Matthew, Session 95

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Thank you for all these teachings on the Gospel of Matthew. Your contention that the veil that was torn, was the veil that separated Jew and Greek/Gentile has merit in relationship to the overall thrust of the Gospel of Matthew. Regarding a different slant on the purpose of this story. I condensed and emended my initial response given to a brother on December 8, 2011 (Atonement, Expiation and Appeasement).

Recently, I have been clearing and going through papers and items in the attic from the last 20 to 30 years of my life (this is a good story waiting to be told). In the process, I found some excellent articles published by, Yavo Digest. Roy Blizzard was the President of this publication, and I believe it ran from March of 1987 to June of 1998. There is a much to be written about this publication, but for expediency, I will only mention an article written in 1991, by Ken Hanson. This can be found in Volume 5, number 4, called “The Torn Curtain.”

Ken Hanson in this article writes on p.12:

Of course, the tearing of the veil is only one of the miraculous signs recorded here, but if we “reconstruct” the passage in Hebrew, the verb”was torn” (translating the Greek eskisthe) stands out, the verbal root being karah. Interestingly enough, this verb is, in Hebrew, a “technical term,” which suggests, not just “tearing,” but a “rending” of garments; and this “rending” is invariably related to acts of mourning. It isn’t necessary in Hebrew to say that one “rends his garments”; it is enough simply to say that he “rends,” because the very term karah implies that garments are being rent, during mourning for the dead! In short, I suggest that in the most graphic way possible, our Gospel text is indicating that the Holy Temple itself is mourning the crucifixion of Jesus. . . This the end of my quoting Dr. Hanson.

He gives examples of this happening within the Jewish culture, and is taken from the Babylonian Talmud, the Bavli Maed Katan 25b. These are examples of when pious religious leaders died and the extraordinary phenomena that took place in nature, inanimate objects, and the Temple itself. He goes on to suggest that the Temple was not only mourning Jesus’s death, but its own demise that He prophesied about.

We are not told which veil was torn, and this counter-weight should be allowed in the assessment! Ken Hanson article does point to the the massive veil before the Holy of Holies and does not make reference to the other veils. Yet his contention that the Temple itself was mourning Jesus’s death and its own future destruction, fits well within the culture milieu of the Jewish people who held the Temple and their religious pious leaders with such high esteem.