Readers of the gospels are often puzzled by a short passage at Matthew 27:52-53, which comes just after the description of Jesus' death on the cross. The passage reads as follows:
The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people.
The passage says that some dead holy people returned to life and came out of their tombs, then went into Jerusalem, where many inhabitants of the city saw them. Because the King James translation refers to these resurrected people as "saints", this event is sometimes called "the resurrection of the dead saints".
Matthew 27:51 indicates that an earthquake occurred just as Jesus died, and that this earthquake is what opened the tombs of these saints. But although they returned to life immediately, they apparently didn't go into Jerusalem until at least two days later, or no earlier than the first Easter Sunday.
Several possible explanations for this passage have been put forward. One possibility is that it relates to the story of the "Harrowing of Hell". According to this story, which is mentioned in the Apostle's Creed, after the crucifixion Jesus descended to Hell and rescued the souls of all the ancient dead saints from their imprisonment there. After these rescued souls left Hell, they could have returned to their old bodies in the tombs and brought them back to life.
The "talking cross" passage in the apocryphal Gospel of Peter may also refer to these rescued saints. According to one interpretation, the "cross" in this passage is actually a cross-like formation of resurrected saints who follow Jesus out of his tomb after his own resurrection. This differs somewhat from Matthew's account, which says that the saints emerged from their own tombs. But it's possible that both accounts evolved from the same original story.
Another theory is based on the fact that ancient prophesies often included the resurrection of dead saints as one of the major events of the End Times. These prophesies indicated that the dead saints would return to life so that they could take their place in a new eternal Kingdom of God. Thus, Matthew's passage could be evidence that some early followers of Jesus thought that the End Times had arrived. They may have even regarded his resurrection as a signal that the new Kingdom of God was about to be established. If so, these ideas would go back to the period immediately after the resurrection.
The saints mentioned in Matthew's passage were apparently buried in the vicinity of Jerusalem. Nothing is said about any dead saints who were buried elsewhere. The passage also doesn't identify any of the resurrected saints by name, but some later Christian writers speculated about who they might be. Their suggestions included Adam and Eve, Abel, Abraham, Isaiah, and various other Hebrew patriarchs and prophets. Because the earliest followers of Jesus still considered themselves to be Jews, they would have regarded these old patriarchs and prophets as saints.
The author of Matthew doesn't say what these resurrected saints did after they appeared in Jerusalem. Modern readers often assume that they went back to their tombs and died again. However, in ancient times there was a common belief that a resurrected person will never die again. This may explain why the passage doesn't say what happened later.
The other three New Testament gospels don't mention the resurrection of these saints. Partly for this reason, many biblical scholars doubt that it really happened. They argue that such an extraordinary event, if it really occurred, would provide strong evidence for the divinity of Jesus, and therefore the other gospel writers would have also described it.
Another reason for doubt is that these resurrected saints would have created a lot of excitement when they appeared in Jerusalem, and a historian like Josephus, who wrote a detailed account of the period, probably would have said something about it. But he doesn't mention it at all.
For these reasons, many scholars think that Matthew's passage is based on a legendary story rather than a real event. It might be similar to a modern "urban legend". The excitement surrounding Jesus' resurrection could have made his followers especially susceptible to ideas of this type. Perhaps some of them thought they saw ghosts lurking in the streets of Jerusalem during this period, and reports of these sightings evolved into a story about resurrected saints.
Note: Under normal circumstances, a dead body will eventually decompose to the point that its individual features are no longer recognizable. But many early Christians believed that the body of a true holy person is incorruptible, so that it doesn't decay at all, but is miraculously preserved for its eventual resurrection. This explains how long-dead saints could return to life in their original bodies.
