Religious Events

The Raising of Lazarus

Foundational

Citation Formats

General Reference

Divinity Atlas. "The Raising of Lazarus." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://www.divinityatlas.com/religious-events/the-raising-of-lazarus.

APA Style

Divinity Atlas. (n.d.). The Raising of Lazarus. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://www.divinityatlas.com/religious-events/the-raising-of-lazarus

BibTeX

@misc{divinityatlas-the-raising-of-lazarus,
  author = {Divinity Atlas},
  title = {The Raising of Lazarus},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://www.divinityatlas.com/religious-events/the-raising-of-lazarus},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

The account in the Gospel of John in which Jesus calls Lazarus of Bethany out of the tomb four days after his burial, the last and greatest of that gospel's signs and, in John, the act that decides the authorities against him. The synoptic gospels do not mention it, and their silence about so public an event is one of the standing problems in the study of the Fourth Gospel; readings run from an incident known only to the circle behind John to a composition serving that gospel's theology of life. Byzantine practice keeps Lazarus Saturday on the day before Palm Sunday, joining the two as one passage into Holy Week. The village of Bethany carries his name in its Arabic form, al-Eizariya.

Facts

Disputed

Historicity

As with other episodes unique to John, most critical scholars read the narrative as shaped significantly by John's theological purpose, functioning as a sign anticipating Jesus's own resurrection, rather than treating it as straightforwardly reported history. 3

The Event

When It Happened

Kept as Lazarus Saturday in Eastern Orthodox tradition, the day before Palm Sunday, opening Holy Week observances. 1

Consequences

What It Settled

Presented in John's Gospel as the final and greatest of Jesus's signs before his own death, and as a direct precipitating cause of the authorities' decision to have him killed. 2

Scholarship

Where It Is Recorded

Narrated only in the Gospel of John, chapter eleven, describing Jesus raising his friend Lazarus of Bethany from the dead four days after his burial. 2

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Four Days in the Tomb

The Gospel of John narrates that Lazarus, a friend of Jesus living in the village of Bethany near Jerusalem with his sisters Martha and Mary, fell ill and died while Jesus delayed his arrival by two days after receiving word of the sickness. By the time Jesus reached Bethany, Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days, a detail John's narrative emphasizes to establish that death, in the ancient understanding reflected in the text, was by then beyond any possible ambiguity or mistake.

At the tomb, Jesus, described as deeply moved and weeping, orders the stone sealing it removed and calls Lazarus out by name; Lazarus emerges still wrapped in his burial cloths, and Jesus instructs those present to unbind him. John presents the episode as producing two contrasting responses among witnesses: many who saw it believed in Jesus, while others reported the event to the religious authorities, whose alarm at Jesus's growing following the narrative connects directly to their subsequent decision to plot his death.

The episode appears only in John's Gospel, positioned as the last and greatest of the signs John records before Jesus's own arrest, trial and crucifixion, which follow in the chapters immediately after.

A Sign That Sealed Jesus's Fate

John's Gospel presents the Raising of Lazarus as the direct precipitating cause of the authorities' decision to have Jesus killed, stating explicitly that the Jewish council convened after the event out of concern that if Jesus were left unchecked, everyone would believe in him, threatening the fragile political arrangement under Roman rule. This causal link, absent from the Synoptic Gospels, which attribute Jesus's arrest to a broader accumulation of conflict rather than to this single episode, reflects John's distinct narrative structure, built as it is around a sequence of increasingly dramatic signs culminating in this one.

Critical scholarship generally reads the Raising of Lazarus, like the other signs unique to John, as shaped substantially by John's theological purpose: presenting Jesus, shortly before his own death, performing an act that anticipates and foreshadows his own resurrection, with Lazarus's return to ordinary mortal life functioning as a sign pointing toward, though clearly distinguished from, the different and permanent form of resurrected life John's Gospel presents Jesus himself as entering after Easter.

The episode's absence from Matthew, Mark and Luke, despite its dramatic character and its stated causal significance for Jesus's arrest, is one of several factors scholars weigh in assessing how John's selection and arrangement of material differs from, and in places goes well beyond, what the earlier Synoptic tradition records.

Cross-Tradition Connections