Resurrection of Jesus
The resurrection of Jesus is the Christian belief that God raised Jesus from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion, starting—or restoring—his exalted life as Christ and Lord. According to the New Testament writing, Jesus was firstborn from the dead, ushering in the Kingdom of God. He appeared to his disciples, calling the apostles to the Great Commission of forgiving sin and baptizing repenters, and ascended to Heaven.
For the Christian tradition, the bodily resurrection was the restoration to life of a transformed body powered by spirit, as described by Paul and the gospel authors, that led to the establishment of Christianity. In Christian theology, the resurrection of Jesus is "the central mystery of the Christian faith." It provides the foundation for that faith, as commemorated by Easter, along with Jesus's life, death and sayings. For Christians, his resurrection is the guarantee that all the Christian dead will be resurrected at Christ's . The resurrection is seen as a theological affirmation that intersects with history as a precondition for understanding the historical Jesus, his suffering, and vindication.
Secular and liberal Christian scholarship asserts that religious experiences, such as the visionary appearances of Jesus and an inspired reading of the biblical texts, gave the impetus to the belief in the exaltation of Jesus as a "fulfillment of the scriptures," and a resumption of the missionary activity of Jesus's followers. Scholars differ on the historicity of Jesus' burial and the empty tomb. Scholars of Jesus as a historical figure tend to generally avoid the topic, since many see resurrection as a matter of faith, or lack thereof, and outside of the scope of historical study.
Easter is the main Christian festival celebrating the resurrection of Jesus, symbolizing God's redemption and rooted in Passover traditions. The resurrection is widely depicted in Christian art and connected to relics like the Shroud of Turin, which some believe bears a miraculous image of Jesus. Judaism teaches that Jesus' body was stolen and he did not rise. Gnosticism holds that only the soul is resurrected. Islam generally teaches that Jesus was not crucified but directly ascended to God; however Ahmadiyya Islam believes that Jesus survived the crucifixion and carried on his mission elsewhere.
Biblical accounts
The conviction that Jesus was raised from the dead is found in the earliest evidence of Christian origins.Paul and the first Christians
The moment of resurrection itself is not described in any of the canonical gospels, but all four contain passages in which Jesus is portrayed as predicting his death and resurrection, or contain allusions that "the reader will understand". The New Testament writings do not contain any descriptions of a resurrection but rather accounts of an empty tomb and appearances of Jesus.One of the letters sent by Paul the Apostle to one of the early Greek churches, the First Epistle to the Corinthians, contains one of the earliest Christian creeds referring to post-mortem appearances of Jesus, and expressing the belief that he was raised from the dead, namely 1 Corinthians 15:3–8. It is widely accepted that this creed predates Paul and the writing of First Corinthians. Scholars have contended that in his presentation of the resurrection, Paul refers to this as an earlier authoritative tradition, transmitted in a rabbinic style, that he received and has passed on to the church at Corinth. Geza Vermes writes that the creed is "a tradition he has inherited from his seniors in the faith concerning the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus". The creed's ultimate origins are probably within the Jerusalem apostolic community, having been formalised and passed on within a few years of the resurrection. Hans Grass argues for an origin in Damascus, and according to Paul Barnett, this creedal formula, and others, were variants of the "one basic early tradition that Paul "received" in Damascus from Ananias in about 34 " after his conversion.
In the Jerusalem , from which Paul received this creed, the phrase "died for our sins" probably was an apologetic rationale for the death of Jesus as being part of God's plan and purpose, as evidenced in the scriptures. For Paul, it gained a deeper significance, providing "a basis for the salvation of sinful Gentiles apart from the Torah". The phrase "died for our sins" was derived from Isaiah, especially 53:4–11, and 4 Maccabees, especially 6:28–29. "Raised on the third day" is derived from Hosea 6:1–2:
Paul, writing to the members of the church at Corinth, said that Jesus appeared to him in the same fashion in which he appeared to the earlier witnesses. In 2 Corinthians 12 Paul described "a man in Christ who... was caught up to the third heaven", and while the language is obscure, a plausible interpretation is that the man believed he saw Jesus enthroned at the right hand of God.
The many Pauline references affirming his belief in the resurrection include:
- Romans 1:3–4: "...concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and designated the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord".
- 2 Timothy 2:8: "Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead... this is my gospel for which I am suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But God's word is not chained..."
- 1 Corinthians 15:3–7: "...that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures..."
Gospels and Acts
After the resurrection, Jesus is portrayed as calling the apostles to the Great Commission, as described in Matthew 28:16–20, Mark 16:14–18, Luke 24:44–49, Acts 1:4–8, and John 20:19–23, in which the disciples receive the call "to let the world know the good news of a victorious Saviour and the very presence of God in the world by the spirit". According to these texts, Jesus says that they "will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you", that "repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem", and that "if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained".
The shorter version of the Gospel of Mark ends with the discovery of the empty tomb by Mary Magdalene, Salome, and "Mary the mother of James". A young man in a white robe at the site of the tomb announced to them that Jesus has risen, and instructed them to "tell Peter and the disciples that he will meet them in Galilee, 'just as he told you.
In the Gospel of Matthew, an angel appeared to Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb, telling her that Jesus is not there because he has been raised from the dead, and instructing her to tell the other followers to go to Galilee, to meet Jesus. Jesus then appeared to Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary" at the tomb; and next, based on Mark 16:7, Jesus appeared to all the disciples on a mountain in Galilee, where Jesus claimed authority over heaven and earth, and commissioned the disciples to preach the gospel to the whole world. In this message, the end times are delayed "to bring the world to discipleship".
In the Gospel of Luke, "the women who had come with him from Galilee" come to his tomb, which they find empty. Two angelic beings appeared to announce that Jesus is not there but has been raised. Jesus then appeared to two followers on their way to Emmaus, who notify the eleven remaining Apostles, who respond that Jesus has appeared to Peter. While they were describing this, Jesus appeared again, explaining that he is the messiah who was raised from the dead according to the scriptures "and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem". In Luke–Acts he then ascended into heaven, his rightful home.
In Acts of the Apostles, Jesus appeared to the apostles for forty days and commanded them to stay in Jerusalem, after which Jesus ascended to heaven, followed by the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and the missionary task of the early church.
Jewish-Hellenistic background
Jewish
In Judaism, the idea of resurrection first emerges in the 3rd century BC Book of Watchers and in the 2nd century BC Book of Daniel, the later possibly as a belief in the resurrection of the soul alone, which was then developed by the Pharisees as a belief in bodily resurrection, an idea completely alien to the Greeks. Josephus tells of the three main Jewish sects of the 1st century AD, that the Sadducees held that both soul and body perished at death; the Essenes that the soul was immortal but the flesh was not; and the Pharisees that the soul was immortal and that the body would be resurrected to house it. Of these three positions, Jesus and the early Christians appear to have been closest to that of the Pharisees. Steve Mason notes that for the Pharisees, "the new body is a special, holy body", which is different from the old body, "a view shared to some extent by the ex-Pharisee Paul ".The evidence from Jewish texts and from tomb inscriptions points to a more complex reality: for example, when the author of the Book of Daniel wrote that "many of those sleeping in the dust shall awaken", religion scholar Dag Øistein Endsjø believes he probably had in mind a rebirth as angelic beings ; such a rebirth would rule out a bodily resurrection, as angels were believed to be fleshless. Other scholars hold that Daniel exposes a belief in a bodily resurrection. Other texts range from the traditional Old Testament view that the soul would spend eternity in the underworld, to a metaphorical belief in the raising of the spirit. Most avoided defining what resurrection might imply, but a resurrection of the flesh was a marginal belief. As Outi Lehtipuu states, "belief in resurrection was far from being an established doctrine" of Second Temple Judaism.