3 Answers to Tricky Bible Questions

Ever been downright stumped by a verse you read? Has a parable left you scratching your head?

You’re not alone!

Each week during the #LentChallenge, we’ve sent YOUR questions to Dr. Craig Blomberg, New Testament scholar and professor at Denver Seminary. Dr. Blomberg is the author of many books including his most recent: Can We Still Believe the Bible? An Evangelical Engagement with Contemporary Questions.

 

Lent is 40 days. Jesus fasts for 40 days. What is the significance of 40 days throughout the Bible?

It rains for 40 days and nights at the beginning of the Flood in the time of Noah.  Moses is on Mt. Sinai for the same period of time in preparation for receiving the Law. The spies’ trip to scout out the Promised Land took forty days. Goliath taunted the Israelite armies for forty days, while Elijah fled from Jezebel for forty days and nights. Jonah threatened Nineveh with being overthrown within forty days. Jesus likewise appeared to his followers for this period of time.

It appears to be a round number for a complete period of time—long enough for a significant activity to occur. In many of these instances, 40 days is the appropriate length of time for preparing for a key event. Lent prepares us for the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection in similar fashion.

2. Is Matthew 27:52 literal? I’ve been in church my whole life and never looked into this verse. Did believers actually raise from the dead?

Great question. Mike Licona, in an amazing and amazingly thorough book, The Resurrection of Jesus, defends the reality of the bodily resurrection of Jesus from every angle imaginable but raises in just two or three pages the question of whether verses 51-53 might be what he calls an apocalyptic symbol.

The irony is that whether literal or symbolic, commentators agree that what Matthew is teaching is that Jesus is the firstfruit (as Paul would put it in 1 Corinthians 15:22) of the coming bodily resurrection of all believers. In that light, I don’t see why a few select, holy individuals of Old Testament times couldn’t have been raised.

3. Why did Jesus curse the fig tree in Luke 13:6-9?

I take it to be a symbolic enactment of the coming judgment on Israel’s leadership. Like the Old Testament prophets, Jesus acts out his message, in this case, the message of the parable of the barren fig tree in Luke 13:6-9. When Mark tells us it wasn’t even the season for figs we know something strange is going on, and Jesus is not just upset that he couldn’t get his breakfast from this particular tree!