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“Let the Dead Bury Their Own Dead”; Secondary Burial and Matt 8:21–22

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Byron R. McCane
Byron R. McCane
Affiliation:
Duke University
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Extract

New Testament interpreters have long puzzled over the meaning of the saying, “Let the dead bury their own dead” (Matt 8:22; Luke 9:60), and although many ingenious solutions have been proposed, none has been generally convincing. It is surprising that Jewish burial practices have not been brought into this discussion. For the burial practices of first-century Jews in Palestine are well known: many tombs have been carefully excavated, and several rabbinic texts explicitly discuss the care of the dead. Yet this information has never (to my knowledge) been brought to bear on Matt 8:21–22. In this paper, I propose that secondary burial, a widespread burial custom among Jews in first-century Palestine, can solve the riddle of these verses. Against the background of secondary burial, both the meaning of the disciple's question and the force of Jesus' response become clear. In particular, it is not necessary to suppose, as many interpreters do, that Jesus was talking about the “spiritually” dead. On the contrary, if the references to the dead are taken literally, the saying sounds both ironic and eschatological.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 83 , Issue 1 , January 1990 , pp. 31 - 43
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1990

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References

1 For a survey of recent scholarship, cf. Kingsbury, Jack Dean, “On Following Jesus: The ‘Eager’ Scribe and the ‘Reluctant’ Disciple,” NTS 34 (1988) 45–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; or Sanders, E. P., Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985) 252–55Google Scholar. A review of earlier scholarship is given by Klemm, Hans G., “Das Wort von der Selbstbestattung der Toten: Beobachtungen zur Auslegungsgeschichte von Mt. viii. 22 par,” NTS 16 (1969-1970) 60–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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18 For this date and a discussion of the evidence, cf. The Tractate “Mourning” (Semahot), trans, and intro. Zlotnick, Dov (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966) 1–9Google Scholar. English and Hebrew selections from Semahot in this paper are from Zlotnick. For the argument that Semahot sheds light on first-century burial practices, cf. Meyers, Eric M., “The Use of Archaeology in Understanding Rabbinic Materials,” in Fishbane, Michael A. and Flohr, Paul R., eds., Texts and Responses: Festschrift for N. Glatzer (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975) 28–42Google Scholar; and Rahmani, Levi Y., “Ancient Jerusalem's Funerary Customs and Tombs, Part Three,” BA 44 (1981) 43–53Google Scholar.

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20 Ibid., 175.

21 For instance, Semahot 9.15 reads: “While in mourning for any other dead he (i.e., the mourner) may not go to any banquet until the shloshim have been completed for him; in the case of his father and mother, not for twelve whole months, unless it is to celebrate a religious occasion.”

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23 Semahot 12.4 reads: “In the case of ossilegium, mourning must be observed for one day only. As a consequence, the bones are gathered only near nightfall. If while gathering them all that day, night falls, a man is released from the obligation of mourning on the very next day.”

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26 M. Sanh. 6.5–6, and y. Mo'ed Qaf. 1.5. For more on the Jewish belief that decay of the flesh atoned for sin, cf. , Meyers, Jewish Ossuaries, 80–85Google Scholar; also , Rahmani, “Jerusalem's Tombs, Part Four,” 175–76Google Scholar, and , Figueras, “Jewish Ossuaries and Secondary Burial,” 43–45Google Scholar; and Lieberman, Saul, “Some Aspects of Afterlife in Early Rabbinic Literature,” in Harry Austryn Wolfson Jubilee Volume (Jerusalem: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1965) 496Google Scholar.

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35 Albright, W. F. and Mann, C. S., Matthew (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1971) 96Google Scholar. For other attempts to soften the impact of the saying, cf. Duncan, J. and Derrett, M., “Two ‘Harsh’ Sayings of Jesus Explained,” Downside Review 103 (1985) 218–29Google Scholar, and Herrmann, Léon, “Corrections du k en a dans une phrase de Jésus,” Revue des Etudes Anciennes 83 (1981) 283CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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37 Cf. Hill, David, The Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972) 165Google Scholar; and Mounce, Robert H., Matthew (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985) 75Google Scholar; also Schweizer, Eduard, The Gospel According to Matthew (trans. Green, David E.; Atlanta: John Knox, 1975) 220Google Scholar.

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44 Ibid., 254.

45 Among recent interpreters, only R. H. Gundry has seen the full irony of the saying: “Alternatively, the statement refers only to the physically dead and is laden with irony: ‘Let those who have been dead for some time bury those who have just died.’ Impossible? Yes, and in the very impossibility lies an irony…” (, Gundry, Matthew, 153)Google Scholar. But Gundry does not adduce secondary burial to support this reading of the text.

46 , Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 252Google Scholar.

47 Hengel, Martin, The Charismatic Leader and His Followers (trans. Grieg, James; New York: Crossroads, 1981) 15Google Scholar.

48 Ibid., 14.

49 Ibid.

50 Perhaps current discussion of the historical Jesus, especially the question of whether Jesus was an eschatological prophet, might be enriched by a fresh consideration of Matt 8:21-22.

I am especially grateful to Eric M. Meyers, along with the members of the NT Colloquium at Duke, including D. Moody Smith, Jr., Dan Via, Dale Martin, Bart Ehrman, and William Adler, who heard an earlier version of this paper and made several constructive criticisms.