This is Week Two of Giford's Bible Study Programme.

And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.

Matthew 27:52-53

Length: 3/5

Controversy: 0/5

On this Easter Sunday, it seems only fitting that we turn our attention to the Biblical story of the Resurrection.

This well-witnessed mass resurection was not the only attention-grabber to accompany the death of Jesus. The curtain over the door of the Temple was torn, there was an earthquake and a strange darkness lasting three hours (Luke 23:44, Mark 15:33 and Matt 27:45,51; the longest possible natural total eclipse is 7 minutes and 31 seconds). Strangely, this unique event occuring in the middle of a major city within well-recorded history is not mentioned by any contemporary writer. Nor do any other gospels mention this invasion of zombies (Luke gives Jesus' last words at this point in the narrative, Mark says nothing at all).

We shall return to this passage later to study the exact text in more detail (with, perhaps, some surprising results). For now, I shall leave you with the (non-canonical) words of Edward Gibbon:

But how shall we excuse the supine inattention of the Pagan and philosophic world, to those evidences which were represented by the hand of Omnipotence, not to their reason, but to their senses? During the age of Christ, of his apostles, and of their first disciples, the doctrine which they preached was confirmed by innumerable prodigies. The lame walked, the blind saw, the sick were healed, the dead were raised, demons were expelled, and the laws of Nature were frequently suspended for the benefit of the church. But the sages of Greece and Rome turned aside from the awful spectacle, and, pursuing the ordinary occupations of life and study, appeared unconscious of any alterations in the moral or physical government of the world. Under the reign of Tiberius, the whole earth, or at least a celebrated province of the Roman empire, was involved in a preternatural darkness of three hours. Even this miraculous event, which ought to have excited the wonder, the curiosity, and the devotion of mankind, passed without notice in an age of science and history. It happened during the lifetime of Seneca and the elder Pliny, who must have experienced the immediate effects, or received the earliest intelligence of the prodigy. Each of these philosophers, in a laborious work, has recorded all the great phenomena of Nature, earthquakes, meteors comets, and eclipses, which his indefatigable curiosity could collect. Both the one and the other have omitted to mention the greatest phenomenon to which the mortal eye has been witness since the creation of the globe.
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. I, pp. 588-590

Christian Responses

The primary Biblical inerrantist responses seem to be to deny that the text means what it says; 'Jerusalem' actually means 'Heaven', 'raised' does not mean 'brought back to life', and so forth. Denying that we have any (or many) historical accounts of the period is also common.