Another "Easter Quiz" answer.
Concerning being 'raised on the third day according to the Scriptures' (1 Cor. 15:4), here are some comments from the BECNT-1 Corinthians commentary (D. E. Garland, pp.685, 687).
On the phrase, "according to the Scriptures":
The phrase "according to the Scriptures" (see Matt. 21:42; Mark 12:24; Luke 24:32; Rom. 1:2; 15:4) affirms in shorthand that Christ's death was "according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God" (Acts 2:23). . . Paul does not necessarily have in mind a particular passage, such as Isa. 52:13 - 53:12 (cf. Rom. 4:25; 1 Pet. 2:22 - 25).
On the phrase, "on the third day":
Hosea 6:2, which speaks of the national revival of Israel, is thought by many to be an obvious allusion. This text is never cited elsewhere in the NT, however. . . The scriptural connection possibly derives from a slew of texts that link "the third day" with the day of salvation and divine manifestation (Gen. 22:4; 42:18; Exod. 19:11, 16; Josh. 3:2; Hos. 6:2; Jon 1:17 [2:1 MT]).
Ding:
Good reference from Lev. 23 for the Law's foreshadowing that aspect! Even the BECNT did not have that reference. (Mine does now, thanks to you.)
On Matthew's reference to Jesus being 'called a Nazarene' ("he will be called a Nazarene," Mt 2:23), the NICNT-Matthew commentary (R. T. France, pp. 94 - 5) has some interesting thoughts about what Matthew may have meant. After mentioning all the possible ties to specific OT prophecies, all of which have serious problems, he says:
The most promising approach 20 paradoxically takes its cue from the very nonexistence of Nazareth in the OT - it is a scriptural nonentity. For someone to be "called a Nazorean," especially in connection with a messianic claim, was therefore to invite ridicule: the name is in itself a term of dismissal if not of actual abuse. We see precisely this reaction in Nethanael's response to Phillip's suggestion of a Messiah from Nazareth, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" (John 1:46; cf. John 7:41 - 42, 52 for Judean scorn for the idea of a Messiah from Galilee). If Nethanael, a native of Cana only a few miles from Nazareth, reacted like that, what must have been the response in Judea, where most people had probably never heard of Nazareth? On this understanding it is not only the word Nazoraios which conveys Matthew's message, but also more specifically the verb "He shall be called" [Note the future tense of the verb. - Bobcat]: this is about derogatory name-calling. In [Matt.] 26:71 (the only other occurrence of Nazoraios in Matthew) we shall see the term used in just this way by a speaker in Jerusalem.
But where in the prophets could such an idea of the Messiah be found? Alongside the (probably dominant) royal strand of prophecy which Matthew has already tapped in 2:5 - 6 and which was the source of his apologetic problem in claiming a Messiah from Galilee not from Bethlehem, there is a less prominent but nonetheless significant expectation of a Messiah who would be unrecognized and who would not be taken seriously by his people. The series of messianic portraits which appear in Zech 9 - 14 begin (9:9 - 10) with a royal figure who is also unexpectedly humble and is described as "vindicated and saved," but then go on to speak of the shepherd whose authority is not accepted by his sheep (11:4 - 14) and of one who is pierced by the people of Jerusalem (12:10) and struck down by the sword of God (13:7). A similar impression would be gained from some of the psalms of the "righteous sufferer" (especially Pss 22, 69) insofar as these were understood to have messianic implications. The theme of nonrecognition and disdain is most clearly developed in the account of God's "servant" in Isa. 52:13 - 53:12, most prominently in 53:1 - 3, which speaks of the unimpressive appearance of the servant and the incredulity of the people, leading to his being "despised and rejected" and "held of no account" (cf. also Isa. 49:7, "one deeply despised"). The imagery of the servant "springing up like a shoot out of dry ground" underlines the unexpectedness of the servant's origins. In John 7:27 there is an intriguing hint that this prophetic motif was still alive in the first century, when some people in Jerusalem assume (in contrast with the more traditional view expressed in 7:42) that "When the Messiah comes, no one knows where he is from." 22
On this view, then, the words "He shall be called a Nazorean" represent the prophetic expectation that the Messiah would appear from nowhere and would as a result meet with incomprehension and rejection. Of course the prophets could not speak specifically of Nazareth, which did not even exist when they wrote. But the connotations of the derogatory term "Nazorean" as applied in the first century to the messianic pretender Jesus captured just what some of the prophets had predicted - a Messiah who came from the wrong place, who did not conform to the expectations of Jewish tradition, and who as a result would not be accepted by his people. Even the embarrassment of an origin in Nazareth is thus turned to advantage as part of the scriptural model which Matthew has worked so hard to construct in this introductory section of his account of the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. 23
Here are the footnotes numbered 20, 22, 23 from the NICNT reference:
20. This line of interpretation goes back at least to Jerome in the fourth century.
22. R. H. Gundry, Use, 103 - 4, while discerning a primary reference to Isa. 11:1, also argues that the messianic "branch" passages were understood at Qumran and in rabbinic literature "as meaning the Messiah will come out of obscurity and a low estate" and that at Qumran in particular neser carried "thoughts of lowliness, despisedness, and suffering."
23. A further nuance may be perceived in the fact that by the middle of the first century Naroraios was becoming a recognized, and probably uncomplimentary, term for Christians (Acts 24:5; cf. Tertullian, Marc. 4.8; nasraya became the standard term for Christians in Syriac), so that Matthew's readers would more readily grasp and sympathize with the connotations of the term as applied to Jesus.
[Note that "Nazorean" was the NICNT translation of "Nazarene" from the NWT.]
Terry:
If there is any validity to the NICNT view expressed by R. T. France, it actually makes your somewhat dismissive view fit in line with what was predicted by Matthew's "He will be called a Nazarene."
Take Care
