Today's Gospel - was the man still dead?

[DL82]

Today’s Gospel at Mass was Luke 7:11-17 where Jesus raises a young man from the dead at Naim.

I understand that part of the reason for this was so that his mother would not be destitute. 2 things stuck out to me though - firstly, in the translation read at Mass here it said ‘the dead man sat up’ still referring to him as dead. Second, it says Jesus gave him to his mother - when in Jewish law it would have been the woman who would have been under the man’s charge.

This made me wonder, is this something different from the raising of Lazarus - it certainly doesn’t get the attention in Tradition or from the Jewish authorities that the Lazarus miracle does. Is this Jesus actually restoring life, or more like the stories in Jewish mysticism of a golem or object animated by the name of God? Is the man still dead when he sits up and goes back to serve his mother?

 

[I_Thirst]

In a way, it sounds like you are asking if Jesus raised the dead man as a zombie, which is rather unusual reading of this Gospel. Jesus didn’t make zombies, or golem, or etc. He rose the dead man to be alive again.

I don’t have an answer to your second question, though I wondered about it too. There is no mention of a father or other male family member, so perhaps the mother is the natural choice?

 

[runningdude]

Later in Chapter 7, it mentions that the Pharisee’ s rejected this sequence of events.

As for Jewish Law, Jesus can give a recently resurrected man to whomever He wants - its not as though the Jewish law really anticipated such an event. Any “belonging” of the mother to her son would have been broken by the son’s death.

 

[GEddie]

Padre preached on this rather awesomely today.

He said that our LORD was moved, not by pity for the deceased (as would be most of our reactions) but by pity for the mother, since his death left her alone. Therefore the “raising” (not resurrection, this was a return to mortal life, not a pneumatikon soma) of the man was done not for him but for her. As such, it made sense that he was “given back to her.”

Padre also pointed out that this was another sign of HIS power. The pallbearer stopped moving because to touch human death made someone religiously defiled; therefore for an outsider to touch the coffin was unheard of. But the man’s death did not transmit corruption to our LORD, HE transmits life to the body.

God Bless and ICXC NIKA.

 

[rocketrob]

I think that by reading another translation, such as the Douay Rheims version that follows, it becomes clear that Jesus restored life to the young man:

And he said: Young man, I say to thee, arise. And he that ***was ***dead, sat up, and began to speak. And he gave him to his mother. (Lk 7:14-15)

Regarding the second question, verse 12 shows that the man and mother only had each other:

And when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold a dead man was carried out, the only son of his mother; and she was a widow: and a great multitude of the city was with her. (Lk 7:12)

As for Jesus giving the young man to his mother, He does something similar on the cross when he give Mary and John to each other:

When Jesus therefore had seen his mother and the disciple standing whom he loved, he saith to his mother: Woman, behold thy son. After that, he saith to the disciple: Behold thy mother. And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own. (Jn 19: 26-27)

On the other hand, maybe Jesus was just physically returning the son from the burial bier to his mother who was nearby in the crowd.

rocketrob

 

[PJM]

=DL82;8359591]Today’s Gospel at Mass was Luke 7:11-17 where Jesus raises a young man from the dead at Naim.

I understand that part of the reason for this was so that his mother would not be destitute. 2 things stuck out to me though - firstly, in the translation read at Mass here it said ‘the dead man sat up’ still referring to him as dead. Second, it says Jesus gave him to his mother - when in Jewish law it would have been the woman who would have been under the man’s charge.

This made me wonder, is this something different from the raising of Lazarus - it certainly doesn’t get the attention in Tradition or from the Jewish authorities that the Lazarus miracle does. Is this Jesus actually restoring life, or more like the stories in Jewish mysticism of a golem or object animated by the name of God? Is the man still dead when he sits up and goes back to serve his mother?

Why are we calling the Mercy, Love, Compassion and unlimited Power of Jesus into question:shrug:

He was dead, jesus did bring him back to life, and “gave back” to his mother is exactly what took place.

Did not Jesus also raise a little girl from the dead? Did not BOTH Peter and Paul also raise dead to life?

Lazarus was an ISSUE because Lazarus was wealty and well known personage.

God Bless, Pat

 

[Benadam]

The mother’s situation is very much the situation His own mother is facing when His hour arrives.