Matthew 27:52-53 WTF!?!?!?!

by Cagefighter 54 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Bobcat

  Leolaia:

  Thanks for that detailed explanation on the rendering.

  You're right. It does take ALOT of reworking to get the chronological effect that I proposed. To the point where you could hardly call it a translation.

  I guess I tend to think along those lines because the idea of the holy ones being resurrected then is otherwise unaccounted for.

  CageFighter suggested a possible grammer error. If Matthew were originally Aramaic or Hebrew and then translated into Greek that might account for some of that. I was thinking possibly of the example of Petros/petras from Matthew 16 as an example. In that instance, it is not so much a translation error, but going from Aramaic to Greek causes "the rock" to become feminine and opens up the possible argument that "the rock" is not Peter on the gender issue. But I confess that I don't know enough to consider whether that is a valid possibility in Matt 27.

  Thanks again for your comments and take care.
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  tootired2care

  Some of those bodies had to be in very advances stages of decomposition in that heat at that time. I suspect some verses or detail was lost in the translating process or copying. This seems like too incomplete of an account to believe otherwise. It seems to me the account is trying to convey that a bunch of apparitions in the likeness of the the dead ones entered into the city. And people believed it to be real, the mind believes what the mind sees. The question is what happened to these afterword, and how do we know it wasn't just a Jedi mind trick on all the people in the city at that moment?

  As usual so many questions, and so few answers with the bibles accounts.
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  Leolaia

  Leolaia- What about the posibility that this was a "grammar error" by one of the original authors? When do the text(s) used come from? I am sure if someone translated my posts here into German or Spanish 2000 years from now there would be many spelling and gramatical errors that might intially seem confusing, right?

  Cagefighter....Well, this was composed in Greek, and the language isn't confusing to read at all, other than the minor issue of the participle having masculine gender as I mentioned earlier in this thread. This is a minor issue because this is a rather common thing with neuter sòma "body":

  Matthew 14:12: "John's disciples came and took his body (neut.) and buried him (masc.), and they went and reported to Jesus" (the original text in Mark 6:29 has neuter instead). Matthew 27:52-53: " The tombs were opened, and many bodies (neut.) of the saints (masc.) who had fallen asleep (masc.) were raised, and coming out (masc.) of the tombs after his resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many".

  Mark 15:45-46: " And ascertaining this from the centurion, he granted the body (neut.) to Joseph, and he bought fine linen, and took him (masc.) down, and wrapped him (masc.) in the linen, and laid him (masc.) in a tomb which had been hewn out in the rock; and he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb ".

  It is the gloss that makes the pericope hard to understand, as Calvin pointed out, it would make the resurrected dead wait in their tombs for a day and a half before leaving them, which is pretty bizarre. But that is the kind of thing that happens with redaction. I am reminded of the awkward gloss in Genesis 6:4: " The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown". This gloss is clearly aimed at linking the antediluvian description of the Nephilim to those mentioned as living in Canaan at the time of the Conquest. This introduces an exegetical problem since the Flood was elsewhere described as wiping out all flesh on the earth and so there is no explanation given for how there were Nephilim living in the land later on.

  tootired....I think the simplest explanation is that the "zombie" story was originally associated with the resurrection of Jesus. It is part of the descensus ad inferus tradition that has Jesus release a host of captives from Hades at the time between his death and resurrection. The resurrection of this group would thus not have preceded Jesus' death. The Gospel of Peter draws on this tradition, with the apparition of the talking cross representing those who slept to whom Jesus had preached. This accompanies Jesus at the moment he leaves the tomb. The centurion thus makes his confession on Easter Sunday, not at the moment of Jesus' death. Matthew revises Mark in a way that does not actually describe Jesus' resurrection unlike the Gospel of Peter, but he still wants to incorporate part of this tradition into the narrative. He thus has two earthquakes in his passion narrative; one at the moment of Jesus' death and the other at the moment of the resurrection....both are introduced elements not found in Mark. Since there is no narrative of Jesus' resurrection, it seems like the author moved the "zombie story" back from Sunday to Friday; the confession of the centurion is also moved back from Sunday to Friday because that is when the centurion makes his confession in Mark. This however is problematic because it makes the resurrection of the saints occur prior to Jesus' descent to Hades and prior to Jesus' own resurrection. Hence the gloss which awkwardly tries to smooth over this problem.
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  DarioKehl

  I'm just curious about what the official JW explaination is. We ran thru the Greatest Man book several times and I don't recall ever hearing about this. Also, there's the SI book and the Insight Volumes, but I don't have the WTCD-rom and those old books were tossed long ago. :(

  If the WBTS publications ignore it, that would be a HUGE ace up my sleeve. I'm sure they have a kooky explaination tho, and I'd really like to know what it is! Does anyone feel kind enough to do a little cut-n-paste for me?
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  transhuman68

  LOL, here's the 'kooky explanation' you are looking for- from 'Insight On The Scriptures, Vol 2, pg. 369:

  'Tombs Opened' at Jesus' Death.

  The text at Matthew 27:52, 53 concerning "the memorial tombs [ that] were opened" as the result of an earthquake occurring at the time of Jesus' death has caused considerable discussion, some holding that a resurrection occurred. However, a comparison with the texts concerning the resurrection makes clear that these verses do not describe a resurrection but merely a throwing of bodies out of their tombs, similar to incidents that have taken place in more recent times, as in Ecuador in 1949 and again in Bogota, Colombia, in 1962, when 200 corpses in the cemetery were thrown out of their tombs by a violent earth tremor.-EI Tiempo, Bogota, Colombia, July 3 1 , 1962 .

  The 1969 'Aid To Bible Understanding' book has more information, showing that they base their understanding on a Johannes Greber translation from 1937.
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  belbab

  Here is my explanation that I use for my understanding of this text of dead ones being thrown up and people coming out of the tombs to inform others.

  We know that Mathew used many texts from the Hebrew Scriptures to reveal to Jews that Jesus was the Messiah. We know that Jesus and the apostles used the Septuagint that translated the Jewish text from Hebrew into Greek about 250 years before Christ. We know that the Masoretes after JC, endeavored to thwart Mathew’s use of the Hebrew Scriptures to give support that Jesus was the Messiah.

  Reading The Apostolic Bible, Polyglot (ie The Septuagint interlinear from Greek to English) I came across this text of Psalms 68:6 which the interlinear in English reads: “God settles simple people in a house; leading out the prisoners being shackled in courage; in like manner the ones being greatly embittered, dwelling in tombs.”

  The Greek word for “tombs” (#5028) is the same word in the Greek scripture for tombs. Except in some places it uses another word that has be translated as “memorial tombs”

  In the Hebrew interlinear the word translated as “tombs“ in the Septuagint is translated as “dry land” (#6707).

  In the scriptures Jesus healed demon possessed people who were living in the grave yards. It seems among the tombs, the "embittered" ones sought refuge, also people who were about to die sought refuge there. (The average person avoided the dead and graveyards. They would become unclean if they went there.) The earthquake shook them up, revived them to go back into the city and tell people what had happened.

  So at Jesus death, the embittered ones, the ones as good as dead, sprung up with energy and went into the city and told others what had happened.

  belbab
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  tootired2care

  @Leolaia - Always appreciate your input, thanks. So if im understanding your response correctly I think we are essentially agreeing that it probably was apparitions that people saw, and not re-animated corpses, yes?
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  jookbeard

  belbab , dont think it's quite as easy an explanation as that, why the need for an earthquake. Excellent post from the OP, again I'd never paid too much attention to this passage before, I even think I had a BR on it many years ago, I believe WTS explanation about this passage and generally chatting to the brothers at the time would have classed this passage as a future event that would have tied in with the full resurrection, IIRC, fascinating.
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  still thinking

  That verse was one I read and pointed out to my study ladies...they had never noticed it before either...LOL

  Well, they came back the next week with the explanation that it was like an earthquake and bodies were everywhere.

  I disagreed with them at the time, because bodies don't 'go anywhere' do they?

  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

  And lets face it, if something like that actually happened in history there would be a lot more written about it other than in the bible. That would be a pretty big event.
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  transhuman68

  This is just an example of a story being 'improved' over time, with some extra details being added to Mark's original story to make Jesus' death seem even more special to the early Christians, as Christianity spread through the Middle East. Much of the Bible is difficult for us to accept, because it wasn't written for us, and the original audience had ideas about the world around them that we now reject as unscientific.