaanite Judas Iscariot	Simon (Peter) James (son of Zebedee) John Andrew Philip Bartholomew Matthew Thomas James (son of Alphaeus) Thaddeus Simon the Canaanite Judas Iscariot	Simon (Peter) Andrew James John Philip Bartholomew Matthew Thomas James (son of Alphaeus) Simon (Zeolotes) Judas (brother of James) Judas (Iscariot)	Peter James John Andrew Philip Thomas Bartholomew Matthew James (son of Alphaeus) Simon Zeolotes Judas (brother of James)

  http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/appear.html

  Where did Jesus first appear to the eleven disciples after the resurrection?

  On a mountain top in Galilee.

  In a room in Jerusalem.

  Matthew 28:16 Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him.

  Mark 16:14 Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen. Luke 24:33-37 And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them, Saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon. And they told what things were done in the way, and how he was known of them in breaking of bread. And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. John 20:19 Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.
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  cantleave

  mP - Don't you know there are rational explanations for all the apparent "contradictions" in The Holy Bible!!!!
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  Vidqun

  mP, different eye witness accounts, different versions. Each witness saw it from a different perspective. The MS are quite uniform in their renderings. There are many differences in spelling, but few major theological changes have been made. Most of these occur in the miniscules, often where a footnote is incorporated in the text.

  I remember the dating of the Qumran compound and the times it was inhabited, also involves a major earthquake. This one occurred in 31 BCE. No doubt about that one. The next earthquake can be seen in the layers after that. I can't fault the methods of the archaeologists and geologists.They use the evidence that is available. The website http://www.icr.org/article/greatest-earthquakes-bible/ has the following report:

  In 31 BCE, a large earthquake occurred along the Jericho Fault on the western side of the Dead Sea. The earthquake dried up Qumran’s main spring and severely cracked the architecture. Spectacular evidence of the earthquake is seen at recent excavations at Qumran in cracked stair steps within the ritual baths. Grooved fault surfaces (what geologists call “slickensides”) and ground rupture within lake sediment can be observed just south of Qumran. Josephus wrote of the regional devastation from the earthquake, and he said 30,000 men perished. The survivors buried the Dead Sea Scrolls and Qumran lay abandoned after the earthquake.

  An outcrop of laminated Dead Sea sediment can be seen at Wadi Ze’elim above the southwestern shore of the modern Dead Sea near the fortress of Masada. In this sediment outcrop is a distinctive one-foot thick “mixed layer” of sediment that is tied strongly to the Qumran earthquake’s onshore ground ruptures of 31 BCE. Thirteen inches above the 31 BCE event bed is another distinctive “mixed layer” less than one inch thick. The sedimentation rate puts this second earthquake about 65 years after the 31 BCE earthquake. It seems that the crucifixion earthquake of 33 CE was magnitude 5.5, leaving direct physical evidence in a thin layer of disturbed sediment from the Dead Sea.In 31 BCE, a large earthquake occurred along the Jericho Fault on the western side of the Dead Sea. The earthquake dried up Qumran’s main spring and severely cracked the architecture. Spectacular evidence of the earthquake is seen at recent excavations at Qumran in cracked stair steps within the ritual baths. Grooved fault surfaces (what geologists call “slickensides”) and ground rupture within lake sediment can be observed just south of Qumran. Josephus wrote of the regional devastation from the earthquake, and he said 30,000 men perished. The survivors buried the Dead Sea Scrolls and Qumran lay abandoned after the earthquake.
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  Leolaia

  I can only respond briefly because it is a holiday today....I regard the pericope as a Matthean redaction because the adding of earthquakes to the underlying Markan narrative is a distinct Matthean tendency (there are three examples of this). So it probably was original to the gospel itself. And almost all the major elements of the pericope derive from the LXX of Ezekiel 37: an earthquake being followed by resurrection, a focus on bodies/corpses, the dead standing up/being raised, their number being "many", an opening of the tombs, the dead exiting the tombs, and the dead going into some other place. If you remove all that from the pericope, there isn't much left. So that is why I say the pericope is a resurrection story in its construction.

  The language is distinctly that pertaining to resurrection. "Opening tombs" is a common expression in reference to the raising of the dead (found in Ezekiel 37, and cf. also the opening of Jesus' tomb at his resurrection in the Gospel of Peter). The verb egeirein is multivalent, sure, but it is the most frequent term pertaining to resurrection (Sirach 48:5, Luke 7:14, John 5:21, 12:1, 9, 17; Acts 3:15, 4:10, 5:30, 10:40, 12:30, 27; Romans 4:24, 6:4, 9, 7:4, 8:11, 34, 10:9, 1 Corinthians 6:14, 15:4, 12, 2 Corinthians 4:14, 5:15, Galatians 1:1, Ephesians 1:20, Colossians 2:12, 1 Thessalonians 1:10, 2 Timothy 2:8, Hebrews 11:19, 1 Peter 1:21, and so on), and the meaning is assured when egeirein refers to those who are dead, in their tombs, etc. So metaphorically in Paul: " We were therefore buried with (sunetaphèmen) him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised ( è gerth è ) from the dead (ek nekròn) through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life" (Romans 6:4). Even more to the point, egeirein is Matthew's favorite term for resurrection, see Matthew 10:8 (an addition to the Markan narrative in Mark 6:7-13), 11:5 (another addition to the Markan narrative), 16:21 (replacing the Markan anist è mi from Mark 8:31 with egeirein), 28:7, etc. That the nominal form egersin occurs in the gloss in the very next verse (27:53), in reference to Jesus' resurrection, also shows that egeirein was understood as referring to resurrection.

  Finally, it is inappropriate to understand the text as referring to other people either inside the tombs (why are there people inside tombs?) or walking among the tombs, as I mentioned above. There is no basis for a reference to other "persons" in the text....the NWT here interpolates "persons" (and inserts parentheses) in order to deny that the holy ones were responsible for the actions of "coming out" of the tombs and "coming into" the holy city. The participle exelthontes "coming out" is in the masculine gender, which agrees with the gender of hagi ò n "holy ones" (masculine). The holy ones are dead, not living, as indicated by the reference to them as "bodies" and as "sleeping". And these dead ones, once "raised" (egeirein), come out of the tombs of their own accord and enter into the holy city. And it isn't a matter of people walking among the tombs, as the NWT has it, the holy ones are exiting the tombs themselves, exactly as Ezekiel 37 has it.

  So those are the reasons why I believe 1) the pericope was composed by the evangelist and 2) it was a resurrection story in its construction. But at the same time, it also has been modified, and that clearly is the addition of the awkward gloss that makes the holy ones stay inside their tombs until Jesus himself has been raised from the dead. This is a clear concession to Pauline theology and it is contrary to the obvious intent of the pericope: the resurrection is among the great events that elicited the confessional exclamation by the centurion. And indeed, there IS some textual evidence of this addition. This gloss is missing in the Diatesseronic witnesses, which also lack the quasi-Pauline language as well. So it is possible that the Matthean pericope was touched up by a later hand in order to reconcile it with Paul's emphasis on Jesus as the firstborn and firstfruits of the resurrection (this reminds me of the legend that Judas Iscariot survived his suicide and died later, allowing him to witness Jesus' resurrection — a story designed to harmonize the gospels with Paul's statement that Jesus appeared to the Twelve). And again the gloss would not have been necessary if the pericope wasn't understood as referring to resurrection, so its presence indicates that the passage was originally understood in this way.
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  james_woods

  OK, Leolaia - but what does that have to do with the earthquake and the day of the cruxifiction?
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  willyloman

  I vote for theory No. 2, as cited in Leo's post.

  The earthquake was likely "borrowed" from a past event, as was much of the entire story about Jesus of Nazareth (and that whole Genesis flood thing, too).

  Now if we just knew the date that Robin Hood split the arrow, or King Arthur pulled the sword out of the stone, we'd have us a legendary trifecta.
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  heathen

  nice peice of research Vidqun . That doesn't prove that it happened exactly as the bible states tho. Earth quakes are common so to say it was on passover eve exactly when jesus died would not be provable . What we the readers are urged to do is believe with faith alone and to test the inspired expressions on a personal level to prove it for ourselves .