Resurrection
Resurrection or anastasis is the concept of coming back to life after death. This is quite different from reincarnation, a process involving a person or deity returning to life in a different body. The disappearance of a body is another similar but distinct belief in some religions.
With the advent of written records, the earliest known recurrent theme of resurrection was in Egyptian and Canaanite religions, which had cults of dying-and-rising gods such as Osiris and Baal. Ancient Greek religion generally emphasised immortality, but in the mythos, a number of individuals were made physically immortal as they were resurrected from the dead.
The universal resurrection of the dead at the end of the world is a standard eschatological belief in the Abrahamic religions. As a religious concept, resurrection is used in two distinct respects:
- a belief in the individual resurrections of individual souls that is current and ongoing,
- a general bodily universal resurrection of all of the dead at the end of the world. Some believe the soul is the actual vehicle by which people are resurrected.
Like some forms of the Abrahamic religions, the Dharmic religions also include belief in resurrection and/or reincarnation. There are stories in Buddhism wherein the power of resurrection was allegedly demonstrated in the Chan or Zen tradition. In Hinduism, the core belief in resurrection and/or reincarnation is known as saṃsāra.
Aside from religious belief, cryonics and other speculative resurrection technologies are practiced, but the resurrection of long-dead bodies is not considered possible at the current level of scientific knowledge.
Etymology
Resurrection, from the Latin noun resurrectio -onis, from the verb rego, "to make straight, rule" + preposition sub, "under", altered to subrigo and contracted to surgo, surrexi, surrectum + preposition re-, "again", thus literally "a straightening from under again".Religion
Ancient religions in the Near East
The concept of resurrection is found in the writings of some ancient non-Abrahamic religions in the Middle East. A few extant Egyptian and Canaanite writings allude to dying-and-rising gods such as Osiris and Baal. Sir James Frazer, in his book The Golden Bough, relates to these dying-and-rising gods, but many of his examples, according to various scholars, distort the sources. Taking a more positive position, Tryggve Mettinger argues in his book that the category of rise and return to life is significant for Ugaritic Baal, Melqart, Adonis, Eshmun, Osiris and Dumuzi.Ancient Greek religion
In ancient Greek religion, a number of men and women have been interpreted as being resurrected and made immortal. Achilles, after being killed, was snatched from his funeral pyre by his divine mother, Thetis, and brought to an immortal existence in Leuce, the Elysian plains, or the Islands of the Blessed. Memnon, who was killed by Achilles, seems to have received a similar fate. Alcmene, Castor, Heracles, and Melicertes are also among the figures interpreted to have been resurrected to physical immortality. According to Herodotus's Histories, the seventh-century BC sage Aristeas of Proconnesus was first found dead, after which his body disappeared from a locked room. He would reappear alive years later. However, Greek attitudes toward resurrection were generally negative, and resurrection was considered neither desirable nor possible. For example, Asclepius was killed by Zeus for using herbs to resurrect the dead, but, by his father Apollo's request, was subsequently immortalized as a star.Many other figures, like a great part of those who fought in the Trojan War and Theban War, Menelaus, and the historical prizefighter Cleomedes of Astupalaea, were also believed to have been made physically immortal, but without having died in the first place. Indeed, in Greek religion, immortality originally always included an eternal union of body and soul. Alcestis undergoes something akin to a resurrection in her escape from the underworld,
but without achieving immortality.
Writing his Lives of Illustrious Men in the first century, the Middle Platonic philosopher Plutarch in his chapter on Romulus gave an account of the king's mysterious disappearance and subsequent deification, comparing it to Greek tales such as the physical immortalization of Alcmene and Aristeas the Proconnesian, "for they say Aristeas died in a fuller's work-shop, and his friends coming to look for him, found his body vanished; and that some presently after, coming from abroad, said they met him traveling towards Croton". Plutarch openly scorned such beliefs held in ancient Greek religion, writing, "many such improbabilities do your fabulous writers relate, deifying creatures naturally mortal." Likewise, he writes that while something within humans comes from the gods and returns to them after death, this happens "only when it is most completely separated and set free from the body, and becomes altogether pure, fleshless, and undefiled."
The parallel between these traditional beliefs and the later belief in the resurrection of Jesus was not lost on the early Christians, as Justin Martyr argued: "When we say... Jesus Christ, our teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propose nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you consider sons of Zeus.".
Buddhism
There are stories in Buddhism where the power of resurrection was allegedly demonstrated in Chan or Zen tradition. One is the legend of Bodhidharma, the Indian master who brought the Ekayana school of India that subsequently became Chan Buddhism to China.The other is the passing of Chinese Chan master Puhua, recounted in the Record of Linji. Puhua was known for his unusual behavior and teaching style. Hence, it is no wonder that he is associated with an event that breaks the usual prohibition on displaying such powers. Here is the account from Irmgard Schloegl's "The Zen Teaching of Rinzai."
Christianity
In Christianity, resurrection most importantly concerns the resurrection of Jesus but also includes the resurrection of Judgment Day, known as the resurrection of the dead by those Christians who subscribe to the Nicene Creed, as well as the resurrection miracles done by Jesus and the prophets of the Old Testament.Resurrection miracles
In the New Testament, Jesus is said to have raised several persons from death. These resurrections included the daughter of Jairus shortly after death, a young man in the midst of his own funeral procession, and Lazarus of Bethany, who had been buried for four days.During the Ministry of Jesus on earth, before his death, Jesus commissioned his Twelve Apostles to, among other things, raise the dead.
Similar resurrections are credited to the apostles and Catholic saints. In the Acts of the Apostles, Saint Peter raised a woman named Dorcas, and Paul the Apostle revived a man named Eutychus who had fallen asleep and fell from a window to his death. According to the Gospel of Matthew, after Jesus's resurrection, many of those previously dead came out of their tombs and entered Jerusalem, where they appeared to many. Following the Apostolic Age, many saints were said to resurrect the dead, as recorded in Orthodox Christian hagiographies. St. Columba supposedly raised a boy from the dead in the land of Picts and St. Nicholas is said to have resurrected pickled children from a brine barrel during a famine by making the sign of the cross.
Both Josephus and the New Testament record that the Sadducees did not believe in an afterlife, but the sources vary on the beliefs of the Pharisees. The New Testament claims that the Pharisees believed in the resurrection, but does not specify whether this included the flesh or not. According to Josephus, who himself was a Pharisee, the Pharisees held that only the soul was immortal and the souls of good people will "pass into other bodies," while "the souls of the wicked will suffer eternal punishment." Paul the Apostle, who also was a Pharisee, said that at the resurrection what is "sown as a natural body is raised a spiritual body." The Book of Jubilees seems to refer to the resurrection of the soul only, or to a more general idea of an immortal soul.
Resurrection of Jesus
Christians regard the resurrection of Jesus as the central doctrine in Christianity. Others take the incarnation of Jesus to be more central; however, it is the miracles – and particularly his resurrection – which provide validation of his incarnation. According to Paul the Apostle, the entire Christian faith hinges upon the centrality of the resurrection of Jesus and the hope for life after death. Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians:Resurrection of the dead
Christianity started as a religious movement within 1st-century Judaism, and it retains what the New Testament itself claims was the Pharisaic belief in the afterlife and resurrection of the dead. Whereas this belief was only one of many beliefs held about the world to come in Second Temple Judaism, it was notably rejected by the Sadducees but accepted by the Pharisees. Belief in the resurrection became dominant within Early Christianity, and already in the Gospels of Luke and John included an insistence on the resurrection of the flesh. Most modern Christian churches continue to uphold the belief that there will be a final resurrection of the dead and world to come.Belief in the resurrection of the dead, and Jesus's role as judge, is codified in the Apostles' Creed, the fundamental creed of Christian baptismal faith. The Book of Revelation also makes many references about the Judgment Day, when the dead will be raised.