MATTHEW 27:52, 53 in the NEW WORLD TRANSLATION
Was There a Resurrection?
WAS there a resurrection from the dead at the time of Jesus' death? Many Bible commentators so hold. They base their belief upon Matthew 27:52, 53. In the Revised Standard Version (the Roman Catholic Confraternity Version is almost identical), these verses read: " The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many."
According to the Roman Catholic Commentary on
holy Scripture, the earthquake, mentioned in the previous verse
Mt 27:51, split open the rocky tombs to prepare the exit of the
bodies, which were not resurrected until after Christ's
resurrection. But let it be noted that this is not what the text
actually states, in either Roman Catholic or Protestant versions.
Regarding these verses one of the foremost Protestant Bible
commentaries, that by Adam Clarke, states:"It is difficult
to account for the transaction mentioned in Mt 27 verses 52 and
53. Some have thought that these two verses have been introduced
into the text of Matthew from the gospel of the Nazarenes, others
think the simple meaning is this:-by the earthquake several
bodies that had been buried were thrown up and exposed to view,
and continued above ground till after Christ's resurrection, and
were seen by many persons in the city. Why the graves should be
opened on Friday, and the bodies not raised to life till the
following Sunday, is difficult to be conceived. The place is
extremely obscure."
Another Bible commentator, Dr. Jenks, says regarding these verses:
"This matter is not related as fully as our curiosity could
wish. . . . We may raise inquiries concerning it which we cannot
resolve." Other Bible commentators express themselves
similarly.
Could the event mentioned in these two verses have indeed been
the beginning of the resurrection of the dead of which Jesus
spoke as recorded at John 5:28, 29? No, for Jesus said that all
those in the memorial tombs would come forth either to a
resurrection of life or to a resurrection of judgment. Since the
account says that these were "saints or " holy ones,"
they would have been raised to a resurrection of life. Were they?
Hardly, or they would still be living today, even as Jesus has
kept on living since his resurrection to life.-Rev. 1:18.
That is why we read that "Christ has been raised up from the
dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep in death."
"He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that he
might become the one who is first in all things." These holy
ones, therefore, could not have been resurrected with the
prospect of endless life before Jesus was.-1 Cor. 15:20; Col. 1:18.
They could not even have been resurrected to life right after
Jesus was, as suggested by some, because Paul shows that the
Christian holy ones will be resurrected and receive their reward
"in that day," when " the Lord himself will
descend from heaven with a commanding call, with an archangel's
voice and with God's trumpet." Paul did not even write this
until many years after Jesus had been resurrected, and it was to
be fulfilled far in the future.-2 Tim. 4:8; 1 Thess. 4:16.
Then could it be that these were pre-Christian holy ones,
destined for life, not in heaven, but on earth? If so, they still
could not have received their resurrection at the time Jesus did,
because Paul wrote regarding them: "All these, although they
had witness borne to them through their faith, did not get the
fulfillment of the promise, as God foresaw something better for
us, in order that they might not be made perfect apart from us."
Had these been resurrected to life then, they would have been
made perfect apart from us, the Christian holy ones.-Heb. 11:39,
40.
NO BODILY RESURRECTION
Besides, nowhere in the Scriptures do we read
that the bodies of the dead will be raised up; even though the so-called
Apostles' Creed does teach the resurrection of the human body.
The "dead," yes, but not the "dead bodies."
Dead persons will be resurrected in God's due time, and they will
be given a suitable body; they will have the same personality.
Note the clear reasoning of the apostle Paul on this matter in
regard to the resurrection of the Christian holy ones: "How
are the dead to be raised up? Yes, with what kind of body are
they coming? . . . What you sow is not made alive unless first it
dies; and as for what you sow, you sow, not the body that will
develop, but a bare grain, . . . but God gives it a body just as
it has pleased him . . . So also is the resurrection of the dead.
It is sown in corruption, it is raised up in incorruption. . . .
It is sown a physical body, it is raised up a spiritual body. . .
. flesh and blood cannot inherit God's kingdom, neither does
corruption inherit incorruption." -1 Cor. 15:35-38, 42-44,
50.
Since the Bible does not teach the raising of the human body in
either the first resurrection or in the one to follow, the fact
that bodies here were raised would prove that it could not have
been the beginning of either of these resurrections. At the most
it would be merely a temporary resurrection of some faithful Jews
who quite likely had recently died. Their resurrection,
therefore, would not have been any different from the
resurrection experienced by Jesus' friend Lazarus and others like
him.
But even this supposition must be ruled out in view of these
questions: If the graves were opened up when Jesus died, why did
the bodies of the holy ones have to wait until after Jesus was
resurrected to come out of the tombs and appear to many? There
was an earthquake when Jesus was raised; why could they not have
waited for it? To whom did these bodies appear? Was their
resurrection in competition with that of Jesus, who appeared on
the third day to his disciples? What was the purpose of their
appearance? What did they call attention to or talk about? Did
their resurrection enhance or add anything to that of Jesus or
prove a verification of his resurrection? How is it that such an
unusual event is not mentioned elsewhere in the Christian Greek
Scriptures? Besides, why did not the apostle Paul call attention
to their resurrection in his argument, at First Corinthians 15,
that there is a resurrection of the dead? If many had been
resurrected and seen by many, such would have been common
knowledge and Paul would have mentioned the fact.
A reasonable solution to this problem is given by the rendering
of the verses in question in the New World Translation of the
Christian Greek Scriptures. While a literal
translation, it puts clarity of thought ahead of literalness.
It reads: "And the memorial tombs were opened and many
bodies of the holy ones that had fallen asleep were thrown up, (and
persons, coming out from among the memorial tombs after his being
raised up, entered into the holy city,) and they became visible
to many people." From this translation it is evident that
this was no resurrection of " sleeping saints" but
merely a throwing of bodies out of their tombs by the earthquake
that attended Jesus' death.
Nor is the New World Translation alone in rendering
these verses thus. A modern German translation reads quite
similarly: "Tombs were laid open, and many bodies of those
buried were tossed upright. In this posture they projected from
the graves and were seen by many who passed by the place on their
way back to the city." -Matt. 27:52, 53.
An incident quite similar to this took place in Ecuador in 1949.
There the dead are usually buried in large burial vaults, shelf
upon shelf and vault upon vault. An earthquake cracked open these
vaults, ejecting many dead bodies, which had to be buried at once
to prevent a plague from breaking out.
What is the basis for these renderings? First of all, let it be
noted that the pronoun "they" (Matt. 27:53, RS ) could
not refer to the " bodies," because all pronouns in the
Greek have gender and "they" is in the masculine,
whereas "bodies" is in the neuter gender. Nor could
"they" refer to the " holy ones," for the
text does not say that the holy ones were raised but merely that
their bodies were raised or thrown up. Further, even the most
ancient manuscripts are not in agreement with one another as to
the reading of this text. The Sinaitic omits the words "and
the memorial tombs were opened" and "entered."
In view of all the questions that these texts raise, their
contradictory reading and the variations in them found in the
most ancient manuscripts, another alternative may not be ruled
out altogether. And what is that? That these verses were not
written by Matthew himself but added by an early copying hand.
This position seems to find further support in the fact that the
particular Greek word for "resurrection" ( RS ) used
here, 'egersis, occurs nowhere else in the Christian
Greek Scriptures. Also, here is the only use of the expression
"the saints," "holy ones," in all the
Gospels, it first appearing after Pentecost. The fact that these
verses are found in the apocryphal Gospel of the Nazarenes but
not in any of the other canonical Gospels further makes these
verses suspect. Incidentally, this Gospel by the Nazarenes was
held by some to have been Matthew's original Gospel in Hebrew,
which he later translated into Greek. It resembles his canonical
Gospel quite closely except that it begins without the genealogy.
We cannot escape it, verses 52 and 53 of Matthew, chapter 27, are
ambiguous. In fact, they are among the most difficult verses to
translate of the entire Christian Greek Scriptures. Because of
their ambiguity no one can dogmatically state just how they
should be rendered. What governs the translation of texts such as
these where there is an ambiguity in the original text therefore
is not textual criticism, because it is frustrated by the
ambiguity. Rather, exegesis, or Bible interpretation of the
meaning intended by the original writer, will have to govern. The
way each translator would therefore render such texts would
depend upon his understanding of the rest of the Scriptures. The
Scriptural facts above set out dictate how they must be rendered
to be consistent with the rest of the Bible.
From the w61 1/1 28-30
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