The parallel passages above are part of the story of the raising of Jairus' daughter, a miracle that was deemed important enough for all the Synoptic Gospels to record it. But there is one disturbing note in this account. When Jesus arrives on the scene, everyone is mourning her death. But he tells them, “The child is not dead, but sleeping.”
Was she dead?
So the first fact to determine is whether or not she was biologically dead. Note that all three versions of the story follow this pronouncement with the derisive laughs from the mourners. At this point, we must remember that in all probability these were not just some random selection of neighbor ladies, but instead were professional mourners who had experienced more than their fair share of deaths and were thoroughly acquainted with all the tell-tale signs of death.
In addition, Luke adds to his account, “The people laughed at him, knowing that she was dead.” This is a very important witness keeping in mind that the wording comes from Luke, the “beloved physician.”
A third point is brought out by F.F. Bruce: He notes that although the language Jesus uses to “awaken” the child does seem to suggest she was only asleep, “the mere waking of a child from sleep is not the kind of action which would call for special commemoration if she was really (if only temporarily) dead.”
Fourthly, K.L. Anderson says that “it is unlikely the girl's parents would have been utterly amazed that a rabbi woke their daughter up from a nap...Luke does not abide such imprecision...Luke tips the scale toward the latter connotation [i.e. she was indeed dead] with the added contextual pointer 'her spirit returned' (Lk 8:55).”
As a final comment on this point, Marcus says, “Rationalistic critics in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries seized on this declaration in support of their theory that the girl was in a coma, so that Jesus' subsequent resuscitation of her was plausible and supernatural agency did not need to be invoked...But the miraculous element is impossible to eliminate completely from our story; even if the girl were in a coma, it would still be a miracle that Jesus knew in advance that she would be healed.” And I would add, “It would also be a miracle that Jesus knew how to bring her out of such a coma.”
Was Jesus lying?
But granting that the girl was actually dead, we are now faced with the seemingly inescapable fact that Jesus purposely lied to the crowd. Would there have been any justification for him doing so? I can think of one possibly justifiable reason, namely that it would fit in with the pattern we see especially in Mark's account and has been labeled as the “Markan Secret.” This refers to the fact that Jesus often went out of his way to carry out his miracles in private so that onlookers would not latch on to him as a mere wonder-worker or try to force him to be their king. Either result would derail his main purpose on earth of teaching before the proper time for the Jewish authorities to arrest him. Supporting this possibility is the obvious fact that Jesus in this case dismissed the mourners before carrying out the resuscitation.
But there are contrary indications as well. The most glaring one is that it is highly doubtful that Jesus would have purposely lied just to keep his actions secret. We know of no other instances in which he felt that “the end justifies the means.”
The other problem with this scenario is pointed out by Marshall: “The fact of her recovery could hardly be kept secret, but Jesus wished for the privacy to be as great as possible, nobody need know just what had happened in the sick-room.” So although Marshall feels the “secrecy” motive was part of Jesus' words, he also points out the impossibility of hiding the miracle, a fact which Jesus certainly knew beforehand.
Sleep as Metaphor
Thus we are still faced with the problem of Jesus apparently uttering an untruth. But one common way out of this impasse is to consider “sleep” being used in a figurative, rather than literal, sense by Jesus. This would not be at all unlikely in light of Jesus' other figurative teachings recorded in the Gospels. Strengthening this possibility, Bruce points to the raising of Lazarus and the words of John 11:11: “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to waken him.” Although a different Greek word for sleep is employed here, “Both of them can be used figuratively for death in appropriate contexts.” Other commentators agree with this explanation:
“Jesus is not denying that she was actually dead. He was simply comparing her dead condition to sleep.” (Barbieri)
“Probably He was saying that in this case death was like sleep. From a mourner's point of view, the girl's death would turn out to be like 'a sleep' from which she was awakened. Her condition was not final and irrevocable.” (Grassmick)
Is there a deeper meaning?
The above explanation totally absolves Jesus of the charge of lying. However, is that the whole story? France throws a monkey wrench into the mere “figurative” explanation and demonstrates that there is more than that revealed in Jesus' words. He says:
“The common use of 'sleep' as a metaphor for death does not directly help us, since it would produce the nonsensical declaration 'not dead but dead'; in any case, when sleep is used as a metaphor for death in the LXX [Septuagint] and the NT, the verb used is koimaomai, not, as here, katheudo, which usually denotes literal sleep...Rather than using a standard metaphor, Jesus is drawing a thought-provoking parallel between death and literal sleep: if death is 'sleep,' then it allows the possibility of waking up.”
Other commentators draw the same implication from this text:
Swift says, “As God sees it, it is a sleep from which there is to be an awakening (1Thes. 4:13,14).”
Fitzmyer: “His words do not mean that the girl was only apparently dead, but rather that her death, like sleep, is limited in time. His words hint at a larger issue: that with his coming, death is seen to be like sleep, not a permanent state, but transitional. The hint of the resurrection is not remote.”
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