How long was lazarus dead?

Answer 1

The Bible doesn't elaborate on that as the event was to explain death as sleeping in the tomb (see John 11:11-14). This 'resurrection' was to show the people that Jesus truly is God and can raise the dead - which He will do for all who died at the Judgment process (not a sentencing trial but a chance to repent with full knowledge of God and His Law as it will be written upon their hearts - Ezekiel 11: 18-20).


Popular teachings have the dead going immediately to either their reward in heaven or their eternal punishment in hell. This is not biblical but more philosophical (Egyptian, Greek and Babylonian). This example of Lazarus is just one of the teachings on death as sleep. In this event, Lazarus had not gone to either heaven or hell. He had been simply entombed, where he "slept" in death until Jesus called him out of the grave by a miraculous resurrection. It doesn't get any plainer than that.


Various stories through the years had Lazarus living either until Jesus' resurrection or a full life of the time. No one knows for sure except that he, like all mankind is surely dead now awaiting the Judgment call.

Answer 2

John's Gospel, in chapter 11 tells of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, an event that became the trigger for the arrest and trial of Jesus, when the chief priests and Pharisees said (John 11:47-48), "What do we? for this man doeth many miracles. If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation." Then in John 12:10, the chief priests plotted to put Lazarus to death. But nowhere does John say how long Lazarus lived.

New Testament scholars notice that the two sisters, Mary and Martha, and Lazarus occur only in Luke's Gospel and John's Gospel. In Luke, Mary is not even the sister of Lazarus, who appears only as a character in a parable about his death and hypothetical resurrection. Then in John's Gospel, which is now known to have been loosely based on Luke, Mary and Martha become the sisters of Lazarus in a story of his actual death and resurrection. There are so many parallels between Luke's account, in which there is no suggestion that Lazarus was a real person, and John's account, that it could be concluded that the story of Lazarus in John's Gospel is an example of poetic licence and therefore that Lazarus did not really exist. On that view, the question of how long Lazarus lived is unanswerable.

Answer 3

John 11:17 Then when Jesus came, He found that he had lain in the grave four days already.

Answer 4

The bible does not mention the age of Lazrus when he died.

Answer 5

Scripture does not say how long Lazarus lived after Jesus raised him from the dead. He probably lived an average lifespan for the times.

Answer 6

Lazarus was in the grave for three days.

Answer 7

He had already been dead for four days.

Answer 8

The Bible does not say.

Answer 9

The Bible doesn't say.

Answer 10

4 days