St. Matthew's "Thriller"

By Tomas De Los Santos

There are many incredible stories in the Bible. Perhaps that should go without saying given that the Bible is purported to be an account of man's contact with the supernatural. Nevertheless, many stories in the Bible are simply unbelievable even if one allows that God can do anything. For example, consider Matthew's story of the living dead, which must be one of the most phenomenal stories in the entire Bible.
In the book of Matthew, it is reported that at the moment of Jesus' death, "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 (Jerusalem) and appeared unto many (Matt. 27:52-53 KJV)."
As we begin our examination of the aforementioned passage, consider the magnitude of the event described, and ask your self, What must follow, in the normal course of events, if something like that were to occur? If the story is true, then it must be one of the all-time greatest miracles that ever happened. Imagine a graveyard suddenly coming to life with zombies rising out of their graves like it was the night of the living dead. Incredible! Like something out of Michael Jackson's music video, "Thriller," only this time for real.
Consider how popular such an event would necessarily be. It would have been the talk of the town -- any town, anywhere in the world, at any time in history. An event like that would certainly have consumed entire chapters of contemporary history. It would have been a world-stopping event, and would have been reviewed at length in official government documents and in religious scriptures. Certainly, all New Testament writers would have seized on the event as proof of their doctrine, their cause, their apostolic authority, and their God.
If we study the scriptures, however, that's not what we find. Instead, this event, stupendous though it surely would have been, is not mentioned at all by anybody except Matthew, and then only in an off-handed way as though in passing. Everyone else who contributed to the New Testament completely ignores the event. This silence is strange, yet telling. What may be more telling, however, is that both Mark and Luke include, almost verbatim and in exact sequence, the passages immediately preceding and following Matthew 27:52-53. How very strange, indeed!
Matthew is very clear as to the time of this alleged event and the circumstances under which it supposedly occurred: right at the moment of Jesus' death (Matt. 27:50-53). Now, stop and consider. Because Jesus died on Good Friday, this means that the saints arose from their graves at sometime on that same Friday, whether it was afternoon or evening. The story begins to fall apart, however, when it tells us that the saints did not go to Jerusalem until after Jesus' resurrection which, by popular account, occurred the following Sunday. This means that the resurrected saints just hung around the graveyard for an entire weekend until finally wandering back to the city from which they had been gone for however long they had been dead. I wonder what they did during that miraculous weekend standing there in their graves? Perhaps they compared notes about what being dead was like. Maybe they congratulated each other on the Almighty's having granted them a second lease on life. Or, maybe, they danced around as in "Thriller." Who knows.
Notice how Matthew (or whoever wrote the gospel with that title) does not bother to tell us who those resurrected saints actually were. Being saints of enough importance to have been granted resurrection, surely they had prominent names and identities. Not that Matthew cared. Although God granted them victory over death, Matthew chose not to elevate them above anonymity.
Nor does Matthew, nor anyone else for that matter, bother to tell us what happened to them after they went to Jerusalem. Did they assume their former lives? Did they move back into their former homes and claim their former spouses? If so, how were they received? Did they claim the property they owned prior to their death? Certainly many people in Jerusalem saw these resurrected saints. Matthew tells us they appeared "unto many." Citizens of Jerusalem must have spoken to them at length, and heard their testimony. Indeed, those zombies must have been the buzz of the temple. So, where are any eyewitness accounts? Not only are there no eyewitness accounts of Matthew's living dead, but after they went back to Jerusalem, not another word was ever written about them nor about what must be one of the most amazing events in all of history.
What is going on here? Why is Matthew telling us this when no one else is? The truthful answer is that Matthew made it all up. "Matthew" was an educated person, or persons, obsessed with the need to have Jesus appear to have fulfilled Old Testament prophesy. One such prophesy that Matthew may have been sensitive to is found in Zechariah 14. In that Old Testament chapter, we are informed about how the Lord will fight against those nations that war against Jerusalem. Zechariah goes on to say, "and the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with thee (Zech. 14:1-6 KJV)." Apparently, Matthew, in his overzealous effort to deify Jesus according to Jewish expectations, felt compelled to somehow include saints in the Jesus death/resurrection story. So, he put his creative writing skills to work, made up a couple of verses, and plugged them in at the appropriate place in chapter 27.
The writer of "Matthew" was on a theological agenda. He therefore created fiction, like the story of the living dead, in order to deceive people into believing the cause that he was promoting. In fact, Matthew's miracle of the living dead never happened. That's why it cannot be corroborated. No wonder no one else in the Bible talks about it, no history books record it, and there are no eyewitness accounts about it. Matthew's story of the resurrected saints was, in effect, so much propaganda -- and very successful propaganda at that: an untold number people over the ages have been thereby deceived.