Youth of Naïn
The story of the youth of Naïn (also: Youth of Naïn , also written Naim or Nain ) can be found in the Gospel of Luke. Naïn (Arabic نين Na'in, literally 'enchanting'; Hebrew ניין Najin), is a small town on the border between Galilee and Samaria , about 20 km southwest of the Sea of Galilee and 7 km southwest of Mount Tabor .
The youth is said to be the only son of a widow .
Encounter and consequences
According to Lk 7 : 11-17 EU , Jesus went to Naïn with his disciples and a large number of people. When Jesus and those who followed him came to the city gate, a dead man, the young man, was carried out. The funeral procession was also accompanied by a larger crowd. Seeing and regretting the pain and loss of his mother, Jesus stepped to the bier and raised the dead by commanding him to rise. The previously dead person is said to have straightened up immediately and started talking. According to the Gospel of Luke, this miracle also increased Jesus' reputation as a prophet .
The Franciscans built a church in Naïn in 1880 to commemorate this miracle.
Specifics of the plot
Touching a dead person by a Jew resulted in their being considered unclean for seven days. The raising of the dead therefore basically resulted in ritual impurity for Jesus personally according to the Jewish faith.
The encounter between two groups of people described in Luke's Gospel, on the one hand those who walked with Jesus and can be understood as a group that seeks redemption and the second group that depicts a trait of death and grief and emphasizes the transitory nature of life, is diametrical aligned. The raising of Jesus from the dead connects the two otherwise separate groups in the sense of a crossing point between death and life.
Although a raising of the dead is to be regarded as a very special miracle, the Gospel of Luke only reports about it in ten sentences.
While it is reported about the biblical prophet Elijah that he raised boys from the dead by making intercessions to God, the Gospel of Luke about Jesus ' raising of the dead with regard to the young man of Naïn reports that Jesus did this with a command: Young man, I. tell you get up! under his own power, without special invocation to God.
Literature selection
- Volker Garske (ed.): The daughter of Jairus and the youth of Nain. Paderborn 2009, Dr. 1 publisher, school book, ISBN 978-3-14-053602-8 .
Web links
- Luke 7: 1-50 , Scientific Bible Dictionary on the Internet.