What Does Matthew 22:23 Mean in the King James?

The same day came to him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked him,

Matthew 22:23 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

THE KEY

The Greek word translated “resurrection” pictures the dead standing up, so the denial is that they can stand again.

THE MEANING

The claim that the dead do not rise comes face to face with Jesus as a question. The verse holds open the tension between a conclusion treated as settled and a question still brought into encounter.

THE ROOT

ἀνάστασις

anastasis

GROWS FROM

⁨στα-⁩/⁨στη-⁩ (sta-/stē-)

Standing; being set upright or placed.

“resurrection” in this verse is anastasis. The word carries the image of standing up, not merely an abstract idea about what happens after death. The denial in this verse reaches down to that image: can the dead stand again?

ALSO GROWS

anistēmi: to rise or stand up

ἀνίστημι

This verb makes the standing movement plain: resurrection is pictured as rising to one’s feet.

stasis: standing or position

στάσις

This related form exposes the standing held inside the word translated “resurrection.”

THE PATTERN

Resurrection is pictured as the dead awakening and rising into life.

And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

Daniel 12:2 · KJVThe dead are pictured as sleepers who awake, making resurrection a rising from death.

Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:

John 11:25 · KJVJesus names resurrection as the life that raises the dead.

Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?

1 Corinthians 15:12 · KJVThe verse puts the denial of resurrection beside the claim that Christ rose from the dead.

THE THREAD

Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:

John 11:25 · KJV

Both verses use ⁨ἀνάστασις⁩ (anastasis), meaning “resurrection” or “rising up.” Here the word is denied; in John, Jesus says, “I am” that rising life.

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