Paul and Jesus

There are three such “resuscitation” stories in the Hebrew Bible. Elijah prays over the son of a widow who had fallen ill and stopped breathing and “the life-breath came into him again and he lived” (1 Kings 17:17–22). Elisha, his successor, performs a similar miracle for the dead son of a wealthy woman. He lies upon the corpse, literally mouth to mouth, until it becomes warm, and the child opens his eyes and gets up (2 Kings 4:32–37). Finally, after Elisha has died and been buried, another corpse is put into his grave and as soon as it touches the bones of Elisha, the man “lived and stood up.” In the gospels Jesus performs three such miracles. He revives a twelve-year-old girl who had died, with the words “Little girl, I say to you arise.” The child immediately gets up, walks about, and takes something to eat (Mark 5:41–43). On another occasion he halts a funeral procession, touches the bier, and speaks to the corpse of a young man who had died, “Young man, I say to you arise.” The dead man sits up and begins to speak (Luke 7:11–17). Finally, when his friend Lazarus dies, and has already been buried for two days, Jesus goes to his tomb, asks that the stone be removed, prays, then shouts, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man comes out with his hands and feet still bound in the burial cloths (John 11:43–44). The book of Acts records two such miracles: one by Peter, and the other by Paul. When a widow named Dorcas falls sick and dies, Peter is called in. He prays, then turns to the body and commands it to rise. Dorcas opens her eyes and gets up. Paul revives a young boy named Eutychus who fell from a third-story window and was presumed dead (Acts 20:9–12).

The descriptive language in each of these cases is noteworthy: “He lived,” “she got up,” “he sat up,” or “he came out.” These are verbal expressions of what took place, not conceptual terms about life after death more generally. In that sense the English term “resurrection from the dead” is misleading. In the Hebrew Bible there is no noun for “resurrection,” just verbs describing the dead being revived. Even in the New Testament the Greek word anastasis, translated “resurrection,” occurs forty-two times; it literally means “a standing up.”

Most scholars agree that there is only one unambiguous reference to a general resurrection of the dead in the entire Hebrew Bible.¹² It is found in the book of Daniel, an uncharacteristically apocalyptic book, considered by scholars to have been written much later than the other books of the Prophets in the Hebrew Bible. Daniel receives a long visionary prophecy that purports to give him a glimpse into human history right up to the end of time. The revelation concludes with these words:

And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time; but at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book. And multitudes of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament; and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars for ever and ever. (Daniel 12:1–3)

The metaphor of “sleeping in the dust of the earth” and then awakening captures precisely the core idea of resurrection of the dead in the context of the ancient Hebrew understanding of death. The dead come forth from Sheol and are judged at the end of time, receiving either everlasting life or shame and contempt. Their bodies have long ago decayed and turned to dust, so rather than a resuscitation of a corpse, their revival entails a transformed state of glorified immortal existence.