Texts in Conversation
In Matthew 22, Jesus argues for belief in resurrection by saying that God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and declaring that he is God of the living. 4 Maccabees uses similar logic, teaching that the patriarchs do not die to God but live to him.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
4 Maccabees 7:19
Pseudepigrapha, Wisdom and Poetry
16 If, then, an old man despised tortures to the point of death for the sake of piety, it is beyond dispute that religious reasoning is ruler of the emotions. 17 But perhaps someone might say, “Not everyone masters their emotions, because not everyone has wise reasoning.” 18 But those who care for piety with their whole heart are the only ones able to master the emotions of the flesh, 19 since they believe that they do not die to God, just as our patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob did not die, but live to God. 20 So it is no objection that some people seem to be ruled by their emotions because their reasoning is weak.
Date: 19–100 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
Matthew 22:32
New Testament
29 Jesus answered them, “You are deceived because you don’t know the scriptures or the power of God. 30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. 31 Now as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living!” 33 When the crowds heard this, they were amazed at his teaching.
Date: 70–90 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Additionally, Jesus provided scriptural support for the reality of the resurrection. The covenant formula, “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” demonstrates that he is “God not of the dead, but of the living.” The precise logic of the argument is difficult to follow. It is complicated by Luke’s addition “for all live to him [i.e., God]” (Luke 20:38) — a possible allusion to 4 Maccabees 7:19; 16:25. Perhaps, by knocking down the Sadducees’ disbelief in any sort of afterlife, Jesus has opened the way to believing the entire eschatological program: life even now in the presence of God for the faithful departed, and eternal life in the age to come at the resurrection ..."
Joel B. Green, Jeannine K. Brown, and Nicholas Perrin, eds., Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2018), 780.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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