Resurrection

Resurrection or anastasis is the concept of coming back to life after death. In a number of religions, a dying-and-rising god is a deity which dies and resurrects. Reincarnation is a similar process hypothesized by other religions, which involves the same person or deity coming back to live in a different body, rather than the same one.

For other uses, see Resurrection (disambiguation).

Plaque depicting saints rising from the dead

The resurrection of the dead is a standard eschatological belief in the Abrahamic religions. As a religious concept, it is used in two distinct respects: a belief in the resurrection of individual souls that is current and ongoing (Christian idealism, realized eschatology), or else a belief in a singular resurrection of the dead at the end of the world. Some believe the soul is the actual vehicle by which people are resurrected.[1]

The death and resurrection of Jesus is a central focus of Christianity. Christian theological debate ensues with regard to what kind of resurrection is factual – either a spiritual resurrection with a spirit body into Heaven, or a material resurrection with a restored human body.[2] While most Christians believe Jesus' resurrection from the dead and ascension to Heaven was in a material body, a very small minority believes it was spiritual.[3][4][5]

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"[6]) + preposition re-, "again",[7] 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,[8] but many of his examples, according to various scholars, distort the sources.[9] Taking a more positive position, Tryggve Mettinger argues in his recent book that the category of rise and return to life is significant for Ugaritic Baal, Melqart, Adonis, Eshmun, Osiris and Dumuzi.[10]

Ancient Greek religion

In ancient Greek religion a number of men and women became physically immortal as they were resurrected from the dead. Asclepius was killed by Zeus, only to be resurrected and transformed into a major deity. Achilles, after being killed, was snatched from his funeral pyre by his divine mother Thetis and resurrected, brought to an immortal existence in either 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, were also among the figures sometimes considered 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. Later he found not only to have been resurrected but to have gained immortality.[11]

Many other figures, like a great part of those who fought in the Trojan and Theban wars, Menelaus, and the historical pugilist 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.[12] The philosophical idea of an immortal soul was a later invention, which, although influential, never had a breakthrough in the Greek world. As may be witnessed even into the Christian era, not least by the complaints of various philosophers over popular beliefs, traditional Greek believers maintained the conviction that certain individuals were resurrected from the dead and made physically immortal and that for the rest of us, we could only look forward to an existence as disembodied and dead souls.[13]

Greek philosophers generally denied this traditional religious belief in physical 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 mysterious disappearance and subsequent deification of this first king of Rome, comparing it to traditional Greek beliefs such as the resurrection and 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 traditional ancient Greek religion, writing, "many such improbabilities do your fabulous writers relate, deifying creatures naturally mortal."

Alcestis undergoes resurrection over a three-day period of time,[14] but without achieving immortality.[15]

The parallel between these traditional beliefs and the later 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

Further information: Rebirth (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) and is recounted in the Record of Linji (Japanese: Rinzai Gigen). Puhua was known for his unusual behavior and teaching style so it is no wonder that he is associated with an event that breaks the usual prohibition on displaying such powers. Here is the account from Irmgard Schloegl's "The Zen Teaching of Rinzai".

"One day at the street market Fuke was begging all and sundry to give him a robe. Everybody offered him one, but he did not want any of them. The master [Linji] made the superior buy a coffin, and when Fuke returned, said to him: "There, I had this robe made for you." Fuke shouldered the coffin, and went back to the street market, calling loudly: "Rinzai had this robe made for me! I am off to the East Gate to enter transformation" (to die)." The people of the market crowded after him, eager to look. Fuke said: "No, not today. Tomorrow, I shall go to the South Gate to enter transformation." And so for three days. Nobody believed it any longer. On the fourth day, and now without any spectators, Fuke went alone outside the city walls, and laid himself into the coffin. He asked a traveler who chanced by to nail down the lid.

The news spread at once, and the people of the market rushed there. On opening the coffin, they found that the body had vanished, but from high up in the sky they heard the ring of his hand bell."[16]

Christianity

In Christianity, resurrection most critically 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 or mainstream Christianity), as well as the resurrection miracles done by Jesus and the prophets of the Old Testament.

Resurrection miracles

The Resurrection of Lazarus, painting by Leon Bonnat, France, 1857.

Main article: Miracles of Jesus § Resurrection of the dead

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.[17]

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.[18]

Resurrection of Jesus

Main articles: Life-death-rebirth deity, Resurrection of Jesus, Easter, and Resurrection appearances of Jesus

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 entire Christian faith hinges upon the centrality of the resurrection of Jesus and the hope for a life after death. The Apostle 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.[19]

Resurrection of the dead

Main articles: Resurrection of the dead § Christianity, and Christian eschatology § 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, and was notably rejected by the Sadducees, but accepted by the Pharisees (cf. 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' role as judge, is codified in the Apostles' Creed, which is the fundamental creed of Christian baptismal faith. The Book of Revelation also makes many references about the Day of Judgment when the dead will be raised.

The emphasis on the literal resurrection of the flesh remained strong in the medieval ages, and still remains so in Orthodox churches.[20] In modern Western Christianity, especially "from the 17th to the 19th century, the language of popular piety no longer evoked the resurrection of the soul but everlasting life. Although theological textbooks still mentioned resurrection, they dealt with it as a speculative question more than as an existential problem."[21]

Difference from Platonic philosophy

In Platonic philosophy and other Greek philosophical thought, at death the soul was said to leave the inferior body behind. The idea that Jesus was resurrected spiritually rather than physically even gained popularity among some Christian teachers, whom the author of 1 John declared to be antichrists. Similar beliefs appeared in the early church as Gnosticism. However, in Luke 24:39, the resurrected Jesus expressly states "behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Handle me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have."

Hinduism

Further information: Reincarnation

There are folklore, stories, and extractions from certain holy texts that refer to resurrections. One major folklore is that of Savitri saving her husband's life from Yamraj. In the Ramayana, after Ravana was slayed by Rama in a great battle between good and evil, Rama requests the king of Gods, Indra, to restore the lives of all the monkeys who died in the great battle.

Islam

Main article: Islamic eschatology

Belief in the "Day of Resurrection" (Yawm al-Qiyāmah; Arabic: يوم القيامة‎) 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.[22]

Judaism

Main article: Jewish eschatology

There are three explicit examples in the Hebrew Bible of people being resurrected from the dead:

• The prophet Elijah prays and God raises a young boy from death (1 Kings 17:17-24)
• Elisha raises the son of the Woman of Shunem (2 Kings 4:32-37) whose birth he previously foretold (2 Kings 4:8-16)
• A dead man's body that was thrown into the dead Elisha's tomb is resurrected when the body touches Elisha's bones (2 Kings 13:21)

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".[23]

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.[24]

During the Second Temple period, there developed a diversity of beliefs concerning the resurrection.[25] 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.[26] Resurrection of the dead also appears in detail in the extra-canonical Book of Enoch,[27] 2 Baruch,[28] 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.[29] C.D. Elledge, however, argues that some form of resurrection may be referred to in the Dead Sea texts 4Q521, Pseudo-Ezekiel, and 4QInstruction.[30]

Both Josephus and the New Testament record that the Sadducees did not believe in an afterlife,[31] but the sources vary on the beliefs of the Pharisees. The New Testament claims that the Pharisees believed in the resurrection, but does not specify whether this included the flesh or not.[32] 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.”[33] Paul the Apostle, who also was a Pharisee,[34] said that at the resurrection what is "sown as a natural body is raised a spiritual body."[35] The Book of Jubilees seems to refer to the resurrection of the soul only, or to a more general idea of an immortal soul.[36]

Technological resurrection

Cryonics is the low-temperature freezing (usually at −196 °C or −320.8 °F or 77.1 K) of a human corpse or severed head, with the speculative hope that resurrection may be possible in the future.[37][38] Cryonics is a pseudoscience.[39] It is regarded with skepticism within the mainstream scientific community and has been widely characterized as quackery.[40]

Russian Cosmist Nikolai Fyodorovich Fyodorov advocated resurrection of the dead using scientific methods. Fedorov tried to plan specific actions for scientific research of the possibility of restoring life and making it infinite. His first project is connected with collecting and synthesizing decayed remains of dead based on "knowledge and control over all atoms and molecules of the world". The second method described by Fedorov is genetic-hereditary. The revival could be done successively in the ancestral line: sons and daughters restore their fathers and mothers, they in turn restore their parents and so on. This means restoring the ancestors using the hereditary information that they passed on to their children. Using this genetic method it is only possible to create a genetic twin of the dead person. It is necessary to give back the revived person his old mind, his personality. Fedorov speculates about the idea of "radial images" that may contain the personalities of the people and survive after death. Nevertheless, Fedorov noted that even if a soul is destroyed after death, Man will learn to restore it whole by mastering the forces of decay and fragmentation.[41]

In his 1994 book The Physics of Immortality, American physicist Frank J. Tipler, an expert on the general theory of relativity, presented his Omega Point Theory which outlines how a resurrection of the dead could take place at the end of the cosmos. He posits that humans will evolve into robots which will turn the entire cosmos into a supercomputer which will, shortly before the Big Crunch, perform the resurrection within its cyberspace, reconstructing formerly dead humans (from information captured by the supercomputer from the past light cone of the cosmos) as avatars within its metaverse.[42]

David Deutsch, British physicist and pioneer in the field of quantum computing, agrees with Tipler's Omega Point cosmology and the idea of resurrecting deceased people with the help of quantum computers[43] but he is critical of Tipler's theological views.

Italian physicist and computer scientist Giulio Prisco presents the idea of "quantum archaeology", "reconstructing the life, thoughts, memories, and feelings of any person in the past, up to any desired level of detail, and thus resurrecting the original person via 'copying to the future'".[44]

In his book Mind Children, roboticist Hans Moravec proposed that a future supercomputer might be able to resurrect long-dead minds from the information that still survived. For example, this information can be in the form of memories, filmstrips, medical records, and DNA.[45][46]

Ray Kurzweil, American inventor and futurist, believes that when his concept of singularity comes to pass, it will be possible to resurrect the dead by digital recreation.[47]

In their science fiction novel The Light of Other Days, Sir Arthur Clarke and Stephen Baxter imagine a future civilization resurrecting the dead of past ages by reaching into the past, through micro wormholes and with nanorobots, to download full snapshots of brain states and memories.[48]

Both the Church of Perpetual Life and the Terasem Movement consider themselves transreligions and advocate for the use of technology to indefinitely extend the human lifespan.[49]

Zombies

Main article: Zombie

A zombie (Haitian French: zombi, Haitian Creole: zonbi) is a fictional undead being created through the reanimation of a human corpse. Zombies are most commonly found in horror and fantasy genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore, where a zombie is a dead body reanimated through various methods, most commonly magic.

Disappearances (as distinct from resurrection)

See also: Entering heaven alive

As knowledge of different religions has grown, so have claims of bodily disappearance of some religious and mythological figures. In ancient Greek religion, this was a way the gods made some physically immortal, including such figures as Cleitus, Ganymede, Menelaus, and Tithonus.[50] After his death, Cycnus was changed into a swan and vanished. In his chapter on Romulus from Parallel Lives, Plutarch criticises the continuous belief in such disappearances, referring to the allegedly miraculous disappearance of the historical figures Romulus, Cleomedes of Astypalaea, and Croesus. In ancient times, Greek and Roman pagan similarities were explained by the early Christian writers, such as Justin Martyr, as the work of demons, with the intention of leading Christians astray.[51]

In the Buddhist Epic of King Gesar, also spelled as Geser or Kesar, at the end, chants on a mountain top and his clothes fall empty to the ground.[52] The body of the first Guru of the Sikhs, Guru Nanak Dev, is said to have disappeared and flowers left in place of his dead body.

Lord Raglan's Hero Pattern lists many religious figures whose bodies disappear, or have more than one sepulchre.[53] B. Traven, author of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, wrote that the Inca Virococha arrived at Cusco (in modern-day Peru) and the Pacific seacoast where he walked across the water and vanished.[54] It has been thought that teachings regarding the purity and incorruptibility of the hero's human body are linked to this phenomenon. Perhaps, this is also to deter the practice of disturbing and collecting the hero's remains. They are safely protected if they have disappeared.[55]

The first such case mentioned in the Bible is that of Enoch (son of Jared, great-grandfather of Noah, and father of Methuselah). Enoch is said to have lived a life where he "walked with God", after which "he was not, for God took him" (Genesis 5:1–18).[56] In Deuteronomy (34:6) Moses is secretly buried. Elijah vanishes in a whirlwind 2 Kings (2:11). In the Synoptic Gospels, after hundreds of years these two earlier Biblical heroes suddenly reappear, and are reportedly seen walking with Jesus, then again vanish.[57] TIn the Gospel of Luke, the last time Jesus is seen (24:51) he leaves his disciples by ascending into the sky.

See also

• 1 Corinthians 15
• Information-theoretic death
• Metempsychosis
• Near death experience
• Riverworld
• Suspended animation

References

1. "Gregory of Nyssa: "On the Soul and the Resurrection:" However far from each other their natural propensity and their inherent forces of repulsion urge them, and debar each from mingling with its opposite, none the less will the soul be near each by its power of recognition, and will persistently cling to the familiar atoms, until their concourse after this division again takes place in the same way, for that fresh formation of the dissolved body which will properly be, and be called, resurrection". Ccel.org.
2. As in the Apostle's Creed: "I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting." Catholic Encyclopedia: General Resurrection: "Resurrection is the rising again from the dead, the resumption of life. The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) teaches that all men, whether elect or reprobate, "will rise again with their own bodies which they now bear about with them" (chapter "Firmiter"). In the language of the 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."
3. Symes, R. C. "According to Paul of Tarsus, the resurrection transformed Jesus into the Christ, the Son of God and Savior of the world. Christ's resurrected body was not a resuscitated physical body, but a new body of a spiritual/celestial nature: the natural body comes first and then the spiritual body (1 Cor. 15:46). Paul never says that the earthly body becomes immortal". religioustolerance.org.
4. The Watchtower Society claims that Jesus was not raised in His actual physical human body, but rather was raised as an invisible spirit being—what He was before, the archangel Michael. They believe that Christ's post-Resurrection appearances on earth were on-the-spot manifestations and materializations of flesh and bones, with different forms, that the Apostles did not immediately recognize. Their explanation for the statement "a spirit hath not flesh and bones" is that Christ was saying that he was not a ghostly apparition, but a true materialization in flesh, to be seen and touched, as proof that he was actually raised. But that, in fact, the risen Christ was, in actuality, a divine spirit being, who made himself visible and invisible at will. The Christian Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses believes that Christ’s perfect manhood was forever sacrificed at Calvary, and that it was not actually taken back. They state: "...in his resurrection he ‘became a life-giving spirit.’ That was why for most of the time he was invisible to his faithful apostles... He needs no human body any longer... The human body of flesh, which Jesus Christ laid down forever as a ransom sacrifice, was disposed of by God’s power."—Things in Which it is Impossible for God to Lie, pages 332, 354.
5. "Resurrection Theories". Gospel-mysteries.net. Retrieved 2013-05-04.
6. Karl Ernst Georges, Ferruccio Badellino, Oreste Calonghi, Dizionario Latino-Italiano (Latin to Italian dictionary), Rosenberg & Sellier, 3rd edition, Turin, 1989, 2.957 pages
7. Cassell's Latin Dictionary
8. Sir James Frazer (1922). The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion Ware: Wordsworth 1993.
9. Jonathan Z. Smith "Dying and Rising Gods" in Mircea Eliade (ed.) The Encyclopedia of Religion: Vol. 3. New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan 1995: 521-27.
10. Mettinger, Riddle of Resurrection, 55-222.
11. Endsjø, Greek Resurrection Beliefs, 54-64; cf. Finney, Resurrection, Hell and the Afterlife, 13-20.
12. Endsjø, Greek Resurrection Beliefs, 21-45, 64-72.
13. Rohde, Psyche, 335-489.
14. Euripides (2003). Luschnig, C. A. E. (ed.). Euripides' Alcestis. Oklahoma series in classical culture. 29. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press. p. 219. ISBN 9780806135748. Retrieved 2019-11-04. [...] Alcestis' resurrection and restoration to her home [...] once the three days pass that it will take for Alcestis to be cleansed of her obligations to the Netherworld [...]
15. Transactions of the American Philological Association. Scholars Press. 124. 1994. ISSN 1533-0699 https://books.google.com/books?id=GAQ8AAAAMAAJ. Retrieved 2019-11-04. And it should be remembered that Alcestis is not immortal — she and Admetus must eventually die their fated deaths. Missing or empty |title= (help)
16. Schloegl, Irmgard; tr. "The Zen Teaching of Rinzai". Shambhala Publications, Inc., Berkeley, 1976. Page 76. ISBN 0-87773-087-3.
17. Not in the Great Commission of the resurrected Jesus, but only in the so-called Lesser Commission of Matthew, specifically Matthew 10:8.
18. Adomnan of Iona. Life of St Columba. Penguin books, 1995
19. 1 Corinthians 15:19-20
20. Bynum Resurrection of the body 1996.
21. Encyclopedia of Christian Theology Vol. 3, "Resurrection of the Dead" by André Dartigues, ed. by Jean-Yves Lacoste (New York: Routledge, 2005), 1381.
22. See:
    • "Resurrection", The New Encyclopedia of Islam (2003)
    • "Avicenna". Encyclopaedia of Islam Online.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link): Ibn Sīnā, Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Sīnā is known in the West as "Avicenna".
    • L. Gardet. "Qiyama". Encyclopaedia of Islam Online.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
23. Raphael Jewish Views of the Afterlife, 45.
24. Herbert Chanon Brichto "Kin, Cult, Land and Afterlife – A Biblical Complex", Hebrew Union College Annual 44, p.8 (1973)
25. Cf. Elledge Resurrection of the Dead in Early Judaism, 19-65; Finney Resurrection, Hell and the Afterlife, 49-77; Lehtipuu Debates over the Resurrection, 31-40.
26. 2 Maccabees 7.11, 7.28.
27. 1 Enoch 61.5, 61.2.
28. 2 Baruch 50.2, 51.5
29. Philip R. Davies. “Death, Resurrection and Life After Death in the Qumran Scrolls” in Avery-Peck & Neusner (eds.) Judaism in Late Antiquity, 209; cf. Nickelsburg Resurrection, Immortality, and Eternal Life, 179.
30. Elledge Resurrection of the Dead in Early Judaism, 160-72.
31. Josephus Antiquities 18.16; Matthew 22.23; Mark 12.18; Luke 20.27; Acta 23.8.
32. Acta 23.8.
33. Josephus Jewish War 2.8.14; cf. Antiquities 8.14-15.
34. Acts 23.6, 26.5.
35. 1 Corinthians 15.35-53
36. Jubilees 23.31
37. McKie, Robin (13 July 2002). "Cold facts about cryonics". The Observer. Retrieved 1 December 2013. Cryonics, which began in the Sixties, is the freezing – usually in liquid nitrogen – of human beings who have been legally declared dead. The aim of this process is to keep such individuals in a state of refrigerated limbo so that it may become possible in the future to resuscitate them, cure them of the condition that killed them, and then restore them to functioning life in an era when medical science has triumphed over the activities of the Grim Reaper.
38. "Dying is the last thing anyone wants to do – so keep cool and carry on". The Guardian. 10 October 2015. Retrieved 21 February 2016.
39. Steinbeck RL (29 September 2002). "Mainstream science is frosty over keeping the dead on ice". Chicago Tribune.
40. Hoppe, Nils (2016-11-18). "Justice Cryogenically Delayed is Justice Denied?". BMJ Journal of Medical Ethics blog. Retrieved 2019-06-24. The mere fact that we feel the promises made by the cryopreservation industry amount to a most grievous form of quackery ...; Zimmer, Carl; Hamilton, David (October 2007). "Could He Live to 2150?". Best Life. Quack watch: The following controversial treatments are all being touted as antiaging miracle cures.; Harold Schechter (2 June 2009). The Whole Death Catalog: A Lively Guide to the Bitter End. Random House Publishing Group. p. 206. ISBN 978-0-345-51251-2.; Pein, Corey (2016-03-08). "Everybody Freeze!". The Baffler. Retrieved 2019-06-24.; Chiasson, Dan (December 2014). "Heads Will Roll". Harper's Magazine. ISSN 0017-789X. Retrieved 2019-06-24.; Miller, Laura (2012-06-24). ""The Mansion of Happiness": Matters of life and death". Salon. Retrieved 2019-06-24.; Almond, Steve (2014-02-28). "Sparks of Life". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-06-24.; Carroll, Robert Todd (2003). The Skeptics Dictionary: A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusions. Wiley. ISBN 0471272426. A business based on little more than hope for developments that can be imagined by science is quackery. There is little reason to believe that the promises of cryonics will ever be fulfilled.
41. Nikolai Berdyaev, The Religion of Resusciative Resurrection. "The Philosophy of the Common Task of N. F. Fedorov.
42. Tipler The Physics of Immortality. 56-page excerpt available here.
43. David Deutsch (1997). "The Ends of the Universe". The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes—and Its Implications. London: Penguin Press. ISBN 0-7139-9061-9.
44. Giulio Prisco (October 11, 2015). "Technological Resurrection Concepts From Fedorov to Quantum Archeology". Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. Retrieved December 10, 2015. Giulio Prisco (December 16, 2011). "Quantum Archaeology". Retrieved 6 July 2015.
45. Moravec, Hans (1988). Mind Children. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674576186. Retrieved 6 July 2015.
46. "Resurrecting the Dead - Futurisms - The New Atlantis". Futurisms - The New Atlantis. Retrieved 6 July 2015.
47. Socrates (18 July 2012). "Ray Kurzweil on the Singularity and Bringing Back the Dead". Singularity Weblog. Retrieved 6 July 2015.
48. Arthur C. Clarke, Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible, Millennium [i.e., Second] Edition, Victor Gollancz – An imprint of Orion Books Ltd., 1999, p. 118: "the novel that Stephen Baxter has now written from my synopsis — The Light of Other Days."
49. Anthony Cuthbertson (December 9, 2015). "Virtual reality heaven: How technology is redefining death and the afterlife". International Business Times. Retrieved December 10, 2015.
50. Rohde Psyche, 55-87; Endsjø Greek Resurrection Beliefs, 64-72.
51. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho.
52. Alexandra David-Neel,and Lama Yongden, The Superhuman Life of Gesar of Ling, Rider, 1933, While still in oral tradition, it is recorded for the first time by an early European traveler.
53. Otto Rank, Lord Raglan, and Alan Dundes, In Quest of the Hero, Princeton University Press, 1990
54. B. Traven, The Creation of the Sun and Moon, Lawerence Hill Books, 1977
55. See: Michael Paterniti, Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America with Einstein's Brain, The Dial Press, 2000
56. Genesis 5:18-24
57. Mark (9:2–8), Matthew (17:1–8) and Luke (9:28–33)

Further reading

• Alan J. Avery-Peck & Jacob Neusner (eds.). Judaism in Late Antiquity: Part Four: Death, Life-After-Death, Resurrection, and the World-To-Come in the Judaisms of Antiquity. Leiden: Brill, 2000.
• Caroline Walker Bynum. The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200-1336. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.
• C.D. Elledge. Resurrection of the Dead in Early Judaism, 200 BCE -- CE 200. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
• Dag Øistein Endsjø. Greek Resurrection Beliefs and the Success of Christianity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
• Mark T. Finney. Resurrection, Hell and the Afterlife: Body and Soul in Antiquity, Judaism and Early Christianity. New York: Routledge, 2017.
• Nikolai Fyodorovich Fyodorov. Philosophy of Physical Resurrection 1906.
• Edwin Hatch. Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages Upon the Christian Church (1888 Hibbert Lectures).
• Alfred J Hebert. Raised from the Dead: True Stories of 400 Resurrection Miracles.
• Dierk Lange. "The dying and the rising God in the New Year Festival of Ife", in: Lange, Ancient Kingdoms of West Africa, Dettelbach: Röll Vlg. 2004, pp. 343–376.
• Outi Lehtipuu. Debates over the Resurrection of the Dead: Constructing Early Christian Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
• Richard Longenecker, editor. Life in the Face of Death: The Resurrection Message of the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998.
• Joseph McCabe. Myth of the Resurrection and Other Essays, Prometheus books: New York, 1993 [1925]
• Kevin J. Madigan & Jon D. Levenson. Resurrection: The Power of God for Christians and Jews. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008.
• Tryggve Mettinger. The Riddle of Resurrection: "Dying and Rising Gods" in the Ancient Near East, Stockholm: Almqvist, 2001.
• Markus Mühling. Grundinformation Eschatologie. Systematische Theologie aus der Perspektive der Hoffnung. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007.
• George Nickelsburg. Resurrection, Immortality, and Eternal Life in Intertestmental Judaism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972.
• Pheme Perkins. Resurrection: New Testament Witness and Contemporary Reflection. Garden City: Doubleday & Company, 1984.
• Simcha Paull Raphael. Jewish Views of the Afterlife. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009.
• Erwin Rohde Psyche: The Cult of Souls and Belief in Immortality among the Greeks. New York: Harper & Row, 1925 [1921].
• Charles H. Talbert. "The Concept of Immortals in Mediterranean Antiquity", Journal of Biblical Literature, Volume 94, 1975, pp 419–436.
• Charles H. Talbert. "The Myth of a Descending-Ascending Redeemer in Mediterranean Antiquity", New Testament Studies, Volume 22, 1975/76, pp 418–440.
• Frank J. Tipler (1994). The Physics of Immortality: Modern Cosmology, God and the Resurrection of the Dead. my house: Doubleday. ISBN 0-19-851949-4.
• N.T. Wright (2003). The Resurrection of the Son of God. London: SPCK; Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

External links

• "Resurrection". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• Resurrection of Jesus Christ - Catholic Encyclopedia
• Article on resurrection in the Hebrew Bible.
• Jewish Encyclopedia: Resurrection
• The enticement of the Occult: Occultism examined by a scientist and Orthodox Priest
• Rethinking the resurrection.(of Jesus Christ)(Cover Story) Newsweek, April 8th 1996, Woodward, Kenneth L.
• Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Death and Immortality, Resurrection, Reincarnation