It has Lazarus reborn, yes, but for ever trapped in a limbo of living death, confined to a darkened room, unable to communicate and shunned by those around him as an omen of ill fortune. Then Colm TГіibГnвЂ™s 2012 novella The Testament of Mary, a reworking of the story of JesusвЂ™s mother, came along and provided an altogether darker sequel. That, at least, is what I always assumed listening to the passage read aloud from the pulpit in the churches of my youth, a clear case of lucky Lazarus. Was he overjoyed and newly wise as he embraced his second chance? The Gospel of John, moreover, where it appears, gives no clue as to what happens next to Lazarus once he is back in the land of the living. Grist to their mill is the failure of the New Testament to provide much supporting detail about Lazarus, thus inviting reworking and expansion.

But more recent interpreters, including Nick Cave in his 2008 song Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, and David Bowie in his last-ever single, Lazarus, have adapted it to muse on a fluid boundary between mortality and immortality. This ordinary man cheats the inevitability of death because four days after he has passed away, his friend Jesus goes into his tomb in the town of Bethany and raises him back to life.ДЇor generations of Christians, it is a tale that has been taken as a forerunner of JesusвЂ™s own resurrection and proof of his divine power. O ne of a dwindling number of Christian stories with continuing and widespread resonance in our secular, sceptical times is that of Lazarus.

Lazarus in the bible