Easter Posting/Zombie Passage Matthew 27:53

[longdistancerunner]

I don't remember the following passage ever being mentioned in the church of Christ but the one after is widely. Matthew 27:53; "At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. After his resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many."

This is one of the weirdest passages in the Bible, does anyone else remember it being used in the CoC, I don't.

The other passage that is extremely strange is the snake handling and poison passage, Mark 16:9-20. Does anyone else ever remember this one being discussed?

[FinallyFree]

I think the snake handling/poison thing is part of a later addition to Mark and was not in the original manuscript.

[Ivy]

I don't remember the following passage ever being mentioned in the church of Christ but the one after is widely. Matthew 27:53; "At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. After his resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many."

This is one of the weirdest passages in the Bible, does anyone else remember it being used in the CoC, I don't.

The other passage that is extremely strange is the snake handling and poison passage, Mark 16:9-20. Does anyone else ever remember this one being discussed?

I hadn't thought of that passage in decades!! Yes, it is truly weird. And I don't think it was ever mentioned again...is that correct? Maybe that was part of the mythology / folklore / storytelling that developed around Jesus. Kind of like with indigenous people...they have some stories that sound really wild, but they are sacred to them.

[longdistancerunner]

I think the snake handling/poison thing is part of a later addition to Mark and was not in the original manuscript.

Yes that is the academic consensus, that the passage was added later. However if the CoC admits there is a passage that is not correct or inspired it opens up a whole lot of others. Textual criticism of the Bible is very interesting and Bart Ehrman is one of the leading experts, a whole lot of the passages in the Bible were changed from the earliest ones we have, and we don't have the originals. I kinda of doubt even the more liberal CoC's admit this, it opens up a whole can of worms and will destroy what has always been taught. I remember hearing discussions among preachers about the meaning of the translation from the Greek but I never heard any discussion about whether what was being translated was part of the original or what the original was.

[longdistancerunner]

I don't remember the following passage ever being mentioned in the church of Christ but the one after is widely. Matthew 27:53; "At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. After his resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many."

This is one of the weirdest passages in the Bible, does anyone else remember it being used in the CoC, I don't.

The other passage that is extremely strange is the snake handling and poison passage, Mark 16:9-20. Does anyone else ever remember this one being discussed?

I hadn't thought of that passage in decades!! Yes, it is truly weird. And I don't think it was ever mentioned again...is that correct? Maybe that was part of the mythology / folklore / storytelling that developed around Jesus. Kind of like with indigenous people...they have some stories that sound really wild, but they are sacred to them.

My understanding is that is the only place the "zombies" are mentioned, I will have to look and see what scholars think about its origin. It is interesting to me that the passage that follows it about the earthquake is widely used.

[teresa]

I found this article on the subject. h**ps://etsjets.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/files_JETS-PDFs_59_59-2_JETS_59-2_271-286_Quarles.pdf

Essentially the article says Matthew was making reference to a number of passages from the prophets to make his point about what God's resurrection of Jesus had accomplished. I haven't read the whole article, but I think this reference idea is correct (but not necessarily any conclusions the article comes to). It seems to me that Mathew did the same kind of reference when he quoted "out of Egypt I have called my son" and "A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation --".

It seems to me that Matthew --rightly or wrongly --saw Jesus as the representative head of God's renewed covenant with Israel. Or to put it another way, Matthew saw Jesus (and his followers) as the restored Israel. The idea was that Jesus' resurrection was followed by a mass resurrection, the latter being temporary since they still had corruptible bodies. This mass resurrection is a reference to God's promise to restore the dead bones of Israel to life, that is, to restore Israel as his covenant people.

So for Matthew whether God literally called Jesus out of Egypt is not the point. The point is that God chose Jesus to be the representative head of Israel now restored to life with God. In the same way, for Matthew whether God literally raised the dead temporarily is not the point. The point is that God's resurrection of Jesus inaugurated God's kingdom reign over his covenant people Israel ( with the culmination still to follow).

I note that Paul taught something similar to Matthew about the resurrection. Paul taught there would be a new heavens and earth, with those still alive being changed in a twinkling of an eye to live in this new creation, and others resurrected with incorruptible bodies. The idea of going to heaven when we die was not held by either Paul or Matthew, I think.

[B.H.]

If a large group of people came back from the dead it definitely would be in secular records of the time. I don't think the verses were original to the text neither. Someone pointed out most scholars don't either. The scholars should sleep well knowing they came to the same conclusion as me

[B.H.]

I've read the verses about women having long hair in I Corinthians isn't in all textual copies. Some say have a covering some say long hair, some don't have anything about women having a covering or long hair. Textual variants do affect doctrine.

[ACUAlumnus]

The other passage that is extremely strange is the snake handling and poison passage, Mark 16:9-20. Does anyone else ever remember this one being discussed?

One of the CoC’s favorite proof texts, Mark 16:16, is also in this passage: “He who believes and is baptized will be saved.”

The most ancient manuscripts we have, which were unknown when the King James translation was made, simply end abruptly with verse 8. There are a couple of alternate endings in various later sources, which are given in footnotes in some more recent translations.