1 - Introduction

Summary

The narrative flow of Jesus' Passion account in Matthew 27 shifts abruptly when Jesus ‘gave up his spirit’ (27:50). Up to this point, the reader follows Jesus as he is interrogated by Pilate in Jerusalem (27:11–26), taken to the Praetorium to be beaten and mocked (27:27–31a) and led away to Golgotha for crucifixion (27:31b–44). The narrative continues by recounting the darkness (27:45), Jesus' recitation of a portion of Psalm 22 (27:46) and the responses of ‘those standing there’ (27:47–49). Then the narrative presents Jesus crying out in a loud voice and giving up his spirit (27:50). At this point in the account the reader is propelled from the narrative sequence and scene at Golgotha into a meta-narrative (vv 51–53) in which, among other events, the veil of the temple is torn in two. What is remarkable is that although each Synoptic Evangelist records this event, none of them stops to explain it. The lack of explanation on the part of the Evangelists, it seems, has contributed to the great variety of interpretations of this event offered throughout the history of Christendom. Scholars both ancient and modern have addressed the enigmas raised by this text from a variety of methodological perspectives with discouragingly differing, often contradictory conclusions. Some scholars have lamented that the meaning of the rent veil in Matthew will probably never be discerned with any degree of certainty.