Resurrection of Jesus
Also called: Easter, Empty tomb, The Resurrection
A story told in religious scripture.
A story told in the Gospels and in a letter of Paul in the New Testament: Jesus, who died on the cross and was buried, rose again on the third day and appeared to his disciples. It became the centre of Christian faith.
Piero della Francesca · Public domain · Source
This is the story told in the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, chapter 15. On the evening of his death Jesus was laid in a rock-cut tomb belonging to Joseph of Arimathea. At dawn on the day after the Sabbath, Mary Magdalene and other women went to the tomb, found the stone rolled away from the entrance and the tomb empty, and were told by an angel, “He has risen.” The risen Jesus then appeared to Mary, to Peter and to the Twelve, and, Acts says, ascended into heaven forty days later.
Christians believe that Jesus overcame death and rose again; this is the heart of their faith. They celebrate it every year at Easter, and keeping Sunday as “the Lord’s Day” also comes from the day of the resurrection. The small shrine (the Aedicule) inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre marks the place held to be his tomb.
The resurrection is a confession of faith, not something history can prove or disprove. What history can say is that soon after the crucifixion the disciples came firmly to believe that Jesus had risen and appeared to them. Paul’s letter of around AD 54 quotes a still older creed listing appearances to Cephas (Peter), to the Twelve, to more than five hundred at once, and to Paul himself. Rallied by this belief, the scattered disciples gathered again and went out to preach despite persecution, and that was the starting point of Christianity.
