Three days dead? A frightening walk through a Jerusalem graveyard -- Mimetic Theory and Literary Study

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Date Posted: 04:39:46 03/26/08 Wed
Author: Betsy Peters
Subject: Three days dead? A frightening walk through a Jerusalem graveyard

In Chapter 2 of book 3 of Things Hidden, Girard mentions that after Christ's death, the tombs of many who had died are opened again. He aruges that "the tombs opening are victims who have been assassinated since the foundations of the world, who begin to return upon this earth to make themselves known" (p.235). This account from Matthew 27.52-53, has always puzzeled me. Sure these victims may return to Jerusalem to present themselves as a living polemic against mob violence or even interdividual violence, but they spend three days in a zombie-like state outside the city. Their tombs are opened and they are raised at Christ's death, but they do not enter Jerusalem until Christ's resurrection. They chill out in the graveyards of Jerusalem for three days. (What a sight that must have been!) Girard mentioned that Christ remains in death for three days to separate his death by the crowds from his divine resurrection as a break with the mythological pattern, but what is the motivation for making the "dead since the foundations of the world" wait out there too?

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