(March 23, 2014 at 11:09 am)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: IS IT JUST ME OR DID ANYONE ELSE CATCH THAT?Interesting question.
Did the author of Matthew's Gospel just reveal an early Christian belief about Jesus' resurrection? Is it an indication that Christians believed the resurrection of the dead had begun at Calvary? Matthew’s Gospel explicitly states that the holy ones "came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection" yet Matthew places this event at the moment Jesus dies, while his body is still hanging on the cross!
Was the "resurrection" originally thought to have occurred when Jesus "gave up his spirit"?
Of course, these stories are not in the bible because they actually happened but rather because they make a theological point.
Both Matthew and Mark include the story of the curtain in the temple splitting apart to indicate that there is now free access to God, unlike the OT where only the high priest goes into the holy of holies where God dwells.
In Christian thinking it is only the death of Jesus and his subsequent resurrection which makes possible resurrection for believers. Matthew is the only gospel which includes this story of long-dead zombies arising. I suspect it occurs here at the moment of death, simply because to put it with the resurrection would destroy the focus on Jesus as the risen son of God.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people — House
