view the rest of the comments
Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
Matthew 27:51-54
I struggled with the tomb openings as well. An interpretation I've heard for it is that they were spiritually resurrected, to show that they were free from Hades and appeared in spirit (Christians commonly refer to this as "The Harrowing of Hell") to show that. There isn't much of an indication that they were there for too long - the tombs breaking open could have been a result of the earthquake as well.
I think it is important to remember how records survived- There is no historical written record of Pompeii (which likely held a lot of high ranking Romans) being destroyed. Just a single reference to it by Pliny the Younger. It was likely witnessed by a quarter of a million people, though, yet all we know about it is archaeology. So I believe it is actually completely possible that the only written record we have of the saints breaking free from the tombs in a rebellious city on the edge of the empire is from Matthew. John even said more stuff happened that he couldn't even write down.
John 21:25 ESV
It is also worth noting a similar objection existed to the existence of Pontius Pilate until 1961 when they found a rock with his name carved onto it, and from there it was treated as historical fact.
I believe how stuff was recorded then compared to now differs greatly. Something happens in a village here and several articles are written and published for the world to see. While back then, someone had to write it down on paper, and for that to survive until now the paper had to either not get destroyed over 200 years, or be copied several times.