Resurrection

This article is about the religious meaning of the word "Resurrection". For other meanings see Resurrection (disambiguation).

Resurrection is the raising of a person from death back to life.

Different stories of resurrection occur. Some resurrections are of the physical body, brought back to life, indistinguishable to the life it had prior to its death. Some resurrections are symbolic, not of a physical body, but of a ghost body seen after the death of a person's body.

While the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the foundational beliefs of Christianity, accounts of other resurrections also figure in religion, myth, and fable.

Examples are Mithraism; Greek worship of Adonis; Egyptian worship of Osiris; the Babylonian story of Tammuz; and rural religious belief in the Corn King. Some historians conjecture that the New Testament's accounts of the resurrection of Jesus were in some ways influenced by the traditions of resurrected Divine Heroes from surrounding cultures, especially the ancient Greeks and Romans. (Notice the New Testament is written entirely in Greek and the majority of peoples accepting Christianity are gentiles within the confines of the Roman Empire. Christianity does not begin on a clean slate.) See Osiris-Dionysus and Orpheus Only Orpheus appears in the earliest Christian art on the walls of the catacombs in Rome. Some early Christians, such as Justin Martyr, believed that some of these pagan beliefs were influenced by the prophecies of Moses and other Israelites. Arnold Toynbee, the historian, went so far as saying pagan ressurrections were the Divine preparations for Jesus. Many Christians hold that the stories are significantly different, and that the similarities are superficial; thus, no special significance need be attached to the similarities. Some discussion of these views are expressed in the relevant articles.

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 three days. Peter also 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. In the Tanakh (also called Old Testament), Elisha is said to have raised a young boy from death. However, all of these persons are traditionally held to have later died. Also of interest are the Biblical accounts that Enoch and the prophet Elijah were removed into the presence of God without experiencing death, and the traditional belief that the grave of Moses cannot be found because the prophet was raised from the dead. The Virgin Mary is also believed by some Christians to have been taken bodily into heaven, after her death (this belief is held dogmatically by the Roman Catholic Church).

Since Christianity is largely derived from Judaic sources, it is worthwhile pointing out that Judaism insists that belief in Revival of the Dead is one of the cardinal principals of the Jewish faith. A famous Jewish halakhic - legal authority, Maimonides, set down 13 (thirteen) main principles of the Jewish faith according to Orthodox Judaism and Resurrection is one of them which is printed in all Rabbinic prayer books to the present time. It is the thirteenth principle and states:

• "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"

Bodily Disappearance

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. There is a tradional spot that while mounted, Muhammad and his horse both ascend into the sky. This shows a variety in traditions for Muhummad's famous tomb is visited each year in Mecca. Lord Raglan's Hero Pattern lists many Divine Heroes whose bodies disappear. B. Traven, author of "The Treasure of Sierra Madre", wrote the Inca, Divine Hero, Virococha, walked away on the top of the sea and vanished. It has been thought that teachings regarding the purity of the Divine Hero's human body are linked to this phenomena.

See also Quetzalcoatl, Samaritans, Immortality, Vodun