Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Matthew 27:27-56, Mock king, the cross and the torn curtain
Soldiers dress Jesus as a mock king. He is crucified as king of the Jews between two rebels, cries out in the words of Psalm 22 and dies; the curtain tears, the earth shakes, and women watch from a distance.
Matthew 27:27-56, in every translation this tool compares.
Roman soldiers dress Jesus up as a mock king and abuse him, and Simon of Cyrene is forced to carry his cross to Golgotha. Jesus is crucified between two rebels under a notice naming him king of the Jews, while passers-by and leaders jeer. After hours of darkness he cries out in the opening words of Psalm 22 and dies, and the temple curtain splits, the ground shakes and a centurion calls him God's Son. A group of Galilean women who had travelled with him watch from a distance.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/hailing-a-king\/","n":"Hailing a king","s":"A colt nobody had ridden, cloaks on the road, waving branches, kneeling, the cry Hail, and the delegation that went out to meet a visiting ruler: the public gestures that greeted a king.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/crucifixion\/","n":"Crucifixion","s":"Rome's public, shaming death for rebels, after flogging, with the charge posted for passers-by to read.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/elijah-expected\/","n":"Elijah expected","s":"Malachi promised Elijah would come back before the great day of the Lord. By Jesus' time many were waiting for him, and the Gospels keep raising his name.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/temple-and-courts\/","n":"The temple and its courts","s":"Herod's huge rebuilt temple in Jerusalem, believed to be God's dwelling, laid out in courts that kept Gentiles, women and Jewish men at set distances.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/women-who-followed\/","n":"Women who followed","s":"Women traveled with Jesus, paid for his movement, and stayed at the cross and the tomb when the men had gone.","r":""}
Soldiers wore red cloaks, which faded could pass for royal purple, and their kneeling parodied homage to the rulers of the Greek East (Keener; the cultural backgrounds notes). Most scholars put Pilate's headquarters at Herod's palace, not the Antonia, whose pavement was laid after AD 70 (the Zondervan Bible Dictionary). The word for the two men crucified with Jesus was Josephus's usual term for revolutionaries (Keener). Matthew gives the cry in Hebrew, Eli, which explains the mishearing as Elijah, and some rabbis held that Elijah, who never died, ran errands like an angel to help the pious (the cultural backgrounds notes; Keener). The darkness was no eclipse, since Passover fell at full moon (Wilkins), and stories were told of portents at the deaths of great rabbis (Keener). The sources read the torn curtain two ways: Keener and the cultural backgrounds notes think it more likely signals God leaving the temple ahead of its fall, while the ESV Study Bible and the CSB Study Bible read new access to God. Keener thinks the centurion may have meant a semi-divine hero, the cultural backgrounds notes the son of Israel's one God.
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Matthew 27:27-44, 27:28, 27:29, 27:38, 27:47, 27:51-53, 27:51 and 27:54
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Matthew 27:28, 27:29, 27:46, 27:47, 27:51 and 27:54
- ESV Study Bible, study note on Matthew 27:51
- CSB Study Bible, note on Matthew 27:50-51
- Michael J. Wilkins, Matthew, in Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, ed. Clinton E. Arnold, on Matthew 27:35, 27:45 and 27:51
- J. D. Douglas and Merrill C. Tenney, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary, entries temple, praetorium and Gabbatha
