Resurrection or anastasis () is the concept of coming back to life after death. This differs from reincarnation, a process involving a person or deity returning to life in a different body. Some religions also include beliefs about the disappearance, or assumption, of the body, which is a related but distinct concept. The English word derives from the Latin resurrectio, from surgere, "to rise".
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. Frazer treated these as a single dying-and-rising god pattern, a reading many later scholars have held to distort the sources. Figures such as Achilles, Alcmene and Heracles were held to have been raised to physical immortality, though Greek attitudes to returning from death were generally negative: Asclepius was killed by Zeus for reviving the dead.
In the Hebrew Bible resurrection is rare and unsystematic, confined to a few prophetic miracles and to Daniel; the afterlife is more often framed in terms of Sheol. Beliefs diversified in the Second Temple period, with bodily resurrection affirmed in 2 Maccabees, accepted by the Pharisees and rejected by the Sadducees, and it was later fixed by Maimonides among the Thirteen Principles of Faith.
The universal resurrection of the dead at the end of the world is a standard eschatological belief in the Abrahamic religions. The term is used in two distinct senses: the ongoing, individual resurrection of individual souls, as in Christian idealism and realized eschatology; and a general bodily resurrection of all the dead at the end of the world.In the language of the Christian creeds and professions of faith this return to life is called resurrection of the body (resurrectio carnis, resurrectio mortuoram, anastasis ton nekron) for a double reason: first, since the soul cannot die, it cannot be said to return to life; second the heretical contention of Hymeneus and Philitus that the Scriptures denote by resurrection not the return to life of the body, but the rising of the soul from the death of sin to the life of grace, must be excluded." Some hold that the soul is the vehicle by which people are resurrected. Early Christianity inherited the Pharisaic belief, and the resurrection of Jesus became its central doctrine; Paul held the faith to stand or fall with it. The New Testament also records resurrection miracles worked by Jesus, among them the raising of Lazarus, and by the apostles after him. Belief in a general resurrection and judgment is codified in the Apostles' Creed and Nicene Creed.
Like some forms of the Abrahamic religions, the Dharmic religions also include belief in resurrection and/or reincarnation. Hinduism and Buddhism centre on saṃsāra and rebirth rather than resurrection, though both preserve stories of the dead restored to life, such as Savitri's recovery of her husband from Yama and the vanishing of the Chan master Puhua from his coffin.
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. Philosophers including John Hick have defended bodily resurrection through "replica" and counterpart theories, in which God recreates a body continuous with the person but not identical to the one that died. Speculative technological versions have also been proposed, among them cryonics, widely regarded as pseudoscience, digital immortality schemes advanced by Hans Moravec and Ray Kurzweil, and Frank J. Tipler's Omega Point cosmology; reviving the long dead remains beyond current science.
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 ("to rise", "get up", "stand up"Karl Ernst Georges, Ferruccio Badellino, Oreste Calonghi, Dizionario Latino-Italiano (Latin to Italian dictionary), Rosenberg & Sellier, 3rd edition, Turin, 1989, 2.957 pages) + preposition re-, "again",Cassell's Latin Dictionary 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,Sir James Frazer (1922). The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion Ware: Wordsworth 1993. but many of his examples, according to various scholars, distort the sources.Jonathan Z. Smith "Dying and Rising Gods" in Mircea Eliade (ed.) The Encyclopedia of Religion: Vol. 3. New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan 1995: 521–527. 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.Mettinger, Riddle of Resurrection, 55-222.
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.Endsjø, Greek Resurrection Beliefs, 54–64; cf. Finney, Resurrection, Hell and the Afterlife, 13–20. 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.Emma and Ludwig Edelstein, Asclepius: Collection and Interpretation of the Testimonies, Volume 1, Page 51Sabine G. MacCormack Concise Encyclopedia of Greek and Roman Mythology p. 47Theony Condos, Star Myths of the Greeks and Romans, p. 141
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.Endsjø, Greek Resurrection Beliefs, 21–45, 64–72. Alcestis undergoes something akin to a resurrection in her escape from the underworld, but without achieving immortality.
Writing his Lives of Illustrious Men (Parallel Lives) 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."Parallel Lives, Life of Romulus 28:4–6 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."Collins, Adela Yarbro (2009), "Ancient Notions of Transferal and Apotheosis", pp 46,51
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." (1 Apol. 21).
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 (Japanese: Jinshu Fuke), recounted in the Record of Linji (Japanese: Rinzai Gigen). 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. This 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 (which is the majority of mainstream Christianity), as well as the resurrection miracles done by Jesus and the prophets of the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible).
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.Not in the Great Commission of the resurrected Jesus, but only in the so-called Lesser Commission of Matthew, specifically .
Similar resurrections are credited to the apostles and Catholic saints. In the Acts of the Apostles, Saint Peter raised a woman named Dorcas (also called Tabitha), 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 PictsAdomnan of Iona. Life of St Columba. Penguin books, 1995 and St. Nicholas is said to have resurrected pickled children from a brine barrel during a famine by making the sign of the cross.