Resurrection
Resurrection refers to the belief in restoring life to a being who has died, a concept prevalent in various ancient religions and mythologies, including Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek, and Norse traditions. In these mythologies, narratives often feature dying and reviving deities, such as Tammuz, Osiris, and Adonis, who embody themes of death and rebirth, frequently associated with agricultural cycles. The notion of bodily resurrection is particularly significant in the three Abrahamic faiths, most notably Christianity, where the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a foundational belief. While the New Testament presents this event as a literal occurrence, interpretations among Christians can vary; some view the resurrection metaphorically rather than literally.
In addition to Christianity, Islam also holds a belief in resurrection, asserting that all individuals will be resurrected on the Day of Judgment. Zoroastrianism shares a similar belief in a final judgment. Culturally, the idea of resurrection has evolved, often appearing symbolically in fiction and film, though characters such as Aslan from C. S. Lewis or superheroes like Superman embody elements of resurrection that resonate with Christian themes. Overall, resurrection remains a multifaceted concept with diverse interpretations across different cultures and religious beliefs.
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Resurrection
Belief in resurrection, or the restoring of life to a being who has died, existed in some form in a number of ancient religions, perhaps evolving from an even earlier fertility myth. Variations of the dying and reviving god story can be found in Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek, and Norse mythology. However, the belief in a general bodily resurrection is connected most directly with the three Abrahamic religions, particularly Christianity for which the resurrection of Christ is a central tenet. So closely is the term identified with Christianity that most dictionaries define the term first within this context. As Western culture has grown more skeptical and secular, the resurrection topos in fiction and film has become largely symbolic. Exceptions to the departure from literal resurrection can be found in Christ figures in fantasy and tales of superheroes.
Background
Scholars suggest that a number of vegetation gods coalesced into the Babylonian god Tammuz, who is mentioned both in The Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2000 BCE) and the Book of Ezekiel in the Hebrew Bible (which records events between 593 and 571 BCE). Tammuz died as a substitute for Ishtar in some accounts, was deeply mourned, and eventually was allowed to return from among the dead in the underworld to join the living for six months of each year. Another vegetation god, the Egyptian deity Osiris, god of the dead, is thought to be a variation of Tammuz. Murdered by his brother, Osiris was miraculously resurrected by his sister/wife Isis long enough to impregnate her with a son who would become king. The Greek myth of Adonis, a youth fatally wounded by a wild boar, is still another variation of the Tammuz myth. So beloved was he by both Aphrodite, goddess of love, and Persephone, queen of the underworld, that when Zeus yielded to Aphrodite’s pleas to restore Adonis to life, Zeus required him to spend part of each year with each goddess. The story links Adonis to the dying vegetative god group.
The resurrection of Balder, best and best loved of the Norse gods, is a different kind of tale. Balder falls victim to the malice of Loki twice: once when Loki arranges for Balder’s blind brother to pelt him with mistletoe, the one plant that can harm Balder, and once when a disguised Loki is the one creature who does not weep for Balder’s death, thus denying him resurrection. Nevertheless, Balder has the promise of resurrection when a new, better world rises from the sea. C. S. Lewis argued that all these resurrection myths foreshadow the resurrection of Christ as a dream may prefigure reality.
Among the Jews, a belief in resurrection was not universal. Despite such examples as Enoch who "was no more, because God took him (Genesis 5:24) and the resurrection of boys in response to the prayers of Elijah (1 Kings 17:17-24) and Elisha (2 Kings 4:32-37), references to resurrection in Hebrew scripture are rare. The most direct reference is found in the Book of Daniel: "Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt" (Daniel 12:2). Isaiah 26:19 makes clear reference to bodily resurrection.
Statements supporting a belief in resurrection are also found in the Second Book of Maccabees and later rabbinic writings. Josephus, a first-century Jewish historian, reported that the Sadducees, one of the three main Jewish political groups between 150 BCE and 70 CE, rejected even the idea of the immortality of the soul, and other Jews interpreted resurrection references as metaphors for the restoration of Israel. The latter is particularly true for the famous passage in Ezekiel 37 in which the prophet Ezekiel’s vision includes the reanimation of dried bones. Christian belief in resurrection may be connected to Jewish precedents, but the New Testament writers were in accord in their resurrection belief.
Impact
From the earliest records of Christianity through books rolling off Christian presses in the twenty-first century, Christian writers have emphasized the centrality of the Incarnation (Christ as God made flesh) and the Resurrection (Christ risen from the dead) to Christian belief. All four gospelsthe Bible's New Testament Books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Johnalthough varying in details, offer accounts of the death and resurrection of Jesus. The apostle Paul, a converted Jew educated in Jewish traditions, in his first letter to the church at Corinth insisted that "if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain" (1 Corinthians 15:14). Paul clearly had bodily resurrection in mind as later in the same chapter he uses the metaphor of a seed to write of the incorruptibility of the resurrected body, a body that is both spiritual and carnal (1 Corinthians 15:42–44), a concept repeated by Augustine in his Enchiridion and by countless other Christian theologians and laity since Augustine. The resurrection has also served as the basis for attacks on Christian belief from the first to the twenty-first centuries. Paul’s Athenian critics in the Book of Acts aimed at this target as did Celsus in the second century who declared the doctrine of the resurrection incomprehensible.
For two thousand years, Christian thinkers have debated the exact meaning of "spiritual body," and critics of the faith have mocked the idea. Variations of the Apostle’s Creed, the origin of which possibly may be traced back as early as the late second century and which in the twenty-first century remains part of the liturgy of Catholic and Protestant churches, affirms belief in the resurrection of Christ and the bodily resurrection of the believer. Nevertheless, not all who describe themselves as Christians accept a literal interpretation of the resurrection. Liberal believers often view the resurrection of both Jesus and the believer as metaphorical. Some research suggests that fewer than half of Christians view the resurrection of Christ as the most important aspect of their faith. Some have replaced a belief in resurrection with a belief in reincarnation.
Nor are Christians the only religious group in which a majority believes in a general resurrection. Muslims believe that all people will be resurrected at Doomsday, when they will face judgment based on the good and evil they have done and assigned to paradise or punishment accordingly. The small group of practicing Zoroastrians in the twenty-first century also believes in the eventual defeat of evil and a final judgment that will see the righteous inherit a restored world. In fictional worlds, characters from C. S. Lewis’s Aslan to J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter to superheroes such as Superman and Batman experience resurrections that evoke Christian theology.
Bibliography
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