Difference between revisions of "Resurrection" - New World Encyclopedia

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Resurrection of the Flesh (1499-1502) Fresco by Luca Signorelli
Chapel of San Brizio, Duomo, Orvieto

Resurrection is most commonly associated with the raising of a person from death back to life, or the reuniting of the spirit and the body of an individual. What this means depends upon one's presuppositions about the nature of the human person, especially with regard to the existence of a soul or spirit counterpart to the physical body. The term plays a particularly powerful role in Christianity, as the resurrection of Jesus is its core foundation. What the nature of the resurrected body is an issue still debated on. But, if the resurrestion of the body is considered to restore the psychosomatic unity of a human personality, it carries important implications. Recent philosophers of religion, therefore, insightfully try to connect this restored psychosomatic unity with the continuation of a personal identity and of spiritual growth beyond physical death.

Classical Greek Philosophy

Classical Greek philosophy sharply divides a human being into two parts, body and soul. The soul is both pre-existent and immortal, but in this life it is imprisoned or entombed in the body. Physical death simply means the return of the soul to its original world of immortality. Resurrection means reincarnation (metempshychosis, transmigration of the soul), borrowing another body. Among the ancient Greeks, Pythagoras, Socrates and Plato are well known for their teachings on reincarnation. Platonism is often considered to be most representative of Classical Greek philosophy on this topic.

Ancient Religions in Palestine and Mesopotamia

Accounts of the resurrection of a deity can be seen in ancient religions and myths in Palestine and Mesopotamia. Accorings to Joseph McCabe, "Centuries before the time of Christ the nations [in that region] annually celebrated the death and resurrection of Osiris, Tammuz, Attis, Mithra, and other gods."^[1] A cyclic dying-and-rising god motif was prevalent throughout ancient Mesopotamian and classical literature and practice (e.g., in Syrian and Greek worship of Adonis; Egyptian worship of Osiris; the Babylonian story of Tammuz; rural religious belief in the Corn King).

World Religions

The Platonic-type view of a pre-existent soul and its transmigration into the physical realm until final release in perfection is reached through a process of development taking many lifetimes (Hindu-Buddhist) or one (Latter Day Saints), is one form of belief about resurrection. In Buddhism, the perfected person may return to the earth in a new body in order to assist others on their path of spiritual growth.

Islam has a strong doctrine of resurrection in terms of the final judgment of all human beings. The dead will rise from their graves for the judgment, through which the faithful will be brought to eternal life in paradise, while the wicked will be sent to hell to suffer in eternal flames.

Judaism

Pre-Maccabaean Era

Prior to the Maccabaean struggle with Antiochus Epiphanese in the second century B.C.E., the notion of bodily resurrection or reincarnation was basically absent in Judaism, which, unlike Greek philosophy, did not recognize the immortality of the soul and which was also contnent with the idea of Sheol as the permanent abode of shades of all departed. Even so, we can still find passages in the Hebrew Bible that can be considered to allude to some kind of resurrection:

Ezekiel’s 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.
1 Samuel 2:6, NIV - "he brings down to the grave and raises up."
Job 19:26, NIV - "after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God."
Isaiah 26:19, NIV - "your dead will live; their bodies will rise."
Ezekiel 37:12, NIV - "I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them."

Other passages may be more ambiguous: in the Hebrew Bible, Elijah raises a young boy from death (1 Kings 17-23), and Elisha duplicates the feat (2 Kings 4:34-35). There are a multiplicity of views on the scopes of these acts, including the traditional view that they represented genuine miracles and critical views that they represented resuscitations rather than bona fide resurrections. Other common associations are the biblical accounts of the antediluvian Enoch and the prophet Elijah being ushered into the presence of God without experiencing death. These, however, are more in the way of ascensions, bodily disappearances, translations or apotheoses than resurrections.

Maccabaean and Post-Maccabaean Era

The idea of resurrection was developed during the Maccabaean struggle. It reflected Jewish people's desperate hope for their continued existence after death in the unbearable persecution. Hence Daniel's vision, 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). The notion of resurrection became widespread in Judaism especially among the Pharisees (but not among the Sadducees) by the first century C.E. C. F. Evans reports, "The surviving literature of the inter-testamental period shows the emergence of resurrection belief in diverse forms: resurrection of righteous Israelites only, of righteous and unrighteous Israelites, of all men to judgment; to earth, to a transformed earth, to paradise; in a body, in a transformed body, without body."^[2]

Orthodox Judaism

A famous Medieval, Jewish halakhic, legal authority, Maimonides, set down thirteen main principles of the Jewish faith according to Orthodox Judaism, and belief in the revival of the dead was the thirteenth. Resurrection has been printed in all Rabbinic prayer books to the present time.

The Talmud makes it one of the few required Jewish beliefs, going so far as to say that "All Israel have a share in the World to Come...but a person who does not believe in...the resurrection of the dead...has no share in the World to Come" (Sanhedrin 50a).

The second blessing of the Amidah, the central thrice-daily Jewish prayer is called Tehiyyat ha-Metim ("the resurrection of the dead") and closes with the words m'chayei hameitim ("who gives life to the dead") i.e., resurrection. The Amidah is traditionally attributed to the Great Assembly of Ezra; its text was finalized in approximately its present form in about the first century C.E.

Christianity

In Christianity, resurrection refers to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the resurrection of the dead on the Judgment Day, or other instances of miraculous resurrection and transfiguration.

Resurrection of Jesus

The resurrection of Jesus may have been the most central doctrinal position in Christianity taught to a Gentile audience. The Apostle Paul said that "if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile"(1 Corinthians 15:17, NIV). According to Paul, the entire Christian faith hinges upon the centrality of the resurrection of Jesus. Christians annually celebrate the resurrection of Jesus at Easter time.

Resurrection of the dead

Christianity started as a religious movement within first-century Judaism, and it retains the first-century Jewish belief in the resurrection of the dead. Most Christians continue to uphold this belief: that there will be a general resurrection of the dead at "the end of time", as prophesied by Paul when he said that "he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice" (Acts 17:31, NIV), and that "there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked" (Acts 24:15, NIV). Most also teach that it is only as a result of the atoning work of Christ, by grace through faith, that people are spared eternal punishment as judgment for their sins. The Book of Revelation also makes many references about the Day of Judgment when the dead will be raised up. Belief in the resurrection of the dead, and Jesus Christ's role as judge of the dead, is codified in the Apostles' Creed, which is the fundamental creed of Christian baptismal faith.

Resurrection miracles

The resurrected Jesus Christ commissioned his followers to, among other things, to raise the dead. Throughout Christian history up to the present day there have been various accounts of Christians raising people from the dead.

In the New Testament, 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, after Jesus's resurrection, many of the dead saints came out of their tombs and entered Jerusalem, where they appeared 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. Proceeding the apostolic era, many saints were known to resurrect the dead, as recorded in Orthodox christian hagiographies. Faith healer William M. Branham and evangelical missionary David L Hogan in the twentieth century claimed to have raised the dead.^[3]

Christian theology

In Pauline belief, adopted by most Christian teachings, saved believers will experience resurrection when Christ returns, but, similar to Jesus in his resurrected state, it will not be normal physical existence but rather as a "glorified" or "spiritual" body (1 Corinthians 15:35-54), "a body of a new order, the perfect instrument of the spirit, raised above the limitations of the earthly body, with which it will be identical only in the sense that it will be the recognizable organism of the same personality." ^[4] In Richardson's words, "The idea of 'the resurrection of the body' (cf. the Apostles' Creed) was the natural Hebraic manner of speaking about the risen life of Christians with Christ: it is in the body that persons are recognizable as individuals with their own personal identity. Hence 'resurrection of the body' means resurrection after death to a fully personal life with Christ in God, and this is what Christians should understand when they profess the Apostles' Creed."

Two Critical Issues

Notes

↑ "The Myth of the Resurrection". Retrieved June 21, 2007.
↑ "Resurrection," in The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology, ed. Alan Richardson and John Bowden (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1983).
↑ "Revival Article: Resurrections of the Dead and the Revival," The Knoxville Revival. Retrieved June 21, 2007.
↑ "Resurrection of the Dead," in The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 2nd ed., ed. F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977).

External links

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[1] "The Myth of the Resurrection". Retrieved June 21, 2007.

[2] "Resurrection," in The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology, ed. Alan Richardson and John Bowden (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1983).

[3] "Revival Article: Resurrections of the Dead and the Revival," The Knoxville Revival. Retrieved June 21, 2007.

[4] "Resurrection of the Dead," in The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 2nd ed., ed. F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977).

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@@ Line 51: / Line 51: @@
 ===Resurrection of Jesus===
-The resurrection of Jesus may have been the most central doctrinal position in Christianity taught to a [[Gentile]] audience. The [[Apostle]] Paul said that "if Jesus has not risen from the dead then the Christians were the most miserable of all men"([[I Corinthians]] 15:19). According to Paul, the entire Christian [[faith]] hinges upon the centrality of the resurrection of Jesus. Christians annually celebrate the resurrection of Jesus at [[Easter]] time.
+The resurrection of Jesus may have been the most central doctrinal position in Christianity taught to a [[Gentile]] audience. The [[Apostle]] Paul said that "if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile"([[1 Corinthians]] 15:17, NIV). According to Paul, the entire Christian [[faith]] hinges upon the centrality of the resurrection of Jesus. Christians annually celebrate the resurrection of Jesus at [[Easter]] time.
 ===Resurrection of the dead===
-Christianity started as a religious movement within 1st-century Judaism, and it retains the 1st-century Jewish belief in the resurrection of the dead. Most Christian churches continue to uphold this belief: that there will be a general [[resurrection of the dead]] at "the [[end of the world (religion)|end of time]]", as prophesied by Paul when he said, "...he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world..." ([http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts%2017:30-31;&version=31 Acts 17:31] KJV) and "...there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust." ([http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%2024:14-16;&version=31 Acts 24:15] KJV). Most also teach that it is only as a result of the [[atonement|atoning work]] of Christ, by grace through faith, that people are spared eternal punishment as judgment for their sins.
+Christianity started as a religious movement within first-century Judaism, and it retains the first-century Jewish belief in the resurrection of the dead. Most Christians  continue to uphold this belief: that there will be a general resurrection of the dead at "the [[end of the world (religion)|end of time]]", as prophesied by Paul when he said that "he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice" (Acts 17:31, NIV), and that "there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked" (Acts 24:15, NIV). Most also teach that it is only as a result of the [[atonement|atoning work]] of Christ, by grace through faith, that people are spared eternal punishment as judgment for their sins. The [[Book of Revelation]] also makes many references about the Day of Judgment when the dead will be raised up. Belief in the resurrection of the dead, and Jesus Christ's role as judge of the dead, is codified in the [[Apostles' Creed]], which is the fundamental creed of Christian baptismal faith.
-Belief in the resurrection of the dead, and Jesus Christ's role as judge of the dead, is codified in the [[Apostles' Creed]], which is the fundamental creed of Christian baptismal faith.  The [[Book of Revelation]] also makes many references about the Day of Judgment when the dead will be raised up.
+===Resurrection miracles===
-====Modern de-emphasis in Christianity ====
-Early church fathers defended the resurrection of the dead against the pagan belief that the immortal soul went to heaven immediately after death <ref>[http://www.mindspring.com/~anthonybuzzard/souls.htm Do Souls Go To Heaven?]</ref>. Currently, however, the popular belief among some Christians is much more in line with what the pagans taught: that the souls of the righteous do go straight to heaven <ref> See, for instance, [http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p123a12.htm Catechism of the Catholic Church §1022]: «Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death, in a particular judgment that refers his life to Christ: either entrance into the blessedness of heaven-through a purification or immediately,—or immediate and everlasting damnation.»</ref><ref>[http://www.lcms.org/ca/www/cyclopedia/02/display.asp?t1=h&word=HEREAFTER Hereafter]</ref>, and the resurrection of the dead is downplayed<ref>See for example [http://www.epm.org/articles/qa-reunite_children.html Will We Be Reunited with Children Who Have Died?]</ref>.
-===Resurrection miracles===
 The resurrected Jesus Christ commissioned his followers to, among other things, to raise the dead. Throughout Christian history up to the present day there have been various accounts of Christians raising people from the dead.
-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]], after Jesus's resurrection, many of the dead [[saint]]s came out of their tombs and entered [[Jerusalem]], where they appeared to many.
+In the [[New Testament]], [[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]], after Jesus's resurrection, many of the dead [[saint]]s came out of their tombs and entered [[Jerusalem]], where they appeared to many. Similar [[resuscitation]]s are credited to Christian [[apostle]]s and saints. [[Saint Peter|Peter]] raised a woman named Dorcas (called Tabitha), and [[Saul of Tarsus|Paul]] restored a man named Eutychus who had fallen asleep and fell from a [[window]] to his death, according to the book of [[Acts of the Apostles|Acts]]. Proceeding the apostolic era, many saints were known to resurrect the dead, as recorded in Orthodox christian hagiographies. Faith healer William M. Branham and evangelical missionary David L Hogan in the twentieth century claimed to have raised the dead.<ref>[http://www.knoxvillerevival.com/Articles/articleonraisedfromdeadriss.htm "Revival Article: Resurrections of the Dead and the Revival,"] ''The Knoxville Revival''. Retrieved June 21, 2007.</ref>
-Similar [[resuscitation]]s are credited to Christian [[apostle]]s and saints. [[Saint Peter|Peter]] raised a woman named Dorcas (called Tabitha), and [[Saul of Tarsus|Paul]] restored a man named Eutychus who had fallen asleep and fell from a [[window]] to his death, according to the book of [[Acts of the Apostles|Acts]]. Proceeding the apostolic era, many saints were known to resurrect the dead, as recorded in Orthodox christian hagiographies.
-Faith healer [[William M. Branham]] claimed to have raised a boy from the dead in 1950.{{Fact|date=June 2007}}
-American evangelical missionary [[David L Hogan]] claims to have witnessed 28 resurrections from the dead, and his ministers have totalled approximately 400 "dead-raisings".{{Fact|date=June 2007}}
-===Christian Theology===
-In Pauline belief, adopted by most Christian teachings, saved believers will experience resurrection when Christ returns, but, similar to Jesus in his resurrected state, it will not be normal physical existence, but rather as a "glorified" or "spiritual" body (1 Corinthians 15:35-54), "a body of a new order, the perfect instrument of the spirit, raised above the limitations of the earthly body, with which it will be identical only in the sense that it will be the recognizable organism of the same personality." <ref>The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church" 2nd ed., ed. Fl. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone</ref> In Richardson's words, "The idea of 'the resurrection of the body' (cf. the Apostles' Creed) was the natural Hebraic manner of speaking about the risen life of Christians with Christ: it is in the body that persons are recognizable as individuals with their own personal identity. Hence 'resurrection of the body' means resurrection after death to a fully personal life with Christ in God, and this is what Christians should understand when they profess the Apostles' Creed."
-==Bodily disappearances==
-Christian knowledge of the belief in bodily disappearance of [[Divine Heroes]], or [[Saviors]], in other religions around the world is relatively new and sometimes unwelcome. For these similarities, contemporary [[evangelicalism|evangelical]] Christians have coined the phrase "Satanic Counterfeits". In addition, some Christians argue that because resurrection stories in these "mystery religions" almost always center around agricultural cycles (i.e. seeding and harvest) and involve their god dying and being resurrected every year then any resemblance to the resurrection of Jesus is strictly superficial. [http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/copycathub.html] In ancient times, known pagan similarities were many times explained by early Christian writers (curiously, except [[Justin Martyr]]) as the work of [[demons]].
+===Christian theology===
-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]]<ref>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</ref>, 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. There is a traditional spot in [[Jerusalem]] whence, while mounted, Muhammad and his horse both ascend into the sky. The fact that many Muslims visit Mohammed's tomb in Mecca shows a variety of beliefs.
+In Pauline belief, adopted by most Christian teachings, saved believers will experience resurrection when Christ returns, but, similar to Jesus in his resurrected state, it will not be normal physical existence but rather as a "glorified" or "spiritual" body (1 Corinthians 15:35-54), "a body of a new order, the perfect instrument of the spirit, raised above the limitations of the earthly body, with which it will be identical only in the sense that it will be the recognizable organism of the same personality." <ref>"Resurrection of the Dead," in ''The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church'', 2nd ed., ed. F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977).</ref> In Richardson's words, "The idea of 'the resurrection of the body' (cf. the Apostles' Creed) was the natural Hebraic manner of speaking about the risen life of Christians with Christ: it is in the body that persons are recognizable as individuals with their own personal identity. Hence 'resurrection of the body' means resurrection after death to a fully personal life with Christ in God, and this is what Christians should understand when they profess the Apostles' Creed."
-Lord Raglan'''s Hero Pattern''[http://department.monm.edu/classics/courses/Clas230/MythDocuments/HeroPattern/default.htm] lists many Divine Heroes whose bodies disappear, or have more than one sepulcher. B. Traven<ref>B. Traven, ''The Creation of the Sun and Moon'', 1968</ref> 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)
+==Two Critical Issues==
-Moses is secretly buried. Elijah vanishes in a whirlwind in 2 Kings (2:11).
 ==Notes==