It may be better to connect coming out of the tombs with the events of the previous verse, and then begin a new sentence with after his resurrection: “ the graves broke open. Many of God’s people who had died were raised to life and left their graves. Later, after Jesus rose from death, they went into the city of Jerusalem, where many people saw them.”

“After Jesus rose from death” of Good News Translation translates a Greek noun phrase after his resurrection. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch renders “when Jesus was resurrected”; one may also translate “after God had raised Jesus from death.”

For many readers it may be advisable to translate the holy city as either “the city of Jerusalem” or “Jerusalem, the holy city of the Jews.”

The Greek verb construction translated appeared to many may mean either “appeared to many people” or “were seen by many people.” New Jerusalem Bible follows one interpretation (“appeared to a number of people”), while New English Bible follows the other (“where many saw them”).

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .