Image Details

© Erich Lessing

RESTORED TO LIFE. Luke 7:11–17 recounts a miracle Jesus performed in the town of Nain. Near the town gate, Jesus and his disciples encountered a funeral procession: A widow’s only son had died. Having compassion on the widow, Jesus raised her son from the dead and returned him to her. Raising the dead to life again is one of the miracles Jesus lists in Luke 7 as proof that he is “the one who is to come”—the messiah. While the miracle of raising the dead as proof of messiahship is absent from the Book of Isaiah, it is present in the miracle list of the Dead Sea Scroll 4Q521, a Messianic Apocalypse.

This wall painting is from the parecclesion (side chapel) of Chora Church in Istanbul, Turkey. Originally constructed in the Byzantine period, the church underwent several transformations—from destructions and repairs to conversions first into a mosque in the 15th century and then as a museum in the 20th century.