Greek Resurrection Beliefs and the Resurrection of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke: Contexts for Consideration (original) (raw)

Greek resurrection beliefs and the success of Christianity

2009

"This research project is completely new and unique. In his remarkable and well-written monograph, Endsjø proposes nothing less than new general hypotheses of Greek, Jewish, and Christian eschatology and their interrelations. I am deeply impressed by the creative force of his original redefinition. With his innovative approach to analyzing the connection between Greek, Jewish, and Early Christian views on resurrection and immortality, Endsjø forces his readers to reconsider the whole issue." - Per Bilde, Aarhus University, Denmark in Numen 58 (2011) "This is a lively, highly enjoyable, scholarly, and innovative book considering the theme of Greek ideas about bodily resurrection in the light of the Gospel traditions. The author is to be commended for covering such demanding ground with such a light touch. The work will be an important addition to the literature, and should be required reading in New Testament departments, as well as being equally valuable in schools of Classics and Ancient History. This is a timely and important study. " - Rev. Dr. John Anthony McGuckin, Nielsen Professor in Late Antique and Byzantine Christian History, Union Theological Seminary, and Professor of Byzantine Christian Studies, Columbia University

Greek resurrection beliefs and the success of Christianity (with preview)

New York: Palgrave Macmillan , 2009

This book examines the relationship between the growth of Christianity in Greece and the belief in resurrection from the dead. Traditionally, Greek religion held a strong and enduring conviction that immorality always had to include both body and soul. Both mythical and historical persons were also believed to have been resurrected from the dead and become physically immortal. The Christian belief in the resurrection of the flesh evolved only gradually, beginning with Paul who simply denied it. But the more popular Christianity became among the Greeks, the stronger the emphasis became on the resurrection of the flesh; the more Christianity stressed physical incorruptibility, the more Greeks left their ancient beliefs for this new religion. As such, the success of Christianity may also be seen in connection with how it responded to the traditional Greek longing for immortal flesh.

The Resurrection and the Old Testament: A Fresh Look in Light of Recent Research

Journal of the Adventist Theological Society, 2013

In so far as the ancient, non-Jewish world had a Bible, its Old Testament was Homer. And in so far as Homer has anything to say about resurrection, he is quite blunt: it doesn't happen." This statement sets the 1 table for the fundamental challenge faced by early Christians on this topic. Christianity was born into a world where its central claim was "known" to be false. Outside Judaism, nobody believed in resurrection, at least not in 2 the way that the Bible defines it. 3 This is not to say that the ancient world had no concept of life after death. If Homer functioned like the Old Testament for the Hellenistic world, its New Testament was Plato. Plato had no need for resurrection 4 because he understood the human person to be divided into two distinct N. T. Wright, "The Resurrection of the Son of God," Christian Origins and the

The Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (Part II)

For Christians the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the foundation of our faith. One of the strongest arguments for the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus is the resurrection appearances of Jesus to his disciples and to unbelievers who then became believers. This paper surveys those appearances and also looks at other evidence for the resurrection of Jesus: the witness of the apostles, 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 and extra-biblical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus including the Nazareth Decree and the Shroud of Turin along with ancient non-Christian sources (Tacitus, Suetonius, Josephus, Pliny the Younger) and ancient Christian sources (Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Justin Martyr).

The general resurrection of the dead in the synoptic gospels

Franciscanum, 2022

The aim of this paper is to analyze the idea of general resurrection of the dead at the end of times in the synoptic Gospels. We intend to clarify whether this concept can be interpreted as a transposition of the parallel belief contained in some intertestamental writings, or if the singularity of the religious experience expressed in the synoptic Gospels establishes an inexorable moment of discontinuity with the previous apocalyptic framework, making it impossible to understand this doctrine on the sole basis of its Jewish precedents. In order to accomplish our goal, we shall first study the general resurrection of the dead in the Q source, the references to this notion in the gospel of Mark, and its meaning in both Matthew and Luke. We will exclude from our treatment all the topics related with the resurrection of Jesus, and we will be focused on the explicit mentions of the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead as such. Since implicit beliefs are always difficult to assess, especially in the context of eschatological ideas, in which vagueness and absence of a systematic effort of exposition often prevail, we will not allude to other synoptic passages which have been regarded as potential expressions of the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead at the end of times.

A Brief Analysis of The Historicity of Jesus' Resurrection

SAURAJ, 2022

The resurrection of Jesus has been a debatable subject since the beginning of the 1 st century AD; in as much as it is simple and easy to believe in the resurrection of Christ for Christians, it is not quite so in the world today, where skepticism and agnosticism dominate the culture. In the last two centuries, with various revolutions emerging, due to the prevalence of naturalistic view in the literature world, and theology, in particular, several leading scholars started a quest to re-study the historicity of Jesus' resurrection and subsequently considered the four accounts of the four gospels to be merely a myth. This article attempts to briefly analyze the quest and, most importantly, provide legitimate evidence for the death and resurrection of Jesus. In this article, the gospels' account is considered ancient literature since our main priority is to know whether it is historical. Therefore, the historicity of the gospel account is analyzed through the methodology employed by both the secular and religious scholars, which in turn makes the study not biased. The analysis concludes and reclaims that the account of the gospel is historical.