Matthew 28:1-6 as Temporally Conflated Text: Temporal-Spatial Collapse in the Gospel of Matthew

Abstract

Matthew 28:1-6 is a temporally conflated text. The past events of the earthquake and angelophany are pulled forward and wedged between the contemporaneous events of the women’s arrival and their encounter with the angel. The effect is a recapitulando or flashback to a scene that occurred before the women arrived; the purpose is to expedite the story line by merging the literary past with the literary present. Matthew therefore agrees with the other gospel writers that the tomb of Jesus was already opened when one or more of the women arrived on the scene.