GroundMotive

Furthermore, although the Greek can be translated as “When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted,” as it is in the NRSV, if we pay attention to Matthew’s writing style elsewhere, then it is not just some of the eleven that doubt. They all do. Grammatically the second pronoun is not used in a ‘partitive’ sense. In Greek, there is a hoi men . . . hoi deconstruction that means ‘some . . . others’. Hoi de (used on its own) can also mean, ‘some on the other hand . . .’ But Matthew doesn’t use hoi de that way anywhere else. So in 28:11, Matthew is actually saying: “When they saw him, they worshiped him; but [they] doubted.”

The word Matthew uses for “doubt” here occurs in only one other place in his gospel: in Matt 14:31, when Jesus, after the ‘walking on the water’ encounter with Peter, says to him “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” In that narrative, worshipping Jesus follows fear and doubt. Here, it seems, seeing Jesus and worshipping him and doubting is something the disciples experience at the same time.