Spiritual Formation and Christ's Resurrection pt7

Did the disciples invent the resurrection?

            How many people do you know that are some flavor of Christianity?  In that context, I mean to paint with the absolute broadest brush possible, any religious movement that can be appropriately identified as Christianity.  How many people do you know are practicing Simon-ists?  Or practitioners of Bar-Kokhba-anity?  Do you know anyone who believes in Bar-Giora-ism?  As an honest question, do you know who Simon bar Giora or Simon bar Kosevah were?

They were both historical Jewish figures, Giora was proclaimed as the King of the Jews during the First Jewish War, and Kosevah was the messianic figure and leader of the Second-Jewish revolt.  Both had followers, both were second-temple Jews*, both were killed by Rome, and like Jesus, both are called false messiahs in Rabbinic literature.  Yet, the followers of these messianic figures never proclaimed their messiah had been raised from the dead.  They never continued their movements.  That’s mainly because there was no messianic expectation in second-temple Judaism for a dying messiah.  Why are there no religions based on these messianic figures?  To be blunt, they died and stayed dead.  Sure, some dead people still have a religious following from them, but not from the second-temple period and as a fulfiller of Judaism.

Did the disciples steal the resurrection story?

            This is a trendy idea online.  As has been previously pointed out in this series, many of the dying-rising god myths, both from Ancient Near-eastern Texts and European sources, are connected to the seasonal cycles.  There ways to explain why things die in the autumn and come to life again in the spring.  Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection have nothing to do with the seasonal cycle and has the backdrop of second-temple Judaism and the Passover instead.  Moreover, a good question would be how pagan mythology that explains seasonal cycles, repackaged as a dying and rising Messiah, convince second-temple Jews to abandon their religion and cultural identity?  As has already been established, the disciples were not well-traveled and highly educated men.  They were, for the most part, second-temple Jewish peasants.

            Keep in mind that Churches from various backgrounds, traditions and denominations annually celebrate Easter; however, there is no belief that Jesus just rose again last Sunday (or next Sunday if you’re Eastern Orthodox).  Easter is the remembrance of His resurrection, a resurrection that happened once in history and doesn't happen every year.  However, as pointed out above, many of the dying and rising gods of paganism are connected to the seasonal cycles, and therefore, they were believed to die and raise annually.

            As N.T. Wright points out, when Paul preached Christ’s resurrection in Athens (Acts 17), he was met with mocking and misunderstanding, but no one was saying things like, “Oh, this is a re-interpretation of X [Osiris, Attis, etc.])” (Wright, 81).  Which raises another good question, if second-temple Jews took pagan mythologies and used them to explain away the fact that their Messiah died, how would that get pagans to convert to a Jewish movement?  Especially if it was their myths that the Jesus followers were adapting to fit their non-Jewish dying and rising Messiah?

            Finally, on this point, early Christians believed that Jesus died, was buried and then rose again; i.e., He returned to life, this life and returned to this world.  Osiris was quite different. Egyptologist Dr. Frankfort, who was not a Christian, explains in his book that Osiris was a god who survived his passing through death but never returned to life (Frankfort, 185).

Perhaps this leads to another good question, did the first-century and second-temple Jewish followers of Jesus believe in a literal (bodily) resurrection of Jesus?  Which is the topic that we’ll take up next week.

(* The second-Jewish revolt was 132-136 AD, and Simon ben Kosevah died in 135, both of which are after the Second-temple period since the temple was destroyed in 70 AD.)

Written by Pastor Ozzy

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Works Cited

Frankfort, Henri. 1948. Kingship and the Gods: A Study of Ancient Near Eastern Religion as the Integration of Society and Nature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Wright, N. T. 2003. The Resurrection of the Son of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God, Vol. 3). New York: Fortress Press.