Resurrection of Jesus

[16] Scholars have contended that in his presentation of the resurrection, Paul refers to this as an earlier authoritative tradition, transmitted in a rabbinic style, that he received and has passed on to the church at Corinth.

[37]In the Jerusalem ekklēsia (Church), from which Paul received this creed, the phrase "died for our sins" probably was an apologetic rationale for the death of Jesus as being part of God's plan and purpose, as evidenced in the scriptures.

A young man in a white robe at the site of the tomb announced to them that Jesus has risen, and instructed them to "tell Peter and the disciples that he will meet them in Galilee, 'just as he told you'" (Mark 16).

While they were describing this, Jesus appeared again, explaining that he is the messiah who was raised from the dead according to the scriptures "and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem".

The Greeks traditionally held that a number of men and women gained physical immortality as they were translated to live forever in either Elysium, the Islands of the Blessed, heaven, the ocean, or literally right under the ground.

[76][77][78] According to Bart Ehrman, most of the alleged parallels between Jesus and pagan deities only exist in the modern imagination, and there are no "accounts of others who were born to virgin mothers and who died as an atonement for sin and then were raised from the dead".

[79] From Hellenistic times on, some Greeks held that the soul of a meritorious man could be translated into a god in the process of apotheosis (divinization) which then transferred them to a special place of honour.

Challenges such as Gerd Ludemanns, who argues that the tomb was not really empty but takes the stories of Jesus' appearances as describing real events, explaining them as subjective visions, remain a minority.

[92][93] Burial of people who were executed by crucifixion is also attested by archaeological finds from Jehohanan, a body of an apparently crucified man with a nail in the heel which could not be removed who was buried in a tomb.

[94][89] Contra a decent burial, Martin Hengel has argued that Jesus was buried in disgrace as an executed criminal who died a shameful death,[95][96] a view which is "now widely accepted and has become entrenched in scholarly literature".

Referring to Hengel and Crossan, Ehrman argues that crucifixion was meant "to torture and humiliate a person as fully as possible", and the body was normally left on the stake to be eaten by animals.

Evans also notes that "politically, too, it seems unlikely that, on the eve of Passover, a holiday that celebrates Israel's liberation from foreign domination, Pilate would have wanted to provoke the Jewish population" by denying Jesus a proper burial.

[117] According to religion professor John Granger Cook, there are historical texts that mention mass graves, but they contain no indication of those bodies being dug up by animals.

Cook writes that "those texts show that the narrative of Joseph of Arimethaea's burial of Jesus would be perfectly comprehensible to a Greco-Roman reader of the gospels and historically credible".

[124] The absence of any reference to the story of Jesus's empty tomb in the Pauline epistles and the Easter kerygma (preaching or proclamation) of the earliest church has led some scholars to suggest that Mark invented it.

[129][130] Christian biblical scholars have used textual critical methods to support the historicity of the tradition that "Mary of Magdala had indeed been the first to see Jesus", most notably the Criterion of Embarrassment in recent years.

Using a methodology based on memory theory, Graieg argues that Paul in First Corinthians remembered Jesus as having bodily risen from the dead and that the resurrection was of core importance to early Christians.

[138] Religion professor Dag Øistein Endsjø points to how the notion of an empty tomb would fit with the ancient Greek beliefs that any case of immortalization always required absolute physical continuity.

[168] Summarizing its traditional analysis, the Catholic Church states in its Catechism: Although the Resurrection was an historical event that could be verified by the sign of the empty tomb and by the reality of the apostles' encounters with the risen Christ, still it remains at the very heart of the mystery of faith as something that transcends and surpasses history.

[184] The subsequent appearances led to the resumption of the missionary activity of Jesus's followers,[6][12] with Peter assuming the leadership role in the first ekklēsia (which formed the basis for the Apostolic succession).

[203] According to Ehrman, "the disciples' belief in the resurrection was based on visionary experiences",[8] arguing that visions usually have a strong persuasive power, but also noting that the Gospel-accounts record a tradition of doubt about the appearances of Jesus.

"[213] While adoptionism was declared heresy at the end of the 2nd century,[231][232] it was adhered to by the Ebionites,[233] who regarded Jesus as the Messiah while rejecting his divinity and his virgin birth,[234] and insisted on the necessity of following Jewish law and rites.

[241][note 24] The New Testament accounts describe the resurrected Jesus calling his followers to missionary activity in what has been traditionally labelled as the Great Commission, where he instructs them to "make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit".

[6] Biblical scholar Géza Vermes argues that the resurrection is to be understood as a reviving of the self-confidence of the followers of Jesus, under the influence of the Spirit, "prompting them to resume their apostolic mission".

[249] The resurrection forms the basis of the Apostolic succession and the institutional power of orthodoxy, as the heirs of Peter,[255] to whom Jesus appeared, and is described as "the rock" on which the church will be built.

[257][258][259] According to Newbigin, "Paul presents himself not as the teacher of a new theology but as the messenger commissioned by the authority of the Lord himself to announce a new fact – namely that in the ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus God has acted decisively to reveal and effect his purpose of redemption for the whole world".

[278] Following the conversion of Constantine and the Edict of Milan in 313, the ecumenical councils of the 4th, 5th and 6th centuries, that focused on Christology, helped shape the Christian understanding of the redemptive nature of the resurrection, and influenced both the development of its iconography and its use within Liturgy.

[296] Deification includes four properties: impassibility (freedom from evil, i.e., temptation, sin, suffering, error, inconvenience, boredom, Satan, and death), subtility (freedom from restraint by the laws of science, which includes shapeshifting, teleportation, time travel, control over nature, and superhuman senses and prowess), agility (one's body will not act faster than one's mind or give in to emotion and impulse, for the body will be as obedient to the soul as the soul is to God), and clarity (resplendent beauty and the five crowns).

[302] The Jewish feast of First-fruits is regarded by dispensationalists as foreshadowing its fulfilment in the resurrection of Jesus based on 1 Corinthians 15:20 "But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep".

An early symbol of the resurrection was the wreathed Chi Rho (Greek letters representing the word "Khristos" or "Christ"), whose origin traces to the victory of emperor Constantine I at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312, which he attributed to the use of a cross on the shields of his soldiers.

Resurrection of Jesus Christ (Kinnaird Resurrection) by Raphael , 1502
Resurrection of Christ , Noël Coypel , 1700, using a hovering depiction of Jesus
Germain Pilon (French, d. 1590), Resurrection of Jesus Christ . Marble, before 1572
The three Marys at the Tomb of Christ (1470) at the west portal of Konstanz Minster , Baden-Württemberg, Germany
Five-part resurrection icon , Solovetsky Monastery , 17th century
Right wing of the winged triptych at the Church of the Teutonic Order, Vienna , Austria. The artwork depicts Christ's crucifixion and burial (left), and resurrection (right).
The Chi Rho with a wreath symbolizing the victory of the Resurrection, above Roman soldiers, c. 350 AD
Secondo Pia 's 1898 negative of the image on the Shroud of Turin has an appearance suggesting a positive image. It is used as part of the devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus .
A rotunda in Church of the Holy Sepulchre , called the Anastasis ("Resurrection"), which contains the remains of a rock-cut room that Helena and Macarius identified as the burial site of Jesus