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).
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.
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.
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.
