Resurrection

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For other uses, see Resurrection (disambiguation).

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The term resurrection is used in the literal sense to mean either the religious concept of the reunion of the spirit and the body of a dead person, or the return to life of a dead person. It is used in a figurative sense about broken or discontinued things which were never alive, but which have been restored to a functional state; for example a company which had failed but is reopened by a new owner. Rebirth is a different but analogous religious concept. The word resuscitation is used for return to life after clinical death by medical procedures.

1 Introduction
2 Religious examples
- 2.1 Pagan
- 2.2 Accounts of Resurrections in India
3 Judaism
4 Christianity
5 Bodily disappearances
6 See also
7 Recommended reading
8 External links
9 References
10 Citations

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Introduction

In the literal sense of the word—and as it was understood in Near Eastern antiquity—resurrection refers to the event of a dead person returning to physical life, or to the state of someone having returned. Thus it is not to be confused with Hellenistic immortality in which the soul continues to live after death "free" of the body.

While a dying-and-rising god motif was prevalent throughout ancient literature, belief in personal resurrection (before the Common Era) was known among only one culture: the Hebrews.

From the time of its development from within the Judaisms before and during the second-Temple period to the incipient decades of Christianity, the meaning of the word acquired sharper edges and mutations, to include differentiating the common quality of the premortem body from the new glorious quality of the postmortem body (cf. 1 Cor. 15:35-54 and the Gospel accounts of Easter). It held to a permanent unification of physical body and soul.

Resurrection was used figuratively as a metaphor both for the national restoration of Israel (Ezek. 37) in Judaism, and for the regenerate life (the Apostle Paul) in Christianity. Today, the word is sometimes used to indicate the resuscitation/revival of some thing or idea from a death-state, such as ruin, disinterest, obscurity, etc.

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Religious examples

There are a number of examples in ancient literature of folk-story accounts of dead gods coming back to life. "Centuries before the time of Christ the nations annually celebrated the death and resurrection of Osiris, Tammuz, Attis, Mithra, and other gods" http://www.2think.org/hundredsheep/bible/library/myth.shtml].

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Pagan

Examples of a resurrected deity are Syrian and Greek worship of Adonis; Egyptian worship of Osiris; the Babylonian story of Tammuz; and rural religious belief in the Corn King.

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Accounts of Resurrections in India

Template:NPOV-section Other accounts of resurrections are as follows:

¹Lahiri Mahasaya raised Rama a friend of Sri Yukteswar to life.
² Lahiri Mahasaya himself resurrected.
³ A guru by the name of Swami Sri Yukteswar.
⁴ While attending a conference, Walter Cowan was pronounced dead on the morning of December 25, 1971 of a heart attack. Later in the day, he was found sitting up in a hospital bed alive raised to life by Sai Baba. Walter recounts witnessing Sai Baba convincing a council to let him live again to perform a purpose.

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Judaism

In the Tanakh ("Old Testament"), in 1 Kings 17-23, Elijah is said to have raised a young boy from death. In 2 Kings 4:34-35, Elisha duplicates the feat. Within the scope of Jewish worldview and theology, these were viewed more as resuscitations than bona fide resurrection which, for the Hebrews at least, came to denote the final 'rising' of all people to irreversible continuation of (some kind of) bodily life. Other common associations are the biblical accounts of the antedeluvian Enoch and the prophet Elijah being ushered into the presence of God without experiencing death. These, however, are more in the way of ascensions or translations or apotheosises than resurrections. And there is the already-alluded-to Ezekiel vision of the valley of dry bones being restored as a living army: a metaphorical prophecy that the house of Israel would one day be gathered from the nations, out of exile, to live in the land of Israel once more. The actual doctrine of a bodily resurrection is found in the book of Daniel, where a mysterious angelic figure tells Daniel, "Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake; some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt." (Daniel 12:2)

In the First Century B.C.E, there were debates between the Pharisees who believed in the future Resurrection, and the Sadducees who did not, over whether or not there was an afterlife. The majority of Jews seemed to have embraced the belief that there was an afterlife, evidenced by their volatile tendency to revolt for YHWH's kingdom and its privileges, one of which was resurrection (cf. the narratives of the Maccabees, Josephus' Wars of the Jews).

Today the main lines of Judaism insist that belief in the Resurrection of the Dead is one of the cardinal principles of the Jewish faith. A famous Jewish halakhic-legal authority, Maimonides, set down thirteen main principles of the Jewish faith according to Orthodox Judaism which have ever since been printed in all Rabbinic prayer books. Resurrection is the thirteenth principle:

"I believe with complete (perfect) faith, that there will be techiat hameitim - revival of the dead, whenever it will be God's, blessed be He, will (desire) to arise and do so. May (God's) Name be blessed, and may His remembrance arise, forever and ever"

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Christianity

Template:Main

Since Christianity was born out of Jewish praxis and worldview, it is worthwhile to point out that Christianity's doctrine of resurrection is an outgrowth of the Jewish beliefs. Jesus himself, in this matter, appears to have been in general agreement with the Pharisees. Most Christian churches continue this tradition: that there will be a general resurrection of the dead at "the end of time". Also see Historicity of Jesus

In the New Testament of the Bible, Jesus is said to have raised several persons from death, including the daughter of Jairus shortly after death, a young man in the midst of his own funeral procession, and Lazarus, who had been buried for four days. According to the Gospel of Matthew, at the moment of Jesus' death, tombs opened, and many who were dead awakened. After Jesus' resurrection, many of the dead saints come out of their tombs and enter Jerusalem, where they appear to many.

Similar resuscitations are credited to Christian apostles and saints. Peter raised a woman named Dorcas (called Tabitha), and Paul restored a man named Eutychus who had fallen asleep and fell from a window to his death, according to the book of Acts.

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Bodily disappearances

Christian knowledge of the belief in bodily disappearance of Divine Heroes, or Saviors, in other religions around the world (see below) is relatively new and sometimes unwelcome. For these similarities, contemporary evangelical Christians have coined the phrase "Satanic Counterfeits". In addition, some Christians argue that since resurrection stories in these "mystery religions" are almost always centered on agricultural cycles (i.e. seeding and harvest) and involve their god dying and being resurrected every year any resemblance to the resurrection of Jesus is strictly superficial. [1] In ancient times, known pagan similarities were many times explained by early Christian writers as the work of demons.

As the knowledge of different religions has grown, the bodily disappearance of Divine Heroes has been found to be common. Gesar, the Savior of Tibet, at the end, chants on a mountain top and his clothes fall empty to the ground. The bodies of the Divine Gurus of Sikhism vanish after their deaths.

Lord Raglan's Hero Pattern lists many Divine Heroes whose bodies disappear, or have more than one sepulchre. B. Traven, author of The Treasure of Sierra Madre, wrote that the Inca Divine Hero, Virococha, walked away on the top of the sea and vanished. It has been thought that teachings regarding the purity and incorruptibility of the Divine Hero's human body are linked to this phenomenon. Perhaps, this is also to deter the practice of disturbing and collecting the hero's remains. They are safely protected if they have disappeared. In Deuteronomy (34:6) Moses is secretly buried. Elijah vanishes in a whirlwind 2 Kings (2:11).

In I Corinthians 15, Paul speaks to those who seek to discredit the idea of the resurrection of the dead. He does so by stating that if the dead do not rise, then Christ did not rise. And if Christ did not rise, the entire Christian faith, which rests upon Christ's resurrection, is fallacy.

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External links

Why I Don't Buy the Resurrection Story - Columbia University Historian Richard Carrier (analyzes evidence for the resurrection of Jesus)
Perspectives on the Resurrection - ABC News 20/20 Special (focuses on resurrection of Jesus)
Jewish Encyclopedia: Resurrection
the Christian apostle Paul on the Christian belief in the resurrection of the dead (the Church) in I Corinthians 15 [2]

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References

N.T. Wright. The Resurrection of the Son of God Fortress Press: 2003
William Foxwell Albright, From Stone Age to Christianity: Monotheism and Historical Process
B. Traven, The Creation of the Sun and Moon, 1968
Alexandra David-Neel, The Superhuman Life of Gesar of Ling ( While still in oral tradition, the Divine Hero of Tibet and Asia is discovered and recorded for the first time, by an early European traveler.)
New Testament, Acts 19:23-40, St. Paul confronts the craftsmen of Artemis in Ephesus.
Edwin Hatch, Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages Upon the Christian Church (1888 Hibbert Lectures)
Ronald F. Hock, The Favored One: How Mary Became the Mother of God, Bible Review, p. 12-25, June 2001