St Luke 20:27-38
Jesus speaks of the resurrection
20:27 Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him
20:28 and asked him a question: “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother.
20:29 Now there were seven brothers; the first married a woman and died childless;
20:30 then the second
20:31 and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless.
20:32 Finally the woman also died.
20:33 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.”
20:34 Jesus said to them, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage,
20:35 but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.
20:36 Indeed, they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection.
20:37 And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
20:38 Now he is God not of the dead but of the living, for to him all of them are alive.”
[27] Προσελθόντες δέ τινες τῶν Σαδδουκαίων, οἱ λέγοντες μὴ εἶναι ἀνάστασιν, ἐπηρώτησαν αὐτὸν
[28] λέγοντες· διδάσκαλε, Μωϋσῆς ἔγραψεν ἡμῖν, ἐάν τινος ἀδελφὸς ἀποθάνῃ ἔχων γυναῖκα, καὶ οὗτος ἄτεκνος ἀποθάνῃ, ἵνα λάβῃ ὁ ἀδελφὸς αὐτοῦ τὴν γυναῖκα καὶ ἐξαναστήσῃ σπέρμα τῷ ἀδελφῷ αὐτοῦ.
[29] ἑπτὰ οὖν ἀδελφοὶ ἦσαν· καὶ ὁ πρῶτος λαβὼν γυναῖκα ἀπέθανεν ἄτεκνος·
[30] καὶ ἔλαβεν ὁ δεύτερος τὴν γυναῖκα, καὶ οὗτος ἀπέθανεν ἄτεκνος·
[31 ]καὶ ὁ τρίτος ἔλαβεν αὐτὴν ὡσαύτως· ὡσαύτως δὲ καὶ οἱ ἑπτά· οὐ κατέλιπον τέκνα, καὶ ἀπέθανον·
[32] ὕστερον δὲ πάντων καὶ ἡ γυνὴ ἀπέθανεν.
[33] ἐν τῇ ἀναστάσει οὖν τίνος αὐτῶν γίνεται γυνή; οἱ γὰρ ἑπτὰ ἔσχον αὐτὴν γυναῖκα.
[34] καὶ ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν αὐτοῖς ὁ ᾿Ιησοῦς· οἱ υἱοὶ τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου γαμοῦσι καὶ ἐκγαμίζονται·
[35 ]οἱ δὲ καταξιωθέντες τοῦ αἰῶνος ἐκείνου τυχεῖν καὶ τῆς ἀναστάσεως τῆς ἐκ νεκρῶν οὔτε γαμοῦσινοὔτε γαμίζονται·
[36] οὔτε γὰρ ἀποθανεῖν ἔτι δύνανται· ἰσάγγελοι γάρ εἰσι καὶ υἱοί εἰσι τοῦ Θεοῦ, τῆς ἀναστάσεως υἱοὶ ὄντες.
[37 ] ὅτι δὲ ἐγείρονται οἱ νεκροί, καὶ Μωϋσῆς ἐμήνυσεν ἐπὶ τῆς βάτου, ὡς λέγει Κύριον τὸν Θεὸν ᾿Αβραὰμ καὶ τὸν Θεὸν ᾿Ισαὰκ καὶ τὸν Θεὸν ᾿Ιακώβ.
[38 ]Θεὸς δὲ οὐκ ἔστι νεκρῶν, ἀλλὰ ζώντων· πάντες γὰρ αὐτῷ ζῶσιν.
[39] ἀποκριθέντες δέ τινες τῶν γραμματέων εἶπον· διδάσκαλε, καλῶς εἶπας.
[40] οὐκέτι δὲ ἐτόλμων ἐπερωτᾶν αὐτὸν οὐδέν.
Comments
The participle προσελθόντες in v. 27 suggests that the Sadducees approached Jesus with hostile intent. Verbs of death and resurrection are plentiful in the pericope. The noun ἀνάστασις (‘resurrection’) is first attested in the words of Apollo in Aeschylus’ tragedy The Libation-bearers 648, ‘once a man is dead, there is no anastasis’—the view of the Sadducees.
[27] Προσελθόντες: aor. part. προσέρχομαι, ‘I come or go to’, ‘I approach’ (cl. Gk & LXX); also, ‘approach with hostile intent’ (cl. Gk & LXX).
[28] ἄτεκνος ἀποθάνῃ: ἄτεκνος, ‘childless’ (already in Hesiod, Works and Days 602). The phrase ἀπέθανεν ἄτεκνος (‘died childless’) occurs in vv. 29 and 30. The vbs ἀποθάνῃ (28), ἀπέθανον, ‘they died’(31) and ἀπέθανεν, ‘she died’ (32) also occur; cf., too, the inf. ἀποθανεῖν, ‘to die’, in v. 36.
ἐξαναστήσῃ: from ἐξ-ανίστημι, trans. (causal), ‘I raise up’ (cl. Gk); ‘I bring into existence’ (LXX: Muraoka s.v., II.1). ἐξανίστημι σπέρμα occurs in Ge 4:25. The vb is a cmpd form of ἀνίστημι (itself a cmpd), ‘I raise up’; cf. the noun ἀνάστασις, ‘resurrection’, in vv. 33, 35, and 36.
[29] οὖν: ‘so, therefore’; the implication is that the anecdote that follows is an application of Moses’ law.
[33] οὖν: again, this particle has a deductive force, i.e., ‘in the light of the succession of marriages and deaths, whose wife will she be…?’
[36] ἰσάγγελοι: ‘like angels’, a cmpd noun perhaps coined by Luke and attested in Christian grave inscriptions and pagan sources of the 5th c. AD.
υἱοί εἰσι τοῦ Θεοῦ, τῆς ἀναστάσεως υἱοὶ ὄντες: ‘sons of God, of the resurrection sons’, a chiasmus (criss-cross pattern): AB ~ B’ A’.
Insights into Biblical Greek Grammar and Syntax 