Tombs
were opened
Matthew 27:52..53
We read in
some translations of the Scriptures, that when Jesus died, “the sepulchers were opened, and many bodies of the
sanctified who have been asleep arose. And having come forth out of the
sepulchers after his resurrection they entered into the holy city and appeared
to many”. And also “the memorial tombs were opened, and many bodies of the holy
ones that had fallen asleep were raised up, (and persons coming out of the
memorial tombs after his being raised up entered into the holy city) and they
became visible to many people”. (Matthew
27:52, 53) But is this really what Matthew wrote?
Jesus was not
resurrected until the third day after his death and Mathew is speaking of the very
moment in which he died. In that moment a great earthquake shook the mountain
and fragmented the mass of rock, the landslide that this produced made the
tombs fall apart, and lifted up the corpses out of the hole they were,
scattering them over the ground. This event is similar to another not so
distant in time, which happened in in Sonson, Colombia, in 1962, when
due to a violent earthquake, some 200 bodies were thrown to the surface and were
scattered on the ground. (“El Tiempo”, Bogotá (Colombia), July 31, 1962)
The translations of
Matthew's report about these events have caused confusion and controversy because
they might imply, and there are people who believe it, that some righteous men
who were dead came back to life. However, a careful translation demonstrates
that these verses do not speak of a rebirth to life, but of the removal of
bodies to the surface. The word that is translated as “resurrection” does not
explicitly means this, it means to rise or to take up, besides the Greek
word “αὐτοῦ” or “autou” which
means “that place” is confused by the translators with the very similar
word “αὐτόν” or
“auton” which means “one self” or “alone”. (The Analytical Greek Lexicon,
Samuel Baxter and Sons Limited, London. And Dictionaire Grec Français.
A. Bailly. Paris) The right translation of these words makes the verse easy to
understand
Now, this is the
word by word translation:
52
καὶ τὰ μνημεῖα ἀνεῴχθησαν καὶ πολλὰ σώματα τῶν
And the tombs were
opened and many bodies of the
κεκοιμημένων ἁγίων ἠγέρθησαν,
sleeping
in death, the worthy, were displaced upward,
53
καὶ ἐξελθόντες ἐκ τῶν μνημείων. μετὰ τὴν
and were scattered out
the tombs. After, those
ἔγερσιν αὐτοῦ εἰσῆλθον εἰς τὴν
going out that place entered
in the
ἁγίαν
πόλιν καὶ
ἐνεφανίσθησαν
πολλοῖς.
Holy City and they
informed the many.
And this is the
summary of what happened:
27
Then the governor's soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorian along with the
crowd...
31
after they mocked him stripped him of the mantle and dressed him in his own
clothes and led to his crucifixion...
46
About the ninth hour Jesus cried in a loud voice, saying: “Eli, Eli, lima
sabachthani?”
47
Some of those who stood there, when they heard it said: “This man calls
for Elijah”...
49
the rest said: “Let him be; let's see if Elijah comes to save him...
50
And Jesus cried again with a loud voice and yielded the spirit.
51
And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, the
earth trembled and the rock mass was broken,
52
then the graves were opened and many bodies of those who slept in death, the
worthy ones, were displaced upward,
(Who
was considered unworthy was thrown into the Gehenna Valley, where he was burnt)
53 and were scattered outside tombs. Afterwards, those who left that place
entered the Holy City and reported it to many.
So the people who
were on mount Golgotha, the Roman soldiers and many onlookers, as well as some
disciples and family members of Jesus, entered Jerusalem and reported the
things happened after Jesus death, and also the scattering of the corpses.
Perhaps some people
may associate the things then happened to these words of Jesus: “Verily, verily, I say: The time comes, we are in it, when
the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who listen will
live; for as the Father has life in himself, he also has given to the Son to have
life in himself and given him authority to judge, because he is a son of man.
Do not marvel at this because the time comes that all those in the graves
shall hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to a
resurrection of life, (not a resurrection to death after a few years) and those who have practiced evil, to a resurrection of
trial”. (John 5:25-29)
However it is clear
that Jesus was here referring to the resurrection of the last day. When
Jesus speaks of the dead listening to the voice of the Son of God,
he speaks of humanity, because the fact of living some few years and then die
and disappear, does not mean to have life. God sent forth a redeemer to
give men the opportunity of a life without death, since at the sight of God, all
humanity is dead. This is why Jesus spoke like this to one of the disciples, he
told him: “Follow me”, and when “he replied: Let me go first and bury my father”, he
told him “Let the dead bury their dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God”. (Luke
9:59...60)