Resurrection of Jesus
The resurrection of Jesus (Biblical Greek: ἀνάστασις τοῦ Ἰησοῦ, romanized: anástasis toú Iēsoú) is the Christian belief that God raised Jesus from the dead on the third day[note 1] after his crucifixion, starting – or restoring[web 1][note 2] – his exalted life as Christ and Lord.[web 2] According to the New Testament writing, Jesus was firstborn from the dead, ushering in the Kingdom of God.[1][web 2] He appeared to his disciples, calling the apostles to the Great Commission of forgiving sin and baptizing repenters, and ascended to Heaven.
For the Christian tradition, the bodily resurrection was the restoration to life of a transformed body powered by spirit,[web 3] as described by Paul and the Gospel authors, that led to the establishment of Christianity. In Christian theology, the resurrection of Jesus is "the central mystery of the Christian faith".[2] It provides the foundation for that faith, as commemorated by Easter, along with Jesus's life, death and sayings.[3] For Christians, his resurrection is the guarantee that all the Christian dead will be resurrected at Christ's parousia (second coming).[4]
Secular and liberal Christian scholarship asserts that religious experiences,[5] such as the visionary appearances of Jesus[6][7][8][note 3] and an inspired reading of the Biblical texts,[9] gave the impetus to the belief in the exaltation of Jesus[10] as a "fulfillment of the scriptures",[11] and a resumption of the missionary activity of Jesus's followers.[6][12]
Scholars of Jesus as a historical figure tend to generally avoid the topic, since many believe the matter to be about faith, or lack thereof.[13]
Resurrection of a transformed body[edit]
Géza Vermes notes that the story of the empty tomb conflicts with notions of a spiritual resurrection. According to Vermes, "[t]he strictly Jewish bond of spirit and body is better served by the idea of the empty tomb and is no doubt responsible for the introduction of the notions of palpability (Thomas in John) and eating (Luke and John)."[146]
Both Ware and Cook argue, primarily from Paul's terminology and the contemporary Jewish, pagan and cultural understanding of the nature of resurrection, that Paul held to a physically resurrected body (sōma), restored to life, but animated by spirit (pneumatikos) instead of soul (psuchikos), just like the later Gospel accounts.[149][web 6] The nature of this resurrected body is a matter of debate. In 1 Corinthians 15:44,[150] Paul uses the phrase "spiritual body" (sōma pneumatikos),[web 7] which has been explained as a "Spirit-empowered body",[149][web 6][web 8] but also as a "celestial body", made of a finer material than the flesh.[151][web 8][note 13]
In the Epistle to the Philippians Paul describes how the body of the resurrected Christ is utterly different from the one he wore when he had "the appearance of a man", and holds out a similar glorified state, when Christ "will transform our lowly body", as the goal of the Christian life – "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God" (I Corinthians 15:50), and Christians entering the kingdom will be "putting off the body of the flesh" (Colossians 2:11).[152][153] Paul opposed the notion of a purely spiritual resurrection, as propagated by some Christians in Corinth, which he addresses in 1 Corinthians.[151] The developing Gospel tradition emphasized the material aspects to counter this spiritual interpretation.[148]
Paul's views of a bodily resurrection went against the thoughts of the Greek philosophers to whom a bodily resurrection meant a new imprisonment in a corporeal body, which was what they wanted to avoid – given that, for them, the corporeal and the material fettered the spirit.[154]
James Dunn notes that there is a great difference between Paul's resurrection appearance, and the appearances described in the Gospels. Where "Paul's seeing was visionary ... , 'from heaven'", in contrast, the Gospel accounts have a "massive realism" to them,[155] as seen for example in Luke having Jesus insisting that he was of "flesh and bones",[156] and John having Jesus asking Thomas to touch his wounds.[157] Dunn contends that the "massive realism' ... of the [Gospel] appearances themselves can only be described as visionary with great difficulty – and Luke would certainly reject the description as inappropriate."[155] According to Dunn, most scholars explain this as a "legendary materialization" of the visionary experiences, "borrowing the traits of the earthly Jesus."[158][note 14] Yet, according to Dunn, there was both "a tendency away from the physical ... and a reverse tendency towards the physical."[162] The tendency towards the material is most clear, but there are also signs for the tendency away from the physical, and "there are some indications that a more physical understanding was current in the earliest Jerusalem community."[163]
According to Wright, there is substantial unanimity among the early Christian writers (first and second century) that Jesus had been bodily raised from the dead,[164] "with (as the early Christians in their different ways affirmed) a 'transphysical' body, both the same and yet in some mysterious way transformed."[139] According to Wright, Paul "believed he had seen the risen Jesus in person, and ... his understanding of who this Jesus was included the firm belief that he possessed a transformed but still physical body."[165]
![The Resurrection of Christ, Alonso López de Herrera [es], c. 1625](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6c/Alonso_L%C3%B3pez_de_Herrera_-_The_Resurrection_of_Christ_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg/201px-Alonso_L%C3%B3pez_de_Herrera_-_The_Resurrection_of_Christ_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)
