What is the meaning of the apocalyptic events related in the Gospel of Matthew after the death of Jesus? The issue is treated in two stages, beginning with a short review of current interpretations (historical, causal, and semiologic). In a second step, the spatial and temporal disruptions that cross the story are explored. The hypothesis is made, with consideration of the figures’ sequence, that they are the figurative expression of a childbirth. Time and place of death are thus those of a birth, Jesus is literally ‘the firstborn from the dead’. It is finally suggested that the reader's actualisation of this peculiar figures’ chain corresponds to the birth of a believing subject.
