The word “resurrection” refers to the return of a dead person to life and is most commonly used in connection with the Christian story of Jesus. The four writers of the biography of Jesus in the Christian section of the Bible (New Testament) report the mysterious disappearance of Jesus’s body from his tomb after his death by crucifixion and his subsequent appearance to various followers as a living person. This story is central to the Christian belief system.
The story of Jesus’s resurrection was by no means the first in the history of world religion and mythology. In some versions of a Greek myth, the god Dionysus rises from the dead, as do the Middle Eastern deities Attis and Tammuz and, most especially, the Egyptian Osiris. Sir James Frazer (1922) in his Golden Boughhad much to say about these resurrected man-gods. Many resurrection stories, such as that of the Canaanite Baal, were associated with agriculture, particularly with periods of drought followed by periods of fertility....
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Bibliography
Frazer, J., Sir. (1922). The golden bough (Chaps. 29–45). New York: Macmillan.
Jung, C. G. (1951/1976). Christ, a symbol of the self. In The collected works of Carl G. Jung: Aion (Vol. 9, Part 2). Princeton: Princeton University Press/Bollingen.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany
About this entry
Cite this entry
Leeming, D.A. (2016). Resurrection. In: Leeming, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27771-9_584-7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27771-9_584-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-27771-9
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences