The Resurrection and the Risen One

Matthew's Theology of Resurrection in the Context of Second Temple Resurrection Belief

(avg. read time: 25–50 mins.)

Scholars have often noted the historical plausibility of the episode in Matt 22:23–33 and pars. as a debate between the Sadducees and a Jew like Jesus who believed in the general resurrection.¹ The Torah-centric arguments, the appeal to God’s identification in Exod 3:6, and the distinction of the Sadducees as a group that did not expect the resurrection of the dead all make sense in the historical context in which the Synoptic authors place this episode. However, what has received much less attention is the question of the theological function of this episode in the Synoptic contexts. In his 2007 article, Bradley Trick observed that scholars had not sufficiently integrated this episode into NT theologies of resurrection.² The situation has not changed significantly to this day and it remains the case that this episode has not even been sufficiently integrated with theologies of resurrection in the Synoptic Gospels—of which Matthew’s is the concern of my analysis—to clarify its role(s) in the theologies of the Synoptic authors.

What significance does this episode have as part of the overall story that a given Synoptic author—in this case, Matthew—has told in connection to other references to resurrection? This is the only straightforward teaching on the general resurrection in the Gospel (although, as noted below, several other teachings imply it); how are Matthew’s readers to understand it in light of the other references to resurrection? It is this context that is more determinative for understanding the role of the general resurrection in Matthew’s theology than statements from contemporary Jewish documents on the general resurrection. I argue that while there are important similarities between the thematic connections Matthew makes with the general resurrection and the thematic connections Second Temple Jewish texts made with it, one must understand these similarities within the context of the most crucial difference between Matthew and these texts: the connection of the general resurrection with the resurrection of the Messiah.

As I do not have space to analyze each resurrection text individually, as others have done, I provide here a thematic analysis while noting the distinctives of each text when appropriate.³ Thematic study provides the best means for determining a theology of resurrection as it enables one to see what purpose resurrection serves in the different texts and how it functions in the texts’ eschatological pictures. The precise shape of resurrection theology in these works comes from the precise association of resurrection in constellations of ideas connected to resurrection in the text or larger co-texts/contexts. As Pheme Perkins has observed, “The particular imagery one finds in a text is more likely to be dictated by the other images that surround it than by concerns for a dogmatic position about life after death. The primary focus of much of the metaphoric language in these traditions appears to be the renewal of life that transcends and overturns the tensions and evils of this world.”⁴ Furthermore, my focus here is on Second Temple Jewish works, some of which are roughly contemporary with Matthew as the scope of this era for my analysis extends to ~135 CE. This will not necessarily exclude rabbinic texts or other later ones, but I only reference them insofar as they provide further confirmation of themes of resurrection theology from earlier texts. Alongside my thematic analysis, I organize my examination of these texts in roughly chronological order so as to illustrate how these themes were in development before and after Matthew.⁵ One final qualification I must make here is what I mean by the term “resurrection.” By “resurrection,” I mean the renewal of bodily life, particularly with an implied physical upward movement, after a period of death, and by “general resurrection,” I mean the collective resurrection that texts assign to the eschaton (I prefer the term “general” to include both texts that only concern the resurrection of the righteous and texts that feature an explicitly universal resurrection).⁶ With these qualifications in mind, I examine the theologies of resurrection in Second Temple Jewish texts and Matthew’s Gospel.