Never left the present, I’m afraid.
As the discussion breaks into threads it is difficult to follow the direction of the group’s conversation, so I will go back to my original post and reply.
bluebird1 Robin has suggested that there is a Biblical precedent where an earthquake is a sign from God, namely, that which occurred at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion, according to Matthew’s account.
“Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.” (Mat 27:50-52 NRS)
This statement is problematic. First, none of the other Gospels attest to an earthquake, even though they appear to be following the same source material. (For example, read Matthew 27:50-51 and compare with Mark 15:37-38. Also compare with Luke 23:44-45.) Second, while the Dead Sea Fault runs through Israel and can give rise to earthquakes, there is no geological evidence (to the best of my knowledge) that indicates an earthquake around Jesus’ time. Third, Matthew adds some other material about the resurrection of others besides Jesus at this time which is unknown in the other Gospels.
So, what’s going on in Matthew’s Gospel? Eschatology is a viewpoint about the end of time understood as both the end of a sequence of time, and the goal to which time strives. Both ideas are contained within the word “End”. Such notions were usually expressed in the symbolism of apocalyptic literature, because the means to the end was obscure. By the time of Jesus, apocalyptic language had developed some stock imagery.
The death and resurrection of Jesus meets us as a bizarre event. How do we make sense of it? Matthew exercises a bit of poetic license and inserts some stock apocalyptic images into his narrative to provide a context of Jewish eschatology as the interpretative framework. For Matthew, Jesus’ resurrection is to be understood about belief in the general resurrection at the end of time. St Paul explains it more clearly in 1 Corinthians 15, where Jesus is the firstborn of many siblings. But Matthew is working with narrative as his means of communication, whereas Paul is using prose.
Matthew is not suggesting that the general resurrection has already taken place, although he almost falls into this trap with his suggestive imagery. Not all the saints are raised, just “many”, and the priority of Jesus must be maintained. Part of the problem is Matthew’s dialectical understanding of the death and resurrection. They occur simultaneously. In the words of St Francis, “It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.” So in Matthew’s narrative, many of the saints are raised on the Friday, but have to tread water until Jesus appears on the Sunday. See Matthew 27:50-53. Matthew gets into a bit of a fix, by mixing historical narrative with theological experience. But we can understand what he is getting at.
For the purpose of our discussion about earthquakes, we need to be able to see that Matthew is exercising poetic license by inserting an earthquake. It is Matthew who is speaking to us through this “earthquake”, not God.
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Interesting idea.
A point usually missed in the puzzlement at the event itself.
At the risk of repeating a point already made above…
It’s telling that the only eclipses we regard as having potentially Divine portent are those with paths crossing our particular nation… I e. the U.S.
Nevermind that eclipses happen with near 18 month regularity somewhere in the world.
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But they are not the chosen nation, so they don’t count. (Sorry, drifting off into forbidden territory…)
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- Pardon me for noticing:
- And:
- But if I post this, preceded by a thread title:
My thread gets taken down???
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Maybe we need to pull in the sciences of evolutionary psychology and social psychology to discuss how Christianity and nearly any other religion can be used to reinforce tribalism.
Politicians making statements about earthquakes and divine judgement arenkt attempting to make scientific statements. They are rallying the troops against a scapegoat. Thus is a psychological matter.
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Good point! Although I still think @bluebird1 has a point. Mark does mention a darkness from around 12:00 to 15:00 (which doesn’t need to be an eclipse). When Jesus died, the darkness disappeared (Mark 15:33-34).
This seems to be an one-in-an-epoch event, comparable to the splitting of the Sea of Reeds.
I wouldn’t even be surprised if it turns out that those politicians who ramble about divine judgement don’t really believe it themselves, but that they are just using it for political gain.
People are able able to believe pretty “interesting” things, though. Yesterday I came across this:
I laughed so hard, althought I realise it is kinda sad.
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To borrow from C S Lewis, what do they teach in schools these days?
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Off-topic, but . . . something I learned from my Lenten task of listening to Dr. Michael Heiser’s talks on Exodus was that if careful attention is paid to the vocabulary along with things known about Egypt’s borders back then, there was a series of lakes connected by canals overlooked by watchtowers, that reached north from the Red Sea that were sometimes included in the designation “Sea of Reeds” (he went into Akkadian and Ugaritic on the vocab) which, if one assumes that route for the departure from Egypt serve to explain some things that are otherwise puzzling. In some periods the lakes and canals actually connected to the Nile delta, forming a water link that functioned like today’s Suez Canal albeit on a smaller scale.
BTW, I’m still not done with Heiser on Exodus! I’ve listened to over ten hours of material (including optional podcasts he references) and am still in chapter 26 and the Tabernacle.
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Good posting!!
The article at the start of this post seemed to have one point of view—especially in reaction to Elijah’s experience. Elijah did not get what he had heard that previous folks, like Moses, had experienced.
How relatable is that ??!!
I would not interpret that “lack” necessarily as signifying that “theology has moved on from believing that earthquakes speak to us.” I would interpret it to mean that God doesn’t take His marching orders from us. “I want an earthquake!” —does not mean that (in some circumstances) we might not get one. It just means that God has more than one arrow in His quiver (metaphorically speaking, please!!).
I like the remarks by the author/editor of the WBC commentary on the 1 Kings 19 section: “This [that is, the lack of earthquake or other drama ] is a rebuke not only for the biblical prophet , but for all religionists who rely on shoutings and flurries of action, while neglecting the way of quiet love, simple piety, and persuasive kindness.”
As for the earthquake at the time of the crucifixion in Matthew’s gospel…there actually WAS a quake “tentatively assigned a date of AD 31 with an accuracy of +/- 5 years” and magnitude 6.3 in the area around the Dead Sea which some say matches the account and location of the one during the crucifixion --as recorded in Matthew. See International Geology Review from 2012…I saw (elsewhere – in another book, i THINK called Darkest Hours) mention of a quake along the fault line that goes through that region and up into Turkey around that era—rather large loss of life in that area. Both notations may refer to same quake or to different ones.
Point being that earthquakes — while not ALL “signs from God” or “how theology is done in that era or in ours” – when recorded in the gospels or other texts, might not be meant to be metaphorical or literary techniques.
And of course…a politician of our era — or any other —declaring God’s judgments in the latest disaster is to be taken as seriously as one takes a TV commercial selling the Juicer from God that will cure cancer and bad food stains. Grain of salt, please!
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That must be interesting!! I have read some various authors on this…and a few from times past — like Jarvis and Lucas who have their own analysis based on decades living in the Sinai region etc. Since you “listen” to Heiser, I presume this is online?
Not so fast! Let’s look at a quote from Live Science ( Quake Reveals Day of Jesus’ Crucifixion | Live Science
In terms of the earthquake data alone, Williams and his team acknowledge that the seismic activity associated with the crucifixion could refer to “an earthquake that occurred sometime before or after the crucifixion and was in effect ‘borrowed’ by the author of the Gospel of Matthew, and a local earthquake between 26 and 36 A.D. that was sufficiently energetic to deform the sediments of Ein Gedi but not energetic enough to produce a still extant and extra-biblical historical record.”
“If the last possibility is true, this would mean that the report of an earthquake in the Gospel of Matthew is a type of allegory,” they write.
It would appear that this evidence does not carry quite the amount of weight you would wish to place upon it.
But lets go back to basic issues. One might wish to say that the author of Matthew’s Gospel exercised a little poetic license to suggest an eschatological framework for the interpretation of the death and resurrection of Jesus OR one might argue that God provided an actual earthquake to assist in this interpretation.
The second option runs into a problem, and it is a big one. Matthew’s Gospel has two earthquakes in association with the death and resurrection of Jesus - one at his death, and the other when the stone is rolled back from the tomb revealing that Jesus has been raised from death. The earthquake associated with the empty tomb is a mighty one (καὶ ἰδοὺ σεισμὸς ἐγένετο μέγας·) (Mat 28:2 BNT) The earthquake at Jesus’ death is not described as mighty, but it has some mighty effects. None of the other three Gospels mention any such earthquakes and it is difficult to imagine that such mighty actual seismic events, two days apart, would have been ignored by them. Or were these inspired Gospel authors blind to God’s direct intervention in geophysics at the most crucial part of the story?
One is then left with the question about what is theological poetic license and what is actual historical event in the Gospel accounts - indeed in the whole Bible. One can go for an all-or-nothing approach and assume either that everything is theological interpretation or that everything is literally true. This clinging to certainty is definitely represented by two clashing theological views; and in a rapidly changing and uncertain world it meets a psychological need. Or otherwise, one can accept uncertainty as a fact, not only broadly in life, but also in our understanding of the Bible.
One advantage I can see in accepting uncertainty is that one can explore theological insights without needing to prove the literal truth or otherwise of a Biblical account. One can also be freed to understand that the Bible contains a number of differing theological points of view, sometimes complimenting each other, sometimes clashing, without the need to dismiss the differences for the sake of harmonizing everything.
As Matthew does not quantify either quake, we can’t say how big a quake counts as “mighty”. If a small quake effectively shakes where you are, it makes an impression.
Of course, technically rolling the stone away is guaranteed to produce an earthquake. A guard falling down to the ground in a faint makes around a -1.5 quake, for example.
Given that the different gospels largely record different incidents associated with the resurrection, non-mention in the other gospels merely means that they recorded other incidents. Different things catch different people’s attention.
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well then…there actually is evidence of an earthquake in the region. And it was within the time period and in the locale wherein the events of the crucifixion occurred.
I have seen a couple other references to that quake – including an urban studies source that presumed that by 30 CE they really meant something in 31 BCE. So, by these accounts, somewhere there was an earthquake in that region in that era but …
The crucifixion itself was not supposed (in the minds of the people of that region) to happen to the Jewish Messiah that they were expecting soon to come—and which Jesus claimed to be.
So how much could they dress up an unhappy —and completely unexpected — event by adding a fake earthquake that happened later somewhere else and maybe to someone else? By inserting an “allegory,” they would have done nothing for their case.It would have been a pointless association…unless, of course, there were something more to it.
The “type of allegory” statement – made by the geologists involved – is one possibility and maybe their way of staying out of the debate. They studied cores and soil deposition and said “plausible candidates include the earthquake reported in the Gospel of Matthew…” And that is where they leave it. So it’s plausible. But not for the mindset of those who lived 2000 years ago. They argued about things like that back then too.
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Quantify? So you expect Matthew to say it was 7.5 on the Richter Scale? (Which didn’t exist in those days.) Yes, Matthew does quantify it in the adjectives of the day. On Resurrection Day it was a “mega-earthquake”. That is the kind of earthquake that topples buildings and kills people. It was not something that the other Gospel writers could ignore when it would have been such a clear endorsement by God of an eschatological event. This is the kind of earthquake that cannot be attributed to the thundering of horses hooves when Pilate redeployed a cavalry regiment to deal with pesky revolutionary Jews around Passover time. Such ground vibrations, so common in those days and times, would not have served Matthew’s eschatological framing.
I think you are clutching at straws, which is a good thing, because it usually precedes a deeper understanding. A deeper understanding can be helped by familiarity with apocalyptic literature, both Biblical and extra-Biblical, in the first century. I do not expect to convince you by straightforward argument. If you dismiss my arguments, they will sink into your unconsciousness and emerge later in a synthesis you can call your own.
This is what’s known as a vague reference, and doesn’t quite cut it. Of course there were earthquakes in those places and times. After all, the Dead Sea Fault runs right through ancient Israel.
First of all, I wouldn’t expect a geologist to accurately designate the kind of first century language and literature under review. That would be beyond his area of expertise. He is reaching into another field of study but appreciates a non-literal explanation may be required. I wouldn’t label it “allegory”, but is “literal” the only explanation at hand?
Consider the way in which some indigenous people see their cultural values reflected back to them by the country in which they live. Not just the earth, but also the sky. For example, one indigenous group I know of have a story which portrays a dark area within a constellation of stars as a hole through which a young couple were thrown when they were expelled from a tribal group for flouting traditional tribal values. The same group of indigenous people can simultaneously see the dark area in a constellation as the result of a galactic cloud of gas that obscures some stars. They see nothing contradictory in this. Take them out of their country, and the surrounding landscape no longer speaks to them of tribal values. (Obviously we are not talking the sky here.) Things start to fall apart.
Now consider some Biblical literature. Remember the rainbow? (Genesis 9) We are given this sign in the sky to remind us that God will never again wipeout humanity with a flood. But wait, the literalist wishes to point out, that sign is caused by the refraction of light into its separate colors and it happened long before it became a sign from God. Now consider Matthew’s earthquakes. Earthquakes happen in Israel because of the Dead Sea Fault, (and a few other faults), so people from 1st century Israel were likely to be familiar with them, just like people who live around the “Pacific Ring of Fire” are today. Remember Matthew’s earthquakes at both the death and resurrection of Jesus? Whenever you feel an earthquake, remember the earth-shattering events at Easter. They were more earth-shattering than anything on the Richter scale.
Like many indigenous people, we can hold the two views together without seeing a contradiction.
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Well Gregorette, you have found a good subject to debate. One earthquake ? or two? or some sort of ??
The International Geology Review article said there was an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.3 which “matched” what was in the account of the gospel of Matthew. I am sure that the geology of the area must contain clues to the magnitude of past events–certainly the biblical authors would not have that data, but the article did.
The book Darkest Hours, by Jay Robert Nash, pub 1976, lists a quake in “Palestine and Bythia” that occurred, it says “on the occasion of the Crucifixion” and left the “city of Nicaea …inundated” with a loss of life at 30,000…
I am aware of the presence of a fault in the region, as you also are. That it connects to the region of Nicaea is out of range of the interest of the writer of Matthew–if it does in fact refer to the exact same event.
I think the subject of this post, initially at least, was the meaning of things like Earthquakes and Eclipses —and whether they should/could be used to describe God’s judgment today — by politicians. Well, no I would be suspicious of a politician making such an assertion. They may be right but off hand they have their own agendas.
But saying that God never speaks through an earthquake EVER (or other events) …probably also a difficult thing. The Creator of the Universe is pretty handy when it comes to making Himself known, evidently. After all, the gospel account in Matthew 27 specifically asserts that the events at the time of Jesus’ death, incl earthquake, was enough to convince the centurions and others guarding the crucifixion site to say “Surely he was the Son of God!”…
My original point, way back when, was that we do not have the ability or right to say what God does not do any more. He does what He does. But since you seem to have other points, I also noted that it would be strange to make the “mythical” or symbolic earthquake up – to “prove” Jesus’ divinity – in an environment that would have been unconvinced for other reasons. (see earlier comment)
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Yes. A search for “Dr. Michael Heiser Exodus” should find the series on YouTube, though they probably won’t show up in order. I’m on Part 7, which covers the bulk of the book.
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Careful there; don’t read science into the Greek. The word σεισμὸς refers to a shaking or tumult; it can be used of a storm, an unruly mob, or a landslide or other disturbance – it isn’t necessarily an earthquake in the scientific meaning. In terms of the tomb, it could have been locally impressive but not have necessarily been felt just down the road in Bethlehem. In fact the next clause relates this tremor or shaking to the movement of the stone, attributing it to the stone’s movement.
That’s reading science into an account that didn’t have such standards – just because the σεισμὸς, the tremor, has the adjective μέγας doesn’t allow an assignment to “mega-earthquake”. The adjective is used of voices, livestock, people (stature, e.g. “Μεγαλέξανδρος”, megAlexandros, for Alexander ‘the Great’), men (strength or fame), etc.
There have been fairly localized quakes up to about 2.5 that resulted from underwater landslides.