This article is part of theJesus series. |
Historical view of Jesus |
Christian view of Jesus |
Islamic view of Jesus (Isa) |
Jewish view of Jesus |
Other perspectives on Jesus |
Sources about Jesus |
Historicity of Jesus |
Fictional portrayals of Jesus |
According to the New Testament, God raised Jesus Christ from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. This event, which Christians have normally believed to have been an actual, historical event, is referred to in Christian terminology as the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and is commemorated and celebrated by Christians each year at Easter.
Very many self-identified Christians accept the New Testament story as an historical account of an actual event central to their faith. According to them, hope in the Resurrection distinguishes a Christian from a non-Christian: the belief that Jesus Christ died for the sins of humanity and was resurrected to live with God the Father is regarded by many as the cornerstone of Christianity. Saint Paul said that if the resurrection did not really happen, then Christians were to be pitied above all men (I Corinthians 15:19). Christians have lived and died the death of martyrs both in hope of Christ's resurrection in the past and in hope of their own in the future. However, there is significant dissent.
Non-Christians generally view the New Testament account of the resurrection of Jesus as fictional to varying degrees. Under the influence of modernity, many self-described Christians consider the historicity of the resurrection to be irrelevant to its significance as a religious symbol of hope, and accept it as a richly symbolic and spiritually nourishing myth. According to them, the fundamental difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is a subjective one, centered upon how a person responds to the myth: making the resurrection not a matter of history, but of religious attitude. This rejection of the essentially historical nature of the resurrection of Jesus is one of the issues that have divided orthodox Pauline Christians on the one side from Modernist Christianity, which denies that belief in historical factuality is defensible, but accepts that belief in the resurrection is nevertheless essential to Christian faith. Those who believe that the resurrection must be accepted as a fact of history, and in those terms essential to Christianity, often cannot regard as genuine Christians those who view the resurrection as a myth. It must be stressed that orthodox view dominates among the adherents of Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Churches and mainline Protestant denominations, with possible exception of Anglicans.
In support of this view, the defenders of the historical view have all Church history on their side. It is for them, as it has been in all eras of the Church, the bridge between the beginning and the end of human destiny as represented in the Fall and the Consummation: the very essence of faith. People reared in Christian culture (as well as non-Christians) may consider the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ as powerful myths (for instance, Carl Jung suggests in his essay "The Answer to Job" that crucifixion-resurrection story was the forceful spiritual symbol of, literally, God-as-Yahweh becoming God-as-Job). But these opinions rather represent personal approaches to spirituality, and are at odds with an historical view of the Christian religion. Nevertheless, this allowance for a subjective understanding of the importance of the resurrection has gained a vast representation among the mainline Protestant churches since the middle of the 20th century.
Some New Testament references to this event are:
Some of the earliest records of the resurrection outside the New Testament are found in the writings of Ignatius (50 - 115), Polycarp (69 - 155) Justin Martyr (100 - 165), and Tertullian (160 - 220).
The Letter of Polycarp to the Philippians -- 1:2 - 2:1, 12:2
The Letters of Ignatius...
The Biblical account
Other Christian records
The letter of the Romans to the Corinthians, probably written by Pope Clement I, also speaks of the resurrection at length.
The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus is reputed to have written in 93 that Jesus "appeared to [the disciples] alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold". However, this is a highly controversial passage: see Josephus on Jesus for more information.
As with all historical events before the past few hundred years, the issue of historicity is an important aspect of any person's belief in the actual occurrence of the resurrection. In contrast with scientific phenomena for which reproducibility and falsifiability are essential, historical phenomena depend on different criteria, such as uniqueness of occurrence, plausibility of circumstances, and testimony of witnesses.
Christians who defend the resurrection's historicity point to such things as:
While the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the fundamental beliefs of Christianity, accounts of other resurrections also appear in religion, myth, and fable. This leads some to suggest that the founding Christians invented the story of Jesus' resurrection based on other pagan traditions. Some Christians hold that the stories are significantly different and any similarities are superficial, and no special significance therefore need be attached to them.
Other Christians would observe that while many believers in the various "mystery religions" in the first and second centuries of the Roman Empire freely borrowed from each other, Christianity was not founded by any of these, but by Jews. Paul of Tarsus, who wrote much of the New Testament, was himself a Jew, a Pharisee until his conversion on the road to Damascus, and had been trained by Gamaliel, one of the leading Jewish theologians of the time. In each town that Paul visited, he preached in the Jewish synagogues before preaching to the Gentiles or non-Jews. Thus, Christians think it unlikely that the resurrection story would be invented or borrowed in order to appeal to Gentiles.
Jews point out that the story would have little appeal to Jews, however, as is proved by the way Christianity rapidly became a Gentile religion. But the fact that Jews originated the story, even though distasteful for Jews, is seen by Christians as more evidence for its authenticity.
The fact that the idea of a person being raised from the dead was not an original idea has no bearing on whether it actually happened. For example, years before we placed a man on the moon, a movie portrayed people building a rocket ship and going to the moon. The fact that this idea had already been presented as a myth does not mean that the later actual moon exploration was a lie.
Non-Christian records
The historicity of the resurrection
Those who reject or question the resurrection adduce the following points, among others:
Some historians have questioned the historicity of the events related by the New Testament. One of the first to do so was Edward Gibbon (1737 - 1794), in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, arguing about the fact that no Roman Historian quotes any darkness of three hours at the time of Christ's death; other historians have explained this darkness as an eclipse local to the Jerusalem area.Comparisons with other Resurrection stories
See also
External links: