# Not the only one to come back from the dead?



## oldfella1962 (Aug 22, 2017)

I was researching some things and came across this:

"The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people."

so the moment Jesus died on the cross, the graves of the saints opened up and they came back from the dead. Then they went into town and did.....whatever resurrected saints do. I never heard a preacher talk about this before (not that I remember anyway) and I've been to church many times.

This is pretty major stuff here. So wouldn't you wonder what happened to those saints after they came out of the graves? They can't be killed anymore, so are they still around? Did god take them up into heaven after they "appeared to many people?" And when Jesus comes back from the dead three days later why were his disciples shocked? Three days earlier dead saints already came around! Did Jesus & the saints go back to heaven all at once? You would think there would be hundreds if not thousands of stories telling of the saints that came back from the dead for a few days or weeks or however long before god took them home. Any thoughts?


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## bullethead (Aug 22, 2017)

oldfella1962 said:


> I was researching some things and came across this:
> 
> "The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people."
> 
> ...



The even bigger story is that NOBODY noticed.


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## ky55 (Aug 22, 2017)

Thomas Paine wondered about it too in Age Of Reason:



"It is an easy thing to tell a lie, but it is difficult to support the lie after it is told. The writer of the book of Matthew should have told us who the saints were that came to life again, and went into the city, and what became of them afterward, and who it was that saw them — for he is not hardy enough to say he saw them himself; whether they came out naked, and all in natural buff, he-saints and she-saints; or whether they came full dressed, and where they got their dresses; whether they went to their former habitations, and reclaimed their wives, their husbands, and their property, and how they were received; whether they entered ejectments for the recovery of their possessions, or brought actions of crim. con. against the rival interlopers; whether they remained on earth, and followed their former occupation of preaching or working; or whether they died again, or went back to their graves alive, and buried themselves."

*


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## oldfella1962 (Aug 22, 2017)

wow good point! Since Jesus hadn't yet come back from the grave (that would be three days later) you would think zombie saints would be the biggest news around. That alone would have turned non-believers into believers. Wait maybe not - there was nothing to "believe" in yet because Jesus hadn't rose again yet and thus Christianity didn't exist as it does in it's present form. 
I'm guessing that a lot of them didn't get a welcome reception!  It is really weird that the saints coming out of the ground was never mentioned again, or that saints coming out of the ground was any sort of a big deal at all. 

So were they skeletons? Were some in a state of partial decomposer? Were they given new bodies to make them look like they did when they died so people would recognize them? I won't even get into superpowers! 

Then again no doubt I am misunderstanding what happened, and they didn't physically come out of the ground (though that's what the bible says!). Spiritually they came out and only the true believers could see them. Somebody explain this please!


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## ky55 (Aug 22, 2017)

oldfella1962 said:


> I'm guessing that a lot of them didn't get a welcome reception!  It is really weird that the saints coming out of the ground was never mentioned again, or that saints coming out of the ground was any sort of a big deal at all.



It's also odd that it was only mentioned in one of the four gospels. 

*


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## jrickman (Aug 22, 2017)

The best explanation I have read about the absence of this from the other Gospels is that the writers did not envision their work being collected into canon later on. They were merely recording their testimony as directed by the Spirit for their target audience. Matthew's target audience was the Jewish community, while the others were meant for the Romans (Mark), Greeks (Luke) and the Gentiles in general (John). The Romans and Greeks apparently found the idea of bodily resurrection of a non-deity to be abhorrent unless a deity was directly involved and some clear purpose was served. To claim this otherwise, immediately destroyed the credibility of the witness in their societies. So, being practical men, they tailored their testimony to their intended audience. I don't think we should view this as a green light to take liberties with scripture, because there is a clear difference between us and them.The recording of the 4 Gospels was entrusted to these 4 disciples, and we can probably all agree that they were given the spiritual authority to record their testimony as they saw fit. 

As for what happened to them...I have no idea. Nor do I lose sleep over it. A wise man once told me that the Bible contains everything you ever NEED to know, but nowhere in it does it state that it contains everything there IS TO KNOW.


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## bullethead (Aug 22, 2017)

jrickman said:


> The best explanation I have read about the absence of this from the other Gospels is that the writers did not envision their work being collected into canon later on. They were merely recording their testimony as directed by the Spirit for their target audience. Matthew's target audience was the Jewish community, while the others were meant for the Romans (Mark), Greeks (Luke) and the Gentiles in general (John). The Romans and Greeks apparently found the idea of bodily resurrection of a non-deity to be abhorrent unless a deity was directly involved and some clear purpose was served. To claim this otherwise, immediately destroyed the credibility of the witness in their societies. So, being practical men, they tailored their testimony to their intended audience. I don't think we should view this as a green light to take liberties with scripture, because there is a clear difference between us and them.The recording of the 4 Gospels was entrusted to these 4 disciples, and we can probably all agree that they were given the spiritual authority to record their testimony as they saw fit.
> 
> As for what happened to them...I have no idea. Nor do I lose sleep over it. A wise man once told me that the Bible contains everything you ever NEED to know, but nowhere in it does it state that it contains everything there IS TO KNOW.


Good explanation on the authors of the gospels but had you ever wondered why such an event would not garner a single ink dot by every other historian in the world that would have had to witness such an event?
Think about it. Graves ripped open, Saints coming out of them and walking among everyone.
Nobody outside of scripture even mentions it.
How come?


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## oldfella1962 (Aug 22, 2017)

jrickman said:


> The best explanation I have read about the absence of this from the other Gospels is that the writers did not envision their work being collected into canon later on. They were merely recording their testimony as directed by the Spirit for their target audience. Matthew's target audience was the Jewish community, while the others were meant for the Romans (Mark), Greeks (Luke) and the Gentiles in general (John). The Romans and Greeks apparently found the idea of bodily resurrection of a non-deity to be abhorrent unless a deity was directly involved and some clear purpose was served. To claim this otherwise, immediately destroyed the credibility of the witness in their societies. So, being practical men, they tailored their testimony to their intended audience. I don't think we should view this as a green light to take liberties with scripture, because there is a clear difference between us and them.The recording of the 4 Gospels was entrusted to these 4 disciples, and we can probably all agree that they were given the spiritual authority to record their testimony as they saw fit.
> 
> As for what happened to them...I have no idea. Nor do I lose sleep over it. A wise man once told me that the Bible contains everything you ever NEED to know, but nowhere in it does it state that it contains everything there IS TO KNOW.



yes this is an explanation but a weak one to be honest. It's really "reaching". The writers didn't know their work would be gathered together later for the entire world to read, but GOD DID I'm quite sure. That's why he inspired the writers in the first place, right? They weren't writing for a creative outlet or to fill up their free time. 
So god couldn't foresee that The Bible would eventually be written for a worldwide audience, yet three of the authors had the foresight to self-edit their writing knowing how it might be received among their people. 

Not saying that explanation isn't right, but it could be one of two things:

1. it never happened
2. it happened but the bible authors felt no readers would
    have the critical thinking skills to notice that this 
    should have been considered a pretty big deal


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## centerpin fan (Aug 22, 2017)

bullethead said:


> ... had you ever wondered why such an event would not garner a single ink dot by every other historian in the world that would have had to witness such an event?



Maybe the other historians were working for CNN and were consumed by the Russian collusion story.


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## oldfella1962 (Aug 22, 2017)

bullethead said:


> Good explanation on the authors of the gospels but had you ever wondered why such an event would not garner a single ink dot by every other historian in the world that would have had to witness such an event?
> Think about it. Graves ripped open, Saints coming out of them and walking among everyone.
> Nobody outside of scripture even mentions it.
> How come?



not only nobody outside of scripture but nobody outside of one author out of the four main authors. One person mentions it briefly. Fair enough it's tough getting historical evidence of Jesus because there were a lot of religious figures that came and went back then....but a large number of old testament saints going back a thousand years coming alive at the same time would surely be front page news that would spread exponentially. This makes me wonder what other stories might have been edited out because they sounded too outlandish (if that's even possible). A boat full of dinosaurs of every species sets the bar pretty high though, I will admit.


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## j_seph (Aug 22, 2017)

Where is this in the bible?


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## oldfella1962 (Aug 22, 2017)

j_seph said:


> Where is this in the bible?



Matthew 27:52-53    blink and you'll miss it! But google it and a lot of people have quite a bit to say about it. Of course the "you'll just have to take it on faith!" trumps everything.


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## ky55 (Aug 22, 2017)

jrickman said:


> The Romans and Greeks apparently found the idea of bodily resurrection of a non-deity to be abhorrent unless a deity was directly involved and some clear purpose was served. To claim this otherwise, immediately destroyed the credibility of the witness in their societies. So, being practical men, they tailored their testimony to their intended audience.



So could "tailored" also mean concealed or falsified by intentional omission?


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## Jeff Raines (Aug 22, 2017)

From Matthew
17 And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart,
2 And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.
3 And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him.
4 Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias.
5 While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.
6 And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face, and were sore afraid.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
My take
Ol Peter had already seen 2 dead saints and wanted to build a tribute to them.
But God said NO!...My Son and my Son only is who you 
will pay tribute to.
So,having been rebuked,they would leave out all the other dead saints and focus only on Jesus


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## ky55 (Aug 22, 2017)

Jeff Raines said:


> From Matthew
> 17 And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart,
> 2 And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.
> 3 And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him.
> ...




So how the heck did Matthew get away with letting the cat out of the bag??

*


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## ambush80 (Aug 22, 2017)

Jeff Raines said:


> From Matthew
> 17 And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart,
> 2 And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.
> 3 And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him.
> ...



It's really very interesting to me how people make up a story to fit their beliefs.  If you insist that the Bible is inerrant, look what you have to do to cover up for it's inadequacies.


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## Jeff Raines (Aug 22, 2017)

ambush80 said:


> It's really very interesting to me how people make up a story to fit their beliefs.  If you insist that the Bible is inerrant, look what you have to do to cover up for it's inadequacies.



I don't know what was lost when the original scrolls were translated into hebrew,greek,latin and english.
I just give my thoughts and understanding on how I read it.
Just like Paul told the Philippians"work out your own salvation with fear and trembling"


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## bullethead (Aug 22, 2017)

Jeff Raines said:


> I don't know what was lost when the original scrolls were translated into hebrew,greek,latin and english.
> I just give my thoughts and understanding on how I read it.
> Just like Paul told the Philippians"work out your own salvation with fear and trembling"



How could gods word be mistranslated?


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## bullethead (Aug 22, 2017)

Jeff Raines said:


> From Matthew
> 17 And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart,
> 2 And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.
> 3 And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him.
> ...


What about the millions of people all over the rest of the world, what happened when the graves burst open? 
Do you think they noticed but didnt care?
Was it so common that they just went Meh, another bunch of graves bursting open and dead walking around among us...ya seen one ya seen em all...??
Or maybe, just maybe,  the event was embellished to wow the readers.


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## 1gr8bldr (Aug 22, 2017)

Matthew and Luke embellished Mark's account


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## oldfella1962 (Aug 23, 2017)

Here's what I totally understand about the four gospels being slightly different on details. Each writer might have noticed things the other writers didn't. That's why the police interview as many witnesses as possible to the same incident - in real time nobody can catch it all, and no memory is perfect. The more data the better up to a point. Between the four gospel authors the true, accurate story is in there somewhere.

But I just can't fathom one author witnessing a veritable zombie army but nobody else even mentions it. If there were four differing accounts of the zombie army it would (as weird as this sounds) be more credible. But when only one writer mentions it almost as an aside....I think the editor dropped the ball. 

But hey, in for a penny, in for a pound. If under the right circumstances god causes one person to rise from the dead, why not other people too? Who are we to set limitations on his power?


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## ambush80 (Aug 23, 2017)

oldfella1962 said:


> Here's what I totally understand about the four gospels being slightly different on details. Each writer might have noticed things the other writers didn't. That's why the police interview as many witnesses as possible to the same incident - in real time nobody can catch it all, and no memory is perfect. The more data the better up to a point. Between the four gospel authors the true, accurate story is in there somewhere.
> 
> But I just can't fathom one author witnessing a veritable zombie army but nobody else even mentions it. If there were four differing accounts of the zombie army it would (as weird as this sounds) be more credible. But when only one writer mentions it almost as an aside....I think the editor dropped the ball.
> 
> But hey, in for a penny, in for a pound. If under the right circumstances god causes one person to rise from the dead, why not other people too? Who are we to set limitations on his power?



https://www.gotquestions.org/raised-from-the-dead.html


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## oldfella1962 (Aug 23, 2017)

wow I guess bringing people back from the dead is more common than I thought!


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## 1gr8bldr (Aug 23, 2017)

oldfella1962 said:


> Here's what I totally understand about the four gospels being slightly different on details.


Lots of proof that Matthew and Luke copied Matthew, then embellished it highly. It's not that they gave differing accounts. It's a very interesting topic to dig into. For example, Lingo, we might say we were tossed about in the ocean by a wave, a big wave. Matthew was written long after by someone who knew nothing about Jewish lingo. As he copies Mark, instead of a donkey, the foal of a donkey, 1 donkey, he has 2 donkeys. Clearly not just another account of the same thing. And much more..... more certain stuff with no reasonable explanation. This was just the first that came to mind. I would have to get my bible out to find the others and get the exact wording.


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## bullethead (Aug 23, 2017)

In a letter LII To Nepotian, Jerome writes about his teacher, Gregory of Nazianzus when he asked him to explain a phrase in Luke, Nazianzus evaded his request by saying “I will tell you about it in church, and there, when all the people applaud me, you will be forced against your will to know what you do not know at all. For, if you alone remain silent, every one will put you down for a fool." Jerome responds with, "There is nothing so easy as by sheer volubility to deceive a common crowd or an uneducated congregation."

In the 5th century, John Chrysostom in his "Treatise on the Priesthood, Book 1," wrote, "And often it is necessary to deceive, and to do the greatest benefits by means of this device, whereas he who has gone by a straight course has done great mischief to the person whom he has not deceived."

Ignatius Loyola of the 16th century wrote in his Spiritual Exercises: "To be right in everything, we ought always to hold that the white which I see, is black, if the Hierarchical Church so decides it."

Martin Luther opined: "What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good and for the Christian church … a lie out of necessity, a useful lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept them."


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## 1gr8bldr (Aug 23, 2017)

1gr8bldr said:


> Lots of proof that Matthew and Luke copied Matthew, then embellished it highly. It's not that they gave differing accounts. It's a very interesting topic to dig into. For example, Lingo, we might say we were tossed about in the ocean by a wave, a big wave. Matthew was written long after by someone who knew nothing about Jewish lingo. As he copies Mark, instead of a donkey, the foal of a donkey, 1 donkey, he has 2 donkeys. Clearly not just another account of the same thing. And much more..... more certain stuff with no reasonable explanation. This was just the first that came to mind. I would have to get my bible out to find the others and get the exact wording.


Here is writer fatigue. Matthew dropping his guard as he copied, stated that "Herod wanted to kill John". Matt 14:5,  But Mark tells us [mark 6:20] that Herodias wanted to kill John, Herod had protected him, thought him to be righteous and holy and liked to listen to him. Mistakes of context are not different accounts. It is writer fatigue EDIT, I just looked back over it. It's called editorial fatigue, and the main thing to see is the later verse, "and the king was greatly grieved". Now if Herod wanted to kill John, he would not be grieved. This is the real proof that Matthew was falling asleep while copying Matt 14;9 Mark 6:26


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## oldfella1962 (Aug 24, 2017)

Too bad for Matthew coffee wasn't invented yet!

As for gradual embellishments that explains the many "great flood" stories in so many cultures. Humans were around during the last ice age (BTW we are currently between inevitable ice ages, sorry Al Gore) so no doubt there was massive flooding in countless locations! This was a few thousand years before writing was invented, so no doubt that leaves a lot of time for the stories to take on a life of their own. 

So here we have a proven, natural event (end of widespread glaciation & subsequent flooding in much of the world) that people tried to explain or find the reason for. The Biblical flood is just one version out of many.
Each culture assumed they were the entire world because no one comprehended the size of the planet with the science of those times. 10,000 or so years ago we were just developing stone tools and atlatls (spear throwers) and the bow & arrow & the wheel - and this was in the more advanced cultures!


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## bullethead (Aug 24, 2017)

oldfella1962 said:


> Too bad for Matthew coffee wasn't invented yet!
> 
> As for gradual embellishments that explains the many "great flood" stories in so many cultures. Humans were around during the last ice age (BTW we are currently between inevitable ice ages, sorry Al Gore) so no doubt there was massive flooding in countless locations! This was a few thousand years before writing was invented, so no doubt that leaves a lot of time for the stories to take on a life of their own.
> 
> ...


Add in similar stories written a thousand years before the Jews started to write and you can easily see where they got their influences and borrowed some of the story lines.


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## atlashunter (Aug 25, 2017)

jrickman said:


> The best explanation I have read about the absence of this from the other Gospels is that the writers did not envision their work being collected into canon later on. They were merely recording their testimony as directed by the Spirit for their target audience. Matthew's target audience was the Jewish community, while the others were meant for the Romans (Mark), Greeks (Luke) and the Gentiles in general (John). The Romans and Greeks apparently found the idea of bodily resurrection of a non-deity to be abhorrent unless a deity was directly involved and some clear purpose was served. To claim this otherwise, immediately destroyed the credibility of the witness in their societies. So, being practical men, they tailored their testimony to their intended audience. I don't think we should view this as a green light to take liberties with scripture, because there is a clear difference between us and them.The recording of the 4 Gospels was entrusted to these 4 disciples, and we can probably all agree that they were given the spiritual authority to record their testimony as they saw fit.
> 
> As for what happened to them...I have no idea. Nor do I lose sleep over it. A wise man once told me that the Bible contains everything you ever NEED to know, but nowhere in it does it state that it contains everything there IS TO KNOW.



Yeah that explanation doesn't work. First, on what evidence is the claim made that they found the resurrection of a non deity abhorrent? Second, the gospels all have the resurrection of Jesus and while it is now considered orthodoxy that he was a deity that was not the case in the first century when the gospels were written. People coming out of the graves should be pretty noteworthy not just for the gospel writers but for everyone else. The fact there are no independent corroborating stories of this leads one to believe it was a later fabrication.


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## Asath (Sep 1, 2017)

We might also notice that the KJV makes it pretty clear in Matthew 27.52 – “And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose.”  

     Saints?  Canonized by which organized Christian Church?  Absent a formalized Christian Church to make such declarations of sainthood, I’m afraid that, at the time, there really couldn’t have been any ‘saints.’  It is understandable that a number of folks who were already dead at the time of the ‘resurrection’ might have later been declared to be such once an actual Church arose.  It is unclear just how they could have been Christian martyrs or miraculous instruments of Christ prior to his own death and elevation, and thus were already dead Christian Saints beforehand, waiting in the wings to rise from the grave as a group, but I’m sure some theologian somewhere has a hilariously strained answer to that.  And I’d be first in line to endorse these folks for sainthood if they had actually jumped up out of the grave in a sudden show of solidarity, but at the moment being described the problem is that there just weren’t any saints. (And I believe that in addition to being declared a ‘saint’ by the Pope, one of the standards for ‘sainthood’ is at least two ‘miracles’ performed after death – and I guess popping up out of the grave would count as one. Having nobody at all notice, and then disappearing back into oblivion after only two verses, never to be mentioned again, is certainly another. )  

     In short-- no Pope + no formal Church = no Saints. So does this passage imply that the Pope and the Christian Church pre-dated Jesus, and had provided already anointed  ‘saints’ to come back to life on cue?  For there to be ‘saints’ present it would have had to, else this was written many hundreds of years later.  (This is where the apologists are invited to go back to selective explanations of mistranslations, while holding fast to others.  There was never anyone named Jesus Christ, for example.  In the Greek, ‘Jesus,’ is Joshua, and ‘Christ’ means The Anointed One.  At the time, his name would actually have been Yehoshua bar Yahosef bar Ya'akov, meaning Joshua, son of Joseph, son of Jacob.  But that is hard to pronounce, and has no Greek translation, so they sort of went with a description rather than a full name – Joshua, the Anointed One. )  

     Also, the Greeks at the time had no word for ‘Saint,’ perhaps because there were no such things at the time, what with Popes having not been invented yet.  ‘Hagios’ comes the closest, mainly meaning ‘different,’ but in a holy context.  In this case they used the word ‘hagion’ in the original text, which was transmuted into the word ‘saints’ a few hundred years and a few hundred translations down the line.  This idea, of the ‘holy’ or righteous rising and being vindicated along with their chosen god fit in quite well with the Greek polytheistic pantheon, and one can only consider that it was a mere oversight on the part of Constantine that these two verses somehow survived.  Even the most ruthless editors sometimes overlook minor details . . .


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## oldfella1962 (Sep 1, 2017)

from a complete layman's view, maybe "saints" meant any well known religious figure or hero up to that point in time. Moses, King David, Ezekiel, etc.etc. that you hear so much about in the Old Testament. Somebody that the onlookers & witnesses would recognize as the figures that were important in the Jewish faith up to that point (since Christianity was literally being invented at the time). Granted as a layman I would be totally freaked out if I saw tombs open up and the dead walking around now or at any time in history. Just like I would freak out over the Dead Sea parting, the earth stop it's spinning to delay sunset so an epic battle could continue (don't you just hate extra innings?) riverbank physical fights with god himself that are so close they almost have to go to the judges scorecards except end in a "doctor's stoppage" when god's opponent dislocates his hip, etc. etc. that were apparently part of daily bible days life.


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