NOTES for Joh 11:1-45

“Today Bethany, rejoicing in the raising of Lazarus, foretells the Resurrection of Christ, the Giver of Life...” It is often said that the Gospel contains a certain “literary artistry”: there are raisonneur figures such as John the Baptist and mirroring events such as the raising of Lazarus, all intended to set off the central event—in other words, everything follows the laws of literary texts. But this is profoundly mistaken. One can see this fully only with the eyes of the heart, yet let us still try to notice some very concrete details. Christ rose on the third day. But the Lord raised Lazarus on the fourth. Why is the fourth day mentioned? It turns out that there is a very real, culturally determined reason. Let us turn to David Stern’s Jewish New Testament Commentary, p. 269: “Before medicine learned to distinguish coma from death, people were sometimes mistakenly buried alive. Jewish burial customs tried to rule out any possibility of such a terrible mistake. According to a post-Talmudic tractate compiled in the eighth century (according to the Jewish calendar—our note), ‘we go out to the cemetery and inspect the dead for three days, without fear of being suspected of following the ways of the Amorites (that is, of superstitious rites). Once a buried person was inspected and found alive; he lived another twenty-five years and then died. Another such person lived and fathered five children before he died’ (Semahot 8:1).” Thus the fact that four days had passed means something very simple: the time for the prescribed inspection had already expired. He truly was dead. Whether the Lord could have reached Bethany before that time or not, whether He deliberately waited or not, is not for our minds to decide. That is how it was. There is not a trace here of literary artifice, numerical symbolism, coincidences or multiples, and so forth, such as one always finds in “mystagogical” literature; there is only the living fabric of life.