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 (
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." 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." (
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 , France, 1857 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 (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 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 says 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: "If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.
Rudolf Bultmann argued that many theological concepts later associated with Jesus’ resurrection drew upon preexisting mythological and religious traditions. He suggested that early Christian communities applied longstanding motifs—such as the suffering and redeeming divine figure—to the historical person of Jesus of Nazareth.
Resurrection of the dead Christianity started as a religious movement within 1st-century Judaism (late
Second Temple 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 (
Acts 23:6–8). 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.
Hinduism There are folklore, stories, and extractions from Hindu holy texts that refer to resurrections. One major legend is that of
Savitri saving her husband's life from Yamraj. In the
Ramayana, after Ravana was slain by Rama in a great battle between good and evil, Rama requests the king of Devas, Indra, to restore the lives of all the monkeys who died in the great battle
Mahavatar Babaji and
Lahiri Mahasaya are also believed to have resurrected themselves.
Islam Belief in the
Day of Resurrection (
yawm al-qiyāmah) is also crucial for Muslims. They believe the time of
Qiyāmah is preordained by God but unknown to man. The trials and
tribulations preceding and during the
Qiyāmah are described in the Quran and the
hadith, and also in the commentaries of
scholars. The Quran emphasizes
bodily resurrection, a break from the
pre-Islamic Arabian understanding of death. According to
Nasir Khusraw (d. after 1070), an
Ismaili thinker of the
Fatimid era, the Resurrection (
Qiyāma) will be ushered by the
Lord of the Resurrection (
Qāʾim al-Qiyāma), an individual symbolizing the purpose and pinnacle of creation from among the progeny of Muhammad and his Imams. Through this individual, the world will come out of darkness and ignorance and "into the light of her Lord" (Quran 39:69). His era, unlike that of the enunciators of the divine revelation (
nāṭiqs) before him, is not one where God prescribes the people to work but instead one where God rewards them. Preceding the Lord of the Resurrection (
Qāʾim) is his proof (
ḥujjat). The Qur'anic verse stating that "the night of power (
laylat al-qadr) is better than a thousand months" (Quran 97:3) is said to refer to this proof, whose knowledge is superior to that of a thousand Imams, though their rank, collectively, is one. Hakim Nasir also recognizes the successors of the Lord of the Resurrection to be his deputies (
khulafāʾ).
Judaism In the
Hebrew Bible, resurrection (Hebrew:
תחיית המתים,
techiyat hametim) appears only in a limited number of narrative and prophetic contexts and is not presented as a systematic doctrine. Three explicit cases describe individuals being restored to life through prophetic intervention:
Elijah raises a widow’s son (1 Kings 17:17-24),
Elisha revives the son of the
Shunammite woman (2 Kings 4:32–37), and a dead man comes back to life upon touching Elisha’s bones (2 Kings 13:21). These episodes are portrayed as extraordinary miracles rather than as evidence of a general belief in post-mortem resurrection. Biblical conceptions of death and the afterlife are more commonly associated with
Sheol, a term referring to the realm of the dead. According to Herbert C. Brichto, writing in Reform Judaism's
Hebrew Union College Annual, the family tomb is the central concept in understanding biblical views of the
afterlife. Brichto states that it is "not mere sentimental respect for the physical remains that is...the motivation for the practice, but rather an assumed connection between proper
sepulture and the condition of happiness of the deceased in the afterlife". According to Brichto, the early
Israelites apparently believed that the graves of family, or tribe, united into one, and that this unified collectivity is to what the
Biblical Hebrew term
Sheol refers, the common grave of humans. Although not well defined in the
Tanakh, Sheol in this view was a subterranean underworld where the souls of the dead went after the body died. The Babylonians had a similar underworld called
Aralu, and the
ancient Greeks had one known as
Hades. According to Brichto, other biblical names for Sheol were
Abaddon "ruin", found in Psalm 88:11, Job 28:22 and Proverbs 15:11; Bor "pit", found in Isaiah 14:15, 24:22, Ezekiel 26:20; and Shakhat "corruption", found in Isaiah 38:17, Ezekiel 28:8. During the
Second Temple period, there developed a diversity of beliefs concerning the resurrection. The concept of resurrection of the physical body is found in
2 Maccabees, according to which it will happen through re-creation of the flesh. Resurrection of the dead also appears in detail in the extra-canonical
Book of Enoch,
2 Baruch, and
2 Esdras. According to the British scholar in ancient Judaism
Philip R. Davies, there is "little or no clear reference ... either to immortality or to resurrection from the dead" in the texts of the
Dead Sea Scrolls.
C.D. Elledge, however, argues that some form of resurrection may be referred to in the Dead Sea texts
4Q521,
Pseudo-Ezekiel, and
4QInstruction. Too, there is the
Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones in the
Book of Ezekiel, and the
Book of Daniel, which mentions resurrection. As Professor Devorah Dimant notes on
TheTorah.com, "Originally an allegorical vision about the future return of Judeans to their land, Ezekiel's vision (ch. 37) becomes one of the cornerstones for the Jewish belief in the resurrection of the dead. ... The only biblical passage that
unambiguously refers to resurrection is found in the final chapter of the book of Daniel[.]" In medieval Jewish thought, belief in the resurrection of the dead (תחיית המתים) was formally articulated as one of the
Thirteen Principles of Faith (
שלושה עשר עיקרים), formulated by the philosopher and legal scholar
Maimonides in the 12th century. These principles summarize core theological beliefs of Judaism, including the existence and unity of God, divine revelation, prophecy, reward and punishment, and the coming of the Messiah. The final principle explicitly affirms faith in the future resurrection of the dead, understood as a divinely ordained event in the messianic era. Maimonides’ inclusion of resurrection among these foundational principles reflects its importance in rabbinic Judaism, even as interpretations varied regarding its nature, timing, and relationship to the afterlife. == Philosophy ==