What is the point?

[postroad]

If a simple text can be manipulated from a plain reading into this?

postroad wrote:

I wonder what happened to these individuals?


Matthew 27:51-53New International Version (NIV)

51 At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split 52 and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. 53 They came out of the tombs after Jesus resurrection and[a] went into the holy city and appeared to many people.


JehovahsWitness wrote
QUESTION : Were people ressurected when Jesus died?

Matthew 27:52, 53 reads that at the moment Jesus expired 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.

It is true this is a perplexing verse and quite ambiguious. Firstly, however it should be noted that the verse speaks not of the "dead" but of the 'bodies of the saints' being raised. Strictly speaking, the account does not say that the bodies came to life. It merely says that they were raised up or thrown out. The Greek verb egeiro, meaning to raise up, does not always refer to a resurrection. It can, among other things, also mean to lift out from a pit or to get up from the ground. (Matthew 12:11; 17:7; Luke 1:69).

Also the they (that that went into the holy city) could not refer to the bodies, because all pronouns in the Greek have gender and they in this case is in the masculine, whereas bodies is in the neuter gender.

Alternative renderings thus can read:

Tombs were laid open, and many bodies of those buried there 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.

and the NWT "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.

All of which convey the thought that when Jesus died the accompanying earthquake broke open tombs near Jerusalem and thus exposed corpses to persons who visited the tombs and brought news of the event into Jerusalem.

[dio9]

it simply means they were raised to Jesus' level of understanding God. From whatever they had before , after Jesus they knew God as their father, as we do today. Will there be more resurrections? Yes the bible says there will be.

[postroad]

it simply means they were raised to Jesus' level of understanding God. From whatever they had before , after Jesus they knew God as their father, as we do today. Will there be more resurrections? Yes the bible says there will be.

How do you get that from the text?

[JoeyKnothead]

From the OP:

What is the point?

Mississippi legislature passes religious freedom bill.


When folks can be discriminated against simply 'cause one suspects they're LGBorT, well that ain't right, even if they really are one or more of 'em. To then make such bigotry the law of the land, well that's placing bigotry on a pedestal.

[Student]

Why would anyone "massage the data" to make their story fit earlier stories-- unless it did not fit?

Evidently Jewish people who told the original stories don't think the new "interpretations" and characters are genuine.

Tangled webs?

[font=Times New Roman]
When the proto-Christian communities formed the opinion that Jesus must have been the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God, it was only natural that any stories of his life in circulation should be interpreted, modified and added to, in the light of this revelation. With Jesus' status now established it followed that his activities must have been predicted in the Old Testament.

The early Christian communities regarded the Old Testament as completely accurate down to the last detail, so everything it predicted must have found fulfilment at some point in Jesus' ministry.

Using this circular reasoning, to the evangelists' communities, the Old Testament became a source of information about the events of Jesus life, and with their deep conviction of its inerrancy, it seemed preferable to accept its testimony over the fallible memories of human witnesses, however well informed.

Consequently there are numerous stories in the gospels which rest less on a tradition derived from witnesses, but rather a deduction from Old Testament prophecy that 'must have' happened when the Messiah came.
[/font]

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 46 by postroad]

They are not grammatical "difficulties" they are just some facts about the language as it stands. It's for translators and language experts to render the original ideas as lose to the target language as possible. I believe most translations have done a good job.


JW