tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/resurrection-27866/articlesResurrection – The Conversation2024-03-27T12:38:11Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2210712024-03-27T12:38:11Z2024-03-27T12:38:11ZThe roots of the Easter story: Where did Christian beliefs about Jesus’ resurrection come from?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583768/original/file-20240322-29-86j1i0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2013%2C923&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A mosaic of the Resurrection in the Basilica of St. Paul in Harissa, Lebanon.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mosa%C3%AFques_de_la_basilique_Saint_Paul_(Harissa)09.jpg">FredSeiller/Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As Easter approaches, Christians around the world begin to focus on two of the central tenets of their faith: the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. </p>
<p>Other charismatic Jewish teachers or <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/The_Jewish_Spiritual_Heroes%2C_Volume_I%3B_The_Creators_of_the_Mishna%2C_Rabbi_Chanina_ben_Dosa?lang=bi">miracle workers</a> were active in Judea around the same time, approximately 2,000 years ago. What set Jesus apart was his <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+15.12-19&version=NRSVUE">followers’ belief in his resurrection</a>. For believers, this was not only a miracle, but a sign that Jesus was the long-awaited Jewish messiah, sent to save the people of Israel from their oppressors.</p>
<p>But was the idea of a resurrection itself a unique belief in first-century Israel? </p>
<p>I am <a href="https://religiousstudies.wvu.edu/faculty-and-staff/faculty/aaron-gale">a scholar of ancient Judaism</a> and <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/redefining-ancient-borders-9780567025210/">its connection to the early Christian movement</a>. The Christian concept of Jesus rising from the dead helped shape many of the faith’s key teachings and, ultimately, the new religion’s split from Judaism. Yet religious teachings about resurrection go back many centuries before Jesus walked the earth.</p>
<p>There are stories that likely predate early Jewish beliefs by many centuries, such as the Egyptian story of the god <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100255831">Osiris being resurrected by his wife, Isis</a>. Most relevant for Christianity, though, are Judaism’s own ideas about resurrection.</p>
<h2>‘Your dead shall live’</h2>
<p>One of the earliest written Jewish references to resurrection in the Bible is found in the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+26&version=NRSVUE">Book of Isaiah</a>, which discusses a future era, perhaps a time of final judgment, in which the dead would rise and be subject to God’s ultimate justice. “Your dead shall live; their corpses shall rise,” Isaiah prophesies. “Those who dwell in the dust will awake and shout for joy.”</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583783/original/file-20240323-28-o988y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three rows of yellowed manuscript on a scroll, with jagged edges." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583783/original/file-20240323-28-o988y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583783/original/file-20240323-28-o988y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=190&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583783/original/file-20240323-28-o988y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=190&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583783/original/file-20240323-28-o988y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=190&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583783/original/file-20240323-28-o988y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=238&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583783/original/file-20240323-28-o988y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=238&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583783/original/file-20240323-28-o988y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=238&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Great Isaiah Scroll: the best preserved of the biblical scrolls found at Qumran, by the Dead Sea, which was probably written around the second century B.C.E.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Great_Isaiah_Scroll.jpg">Ardon Bar Hama/The Israel Museum, Jerusalem/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>Later Jewish biblical texts such as the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Daniel+12.2&version=NRSVUE">Book of Daniel</a> also referenced resurrection.</p>
<p>There were several competing Jewish sects at the time of Jesus’ life. The most prominent and influential, the Pharisees, further integrated <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%2023%3A8&version=NRSVUE">the concept of resurrection</a> into Jewish thought. According to <a href="https://penelope.uchicago.edu/josephus/war-2.html">the first-century historian Josephus</a>, the Pharisees believed that the soul was immortal and could be reunited with a resurrected body – ideas that would likely have made the idea of Jesus rising from the dead more acceptable to the Jews of his time.</p>
<p>Within a few centuries, the rabbis began to fuse together the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel+37.1-12&version=NRSVUE">earlier biblical references to bodily resurrection</a> with the later ideas of the Pharisees. In particular, the rabbis began to discuss the concept of <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Ketubot.111a?lang=bi">bodily resurrection</a> and its connection to the messianic era.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584246/original/file-20240325-28-1nyx4d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Beige stone boxes sit on the ground in rows, with a building with a golden roof in the distance." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584246/original/file-20240325-28-1nyx4d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584246/original/file-20240325-28-1nyx4d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584246/original/file-20240325-28-1nyx4d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584246/original/file-20240325-28-1nyx4d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584246/original/file-20240325-28-1nyx4d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584246/original/file-20240325-28-1nyx4d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584246/original/file-20240325-28-1nyx4d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Jewish Cemetery on Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Graves face the Temple Mount, where some believe that the resurrection of the dead will culminate.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:121224-Jerusalem-Mount-of-Olives_(27497923512).jpg">xiquinhosilva/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Jews believed that the legitimate Messiah would be <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah%2011&version=NRSVUE">a descendant of the biblical King David</a> who would vanquish their enemies and <a href="https://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/nets/edition/31-pssal-nets.pdf">restore Israel to its previous glory</a>. In the centuries following Jesus’ death, the rabbis taught that the souls of the dead <a href="https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1127503/jewish/The-Resurrection-Process.htm">would be resurrected</a> after the Messiah appeared on earth.</p>
<p>By the 500s C.E. or so, the rabbis further elaborated upon the concept. The Talmud, the most important collection of authoritative writings on Jewish law apart from the Bible itself, notes that <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Sanhedrin.10.1?lang=bi">one who does not believe in resurrection has no share in the “Olam Haba</a>,” the “World to Come.” The Olam Haba is the realm where these sages believed <a href="https://ohr.edu/ask_db/ask_main.php/25/Q2/">one’s soul eventually dwells</a> after death. Interestingly, the concept of hell itself never became ingrained within mainstream Jewish thought.</p>
<p>Even now, the concept of God giving life to the dead is affirmed every day <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/146958?lang=bi">in the Amidah</a>, <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/mechayeh-hameitim-rethinking-the-resurrection-blessing/">a Jewish prayer recited</a> as part of the daily morning, afternoon and evening services.</p>
<h2>Old ideas, new beliefs</h2>
<p>The fact that the first followers of Jesus were Jews likely contributed to the concept of resurrection becoming ingrained into Christian thought. Yet the Christian understanding of resurrection was taken to an unprecedented degree in the decades following Jesus’ death.</p>
<p>According to Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus, a Jew from Galilee, entered Jerusalem in the days before Passover. He was accused of sedition against the Roman authorities – and likely other charges, such as blasphemy – largely because he was <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+21%3A12-13&version=NRSVUE">causing a disturbance</a> among the Jews getting ready to celebrate the holiday. At the time, <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/passover-pesach-history/">Passover was a pilgrimage festival</a> in which tens of thousands of Jews would travel to Jerusalem.</p>
<p>After being betrayed by one of his followers, Judas, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+26.47-68&version=NRSVUE">Jesus was arrested, hastily put on trial</a> and sentenced to be crucified. The Roman authorities wished to uphold the pax Romana, or Roman peace. They feared that unrest amid a major festival could lead to a rebellion, especially given the accusation that at least some of Jesus’ followers believed him to be the “<a href="https://ehrmanblog.org/why-was-jesus-crucified/">King of the Jews</a>, as was recorded later in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+2%3A2&version=NRSVUE">Matthew’s</a> and <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+15.2&version=NRSVUE">Mark’s Gospels</a>.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Crucifixes often display the Latin abbreviation ‘INRI,’ short for ‘Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.’ This statue in Germany’s Ellwangen Abbey shows the abbreviation in three languages.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ellwangen_St_Vitus_Vorhalle_Kreuzaltar_detail2.jpg">Andreas Praefcke/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>According to the Gospels, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+27.32-28.10&version=NRSVUE">Jesus was put to death</a> on what is now Good Friday, and rose again on the third day – which today is celebrated as Easter Sunday.</p>
<p>Jesus’ early followers believed not only that he had been resurrected, but that he was <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/first/themovement.html">the long-awaited Jewish messiah</a>, who had fulfilled earlier <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hosea+6.1-2&version=NRSVUE">Jewish prophecies</a>. Eventually, they also embraced the idea that he was <a href="https://www.npr.org/transcripts/300246095">the divine Son of God</a>, although scholars still debate exactly how and when this occurred.</p>
<p>In addition, the nature of Jesus’ resurrection remains <a href="https://marcusjborg.org/posts-by-marcus/the-resurrection-of-jesus/">a source of debate</a> among theologians and scholars – such as whether followers believed his <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+24.36-43&version=NRSVUE">resurrected body was made of flesh and blood</a>, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Cor+3.17-18&version=NRSVUE">or pure spirit</a>. </p>
<p>Yet the grander meaning of the resurrection, which is recorded in all <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+28%3A1-10%2CMark+16%3A1-11%2CLuke+24%3A1-12%2CJohn+20&version=NRSVUE">four canonical Gospels</a>, remains clear for many of the approximately 2 billion Christians around the world: They believe that Jesus <a href="https://www.religion-online.org/article/resurrection-faith-n-t-wright-talks-about-history-and-belief/">triumphed over death</a>, which serves as a cornerstone foundation of the Christian faith.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221071/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aaron Gale does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ideas about resurrection had been developing for centuries before Jesus’ life, but his followers took them in new directions.Aaron Gale, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, West Virginia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2236992024-03-06T13:34:26Z2024-03-06T13:34:26ZTattooing has held a long tradition in Christianity − dating back to Jesus’ crucifixion<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579668/original/file-20240304-24-ukodpk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=40%2C32%2C5316%2C3579&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Christian Palestinian tattoo artist Walid Ayash draws a tattoo on the arm of a Coptic Egyptian pilgrim on April 28, 2016, at his studio in Bethlehem.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/christian-palestinian-tattoo-artist-walid-ayash-draws-a-news-photo/525904928?adppopup=true">Thomas Coex /AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Holy Week and Easter are perhaps the most important days in the Christian calendar. Many associate those celebrations with church services, processions, candles, incense, fasting and penances. </p>
<p>However, there is another tradition that many Christians follow – that of tattooing. Historically, Easter was an <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1wmz40c.5">important time for tattoos</a> among some Christian groups. Today, Christian tattooing happens in many parts of the world and all year around. Some Christians visiting Jerusalem around Easter will get a tattoo of a cross, or a lamb, usually on their forearms.</p>
<p>As a sociologist of religion and a Jesuit Catholic priest, I have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0037768620962367">long studied tattoos</a> as <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12070517">religious practices</a>. I have interviewed tattoo artists in Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Loreto in Italy who have been continuing and recreating the tradition of Christian tattooing. Evidence is clear the practice started shortly after Jesus’ crucifixion and spread across Europe in later centuries. </p>
<h2>The first Christian tattoos</h2>
<p>The Romans, like the Greeks, <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/25011055">tattooed slaves</a> and prisoners, usually with letters or words on their foreheads that indicated their crime. Soon after Jesus’ death, around the year 30 C.E., they started enslaving and tattooing Christians with the marks “AM” – meaning “ad metalla,” or condemned to work in the mines, a punishment that often resulted in death. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/25011055">Almost at the same time, Christians</a> who were not enslaved <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1wmz40c.5">got tattoos</a> of the early Christian signs such as fish or lambs in solidarity and to show that they identified with Jesus.</p>
<p>There were <a href="https://bc.on.worldcat.org/oclc/1410461075">no specific words in Latin or Greek for tattooing</a>, so the words “stizo,” “signum” and “stigma” were used. The word <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1wmz40c.5">stigma</a> also referred to the marks of nails on Jesus’ hands and foot, as a result of his crucifixion. Christians often got their own “stigmas”: a sign – usually a cross – in Jerusalem to honor Christ’s martyrdom. </p>
<h2>The beginning of a tradition</h2>
<p>There are several documented accounts of the tradition.</p>
<p>One from the third century mentions <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/25011055">Christians in present-day Egypt and Syria</a> getting tattoos of fish and crosses.</p>
<p>Another tells about the commentary that Procopius of Gaza, a theologian who lived between 475 and 538 C.E., wrote on the <a href="https://catenabible.com/com/5e88f313b1c7280cb341d0d2">Book of Isaiah</a> after he found that many Christians living in the Holy Land had a cross tattooed on their wrists. “Still others will write on their hand, ‘The Lord’s,’ and will take the name Israel,” he noted. </p>
<p>When a plague hit the Scythians, nomadic people living around the Black Sea, in 600 C.E., tattoos were believed to provide protection from the deadly disease. <a href="https://archive.org/details/theophylact-simocatta-whitby-1986/Theophylact_Simocatta_Whitby_1986/page/n9/mode/2up">Theophylact Simocatta</a>, one of the last historians of late antiquity, mentioned that missionaries among them recommended that “the foreheads of the young be tattooed with this very sign” – meaning that of a cross.</p>
<p>Many testimonies mentioned <a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo2/A64495.0001.001/1:11.1.48?rgn=div3;view=fulltext">Crusaders and pilgrims</a> returning from the Holy Land with a tattoo during the Middle Ages – a tradition that continued <a href="https://archive.org/details/fynesmorysons04moryuoft">in early modern times</a>, between the 16th and 18th centuries.</p>
<h2>Christian tattoos in Great Britain</h2>
<p>Other cultures used tattoos in different ways. When Romans came in contact with the Celts tribes that inhabited the British Isles in 400 C.E., they <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.5973126.8">called them Picts</a> because they were covered in <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1wmz40c.7">body art</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579672/original/file-20240304-30-netvij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white illustration showing a man and woman covered in body art, holding spears in their hands." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579672/original/file-20240304-30-netvij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579672/original/file-20240304-30-netvij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579672/original/file-20240304-30-netvij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579672/original/file-20240304-30-netvij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579672/original/file-20240304-30-netvij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579672/original/file-20240304-30-netvij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579672/original/file-20240304-30-netvij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The word Picts is derived from the name given to them by the Romans because of their painted bodies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/circa-300-bc-male-and-female-picts-covered-in-body-paint-news-photo/51240502?adppopup=true">Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Pope Gregory the Great sent envoys to convert the Celts to Christianity, followed by a visit from another Vatican delegation. While missionaries were against “pagan tattooing,” both delegations agreed that tattoos done for the Christian god were fine. The members of the second delegation in the late 700s even said, “If anyone were to undergo this injury of staining for the sake of God, he would receive a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1wmz40c.7">great reward for it</a>.”</p>
<p>Similar was the conclusion of the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1wmz40c.5">Northumbria Council</a>, a church gathering in Northern England in 787: Tattoos done for the right god were acceptable. At that time, the Anglo-Saxon elite also had tattoos; the bishop of York, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1wmz40c.7">Saint Wilfrid</a>, for example, got a tattoo of a cross. </p>
<h2>Tattoos in Italy</h2>
<p>Around the 1300s, as the Christian kingdoms in the Holy Land were losing control with the coming of the Ottomans, there appeared in Italy shrines called “Sacri Monti.” These shrines were placed on “holy mountains” where devotees could pilgrimage safely, instead of risking their lives going to Jerusalem, which by then was under the control of the Ottomans.</p>
<p>These shrines were established in cities such as Naples, Varallo and Loreto. <a href="https://doi.org/10.5944/etfvii.6.2018.22922">Pilgrims could get tattoos</a> in some of these shrines. One place was Loreto’s sanctuary, established in the early 1300s. A relic from the “Holy House,” which, according to the Christian tradition, is the house where the Virgin Mary is believed to have received the news that she will bear God’s son, was brought to Loreto’s sanctuary. </p>
<p>Tattooing in Loreto’s sanctuary was a communal activity, done by carpenters, shoemakers and artisans, who <a href="https://archive.org/details/ilbelpaeseconver00stopuoft/page/486/mode/2up">brought their stalls and tools to the main square</a>
during the days of celebrations and tattooed whoever wanted to get a mark of their devotion. These tattoos typically used wood planks for transferring the design on the body, like a stamp. However, the city of Loreto banned tattooing for hygienic reasons in 1871, according to <a href="https://archive.org/details/costumiesupersti00pigo">Caterina Pigorini Beri</a>, an anthropologist, who was one of the first to document the practice. </p>
<p>But people kept getting them. A shoemaker, <a href="https://youtu.be/P_fNN880GGw?feature=shared">Leonardo Conditti</a>, was among those who kept doing tattoos in hiding during the 1940s. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/P_fNN880GGw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The history of tattooing.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Present but unseen</h2>
<p>From the 1200s to the 1700s, the custom of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1wmz40c.4">Christian tattooing</a> was prevalent in Europe among peasants, seafarers, soldiers and artisans as much as among nuns and monks. They were getting crosses, images of the Virgin Mary, the name of Jesus, and some sentences from the Bible.</p>
<p>Following the Renaissance, however, European culture came to associate tattoos <a href="https://theconversation.com/tattoos-have-a-long-history-going-back-to-the-ancient-world-and-also-to-colonialism-165584">with those considered “uncivilized</a>,” such as peoples in the colonies, criminals and poorer Catholics. Many European intellectuals <a href="https://archive.org/details/historyoftattooi0000hamb">viewed Catholicism as a superstition</a> more than a real religion.</p>
<p>The word “tattoo” came to the Western languages after the French admiral and explorer Louis de Bougainville and British explorer James Cook returned from their trips to the South Pacific at the end of the 1700s. There, they saw local people getting marks on their bodies and using the word “tatau” to name those drawings. However, it does not mean that tattoos came back at that time. They had never left.</p>
<h2>The practice today</h2>
<p>These days, some churches in the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1wmz40c.11">Middle East</a>, such as some <a href="https://archive.org/details/twothousandyears0000mein/page/n5/mode/2up">Coptic Christian</a> churches in Egypt, incorporate the practice of getting a tattoo into the baptismal rituals. </p>
<p>Indeed, Holy Land tattooing has never stopped. <a href="https://razzouktattoo.com">Wassim Razzouk</a>, whom I interviewed in 2022, is a 27th-generation tattooist – his family has been <a href="https://archive.org/details/coptictattoodesi0000cars/page/n7/mode/2up">marking pilgrims in Jerusalem since 1300</a>. Razzouk claims to have some of the 500-year-old wood planks his family used for tattooing. </p>
<p>Another tattoo artist whom I interviewed, Walid Ayash, does pilgrimage tattoos for those who visit the Nativity church in Bethlehem – a beloved custom among Arab Christians. He said that tattooing happens all year around, as long as there are pilgrims visiting the Nativity church. Although this year, as a result of the war in Gaza, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/3/27/easter-in-jerusalem-no-access-for-gazas-christians">Israeli authorities have restricted access</a> to Jerusalem and Bethlehem.</p>
<p>In Italy, <a href="https://youtu.be/mtkc-TJSBdA?feature=shared">artist Jonatal Carducci</a> is working on recovering the tradition of religious tattooing in Loreto. In a 2023 interview with me, he explained how he has painstakingly replicated the designs of the wood planks, which are both in the Museum of the Holy House and the Folkloric Museum of Rome. In 2019, he opened a parlor where Leonardo Conditti used to work. Visitors to the parlor can choose among more than 60 designs for their tattoos, including the Virgin Mary of Loreto, crosses and representations of Jesus’ heart.</p>
<p>This Easter, as some Christians get tattoos, this history might serve as a reminder of tattooing as a legitimate Christian practice, one that has been in use since the beginnings of the Common Era.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223699/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gustavo Morello does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Historically, many Christians got tattoos around Holy Week − usually a cross − to honor Christ’s martyrdom.Gustavo Morello, Professor of Sociology, Boston CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1813862022-04-14T21:54:52Z2022-04-14T21:54:52ZChristians hold many views on Jesus’ resurrection – a theologian explains the differing views among Baptists<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458226/original/file-20220414-20-dk713t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=36%2C27%2C2967%2C1963&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Resurrection of Christ depicted in 14th-century fresco in Chora Church, Istanbul, Turkey.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/resurrection-fresco-in-chora-church-istanbul-turkey-royalty-free-image/124516452?adppopup=true">LP7/Collections E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every year, Christians from around the world gather for worship on Easter Sunday. Also known as Pascha or Resurrection Sunday, Easter is the final day of a weeklong commemoration of <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/327976/the-historical-figure-of-jesus-by-e-p-sanders/">the story of Jesus’ final days</a> in the city of Jerusalem leading up to his crucifixion and resurrection.</p>
<p>Most Christians refer to the week before Easter as <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/this-is-the-night-9780567027603/">Holy Week</a>. In Western Christianity, Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday, which commemorates Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Easter is the third day of the larger three-day festival known as <a href="https://brill.com/view/title/36244?rskey=v0m9To&result=1">Holy Triduum</a>, which begins on the evening of Maundy Thursday, marking the night of Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples. Good Friday marks Jesus’ suffering, crucifixion and death. Holy Saturday marks Jesus’ burial in a tomb owned by Joseph of Arimathea. The festival reaches its climax on early Sunday morning with the Easter Vigil and ends on the evening of Easter Sunday.</p>
<p>As a Baptist minister and <a href="https://virginia.academia.edu/JasonOEvans">theologian</a> myself, I believe it is important to understand how Christians more generally, and Baptists in particular, hold differing views on the meaning of the resurrection. </p>
<h2>The resurrection</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.eerdmans.com/Products/2120/exploring-and-proclaiming-the-apostles-creed.aspx">According to the Christian faith</a>, resurrection is the pivotal event when “<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%208%3A11-13&version=NCV">God raised Jesus from the dead</a>” after he was <a href="https://www.fortresspress.com/store/product/9780800628864/The-Crucifixion-of-Jesus">crucified</a> by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate.</p>
<p>While none of the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-gospels-and-jesus-9780199246168?cc=us&lang=en&">four canonical Gospels</a> of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John describe the actual event of the resurrection in detail, they nonetheless give varying reports about the <a href="http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/the-story-of-jesus-in-history-and-faith/338111">empty tomb and Christ’s post-resurrection appearances</a> among his followers both in Galilee and Jerusalem.</p>
<p>They also report that it was women who discovered the empty tomb and received and proclaimed the first message that Christ was risen from the dead. These narratives were passed down orally among the earliest Christian communities and <a href="https://www.eerdmans.com/Products/6782/the-oral-gospel-tradition.aspx">then codified in the Gospel writings</a> beginning some 30 years after Jesus’ death.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.fortresspress.com/store/product/9780800626792/The-Resurrection-of-the-Son-of-God">Earliest Christians believed</a> that by raising Jesus of Nazareth from the dead, God cleared Jesus from any wrongdoing for which he was tried and unjustly condemned to death by Pilate.</p>
<p>By affirming the resurrection, Christians do not mean that Jesus’ body was merely resuscitated. Rather, as New Testament scholar <a href="https://candler.emory.edu/faculty/emeriti-profiles/johnson-luke-timothy.html">Luke Timothy Johnson</a> <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-real-jesus-luke-timothy-johnson?variant=32117576564770">writes</a>, resurrection means that “[Jesus] entered into an entirely new form of existence.” </p>
<p>As the risen Christ, Jesus is believed to share God’s power to transform all life and also to share this same power with his followers. So the resurrection is believed to be something that happened not only to Jesus, but also an experience that happens <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+15&version=NRSV">to his followers</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395102/original/file-20210414-17-gwacnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Christ standing before Roman governor Pontius Pilate, in a tile from the Cathedral of Siena, Italy." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395102/original/file-20210414-17-gwacnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395102/original/file-20210414-17-gwacnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395102/original/file-20210414-17-gwacnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395102/original/file-20210414-17-gwacnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395102/original/file-20210414-17-gwacnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395102/original/file-20210414-17-gwacnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395102/original/file-20210414-17-gwacnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Christ before Pilate: Detail of a tile from the Cathedral of Siena, Italy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/siena-museo-dellopera-metropolitana-christ-before-pilate-news-photo/146325687?adppopup=true">DeAgostini/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Opposing views</h2>
<p>Over the years, Christians have engaged in passionate debates over this central doctrine of Christian faith.</p>
<p>Two major approaches emerged: the “liberal” view and the “conservative” or “traditional” view. Current perspectives on the resurrection have been predominated by two questions: “Was Jesus’ body literally raised from the dead?” and “What relevance does the resurrection have for those struggling for justice?” </p>
<p>These questions emerged in the wake of <a href="https://www.fortresspress.com/store/product/9780800637958/Modern-Christian-Thought-Second-Edition">theological modernism</a>, a European and North American movement dating back to the mid-19th century that sought to reinterpret Christianity to accommodate the emergence of modern science, history and ethics.</p>
<p>Theological modernism led liberal Christian theologians to create an alternative path between the rigid orthodoxies of Christian churches and the rationalism of atheists and others. </p>
<p>This meant that liberal Christians were willing to revise or jettison cherished Christian beliefs, such as the bodily resurrection of Jesus, if such beliefs could not be explained against the bar of human reason. </p>
<h2>Baptist views on the resurrection</h2>
<p>Just like all other Christian denominations, Baptists are divided on the issue of the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Arguably, what may be unique about the group is that <a href="https://www.helwys.com/sh-books/the-baptist-identity/">Baptists believe</a> that no external religious authority can force an individual member to adhere to the tenets of Christian faith in any prescribed way. One must be free to accept or reject any teaching of the church. </p>
<p>In the early 20th century, Baptists in the United States found themselves on both sides of a schism within American Christianity over doctrinal issues, known as the <a href="https://global.oup.com/ushe/product/fundamentalism-and-american-culture-9780195300475?cc=us&lang=en&">fundamentalist-modernist</a> controversy. </p>
<p>The Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick, a liberal Baptist pastor who served First Presbyterian Church and later Riverside Church in Manhattan, <a href="https://www.mupress.org/Baptist-Theology-A-Four-Century-Study-P1014.aspx">rejected the bodily resurrection of Jesus</a>. Rather, Fosdick viewed the resurrection as a “persistence in [Christ’s] personality.” </p>
<p>In 1922, Fosdick delivered his famous sermon “<a href="http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5070/">Shall the Fundamentalists Win</a>?” rebuking fundamentalists for their failure to tolerate difference on doctrinal matters such as the infallibility of the Bible, the virgin birth and bodily resurrection, among others, and for downplaying the weightier matter of addressing the societal needs of the day.</p>
<p>In his <a href="https://www.grandcentralpublishing.com/titles/clayborne-carson/the-autobiography-of-martin-luther-king-jr/9780759520370/">autobiography</a>, civil rights leader and Baptist minister the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. explained that in his early adolescence he denied the bodily resurrection of Jesus. </p>
<p>While attending Crozer Seminary in 1949, <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/what-experiences-christians-living-early-christian-century-led-christian">King wrote a paper </a> trying to make sense of what led to the development of the Christian doctrine of Jesus’ bodily resurrection. For King, the experience of the early followers of Jesus was at the root of their belief in his resurrection.</p>
<p>“They had been captivated by the magnetic power of his personality,” King argued. “This basic experience led to the faith that he could never die.” In other words, the bodily resurrection of Jesus simply is the outward expression of early Christian experience, not an actual or, at least, a verifiable event in human history. </p>
<p>It is not clear from his later writings that King changed his views on the bodily resurrection. In one of his notable <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/questions-easter-answers-sermon-delivered-dexter-avenue-baptist-church">Easter sermons</a>, King argued that the meaning behind the resurrection signaled a future where God will put an end to racial segregation. </p>
<p>Others within the Baptist movement disagreed. Like his fundamentalist forebears, conservative evangelical Baptist theologian <a href="https://www.crossway.org/books/god-revelation-and-authority-tpb/">Carl F.H. Henry argued in 1976</a> that all Christian doctrine can be rationally explained and can persuade any nonbeliever. Henry rigorously defended the bodily resurrection of Christ as a historical occurrence by appealing to the Gospels’ telling of the empty tomb and Christ’s appearances among his disciples after his resurrection.</p>
<p>In his six-volume magnum opus, “<a href="https://www.crossway.org/books/god-revelation-and-authority-tpb/">God, Revelation, and Authority</a>,” Henry read these two elements of the Gospels as historical records that can be verified through modern historical methods.</p>
<h2>Alternative views</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395137/original/file-20210414-16-54fl6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A fresco of Christ with lifted arms, his head encircled by a halo, or nimbus, wearing a tunic and a mantle." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395137/original/file-20210414-16-54fl6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395137/original/file-20210414-16-54fl6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395137/original/file-20210414-16-54fl6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395137/original/file-20210414-16-54fl6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395137/original/file-20210414-16-54fl6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=958&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395137/original/file-20210414-16-54fl6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=958&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395137/original/file-20210414-16-54fl6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=958&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Christians hold a diversity of perspectives on Christ’s resurrection.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/italy-basilicata-matera-cripta-di-santa-maria-alle-malve-news-photo/187388766?adppopup=true">Bruno Balestrini / Electa / Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite their predominance, the liberal and conservative arguments on the resurrection of Jesus are not the only approaches held among Baptists. </p>
<p>In his book “<a href="https://wipfandstock.com/9781592445172/resurrection-and-discipleship/">Resurrection and Discipleship</a>,” Baptist theologian <a href="https://wipfandstock.com/author/thorwald-lorenzen/">Thorwald Lorenzen</a> also outlines what he calls the “evangelical” approach, which seeks to transcend the distinctions of “liberal” and “conservative” approaches. He affirms, with the conservatives, the historical reality of the resurrection, but agrees with the liberals that such an event cannot be verified in the modern historical sense. </p>
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<p>Other than these, there is a “liberation” approach, which stresses the social and political implications of the resurrection. Baptists who hold this view primarily interpret the resurrection as God’s response and commitment to liberating those who, like Jesus, <a href="https://www.fortresspress.com/store/product/9780800698782/We-Have-Been-Believers">experience poverty and oppression</a>.</p>
<p>Given this diversity of perspectives on the resurrection, Baptists are not unique among Christians in engaging matters of faith practice. However, I argue that Baptists may be distinct in that they believe that such matters must be freely believed by one’s own conscience and not enforced by any external religious authority.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of a piece <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-baptists-hold-differing-views-on-the-resurrection-of-christ-and-why-this-matters-158572">first published on April 15, 2021</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181386/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jason Oliver Evans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Christians have engaged in passionate debates over the meaning of the resurrection. Baptists may be distinct in that they believe an external religious authority cannot enforce views on such matters.Jason Oliver Evans, Ph.D. Candidate in Religious Studies, University of VirginiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1804842022-04-13T21:51:22Z2022-04-13T21:51:22ZSacred hares, banished winter witches and pagan worship – the roots of Easter Bunny traditions are ancient<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458017/original/file-20220413-15-x0e57b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=222%2C49%2C7959%2C5425&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Children celebrating Easter, with their Easter Bunnies and Easter eggs.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/two-young-boys-wearing-easter-bunny-ears-royalty-free-image/1388063471?adppopup=true">Sanja Radin/Collection E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Easter Bunny is a much celebrated character in American Easter celebrations. On Easter Sunday, children look for hidden special treats, often chocolate Easter eggs, that the Easter Bunny might have left behind.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=prZyKrMAAAAJ&hl=en">folklorist</a>, I’m aware of the origins of the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346357286_The_Shifting_Baselines_of_the_British_Hare_Goddess">long and interesting journey</a> this mythical figure has taken from European prehistory to today. </p>
<h2>Religious role of the hare</h2>
<p>Easter is a celebration of spring and new life. Eggs and flowers are rather obvious symbols of female fertility, but in European traditions, the bunny, with its amazing reproduction potential, is not far behind.</p>
<p>In European traditions, the Easter Bunny is known as the Easter Hare. The symbolism of the hare has had many tantalizing ritual and religious roles down through the years.</p>
<p>Hares were <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2020.102672">given ritual burials</a> alongside humans during the Neolithic age in Europe. Archaeologists have interpreted this as a religious ritual, with hares representing <a href="https://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/research/title_787590_en.html">rebirth</a>. </p>
<p>Over a thousand years later, during the Iron Age, ritual burials for hares were common, and in 51 B.C., Julius Caesar mentions that in Britain, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346357286_The_Shifting_Baselines_of_the_British_Hare_Goddess">hares were not eaten</a>, due to their religious significance.</p>
<p>Caesar would likely have known that in the Classical Greek tradition, <a href="https://www.theoi.com/Text/PhilostratusElder1A.html">hares were sacred to Aphrodite</a>, the goddess of love. Meanwhile, Aphrodite’s son Eros was often depicted carrying a hare, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110308815.311">as a symbol of unquenchable desire</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458014/original/file-20220413-26-khhsks.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A painting depicting a young woman handing baby Jesus to Virgin Mary, who puts one hand around him, while holding a hare with the other." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458014/original/file-20220413-26-khhsks.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458014/original/file-20220413-26-khhsks.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458014/original/file-20220413-26-khhsks.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458014/original/file-20220413-26-khhsks.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458014/original/file-20220413-26-khhsks.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458014/original/file-20220413-26-khhsks.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458014/original/file-20220413-26-khhsks.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘The Madonna of the Rabbit,’ a painting from 1530, depicting the Virgin Mary with a hare.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Tizian_018.jpg">A painting by artist Titian (1490-1576), Louvre Museum, Paris.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>From the Greek world through the Renaissance, hares often appear as symbols of sexuality in literature and art. For example, the Virgin Mary is often <a href="http://musee.louvre.fr/oal/viergeaulapinTitien/viergeaulapinTitien_acc_en.html">shown with a white hare or rabbit</a>, symbolizing that she overcame sexual temptation.</p>
<h2>Hare meat and witches’ mischief</h2>
<p>But it is in the folk traditions of England and Germany that the figure of the hare is specifically connected to Easter. Accounts from the 1600s in Germany describe children hunting for Easter eggs hidden by the Easter Hare, much as in the contemporary United States today. </p>
<p>Written accounts from England around the same time also mention the Easter Hare, particularly in terms of traditional Easter hare hunts, and the eating of hare meat at Easter. </p>
<p>One tradition, known as the “Hare Pie Scramble,” was held at Hallaton, a village in Leicestershire, England, which involved eating a pie made with hare meat and people “scrambling” for a slice. In 1790, the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1253567">local parson tried to stop the custom</a> due to its pagan associations, but he was unsuccessful, and the custom continues in that village until this day. </p>
<p>The eating of the hare may have been associated with various longstanding folk traditions of scaring away witches at Easter. Throughout Northern Europe, folk traditions record a strong belief that witches would often <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1260796">take the form of the hare</a>, usually for causing mischief such as stealing milk from neighbors’ cows. Witches in medieval Europe were often believed to be able to suck out the life energy of others, making them ill, and suffer.</p>
<p>The idea that the witches of winter should be <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24862791">banished at Easter</a> is a common European folk motif, appearing in several festivities and rituals. The spring equinox, with its promise of new life, was held symbolically in opposition to the life-draining activities of witches and winter.</p>
<p>This idea provides the underlying rationale behind various festivities and rituals, such as the “Osterfeuer,” or the Easter Fire, a celebration in Germany involving large outdoor bonfires <a href="https://www.twosmallpotatoes.com/osterfeuer-embracing-easter-traditions-in-germany/">meant to scare away witches</a>. In Sweden, the popular folklore states that at Easter, the witches all fly away on their broomsticks <a href="http://realscandinavia.com/in-sweden-easter-is-a-time-for-witches/">to feast and dance with the Devil</a> on the legendary island of Blåkulla, in the Baltic Sea. </p>
<h2>Pagan origins</h2>
<p>In 1835, the folklorist <a href="https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Jacob_Grimm">Jacob Grimm</a>, one of the famous team of the fairy tale “Brothers Grimm,” argued that the Easter Hare <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2018.1515655">was connected with a goddess</a>, whom he imagined would have been called “Ostara” in ancient German. He derived this name from the Anglo-Saxon goddess Eostre, that <a href="https://exploringcelticciv.web.unc.edu/bede-the-history-of-the-english-church/">Bede</a>, an Anglo-Saxon monk considered to be the father of English history, mentioned in 731. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458019/original/file-20220413-26-jdne8p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The goddess Ēostre/*Ostara flies through the heavens surrounded by winged angels, beams of light and animals." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458019/original/file-20220413-26-jdne8p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458019/original/file-20220413-26-jdne8p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458019/original/file-20220413-26-jdne8p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458019/original/file-20220413-26-jdne8p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458019/original/file-20220413-26-jdne8p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458019/original/file-20220413-26-jdne8p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458019/original/file-20220413-26-jdne8p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Ostara’ by Johannes Gehrts, created in 1884. The goddess Ēostre flies through the heavens surrounded by Roman-inspired putti, beams of light, and animals.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%92ostre#/media/File:Ostara_by_Johannes_Gehrts.jpg">Felix Dahn, Therese Dahn, Therese (von Droste-Hülshoff) Dahn, Frau, Therese von Droste-Hülshoff Dahn (1901) via Wikimedia Commons.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Bede noted that in eighth-century England the month of April was called Eosturmonath, or Eostre Month, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1253567">named after the goddess Eostre</a>. He wrote that a pagan festival of spring in the name of the goddess had become assimilated into the Christian celebration of the resurrection of Christ.</p>
<p>It’s interesting that while most European languages refer to the Christian holiday with names that come from the Jewish holiday of Passover, such as Pâques in French, or Påsk in Swedish, German and English languages retain this older, non-biblical word, Easter.</p>
<p>Recent <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346357286_The_Shifting_Baselines_of_the_British_Hare_Goddess">archaeological research</a> appears to <a href="https://doi.org/10.2752/175169708X329372">confirm the worship of Eostre</a> in parts of England and in Germany, with the hare as her main symbol. The Easter Bunny therefore seems to recall these <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2018.1515655">pre-Christian celebrations of spring</a>, heralded by the vernal equinox and personified by the Goddess Eostre.</p>
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<p>After a long, cold, northern winter, it seems natural enough for people to celebrate themes of resurrection and rebirth. The flowers are blooming, birds are laying eggs, and baby bunnies are hopping about. </p>
<p>As new life emerges in spring, the Easter Bunny hops back once again, providing a longstanding cultural symbol to remind us of the cycles and stages of our own lives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180484/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tok Thompson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A folklorist explains the prehistoric origins of the mythical Easter Bunny and why this longstanding cultural symbol keeps returning each spring.Tok Thompson, Professor of Anthropology and Communication, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1585722021-04-15T12:40:43Z2021-04-15T12:40:43ZHow Baptists hold differing views on the resurrection of Christ and why this matters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395139/original/file-20210414-13-2z3xso.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C0%2C2976%2C1972&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Resurrection of Christ depicted in 14th-century fresco in Chora Church, Istanbul, Turkey.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/resurrection-fresco-in-chora-church-istanbul-turkey-royalty-free-image/124516452?adppopup=true">LP7/Collections E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>An updated version of this article was published on April 14, 2022. <a href="https://theconversation.com/christians-hold-many-views-on-jesus-resurrection-a-theologian-explains-the-differing-views-among-baptists-181386">Read it here</a>.</em></p>
<p>Early on April 4 morning, the following message appeared on the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2021/04/05/raphael-warnock-deletes-tweet-easter-resurrection-jeremiah-wright/">Twitter account</a> of the Rev. Raphael Warnock, the newly elected U.S. senator from Georgia: “The meaning of Easter is more transcendent than the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Whether you are Christian or not, through a commitment to helping others we are able to save ourselves.”</p>
<p>He later deleted the tweet, but not before strong reaction from both conservative and progressive Christians. Some conservative Christians <a href="https://www.christianpost.com/news/rev-warnock-claims-people-can-save-themselves-in-easter-tweet.html">denounced Warnock as a “heretic”</a> for, in their view, downplaying the story of Jesus’ bodily resurrection and for claiming that humans can save themselves rather than God, who alone saves humans from their sins. Other Christians came to <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/white-evangelicals-unchristian-attacks-on-raphael-warnock-attacks-say-it-all?ref=scroll">Warnock’s defense</a>, citing his credentials as a theologian and pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church. Rather than condemn his message, they applauded him for sharing a more humanistic message that included non-Christians. </p>
<p>As a Baptist minister and <a href="https://virginia.academia.edu/JasonOEvans">theologian</a> myself, I believe it is important to understand how Baptists hold differing views on the meaning of the Resurrection. </p>
<h2>The Resurrection</h2>
<p>Easter is the Christian holiday which commemorates the story of Jesus Christ’s resurrection. <a href="https://www.eerdmans.com/Products/2120/exploring-and-proclaiming-the-apostles-creed.aspx">According to the Christian faith</a>, resurrection is the pivotal event on which “God raised Jesus from the dead on the third day” after he was <a href="https://www.fortresspress.com/store/product/9780800628864/The-Crucifixion-of-Jesus">crucified</a> by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate and then buried in a tomb owned by <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+15&version=NRSV">Joseph of Arimathea</a>. </p>
<p>While none of the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-gospels-and-jesus-9780199246168?cc=us&lang=en&">four canonical Gospels</a> of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John describe the actual event of the resurrection in detail, they nonetheless give varying reports about <a href="http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/the-story-of-jesus-in-history-and-faith/338111">the empty tomb and Christ’s post-resurrection appearances</a> among his followers both in Galilee and Jerusalem.</p>
<p>They also report that it was women who discovered the empty tomb and received and proclaimed the first message that Christ was risen from the dead. These narratives passed down orally among the earliest Christian communities and <a href="https://www.eerdmans.com/Products/6782/the-oral-gospel-tradition.aspx">then codified in the Gospel writings</a> beginning some 30 years after Jesus’ death.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.fortresspress.com/store/product/9780800626792/The-Resurrection-of-the-Son-of-God">Earliest Christians believed</a> that by raising Jesus of Nazareth from the dead, God vindicated Jesus from the torture and death he unjustly incurred at the order of Pilate, and that Jesus now as the “crucified and risen Lord” shares in God’s power to transform the creation and put an end to evil and suffering.</p>
<p>By affirming the resurrection, Christians do not mean that Jesus’ body was merely resuscitated. Rather, as New Testament scholar <a href="https://candler.emory.edu/faculty/emeriti-profiles/johnson-luke-timothy.html">Luke Timothy Johnson</a> <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-real-jesus-luke-timothy-johnson?variant=32117576564770">indicates</a>, resurrection means that “[Jesus] entered into an entirely new form of existence.” </p>
<p>As the risen Christ, Jesus is believed to share God’s power to transform all life and also to share this same power with his followers. So the resurrection is believed to be something that happened not only to Jesus, but also an experience that happens <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+15&version=NRSV">to his followers</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395102/original/file-20210414-17-gwacnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Christ standing before Roman governor Pontius Pilate, in a tile from the Cathedral of Siena, Italy." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395102/original/file-20210414-17-gwacnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395102/original/file-20210414-17-gwacnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395102/original/file-20210414-17-gwacnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395102/original/file-20210414-17-gwacnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395102/original/file-20210414-17-gwacnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395102/original/file-20210414-17-gwacnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395102/original/file-20210414-17-gwacnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Christ before Pilate: Detail of a tile from the Cathedral of Siena, Italy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/siena-museo-dellopera-metropolitana-christ-before-pilate-news-photo/146325687?adppopup=true">DeAgostini/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Opposing views</h2>
<p>Over the years, Christians have engaged in passionate debates over this central doctrine of Christian faith.</p>
<p>Two major approaches emerged: the “liberal” view and the “conservative” or “traditional” view. Current perspectives on the resurrection have been predominated by questions: “Was Jesus’ body literally raised from the dead?” and “What relevance does the resurrection have for those struggling for justice?” </p>
<p>These questions emerged in the wake of <a href="https://www.fortresspress.com/store/product/9780800637958/Modern-Christian-Thought-Second-Edition">theological modernism</a>, a European and North American movement dating back to the mid-19th century that sought to reinterpret Christianity to accommodate the emergence of modern science, history and ethics.</p>
<p>Also known as <a href="https://www.wjkbooks.com/Products/0664223540/the-making-of-american-liberal-theology.aspx">liberal</a> theology, theological modernism led liberal Christian theologians to attempt to create an alternative path between the rigid orthodoxies of Christian churches and the rationalism of atheists and others. </p>
<p>This meant that liberal Christians were willing to revise or jettison cherished Christian beliefs, such as the bodily resurrection of Jesus, if such beliefs could not be explained against the bar of human reason. </p>
<h2>Baptist views on the Resurrection</h2>
<p>Just like all other Christian denominations, Baptists are divided on the issue of the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Arguably, what may be unique about the group is that <a href="https://www.helwys.com/sh-books/the-baptist-identity/">Baptists believe</a> that no external religious authority can force an individual member to adhere to the tenets of Christian faith in any prescribed way. One must be free to accept or reject any teaching of the church. </p>
<p>In the early 20th century, Baptists in the United States found themselves on both sides of a schism within American Christianity over doctrinal issues, known as the <a href="https://global.oup.com/ushe/product/fundamentalism-and-american-culture-9780195300475?cc=us&lang=en&">fundamentalist-modernist</a> controversy. </p>
<p>The Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick, a liberal Baptist pastor who served First Presbyterian Church and later Riverside Church in Manhattan, <a href="https://www.mupress.org/A-Genetic-History-Of-Baptist-Thought-With-Special-Reference-To-Baptists-In-Britain-And-North-America-P1131.aspx">rejected the bodily resurrection of Jesus</a>. Rather, Fosdick viewed the resurrection as a “persistence in [Christ’s] personality.” </p>
<p>In 1922, Fosdick delivered his famous sermon “<a href="http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5070/">Shall the Fundamentalists Win?</a>” rebuking fundamentalists for their failure to tolerate difference on doctrinal matters such as the infallibility of the Bible, the virgin birth, and bodily Resurrection, among others, and for downplaying the weightier matter of addressing the societal needs of the day.</p>
<p>In his <a href="https://www.grandcentralpublishing.com/titles/clayborne-carson/the-autobiography-of-martin-luther-king-jr/9780759520370/">autobiography</a>, the late civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. explains that in his early adolescence he denied the bodily resurrection of Jesus.</p>
<p>While attending Crozer Seminary in 1949, <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/what-experiences-christians-living-early-christian-century-led-christian">King wrote a paper </a> trying to make sense of what led to the development of the Christian doctrine of Jesus’ bodily resurrection. For King, the experience of the early followers of Jesus was at the root of their belief in his resurrection.</p>
<p>“They had been captivated by the magnetic power of his personality,” King argued. “This basic experience led to the faith that he could never die.” In other words, the bodily resurrection of Jesus simply is the outward expression of early Christian experience, not an actual, or at least, a verifiable event in human history. </p>
<p>Others within the Baptist movement disagreed. Like his fundamentalist forebears, conservative evangelical Baptist theologian <a href="https://www.crossway.org/books/god-revelation-and-authority-tpb/">Carl F.H. Henry argued in 1976</a> that all Christian doctrine can be rationally explained and can persuade any nonbeliever. Henry rigorously defended the bodily resurrection of Christ as a historical occurrence by appealing to the Gospels’ telling of the empty tomb and Christ’s appearances among his disciples after his resurrection.</p>
<p>In his six-volume magnum opus, “<a href="https://www.crossway.org/books/god-revelation-and-authority-tpb/">God, Revelation, and Authority</a>,” Henry read these two elements of the Gospels as historical records that can be verified through modern historical methods.</p>
<h2>Alternative views</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395137/original/file-20210414-16-54fl6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Christ with lifted arms, his head encircled by a halo, or nimbus, wearing a tunic and a mantle." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395137/original/file-20210414-16-54fl6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395137/original/file-20210414-16-54fl6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395137/original/file-20210414-16-54fl6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395137/original/file-20210414-16-54fl6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395137/original/file-20210414-16-54fl6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=958&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395137/original/file-20210414-16-54fl6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=958&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395137/original/file-20210414-16-54fl6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=958&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Christians hold a diversity of perspectives on Christ’s resurrection.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/italy-basilicata-matera-cripta-di-santa-maria-alle-malve-news-photo/187388766?adppopup=true">Bruno Balestrini / Electa / Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite their predominance, the liberal and conservative arguments on the resurrection of Jesus are not the only approaches held among Baptists. </p>
<p>In his book “Resurrection and Discipleship,” Baptist theologian <a href="https://wipfandstock.com/9781592445172/resurrection-and-discipleship/">Thorwald Lorenzen</a> also outlines what he calls the “evangelical” approach, which seeks to transcend the distinctions of “liberal” and “conservative” approaches. He affirms, with the conservatives, the historical reality of the Resurrection, but agrees with the liberals that such an event cannot be verified in the modern historical sense. </p>
<p>Other than these, there is a “liberation” approach, which stresses the social and political implications of the Resurrection. Baptists who hold this view primarily interpret the resurrection as God’s response and commitment to liberating those who, like Jesus, <a href="https://www.fortresspress.com/store/product/9780800698782/We-Have-Been-Believers">experience poverty and oppression</a>.</p>
<p>Given this diversity of perspectives on the Resurrection, Baptists are not unique among Christians in engaging matters of faith practice. However, I argue that Baptists may be distinct in how they engage the question of Jesus’ resurrection and why it matters for their faith.</p>
<p>According to Warnock’s tweet, the meaning of Easter goes beyond the question of what happened to Jesus’ body, making resurrection a matter of what human beings can do to make a more just and humane society regardless of religious affiliation. </p>
<p>However, as <a href="https://www.faithwire.com/2021/04/04/this-is-literal-heresy-sen-raphael-warnock-posts-troubling-meaning-of-easter-tweet/">some Baptists protested</a>, the meaning of the resurrection is a matter of precisely what happened to Jesus’ body some 20 centuries ago – which has implications for how Christians live out their beliefs today. </p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jason Oliver Evans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Some among the Baptist movement interpret the Resurrection as God’s response and commitment to liberating the poor and the oppressed.Jason Oliver Evans, Ph.D. Candidate in Religious Studies, University of VirginiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1576782021-04-01T19:06:37Z2021-04-01T19:06:37ZHow will our bodies be put back together? What about those eaten by cannibals? A brief history of Christian resurrection beliefs<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392984/original/file-20210331-15-1mqjb8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C0%2C1622%2C1149&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Stefan Lochner, Last Judgement, circa 1435.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Easter celebrates the Christian belief that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. In so doing, he overcame sin and death on behalf of all of us. The resurrection of Jesus was a guarantee that, for those who believed in him, they too would do the same. As St. Paul put it, “He who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also”.</p>
<p>That said, the resurrected body of Jesus was a very ambiguous one. He ate fish and bread, but he could also pass through closed doors. Similarly, there has always been an uncertainty about the nature of our resurrection bodies.</p>
<p>By the end of the second century, Christianity had absorbed the Greek tradition of the immortality of the soul. From that time on, it viewed the human person as consisting of an immortal soul and a mortal body.</p>
<p>This meant that, immediately after death, the individual soul continued its existence. It also meant <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Last-Judgment-religion">at the end of history</a>, the individual body would rise from the dead and be reunited with its soul. God would then judge it as worthy of eternal happiness in heaven or eternal punishment in hell.</p>
<p>Christianity shared with Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and later Islam, a belief in the final resurrection of the body. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391352/original/file-20210324-17-ldud89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391352/original/file-20210324-17-ldud89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391352/original/file-20210324-17-ldud89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391352/original/file-20210324-17-ldud89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391352/original/file-20210324-17-ldud89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391352/original/file-20210324-17-ldud89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391352/original/file-20210324-17-ldud89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391352/original/file-20210324-17-ldud89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Luca Signorelli, Resurrection of the Flesh, a fresco painted between 1499 and 1502.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/5-things-to-know-about-the-traditional-christian-doctrine-of-hell-119380">5 things to know about the traditional Christian doctrine of hell</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What sort of bodies?</h2>
<p>What will resurrected bodies be like? Saint Augustine in his work <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120122.htm">The City of God</a> gave us some clues early in the fifth century. They will be physical bodies but animated by an immortal soul. They will appear to be about 30 years old, the age that Christ reached. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392990/original/file-20210331-19-zf13rn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392990/original/file-20210331-19-zf13rn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392990/original/file-20210331-19-zf13rn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=931&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392990/original/file-20210331-19-zf13rn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=931&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392990/original/file-20210331-19-zf13rn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=931&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392990/original/file-20210331-19-zf13rn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1170&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392990/original/file-20210331-19-zf13rn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1170&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392990/original/file-20210331-19-zf13rn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1170&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Men will arise in male bodies and women in female bodies. But there will be no sexual desire and hence no marriages in heaven. The “flesh” will serve the “spirit” and not the reverse as happens in the present life.</p>
<p>Critics then, like critics now, thought it a ridiculous idea and panned it mercilessly. Even though Augustine thought the critics were being frivolous, he attempted to give serious answers to their questions. Will aborted foetuses rise? What size will they be? What will the bodies of monstrous births, the disfigured, and the deformed be like? What will be the fate of those devoured by beasts, consumed by fire, drowned, or eaten by cannibals?</p>
<p>By the 13th century, these questions had become matters of serious philosophical discussion within Christianity and not merely responses to critics of it. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas">Thomas Aquinas</a>, the greatest philosopher of Roman Catholicism, for example, picked up where Augustine left off.</p>
<p>On the day of resurrection, he believed, bodies will have the same gender and the same organs as when they were alive. But they won’t have the same uses because there will be no desire to eat, drink, or have sex. </p>
<p>Therefore, there will be no need for food, clothing, transportation, or medicine. There will be no need for heavenly plants nor (pet or meat lovers read no further!) animals. Those in hell would have bodies suitable to their character — ugly, sluggish, black, gross, and capable of suffering.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-what-might-heaven-be-like-95939">Friday essay: what might heaven be like?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>But what about the science?</h2>
<p>By the 17th century, the new sciences were adding fresh answers to a key problem. How would all the dispersed bits of people get back together? For example, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Boyle">Robert Boyle, the father of modern chemistry</a>, worried about bodies that were eaten by animals, fish or cannibals.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392988/original/file-20210331-21-1ldgeuj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392988/original/file-20210331-21-1ldgeuj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392988/original/file-20210331-21-1ldgeuj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=731&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392988/original/file-20210331-21-1ldgeuj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=731&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392988/original/file-20210331-21-1ldgeuj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=731&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392988/original/file-20210331-21-1ldgeuj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392988/original/file-20210331-21-1ldgeuj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392988/original/file-20210331-21-1ldgeuj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Raphael, The Resurrection of Jesus Christ (Kinnaird Resurrection), from 1499 to 1502.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At least a tiny bit of us, Boyle suggested, will be able to be retrieved from the bodies of animals, sharks, or cannibals — enough for God to work with. Moreover, his own chemical experiments on the long-lasting texture of bones assured him they would still be around on resurrection day. In the end, however, he like many others, was forced to fall back on God’s miraculous powers to get all of our bits and pieces back into one piece.</p>
<p>Vast amounts of theological ink were spilt on the attempt to defend what, at the end of the day, was really rationally indefensible. It is no surprise that, as the feasibility of the miraculous disappeared in the 18th century, so rational defences of the resurrection of the physical body disappeared from intellectual history. They were buried in a forgotten and unmarked theological grave.</p>
<p>These days, at least to more liberal Christians, the resurrection of the body remains a matter of faith rather than reason. It is pretty much ignored. The afterlife in general tends to be thought of as the survival of a spirit immediately after death or even only as a brief period of time in the memories of those still alive.</p>
<p>But whatever Christians believe about <em>our</em> resurrection body, they still believe Jesus rose physically, or perhaps spiritually, from the dead. It is a life and a death that continues to <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/05/christians-remain-worlds-largest-religious-group-but-they-are-declining-in-europe/">influence 2.3 billion people</a> throughout the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157678/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip C. Almond does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Easter celebrates the Christian belief that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. And for centuries, this resurrection was seen as a guarantee that our own bodies would do the same.Philip C. Almond, Emeritus Professor in the History of Religious Thought, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1577752021-04-01T19:02:04Z2021-04-01T19:02:04ZIt is risen: the story of resurrection ferns and my late colleague who helped discover them in Australia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393025/original/file-20210401-23-8mqayq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C1%2C1024%2C764&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rock fern, _Cheilanthes austrotenuifolia_</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Donald Hobern/Wikimedia</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>One afternoon in the late 1970s, my colleague and fellow student Helen Quirk handed me a brown, shrivelled fern frond. It appeared to be dead, and was so dry that when I crushed it between my fingers it disintegrated into a powder.</p>
<p>We placed another piece on a petrie dish and added water. Almost immediately, the piece began to unfold and, as though in time-lapse photography, it appeared to re-green. Within a few hours it looked like a normal, delicate fern. </p>
<p>This was my first encounter with a resurrection fern: remarkable plants that look dead and dry, but when provided with the right conditions — often just the addition of water — rapidly spring back to life. </p>
<p>Helen died a few short years later in 1982, but her botanical legacy of classifying and exploring the ecology of Australian resurrection ferns lives on. The resurrection fern she showed me turned out to be a new species, and her <a href="https://ebps.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Gazette-vol-12-part-3.pdf">scientific description</a> of it hooked me immediately. I was fascinated to discover more.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393032/original/file-20210401-15-1hrrire.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Rock fern colonies growing beneath eucalypts" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393032/original/file-20210401-15-1hrrire.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393032/original/file-20210401-15-1hrrire.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393032/original/file-20210401-15-1hrrire.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393032/original/file-20210401-15-1hrrire.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393032/original/file-20210401-15-1hrrire.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393032/original/file-20210401-15-1hrrire.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393032/original/file-20210401-15-1hrrire.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>Cheilanthes austrotenuifolia</em> colonies growing beneath eucalypts.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gwen & Rodger Elliot/Royal Botanic Gardens Board Victoria 2020</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The remarkable ancient history of ferns</h2>
<p>Plant enthusiasts often think of ferns as being simple and delicate plants from an earlier evolutionary time. Ferns predate all flowering and cone-bearing plants, often by millions of years. </p>
<p>Their long evolutionary history has meant similar ferns are found on many continents. This is because they once existed on the <a href="https://www.livescience.com/38218-facts-about-pangaea.html">supercontinent Pangaea</a> around 300 million years ago, before it broke apart into Gondwana and Laurasia and its various components began the great continental drift to their current positions.</p>
<p>So, while ferns are indeed ancient, they are certainly not simple or delicate. </p>
<p>Many people are entranced by their resilience — just watch how they spring back to full and gloriously green canopies after bushfires. </p>
<p>They also have intricate anatomical and morphological structures, and their evolutionary histories are often complex and poorly understood. This is perhaps, in part, because they have continued to evolve and change right up to the present era. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XFE4f-3TxdU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Time lapse of a resurrection fern growing on an oak tree, where its dried-out fronds unfurl and turn green.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The similarity of ferns in different parts of the world has provided fertile research ground for fern taxonomists trying to accurately distinguish one species from another. Sometimes they discover that ferns on different continents are a single species. On other occasions, ferns that look remarkably alike are distant relatives.</p>
<p>This has been the case with resurrection ferns, members of the genus <em>Cheilanthes</em>. At present there are <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/dc6a/9da8891e902717c76c2bf3dbdcdabd898c32.pdf">about 15</a> known species of <em>Cheilanthes</em> in Australia.</p>
<h2>Evolving to tolerate arid environments</h2>
<p>There are many plants from unrelated families that fit the description of resurrection plants, which suggests their adaptation has evolved on several separate occasions in response to arid environments.</p>
<p>Some can go without water for up to seven years and return to normal from a fully desiccated state within two days.</p>
<p>The fact that a number of ferns and other primitive plants are resurrection plants is a reminder that the ancient earth they evolved in could be a very inhospitable place. This was long before <a href="https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2017/11/27/the-incredible-feat-of-a-resurrection-plant">plants helped make</a> earth the liveable planet we know today. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393028/original/file-20210401-17-198s7vp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three brown, dried plant balls on grass." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393028/original/file-20210401-17-198s7vp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393028/original/file-20210401-17-198s7vp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393028/original/file-20210401-17-198s7vp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393028/original/file-20210401-17-198s7vp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393028/original/file-20210401-17-198s7vp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393028/original/file-20210401-17-198s7vp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393028/original/file-20210401-17-198s7vp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The rose of Jericho, <em>Selaginella lepidophylla</em>, is a highly desert tolerant resurrection plant unrelated to ferns that can dry until it looks like a tumbleweed before unfurling beautifully with a little water.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>How resurrection plants tolerate such low internal moisture levels has wider biological and medical implications, too. </p>
<p>We’re learning from these plants how to improve drought tolerance in crops. And understanding their tolerance of desiccation has been used to <a href="https://kids.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/frym.2019.00073">improve methods of</a> storage and transport of vaccines and human blood products.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/tree-ferns-are-older-than-dinosaurs-and-thats-not-even-the-most-interesting-thing-about-them-138435">Tree ferns are older than dinosaurs. And that's not even the most interesting thing about them</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The notion of a resurrection plant growing under dry desert conditions was not unfamiliar to me in the 1970s. </p>
<p>However, the idea of ferns being a resurrection plant seemed distinctly odd, as they are <a href="https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2017/11/27/the-incredible-feat-of-a-resurrection-plant">usually water loving and dependent</a>. Resurrection ferns, on the other hand, can remain in a desiccated state for months or even years before they resume growth. </p>
<h2>Re-introducing the rock fern</h2>
<p>The specimen of <em>Cheilanthes</em> I got to know came from the Grampians in Victoria. Helen and botanist Professor Carrick Chambers named it <a href="https://www.publish.csiro.au/bt/bt9830501"><em>Cheilanthes austrotenuifolia</em></a>, or “<a href="https://vicflora.rbg.vic.gov.au/flora/taxon/e958353a-3718-4918-b7b7-712c79e772d0">rock fern</a>”. </p>
<p>As its common name suggests, these small, delicate-looking ferns grow in exposed rock crevices, often in inaccessible places. They only occur in the southern parts of Australia.</p>
<p>Rock ferns can reach about 45 centimetres high and their fronds will be 25cm or less in length. Like many ferns, such as bracken, they grow from an underground rhizome (stem). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393031/original/file-20210401-17-1u91mwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Rock fern growing in a rock crevice" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393031/original/file-20210401-17-1u91mwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393031/original/file-20210401-17-1u91mwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393031/original/file-20210401-17-1u91mwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393031/original/file-20210401-17-1u91mwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393031/original/file-20210401-17-1u91mwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393031/original/file-20210401-17-1u91mwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393031/original/file-20210401-17-1u91mwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rock ferns often grow in exposed rock crevices in southern parts of Australia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Loraine Jansen/Royal Botanic Gardens Board Victoria 2020</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It can be quite disconcerting when the fronds die back and disappear completely over summer, only to <a href="https://keys.lucidcentral.org/keys/v3/scotia/key/Plants%20and%20Fungi%20of%20south%20western%20NSW/Media/Html/Cheilanthes_austrotenuifolia.htm">reappear again</a> when it rains in autumn. </p>
<p>Rock ferns are among the first plants to recover after severe drought and, while they’re really tough and hardy, they’re quite particular about where they grow. </p>
<p>This can be frustrating for those trying to <a href="https://profiles.ala.org.au/opus/foa/profile/Cheilanthes">propagate and grow one</a>. You can grow it from pieces of rhizome and from spores, but it isn’t always easy.</p>
<p>This means opportunities to play with a resurrection fern don’t come along all that often. So, with Helen, a number of us disappeared into the laboratory to investigate further. </p>
<p>Our laboratory tests showed it was already photosynthesising. The transition from powder to getting on with living was complete.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393018/original/file-20210401-23-h5qyil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Small fern growing on forest floor" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393018/original/file-20210401-23-h5qyil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393018/original/file-20210401-23-h5qyil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393018/original/file-20210401-23-h5qyil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393018/original/file-20210401-23-h5qyil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393018/original/file-20210401-23-h5qyil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393018/original/file-20210401-23-h5qyil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393018/original/file-20210401-23-h5qyil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rock fern, <em>Cheilanthes austrotenuifolia</em>, growing in Black Mountain, Canberra.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tim1357/Wikimedia</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>10 years and counting…</h2>
<p>Years ago, I planted a piece of <em>C. austrotenuifolia</em> rhizome with a single frond in the heavy clay soil of our garden, between a couple of sizeable basalt rocks. It was never really happy and over its first summer, it disappeared. </p>
<p>Imagine my surprise when about five years later, a couple of ferny fronds appeared. It was back. I immediately thought of Helen. </p>
<p>Over the summer, the fronds died back again and it was gone, until eight years later when another couple of fronds appeared. </p>
<p>It is now about 10 years since we last glimpsed a frond. I am not hopeful about its survival, but you never know. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/majestic-stunning-intriguing-and-bizarre-new-guinea-has-13-634-species-of-plants-and-these-are-some-of-our-favourites-144279">'Majestic, stunning, intriguing and bizarre': New Guinea has 13,634 species of plants, and these are some of our favourites</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157775/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gregory Moore does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This Easter, read about this remarkable species of resurrection fern — plants that appear dead and dry, but under the right conditions rapidly spring to life.Gregory Moore, Doctor of Botany, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1433412020-07-27T12:14:18Z2020-07-27T12:14:18ZWhat are the origins of cathedrals and chapels?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349420/original/file-20200724-29-1mqs934.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=55%2C16%2C3645%2C2447&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mosaic in San Vitale Basilica, Ravenna, Italy</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/byzantine-mosaic-in-san-vitale-basilica-ravenna-royalty-free-image/175522853?adppopup=true">nimu1956/Collection E+ via Getty images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Cathedrals and chapels have played vital roles in the development of Christian culture. </p>
<p>As a scholar of the <a href="https://colorado.academia.edu/SamBoyd">Bible, Judaism and Christianity</a>, I have come to learn the historic importance of these structures and the pivotal role they play in the practice of many Christians’ faith.</p>
<h2>Early Christian architecture</h2>
<p>Cathedrals and chapels not only provide a space for worship, but they are also vessels for the display of religious iconography and art.</p>
<p>Until the early fourth century A.D., much of <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Handbook-of-Early-Christian-Art/Jensen-Ellison/p/book/9781138857223">early Christian art</a> and space for worship occurred in catacombs – subterranean locations where Christians would bury members of their community.</p>
<p>It has traditionally been thought that Christians used such catacombs due to persecutions by the Roman government. However, such persecutions were <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-myth-of-persecution-candida-moss">periodic</a> and not sustained. <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/first/catacombs.html">Other explanations</a> have been offered regarding the regular use of the catacombs as a result.</p>
<p>In any case, such tombs became the repositories of <a href="https://global.oup.com/ushe/product/christian-art-a-very-short-introduction-9780192803283?cc=us&lang=en&">art expressions</a> in the early decades of the religion. </p>
<p>Prominent scenes include depictions of the Bible that highlighted deliverance from death.</p>
<p>Depictions of Jesus of Nazareth appear in these catacombs, but often borrowing from the <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/what-did-jesus-look-like-9780567671493/">likeness</a> of the Greek god Hermes, who functioned as a messenger deity as well as a <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780203407639">carrier of souls</a> in the afterlife. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674088801">cross</a> as a widely displayed symbol of Christian faith would become more frequent only after the Roman emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-art-of-the-roman-empire-9780198768630?q=elsner&lang=en&cc=us#">fourth century A.D.</a></p>
<h2>Development of cathedrals</h2>
<p>With imperial backing, Christians began to build their places of worship, known as “churches” from the Greek kuriake “belonging to the lord,” above ground.</p>
<p>Such building practices borrowed from two main areas of precursors: ancient temples and places of Roman administration.</p>
<p>Ancient temples across cultures, including the one in Jerusalem, generally were thought of as spaces where the god or goddess <a href="https://secure.aidcvt.com/sbl/ProdDetails.asp?ID=064703P&PG=1&Type=BL&PCS=SBL">lived</a>.</p>
<p>Many ancient and modern Christians believe that Jesus is physically present in communion – the ritual that in some Christian thought involves the actual transformation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus. </p>
<p>As such, cathedrals such as the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/classical-studies/ancient-history/ravenna-late-antiquity?format=HB&isbn=9780521836722">Basilica of San Vitale in Italy</a>, constructed in the sixth century A.D., contain mosaics to depict Jesus as actually present in communion. These buildings tap into a widely held <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/view/title/6052">religious history</a> that the deity dwells in the holy place.</p>
<p>Many of these ancient, pre-Christian temples, including the Temple in Jerusalem, were oriented from the east to the west. Christian cathedrals for the most part in both the ancient and modern world used <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-the-age-of-constantine/0F0E0815CD834C2A1C0358BE7E00D26F">this east to west axis as well</a>. Some traditions placed communion toward the east – called “oriented” – and others toward the west – called “occidented.” </p>
<p>Notable exceptions occurred, such as in the Rockefeller Chapel at the <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/U/bo19782446.html">University of Chicago</a>, originally a Baptist school, whose chapel is oriented north to south. </p>
<p>The second major source for early Christian churches was <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/christianity-and-roman-society/BDB789E109CBF21099D22C0A7C9243A5">Roman administrative buildings</a>. The very name cathedral means “<a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780192802903.001.0001/acref-9780192802903">seat</a>” and in Roman society was referred to the location where governors would adjudicate and oversee their districts. When the pope speaks from his seat of power, he speaks “ex cathedra.”</p>
<p>Roman temples had a different structure, but the <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/296647/christianity-by-diarmaid-macculloch/">Roman basilica</a>, with its resonances of governance and imperial backing, was instead <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300198386/first-thousand-years">chosen</a>, along with the east to west orientation of ancient temples, as the basic design for such cathedrals.</p>
<h2>How chapels came to be</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349408/original/file-20200724-23-5f1dgn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349408/original/file-20200724-23-5f1dgn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349408/original/file-20200724-23-5f1dgn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349408/original/file-20200724-23-5f1dgn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349408/original/file-20200724-23-5f1dgn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349408/original/file-20200724-23-5f1dgn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349408/original/file-20200724-23-5f1dgn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349408/original/file-20200724-23-5f1dgn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Russian Orthodox Church chapel in Moscow.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/russian-orthodox-christian-chapel-news-photo/163134273?adppopup=true">Alexandr Lis/Collections Moment via Getty</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In contrast to the often large and impressive designs of cathedrals, <a href="https://utorontopress.com/us/early-christian-chapels-in-the-west-2">chapels</a> in Christianity represent a smaller scale conception of religious worship.</p>
<p>The term chapel derives from <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/medieval-music-legend-and-the-cult-of-st-martin/E3503AA36CD0F242B14BE2878E8CC4DB">Martin of Tours</a>, a bishop in the early church from France who was wearing a cloak while walking past a poor man. Martin was reminded of Jesus’ words in the Gospel of Matthew that helping the poor was, in effect, to help and worship God. Martin gave the poor man his cloak and the destitute person revealed himself to be Jesus himself.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Pieces of this cloak, having touched Jesus, were thought to hold special significance. As a result, small structures were built to house them. These small structures were known as chapels, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/296647/christianity-by-diarmaid-macculloch/">derived from Latin capella</a> for “little cloak.”</p>
<p>These spaces of worship did not have musical instruments to accompany the <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Temple-the-Church-Fathers-and-Early-Western-Chant-1st-Edition/McKinnon/p/book/9780860786887">service</a>. As a result, the word <a href="https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000000091">a capella</a>, meaning “according to the chapel” or “in the chapel style,” reflects the manner of worship in the small church.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143341/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samuel L. Boyd does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Millions step into cathedrals and chapels on a regular basis. The history of these places of worship offers important insights into Christianity.Samuel L. Boyd, Assistant Professor, University of Colorado BoulderLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1121202019-03-05T11:39:10Z2019-03-05T11:39:10Z4 things to know about Ash Wednesday<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317178/original/file-20200225-24694-14wwai8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=120%2C77%2C3087%2C1932&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ash Wednesday ritual at the State Capitol in St. Paul, Minnesota on March 6, 2019</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Ash-Wednesday-Minnesota/2e17a928452a40de88f459c4d3def8f4/13/0">P Photo/Jim Mone)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For Christians, the death and resurrection of Jesus is a pivotal event commemorated each year during a season of preparation called Lent and a season of celebration called Easter. </p>
<p>The day that begins the Lenten season is called Ash Wednesday. Here are four things to know about it.</p>
<h2>1. Origin of the tradition of using ashes</h2>
<p>On Ash Wednesday, many Christians have ashes put on their forehead – a practice that has been going on for about a thousand years. </p>
<p>In the earliest Christian centuries – from A.D. 200 to 500 – those guilty of serious sins such as murder, adultery or apostasy, a public renunciation of one’s faith, <a href="http://www.liguori.org/doorstothesacred.html">were excluded</a> for a time from the <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Rediscovering_the_Eucharist.html?id=vc_1JdfS5lwC">Eucharist</a>, a sacred ceremony celebrating communion with Jesus and with one another. </p>
<p>During that time they did acts of penance, like extra praying and fasting, and lying “<a href="http://www.paulistpress.com/Products/0150-5/28-tertullian.aspx">in sackcloth and ashes</a>,” as an outward action expressing interior sorrow and repentance. </p>
<p>The customary time to welcome them back to the Eucharist was at the end of Lent, during Holy Week.</p>
<p>But Christians believe that all people are sinners, each in his or her own way. So as centuries went on, the church’s public prayer at the beginning of Lent <a href="https://litpress.org/Products/E6279/Advent-to-Pentecost">added a phrase</a>, “Let us change our garments to sackcloth and ashes,” as a way to call the whole community, not just the most serious sinners, to repentance. </p>
<p>Around the 10th century, the practice arose of acting out those words about ashes by actually marking the foreheads of those taking part in the ritual. The practice caught on and spread, and in 1091 <a href="https://litpress.org/Products/1366/The-Church-at-Prayer-Volume-IV">Pope Urban II decreed</a> that “on Ash Wednesday everyone, clergy and laity, men and women, will receive ashes.” It’s been going on ever since. </p>
<h2>2. Words used when applying ashes</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://litpress.org/Products/E6279/Advent-to-Pentecost">12th-century missal</a>, a ritual book with instructions on how to celebrate the Eucharist, indicates the words used when putting ashes on the forehead were: “Remember, man, that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” The phrase echoes <a href="https://www.biblica.com/bible/niv/genesis/3/">God’s words of reproach</a> after Adam, according to the narrative in the Bible, disobeyed <a href="https://www.biblica.com/bible/niv/genesis/2/">God’s command</a> not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden.</p>
<p>This phrase was the only one used on Ash Wednesday until the liturgical reforms following the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. At that time <a href="https://store.usccb.org/roman-missal-p/7-192.htm">a second phrase</a> came into use, also biblical but from the New Testament: “Repent, and believe in the Gospel.” These were <a href="https://www.biblica.com/bible/niv/mark/1/">Jesus’s words</a> at the beginning of his public ministry, that is, when he began teaching and healing among the people.</p>
<p>Each phrase in its own way serves the purpose of calling the faithful to live their Christian lives more deeply. The words from Genesis remind Christians that life is short and death imminent, urging focus on what is essential. The words of Jesus are a direct call to follow him by turning away from sin and doing what he says. </p>
<h2>3. Two traditions for the day before</h2>
<p>Two quite different traditions developed for the day leading up to Ash Wednesday.</p>
<p>One might be called a tradition of indulgence. Christians would eat more than usual, either as a final binge before a season of fasting or to empty the house of foods typically given up during Lent. Those foods were chiefly meat, but depending on culture and custom, also <a href="https://litpress.org/Products/5525/The-New-Dictionary-Of-Catholic-Spirituality">milk and eggs</a> and even sweets and other forms of dessert food. This tradition gave rise to the name “Mardi Gras,” or Fat Tuesday.</p>
<p>The other tradition was more sober: namely, the practice of confessing one’s sins to a priest and receiving a penance appropriate for those sins, a penance that would be carried out during Lent. This tradition gave rise to the name “<a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13763a.htm">Shrove Tuesday</a>,” from the verb “to shrive,” meaning to hear a confession and impose a penance. </p>
<p>In either case, on the next day, Ash Wednesday, Christians dive right into Lenten practice by both eating less food overall and avoiding some foods altogether. </p>
<h2>4. Ash Wednesday has inspired poetry</h2>
<p>In 1930s England, when Christianity was losing ground among the intelligentia, T.S. Eliot’s poem “Ash Wednesday” <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Eliot_and_his_age.html?id=O65aAAAAMAAJ">reaffirmed traditional Christian faith</a> and worship. In one section of the poem, Eliot wrote about the enduring power of God’s “silent Word” in the world:</p>
<pre class="highlight plaintext"><code> If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word.
</code></pre>
<p><em>Ellen Garmann, Associate Director of Campus Ministry for Liturgy at University of Dayton, contributed to this piece.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112120/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William Johnston does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The day that begins the Lenten season is called Ash Wednesday. Here’s why it holds deep religious significance for Christians.William Johnston, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, University of DaytonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/959562018-05-11T14:45:22Z2018-05-11T14:45:22ZCould resurrecting mammoths help stop Arctic emissions?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218613/original/file-20180511-34027-1cml58u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/digital-illustration-mammoth-759825811?src=QiNqLwIPakxS_TRl5f54aQ-1-2">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you managed to time travel back to Ice-Age Europe, you might be forgiven for thinking you had instead crash landed in some desolate part of the African savannah. But the chilly temperatures and the presence of six-ton shaggy beasts with extremely long tusks would confirm you really were in the Pleistocene epoch, otherwise known as the Ice Age. You’d be visiting the mammoth steppe, an environment that stretched from Spain across Eurasia and the Bering Strait to Canada. It was covered in grass, largely devoid of trees and populated by bison, reindeer, tigers and the eponymous “woolly” mammoth.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, both mammoth and most of the mammoth steppe ecosystem today have long but disappeared. But a group of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/feb/16/woolly-mammoth-resurrection-scientists">geneticists from Harvard</a> are hoping to change this by cloning living elephant cells that contain a small component of synthesised mammoth DNA. They claim that reintroducing such mammoth-like creatures to Arctic tundra environments could help stop the release of greenhouse gases from the ground and reduce future emissions as temperatures rise due to climate change. While this might sound like a far-fetched idea, scientists have actually been experimenting with something similar for over 20 years.</p>
<p>Arctic lands are covered by areas of ground known as permafrost that have been frozen since the Pleistocene. Permafrost contains <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13653">vast amounts of carbon</a> from dead plant life that is locked away by the extremely cold temperatures. The amount of carbon in these frozen stores is estimated to be about <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/2013GL058088">twice as much as that currently in the atmosphere</a>. If it thaws out, microbes will break down soil organic material to release carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere.</p>
<p>As a result, permafrost and the associated carbon pools have been likened to “<a href="https://science.nasa.gov/sleeping-giant-arctic-permafrost-0">sleeping giants</a>” in our climate system. If they wake up, the resulting greenhouse gas emissions would raise global temperatures even further than currently projected, causing even greater global climate change (a process known as positive feedback).</p>
<h2>Natural geo-engineers</h2>
<p>This is where our shaggy friends may come in. Mammoths and other large herbivores of the Pleistocene continually trampled mosses and shrubs, uprooting trees and disturbing the landscape. In this way, they inadvertently acted as <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257110614_Mammoth_steppe_A_high-productivity_phenomenon">natural geo-engineers</a>, maintaining highly productive steppe landscapes full of grasses, herbs and no trees.</p>
<p>Bringing mammoth-like creatures back to the tundra could, in theory, help recreate the steppe ecosystem more widely. Because grass absorbs less sunlight than trees, this would cause the ground to absorb less heat and in turn keep the carbon pools and their greenhouse gases on ice for longer. Large numbers of the animals would also trample snow cover, stopping it from acting like insulation for the ground and allowing the permafrost to feel the effects of the bitter Arctic winters. Again, this would, in theory, keep the ground colder for longer.</p>
<p>This form of mammoth de-extinction and reintroduction could therefore promote grasslands and simultaneously slow the thawing of these frozen soils. So surely it’s worth it?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218576/original/file-20180511-52177-gred5z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218576/original/file-20180511-52177-gred5z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218576/original/file-20180511-52177-gred5z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218576/original/file-20180511-52177-gred5z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218576/original/file-20180511-52177-gred5z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218576/original/file-20180511-52177-gred5z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218576/original/file-20180511-52177-gred5z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ukok Plateau, Siberia, is one of the last remnants of the mammoth steppe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukok_Plateau#/media/File:Ukok_Plateau.jpg">Wikipedia/Kobsev</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://vimeo.com/207624364">Pleistocene Park</a> is an epic experiment in the Siberian Arctic that has been underway since 1996 and focused on investigating these processes. It is this park to which the Harvard team hope to deliver the first resurrected mammoth hybrid within the next decade.</p>
<p>Founded by Russian geophysicist <a href="http://reviverestore.org/projects/woolly-mammoth/sergey-zimovs-manifesto/">Sergei Zimov</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/PleistocenePark/">the 16 square-kilometre park</a> is filled with <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/308/5723/796.1.full?HITS=10&resourcetype=HWCIT&maxtoshow=&RESULTFORMAT=&FIRSTINDEX=0&firstpage=796&searchid=1&hits=10&volume=308&andorexacttitleabs=and&andorexactfulltext=and">around 100 animals</a> roaming free including bison, musk ox, moose, yaks, horses and reindeer. The park is designed to determine if the animals can disturb and fertilise the current ecosystem where little grows into highly productive pastures, as well as slowing or even reversing permafrost thaw. </p>
<p>I’ve been privileged to have visited the park a number of times, and have been amazed at the effort required to undertake such “big science” in this wilderness. We travelled for many hours along the massive Kolyma River to collect reindeer from the Arctic coast, and transported them by small boats to the park – no mean feat in these regions. Adding just another few animals to the experiment was exhausting. But it was totally exhilarating and made me question whether this was such a crazy idea after all.</p>
<p>The limited financial and personnel available to the park has made building and monitoring the project’s success difficult. Early evidence with extant species such as musk ox, reindeer and horse suggests animal presence is changing the park landscape structure and cooling the ground. </p>
<p>Recently, the park’s grasslands have <a href="https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm17/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/266991">been shown</a> to reflect more sunlight than the surrounding larch forest, which will reduce the heat penetrating the ground. Scientists have also taken 300 metre-long ground samples from across the landscape to measure the carbon storage in the park, and work out if it differs from that of the surrounding, non-disturbed landscape. </p>
<h2>Is it worth it?</h2>
<p>Much of the work relies on <a href="https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/bison-to-save-the-world--2#/">public crowdfunding</a> and the park is now seeking money to fill the park with temperature sensors and light sensors. It has already installed a 35-metre high <a href="https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/iasoa/stations/cherskii#ui-tabs-2">flux tower</a> that continually monitors methane, carbon dioxide and temperature in the park’s atmosphere. Collecting convincing evidence to back up the theory clearly takes time and huge effort, but we should know soon if this bold plan could make a realistic solution to climate change.</p>
<p>Some scientists and conservationists <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/20/science/revive-restore-extinct-species-dna-mammoth-passenger-pigeon.html">have questioned</a> whether resurrecting the mammoth is really worth it, comparing the high costs with the relative lack of funding for saving the world’s elephants. A key question is whether we need mammoth specifically to make these projects work? Could we not simply knock down trees manually, and then use existing animals? I guess this may depend on whether we decide to expand such an approach across far greater swathes of the Arctic, where human intervention will be costly or even near impossible in places.</p>
<p>Yet tackling global climate change needs ambitious, novel and often epic solutions, both to reduce emissions and to minimise the chance positive feedback from the Arctic that may cause untold damage to our climate system. I don’t know if bringing the mammoth back is the right approach, but at the moment we lack a decent solution for keeping the giant Arctic carbon deposits in the ground.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95956/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Mann receives funding from the US National Science Foundation (NSF) and UK Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC). </span></em></p>A 20-year-old experiment is testing whether filling the Arctic tundra with animals could keep carbon trapped in the ground.Paul Mann, Senior Lecturer, Geography and Environmental Sciences, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/941532018-04-05T14:59:14Z2018-04-05T14:59:14ZThe northern white rhino should not be brought back to life<p>A geriatric semi-captive rhino died in Kenya recently. “Sudan”, a 45-year-old <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-43468066">northern white rhino</a> was put to sleep as vets decided, after months of ill health, that his condition had deteriorated to the point where the levels of pain and quality of life were unacceptable.</p>
<p>From a conservation perspective, this does not sound like a big deal. Sudan was one old rhino. He was well past breeding age. So why did his death make headlines?</p>
<p>Sudan was the last surviving male northern white rhinoceros, a subspecies known to scientists as <em>Ceratotherium simum cottoni</em> that went extinct in the wild about 20 years ago thanks to poaching. He was captured and removed from the wild in 1975, the last wild-caught northern white rhino. Sudan’s daughter Najin, and granddaughter Fatu, are now the only two left, and they are both old and incapable of reproduction even if they had a mate.</p>
<p>It is a strange situation. On the one hand, it matters a lot. The northern white rhino is extinct, it just doesn’t know it yet. Conservationists refer to such populations as “<a href="https://conservationbytes.com/2008/08/30/classics-the-living-dead/">the living dead</a>”. </p>
<p>On the other hand, does it really matter? Despite persistent misreporting in the media (and some debate <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0009703">among scientists</a>) the northern white is generally recognised as “only” a subspecies of the white rhinoceros. It is survived by its relative the southern white rhino, <em>Ceratotherium simum simum</em>, around <a href="https://www.savetherhino.org/rhino_info/rhino_population_figures">20,000</a> of which remain. The species as a whole is not currently endangered.</p>
<h2>Resurrection?</h2>
<p>The importance of Sudan’s actual death remains unclear, partly because it seems increasingly possible to bring his subspecies back to life. The northern white rhino may be resurrected by <a href="https://theconversation.com/only-a-jurassic-park-style-intervention-can-now-save-the-northern-white-rhino-51333">Jurassic Park-style technology</a>. That would require conservationists to collect eggs from the remaining females and develop IVF techniques that are as yet unproven on rhino.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213415/original/file-20180405-189830-yhvh2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213415/original/file-20180405-189830-yhvh2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213415/original/file-20180405-189830-yhvh2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213415/original/file-20180405-189830-yhvh2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213415/original/file-20180405-189830-yhvh2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213415/original/file-20180405-189830-yhvh2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213415/original/file-20180405-189830-yhvh2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213415/original/file-20180405-189830-yhvh2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hand rearing orphaned baby southern white rhino, South Africa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jason Gilchrist</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>DNA has been stored from 13 northern white rhino that died in recent years, including Sudan, and it would be combined with similarly-frozen eggs and sperm. The embryos produced would then be implanted within <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/zoo.21284">surrogate female southern white rhino</a>. I recently spoke to Professor <a href="http://www.izw-berlin.de/prof-dr-hildebrandt-thomas.html">Thomas Hildebrandt</a>, a global leader in conservation reproduction and pioneer of this technique, and he was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/23/scientists-store-of-rhino-semen-could-save-rare-species">confident it would work</a>.</p>
<p>If these <a href="https://www.nature.com/news/stem-cell-plan-aims-to-bring-rhino-back-from-brink-of-extinction-1.19849">optimistic plans</a> play out, the first northern white rhino calf born since the year 2000 could be produced before the death of the two remaining females. An alternative would be to produce a genetically-engineered baby rhino that is a hybrid of both northern and southern species. If plans to <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/mammoth-woolly-resurrection-dna-genome-elephant-embryo-extinct-animals-back-to-life-a7583826.html">resurrect the extinct woolly mammoth</a> via hybridisation with Indian elephants are possible, then a white rhino hybrid is not unachievable.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, we are talking not about saving a subspecies from extinction, but resurrecting an extinct subspecies – a much more challenging proposition.</p>
<h2>Southern white rhinos to the rescue</h2>
<p>The second issue, that clouds the importance of the almost certain extinction of the northern white rhino, is that the white rhino survives through its southern subspecies which may (with help) be able to replace the northern white rhino in its historical range across central Africa. In doing so, it could fill the vacant ecological niche.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213416/original/file-20180405-189798-dnvi85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213416/original/file-20180405-189798-dnvi85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213416/original/file-20180405-189798-dnvi85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213416/original/file-20180405-189798-dnvi85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213416/original/file-20180405-189798-dnvi85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213416/original/file-20180405-189798-dnvi85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213416/original/file-20180405-189798-dnvi85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213416/original/file-20180405-189798-dnvi85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Most southern white rhino are found in South Africa where they are under sustained pressure from poaching for their horn.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jason Gilchrist</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We, as a society, have to be pragmatic and economic with the resources available to protect wild animals. Can we justify spending an estimated <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-43468066">£7.1m (US$10m)</a> to try to bring back to life a subspecies from stored DNA with limited genetic diversity? Even if the animals were all alive and breeding, there would still be fears of the “<a href="https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/news/160201_cheetahs">founder effect</a>” that can occur when a population is started from just a few individuals, with some traits lost and others dominant within the resulting population.</p>
<p>As a near-extinct subspecies, the conservation argument for continued investment to save the population is based upon whatever adaptive genetic diversity it holds that differentiates it from the other subspecies. But it is not clear exactly what genetically-useful traits are found in the sample of 13 northern white rhinos that are not also present in the southern white.</p>
<p>To be direct, if millions of pounds can be raised to try and resurrect the northern white rhino, should it not instead be invested in protecting the southern white rhino (still at <a href="https://theconversation.com/chopping-off-the-rhinos-horn-and-the-war-on-wildlife-crime-33427">risk from poaching</a>)? Or alternatively, direct the money towards even more vulnerable <a href="https://theconversation.com/africas-rhinos-hog-the-limelight-while-their-asian-cousins-head-for-extinction-47336">Asian rhinos</a>.</p>
<h2>Living museum exhibits</h2>
<p>It is easy to see why cutting edge reproductive technology is so <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/20/sudan-northern-white-rhino-dead-species-endangered-species-conservationists">appealing</a> now that the planet’s sixth mass extinction crisis is well under way.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213420/original/file-20180405-189795-ic5yxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213420/original/file-20180405-189795-ic5yxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213420/original/file-20180405-189795-ic5yxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213420/original/file-20180405-189795-ic5yxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213420/original/file-20180405-189795-ic5yxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213420/original/file-20180405-189795-ic5yxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213420/original/file-20180405-189795-ic5yxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213420/original/file-20180405-189795-ic5yxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A greater one-horned rhino in a zoo. Only about 3,500 individuals remain in the wild in Asia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jason Gilchrist</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the only economic and practical long-term solution to biodiversity loss is to conserve wildlife in the wild and to prevent it from reaching the sorry state of the northern white rhino. After all, if humans cannot save a species in nature while it is alive, what future for animals that we manufacture? My worry is that they would simply be living museum exhibits, destined to live out their lives in zoos, with habitat loss or poaching preventing life in the wild. Where would this end? Do we want to repopulate the world with lab-produced engineered organisms? </p>
<p>It is difficult to be positive about our ability to manage these incredible animals to survival. We have already failed the northern white rhino, let us ensure that we do not let down the remaining rhinoceros species and all the other endangered animals out there that need our help.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94153/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jason Gilchrist does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Rhino resurrection is tempting, but if humans cannot save a species in nature, what future for animals that we manufacture?Jason Gilchrist, Ecologist, Edinburgh Napier UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/759822017-04-13T01:38:11Z2017-04-13T01:38:11ZIs temptation such a bad thing?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165136/original/image-20170412-25878-l0n283.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What is the true nature of temptation?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/eightbittony/16982298150/in/photolist-rSEHzY-rcd2Dd-EG4kp-cbs58j-aNvBKF-8sgEFs-6RAthq-8qpTBn-ga8uZa-kinw5r-DKX4X-dq2Zxv-9VCNng-4EPYTV-3nuosN-618mvK-3RUmi5-4zmZjD-ehAwD4-9eMbpq-ac5QPC-5ZRaWr-bakY1Z-bmjzX-Es8BM9-8hBfHv-9xHBkA-bo3g38-puGxN-aCnC2o-nJNviA-bo7VEX-dq39Q1-dqadpy-9pdgSb-4tuA8U-7NW6p-8ktRdY-2JbA6-dGnTka-9XanSU-8Zuf4g-8kukPq-bq4Wnf-8kqBWV-8kuyzE-8kunD3-6PGVE3-8ktN8U-8ktK9q">EightBitTony</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Washington Post recently published a profile on Karen Pence, the “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/karen-pence-is-the-vice-presidents-prayer-warrior-gut-check-and-shield/2017/03/28/3d7a26ce-0a01-11e7-8884-96e6a6713f4b_story.html?utm_term=.3e3c4df52f96">prayer-warrior wife</a>” of Vice President Mike Pence. The piece cited information on the Pences’ marriage: specifically that Mike Pence will not dine with a woman, or be present where alcohol is served, without Karen Pence beside him.</p>
<p>Since the publication of the Washington Post piece, the Pence family rule has become the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/pence-wife-billy-graham-rule/521298/">subject of much discussion</a>. For the socially liberal, this practice appears “misogynistic” or even “bizarre.” But, for many conservatives, it is “wise.” </p>
<p>The intent behind the rule is to avoid not only tempting situations but also anything that might be interpreted as sinful behavior. In the run-up to <a href="http://www.upperroom.org/en/lent101">Lent</a> many Christians strengthen themselves against temptation as they prepare to celebrate <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/holidays/history-of-easter">Easter</a>, the day of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. </p>
<p>Is temptation such a bad thing? </p>
<h2>Temptation is an invitation to sin</h2>
<p>Chilean Catholic priest <a href="https://evangelizadorasdelosapostoles.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/segundo-galilea-1928-2010-in-memoriam-una-espiritualidad-de-la-liberacion-primera-parte/">Segundo Galilea</a>, in his book, <a href="https://www.icspublications.org/products/temptation-and-discernment">“Temptation and Discernment,”</a> describes temptation as an “invitation” to violate God’s will or law: in other words, an invitation to <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14004b.htm">sin</a>. </p>
<p>But the idea of temptation as an “invitation” is a little more complicated: Who or what is sending the invitation and, even more basically, what is the nature of temptation itself?</p>
<p>The classic Christian story about temptation involves Christ’s 40 days in the wilderness, a period that the 40 days of Lent commemorates. As recounted in the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+4%3A1-11">Gospel of Matthew</a>, Satan tempts Jesus as he is fasting – he invites him.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165137/original/image-20170412-25901-1e79yg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165137/original/image-20170412-25901-1e79yg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165137/original/image-20170412-25901-1e79yg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165137/original/image-20170412-25901-1e79yg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165137/original/image-20170412-25901-1e79yg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165137/original/image-20170412-25901-1e79yg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165137/original/image-20170412-25901-1e79yg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The temptation of Christ, Gloucester Cathedral, Gloucester, United Kingdom.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/overton_cat/6335651226/in/photolist-aDRSnY-67oRsA-snpfx8-aDRSCj-sntTUq-snnkvU-s5Renj-989k29-67jvzc-67oxHY-67oAAU-snharw-GJiHuD-snrAcD-rrvqXb-pDdn7k-94oKRf-94oJzh-ch9dXU-67j4KM-aDMYMx-67jbor-67oWeo-67orsW-9jntRW-rtA9wo-spYC2X-67oLMQ-s8cWse-67jzhc-67okC5-67p12G-oePgBY-ocX9u9-67onXb-67ojho-s854Rh-snh8LC-92faVW-rtMpqi-snrAdv-67iZx4-rrGJdF-s5Z8mM-sruZjM-64cdvC-aDMZ4B-seFrPE-8faABu-67joct">Walwyn</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The devil specifically asks him to turn stones into bread. He also dares Jesus to throw himself down from a temple while calling angels to the rescue. The most tempting offer Satan makes to Jesus is a gift of all world’s kingdoms if only the son of God will bow down to him. </p>
<p>Jesus rejects Satan’s temptations and shows that the power of God is not to be confused with human understandings of power. Jesus did not come to set up a worldly kingdom, but a heavenly one. From this perspective, temptation is an invitation from the devil not just to turn away from God, but to deny who and what God is.</p>
<p>Christians understand Jesus to be both divine and human. But the rest of us are only human. And so, along with the belief that temptation is an invitation from the devil is the understanding that temptation is an invitation that can also come from within ourselves. </p>
<h2>Temptation comes from within</h2>
<p>As human beings we are limited, and never feel completely whole. The rite of <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02258b.htm">baptism</a>, so central to Christianity, removes the “original sin” that all humans have. But nonetheless we experience suffering and death, along with constant daily challenges that show us that we are limited in our physical, emotional and intellectual capabilities. </p>
<p>As human beings, we exist in a constant state of need.</p>
<p>But Christians believe that God offers us eternal life. <a href="https://oca.org/saints/lives/2000/01/21/100249-st-maximus-the-confessor">St. Maximus the Confessor</a>, an early Christian theologian, argued that human destiny ultimately leads to becoming “like” God and an eternal life understood as unity with God. </p>
<p>Sin can be anything that distracts us on our journey to the final wholeness found in and with God.</p>
<p>But temptation is not just an invitation or a call to walk away from the path that leads toward God; temptation is also an incitement or an “invitatio” – a Latin word that can mean “invitation” as well. </p>
<p>What this means is that our own neediness “incites” or “invites” us to seek wholeness in ways different from what God intends: For example, the greed of individuals incites or invites them to cheat on their taxes. Similarly, feelings of inadequacy could incite or invite people to lie on their resume. And likewise, feelings of being unloved can often incite or invite people to sleep around. </p>
<p>In this sense, temptation comes from the inside, not the outside. </p>
<p>It then follows that God’s law isn’t simply a list of do’s and don’t’s for avoiding hell and getting into heaven. Instead, God’s law is a treasure map that leads to real riches: a wholeness that only God can provide.</p>
<h2>Why be afraid of temptation?</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165146/original/image-20170412-25888-1otsvru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165146/original/image-20170412-25888-1otsvru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165146/original/image-20170412-25888-1otsvru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165146/original/image-20170412-25888-1otsvru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165146/original/image-20170412-25888-1otsvru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165146/original/image-20170412-25888-1otsvru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165146/original/image-20170412-25888-1otsvru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mike Pence and his wife Karen, listen to a singing of ‘(Back Home Again in) Indiana’ during the opening ceremonies for the Indiana State Fair in Indianapolis, on Aug. 5, 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Michael Conroy</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To return to Mike and Karen Pence, I have to say there is something both sweet and remarkable about two partners who are unapologetic about being a couple: It’s a message that we can never be completely whole if we go it alone. </p>
<p>The vice president is following what is known as the “<a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2017/03/31/the_pence_billy_graham_rule_isn_t_that_weird_in_practice.html">Billy Graham rule</a>,” a <a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2017/march-web-only/other-billy-graham-rules.html">code of conduct</a> about money, power and sex for ministers of the Christian Gospel, developed by the well-known Christian evangelist <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/billy-graham-9317669">Billy Graham</a> and other preachers during a <a href="http://www.modbee.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/jeff-jardine/article142983274.html">conference in Modesto, California in 1948</a>. </p>
<p>For some of us, following the Billy Graham rule might be wise: not because we fear that someone else might be dangerous, but because all too often we are a danger to ourselves.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, I would offer a cautionary note about the Billy Graham rule and exercising relentless rigor in making sure that sin can’t deliver an invitation in the first place: Temptation is strongest when it comes disguised as “good.” This is a point made often by <a href="http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/pope-francis-satan-seduces-by-disguising-evil-as-good-85265/">Pope Francis</a>. While some humans actually intentionally choose evil, we are more likely to give into temptation if it comes under the appearance of doing something good. And doing good can certainly bring more temptation: the temptation to overly enjoy praise, esteem and fame. </p>
<p>This can become a slippery slope that leads to pride: believing that we are good because people perceive us as good. The <a href="http://biblehub.com/proverbs/16-18.htm">Bible</a> tells us that such pride comes before “fall,” meaning that we can easily let down our guard if think that we have become immune to temptation in its hidden forms. </p>
<p>The problem comes when we become so afraid of being tempted, or receiving an invitation to violate God’s law, that we lose opportunities to experience a taste of wholeness in our everyday lives. </p>
<p>And while temptation can be an invitation to sin, experiencing temptation can be an invitation of a different kind: a “challenge” to consider more deeply our need to be made whole.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75982/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mathew Schmalz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>While temptation can be an invitation to sin, experiencing temptation can also make us consider more deeply: What is it that tempts us and why?Mathew Schmalz, Associate Professor of Religion, College of the Holy CrossLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/755302017-04-07T12:42:40Z2017-04-07T12:42:40ZThe Case for Christ: What’s the evidence for the resurrection?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164145/original/image-20170405-14591-1xigc52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Basilica of San Vitale, a church in Ravenna, Italy,</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/art_roman_p/8454477752/in/photolist-dQGYMP-8G1u2m-ej1rLd-djdZxM-djesZ2-9aGTWP-98Kxjr-98KSur-9aK3eL-9aJqc5-9aLGUN-8FXhbk-dSZwDi-dQHboR-e6CH4L-nfd81q-98NzZd-6fNDxD-9aHqB2-dT6t4b-9aKmrW-9aLnYm-98KT3x-dQGHL6-qhGUNL-7D1fL2-9MWRM4-98NuDo-djecHV-7D1d6Z-9MYrbz-7D5guS-98NNyA-dT6pFN-7D4XKQ-8G1BPS-9aLq3d-eiKBvh-9aGrLM-dw7M6T-dw81UX-dwdaqG-a1VHMP-a1Yvsd-a1VLDM-dw7y16-dw7CWa-9aoKZa-djdQ5d-6cnn7L">kristobalite</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1998, Lee Strobel, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune and a graduate of Yale Law School, published <a href="http://www.zondervan.com/more/top-book-series/the-case-for-christ/the-case-for-christ-movie-edition">“The Case for Christ: A Journalist’s Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus.”</a> Strobel had formerly been an atheist and was compelled by his wife’s conversion to evangelical Christianity to refute the key Christian claims about Jesus. </p>
<p>Paramount among these was the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection, but other claims included the belief in Jesus as the literal Son of God and the accuracy of the New Testament writings. Strobel, however, was unable to refute these claims to his satisfaction, and he then converted to Christianity as well. His book became one of the bestselling works of Christian apologetic (that is, a defense of the reasonableness and accuracy of Christianity) of all time. </p>
<p>This Friday, April 7, <a href="http://caseforchristmovie.pureflix.com/">a motion picture adaptation of “The Case for Christ”</a> is being released. The movie attempts to make a compelling case for historicity of Jesus’ resurrection. As one character says to Strobel early in the movie, “If the resurrection of Jesus didn’t happen, it’s [i.e., the Christian faith] a house of cards.”</p>
<p>As a religious studies professor specializing in the New Testament and early Christianity, I hold that Strobel’s book and the movie adaptation have not proven the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection for several reasons. </p>
<h2>Are all of Strobel’s arguments relevant?</h2>
<p>The movie claims that its central focus is on the evidence for the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection. Several of its arguments, however, are not directly relevant to this issue.</p>
<p>For instance, Strobel makes much of the fact that there are over 5,000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament in existence, far more than any other ancient writings. He does this in order to argue that we can be quite sure that the original forms of the New Testament writings have been transmitted accurately. While this number of manuscripts sounds very impressive, most of these are relatively late, <a href="http://www.eerdmans.com/Products/4098/the-text-of-the-new-testament-an-introduction-to-the-critical-ed.aspx">in many cases from the 10th century or later.</a> <a href="http://www.eerdmans.com/Products/4098/the-text-of-the-new-testament-an-introduction-to-the-critical-ed.aspx">Fewer than 10 papyrus manuscripts</a> from the second century exist, and many of these are very fragmentary.</p>
<p>I would certainly agree that these early manuscripts provide us with a fairly good idea of what the original form of the New Testament writings might have looked like. Yet even if these second-century copies are accurate, all we then have are first-century writings that claim Jesus was raised from the dead. That in no way proves the historicity of the resurrection.</p>
<h2>What do the New Testament writings prove?</h2>
<p>One key argument in the movie comes from the New Testament writing known as First Corinthians, written by the Apostle Paul to a group of Christians in Corinth to address controversies that had arisen in their community. Paul is thought to have <a href="http://yalebooks.com/book/9780300140446/first-corinthians">written this letter</a> around the year 52, about 20 years after Jesus’ death. In <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+cor+15%3A3-8&version=NRSV">1 Corinthians 15:3-8</a>, Paul gives a list of people to whom the risen Jesus appeared. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164149/original/image-20170405-14615-paxzqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164149/original/image-20170405-14615-paxzqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164149/original/image-20170405-14615-paxzqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164149/original/image-20170405-14615-paxzqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164149/original/image-20170405-14615-paxzqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164149/original/image-20170405-14615-paxzqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164149/original/image-20170405-14615-paxzqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New Testament.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/tywon/12668908175/in/photolist-kivt2i-ndbWEp-9DCTzz-knQZ7g-9AwfZ9-FAJpXv-9DCU8v-EC1ZGM-9DFK7w-FDgdTM-9ZS4vZ-6eivSR-EM6SGG-9DCV6T-iEykne-92ije2-c2w1Z5-cV8NRj-87cZ4g-dK6AaL-9DCTh4-c5X6oA-dK6AAm-e7X6f3-e7ur2T-gKQXMk-9DCUok-avTuN3-9ZS1XP-bGwx8P-9DCTVF-atXxSw-e7nFaw-e7hvGT-e7yrmh-btqadQ-bGjYv6-9H3n99-y6VKX-e7nzRQ-dyiLo3-83uGzp-9DCSSP-bGwxaB-e7CFAh-e7PMKB-e7UCX1-e7NZDx-e7Rqsg-e7NMVx">Ty Muckler</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These witnesses to the resurrected Jesus include the Apostle Peter, James the brother of Jesus, and, most intriguingly, a group of more than 500 people at the same time. <a href="http://yalebooks.com/book/9780300140446/first-corinthians">Many scholars believe</a> that Paul here is quoting from a much earlier Christian creed, which perhaps originated only a few years after Jesus’ death.</p>
<p>This passage helps to demonstrate that the belief that Jesus was raised from the dead originated extremely early in the history of Christianity. Indeed, many New Testament scholars would not dispute that some of Jesus’ followers believed they had seen him alive only weeks or months after his death. For example, <a href="http://religion.unc.edu/_people/full-time-faculty/ehrman/">Bart Ehrman</a>, a prominent New Testament scholar who is outspoken about his agnosticism, <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780061778193/how-jesus-became-god">states</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“What is certain is that the earliest followers of Jesus believed that Jesus had come back to life, in the body, and that this was a body that had real bodily characteristics: It could be seen and touched, and it had a voice that could be heard.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This does not, however, in any way prove that Jesus was resurrected. It is not unusual for people to see loved ones who have died: In a study of nearly 20,000 people, <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00789221">13 percent</a> reported seeing the dead. There are <a href="http://www.apa.org/pubs/books/4316157.aspx?tab=2">a range of explanations</a> for this phenomenon, running the gamut from the physical and emotional exhaustion caused by the death of a loved one all the way to the belief that some aspects of human personality are capable of surviving bodily death.</p>
<p>In other words, the sightings of the risen Jesus are not nearly as unique as Strobel would suggest. </p>
<h2>A miracle or not?</h2>
<p>But what of the 500 people who saw the risen Jesus at the same time? </p>
<p>First of all, biblical scholars have no idea what event Paul is referring to here. <a href="http://yalebooks.com/book/9780300140446/first-corinthians">Some have suggested</a> that it is a reference to the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts+2&version=NRSV">“day of Pentecost” (Acts 2:1)</a>, when the Holy Spirit gave the Christian community in Jerusalem a supernatural ability to speak in languages that were unknown to them. <a href="http://yalebooks.com/book/9780300140446/first-corinthians">But one leading scholar has suggested</a> that this event was added to the list of resurrection appearances by Paul, and that its origins are uncertain.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164154/original/image-20170405-14626-1xa64hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164154/original/image-20170405-14626-1xa64hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164154/original/image-20170405-14626-1xa64hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164154/original/image-20170405-14626-1xa64hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164154/original/image-20170405-14626-1xa64hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164154/original/image-20170405-14626-1xa64hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164154/original/image-20170405-14626-1xa64hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Resurrection Chapel mural at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/timevanson/6623027365/in/photolist-b6fKhZ-9D8Ysk-fiW5gj-3XbeD-9oVcVi-9D8RAF-bGk3QM-8tciKc-bnp7DV-9DG69W-9xYfZb-4PQm8B-btBSe7-9DupnJ-kivt2i-9fZ76H-hsThr4-cBn8V9-bKQvQp-9DG7Cm-bwzN5b-6fSXcE-9DrvWM-Ftdhp-qAuiKk-9DDMBZ-e7uq3W-nupEDE-6CjBkh-SCjy4J-aCmgGQ-nupumM-b6fJZR-btux4q-9DDm7M-8PNrda-7Mfp25-f7EfHt-XXKFK-9x3Ywa-9DDrTK-7mQ8Jk-7fq2Kf-6ag71G-b6fKut-9DGNTW-cRhtDS-HAHXPY-9wggCA-9zMxrB">Tim Evanson</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Second, even if Paul is reporting accurately, it is no different from large groups of people claiming to see <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Apparitions_of_the_Blessed_Virgin_Ma.html?id=EVt-AAAACAAJ">an apparition of the Virgin Mary</a> or <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674024014">a UFO</a>. Although the precise mechanisms for such group hallucinations remain uncertain, I very much doubt that Strobel would regard all such instances as factual.</p>
<p>Strobel also argues that the resurrection is the best explanation for the fact that Jesus’ tomb was empty on Easter morning. Some scholars would question how early the empty tomb story is. <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780060616298/the-historical-jesus">There is significant evidence</a> that the Romans did not typically remove victims from crosses after death. Therefore, it is possible that a belief in Jesus’ resurrection emerged first, and that the empty tomb story originated only when early critics of Christianity <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780061228803/scripting-jesus">doubted the veracity of this claim.</a></p>
<p>But even if we assume that the tomb really was empty that morning, what is there to prove that it was a miracle and not that Christ’s body was moved for uncertain reasons? Miracles are, by definition, extremely improbable events, and I see no reason to assume that one has taken place when other explanations are far more plausible.</p>
<h2>Who are the experts?</h2>
<p>Apart from all of these other weaknesses in Strobel’s presentation, I believe that Strobel has made no real effort to bring in a diversity of scholarly views. </p>
<p>In the movie, Strobel crisscrosses the country, interviewing scholars and other professionals about the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection. The movie does not explain how Strobel chose which experts to interview, but in his book he characterizes them as “leading scholars and authorities who have impeccable academic credentials.” </p>
<p>Yet the two biblical scholars who feature in the movie, <a href="http://www.liberty.edu/divinity/?PID=12818">Gary Habermas</a> and <a href="http://www.reasonablefaith.org/william-lane-craig">William Lane Craig</a>, both teach at institutions (Liberty University and Biola University, respectively) that <a href="https://www.liberty.edu/media/1312/applications/FacultyApp-08042009_Final.pdf">require their faculty to sign statements</a> <a href="http://offices.biola.edu/hr/ehandbook/static/media/pdf/1.2.pdf">affirming that they believe</a> the Bible is inspired by God and is free of any contradictions, historical inaccuracies or moral failings. For example, the Liberty University faculty application requires assent to <a href="https://www.liberty.edu/media/1312/applications/FacultyApp-08042009_Final.pdf">the following statement</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We affirm that the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, though written by men, was supernaturally inspired by God so that all its words are written true revelation of God; it is therefore inerrant in the originals and authoritative in all matters.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The overwhelming majority of professional biblical scholars teaching in the United States and elsewhere are not required to sign such statements of faith. Many of the other scholars he interviews in his book have <a href="http://www.denverseminary.edu/about/faculty/member/86444/">similar</a> <a href="https://divinity.tiu.edu/academics/faculty/d-a-carson-phd/">affiliations</a>. Strobel has thus drawn from a quite narrow range of scholars that are not representative of the field as a whole. (I estimate there are somewhere around <a href="https://www.sbl-site.org/SBLDashboard.aspx">10,000 professional biblical scholars</a> globally.) </p>
<p>In an email reply to my question about whether most professional biblical scholars would find his arguments for the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection to be persuasive, Strobel said,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>As you know, there are plenty of credentialed scholars who would agree that the evidence for the resurrection is sufficient to establish its historicity. Moreover, Dr. Gary Habermas has built a persuasive “minimal facts” case for the resurrection that only uses evidence that virtually all scholars would concede. In the end, though, each person must reach his or her own verdict in the case for Christ. Many things influence how someone views the evidence – including, for instance, whether he or she has an anti-supernatural bias.“</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>No compelling evidence</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164156/original/image-20170405-20472-27n979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164156/original/image-20170405-20472-27n979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164156/original/image-20170405-20472-27n979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164156/original/image-20170405-20472-27n979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164156/original/image-20170405-20472-27n979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164156/original/image-20170405-20472-27n979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164156/original/image-20170405-20472-27n979.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Easter Cross.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/4thglryofgod/8609030890/in/photolist-e7KwX5-9AAeMc-6eH3ND-5aUfuU-RDyM26-6fSSyE-5P8nCC-qXsmV8-jKQWDs-7jtVV6-aYGwSZ-p6iBVW-FFRass-7fmcTz-GL3trk-dTavnm-nfv3Si-bNhYg6-kbVUEz-9CAqTo-7S5Vva-9pzfoo-b6gEDK-9Da6Kv-e9opkj-fUtXW-e6ctL8-GeMC5-nKSKWF-7fq4Tq-nmCtLL-9zMxqV-9ygzXu-cmt2R-e8af5B-bWX6sh-9Da6nv-pwH3x5-9xVhDV-onJ9SE-9V9Kwj-a5Vn32-do4nYY-dQPjyA-RgNkjx-b6fKmt-R4zE16-8QYk24-9xVhtX-btq5EU">Art4TheGlryOfGod by Sharon</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In response to Strobel, I would say that if he had asked scholars teaching at public universities, private colleges and universities (many of which have a religious affiliation) or denominational seminaries, he would get a much different verdict on the historicity of the resurrection.</p>
<p>Christian apologists frequently say that the main reason that secular scholars don’t affirm the historicity of the resurrection is because they have an <a href="http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/miracles/335370">"anti-supernatural bias,”</a> just as Strobel does in the quote above. In his characterization, secular scholars simply refuse to believe that miracles can happen, and that stance means that they will never accept the historicity of the resurrection, no matter how much evidence is provided.</p>
<p>Yet apologists like Gary Habermas, I argue, are <a href="http://www.garyhabermas.com/articles/religious_studies/rel_stud_res_claims_in_non-christian_religions.htm">just as anti-supernaturalist</a> when it comes to miraculous claims outside of the beginnings of Christianity, such as those involving later Catholic saints or miracles from non-Christian religious traditions.</p>
<p>I have very little doubt that some of Jesus’ followers believed that they had seen him alive after his death. Yet the world is full of such extraordinary claims, and “The Case for Christ” has provided, in my evaluation, no truly compelling evidence to prove the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75530/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brent Landau does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The movie ‘The Case for Christ’ is released this weekend. A scholar takes a close look at the claims for the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection.Brent Landau, Lecturer in Religious Studies, The University of Texas at AustinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/599172016-05-27T11:18:28Z2016-05-27T11:18:28Z‘What is dead may never die’: the secrets of resurrection in the Bible and Game of Thrones<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123980/original/image-20160525-25218-oh1tn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Resurrection, by Andrea Mantegna, 15th Century</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://mini-site.louvre.fr/mantegna/acc/xmlen/section_3_3.html">The Louvre</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Warning: this article contains spoilers for those not up to date with Game of Thrones series six.</em></p>
<p>Events in HBO’s <a href="http://www.hbo.com/game-of-thrones">Game of Thrones</a> TV series have got people talking about what it means to return from the dead. But while resurrection appears to be a very real possibility for some of the religions of mythical Westeros – not least Jon Snow’s resurrector, the “red priestess”, Melisandre – what can the Bible add to the discussion?</p>
<p>In fact, coming back from the dead was a fairly rare event around the time of Jesus. <a href="http://comingbacktolife.mcgill.ca/">Very few ancient Greeks and Romans ever managed to make it out of Hades</a>, but those who did were heroes, such as <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Herakles/cerberus.html">Hercules</a> and <a href="http://www.britannica.com/topic/Protesilaus-Greek-mythologyhttp://www.britannica.com/topic/Protesilaus-Greek-mythology">Protesilaus</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123953/original/image-20160525-25205-1q66duw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123953/original/image-20160525-25205-1q66duw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123953/original/image-20160525-25205-1q66duw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123953/original/image-20160525-25205-1q66duw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123953/original/image-20160525-25205-1q66duw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123953/original/image-20160525-25205-1q66duw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123953/original/image-20160525-25205-1q66duw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123953/original/image-20160525-25205-1q66duw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Orpheus and Eurydice by Auguste Rodin (1893).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Metropolitan Museum, NY</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A particularly famous example is <a href="http://www.britannica.com/topic/Orpheus-Greek-mythology">Orpheus</a>, who travels to the murky underworld to rescue his beloved Eurydice. As Orpheus is leading Eurydice out of the darkness, he turns to look back at her, breaking the agreement he’d made – and Eurydice is taken back into the depths of Hades, never to return. This story was popular in antiquity, represented in a variety of art, and continues to be so today.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/r75BFcH4u2k?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Arcade Fire, “Afterlife,” from their 2013 album, <em>Reflektor</em>; the album interprets the Orpheus myth and the official music video shows the 1959 film Black Orpheus.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What is clear in antiquity is that it is heroes, such as Orpheus, not ordinary mortals, who come back from the dead.</p>
<h2>Resurrection in the Bible</h2>
<p>Perhaps like some heroes, Jesus’s own resurrection points to his extraordinary identity as the Son of God. Resurrection wasn’t a key characteristic of expected messiahs in early Judaism, but became a common trope to describe saviours after the rise of Christianity. But Jesus isn’t the only one resurrected in the Bible. The story of Lazarus is only <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2011">found in the Gospel of John</a>, but has likewise enjoyed millennia of reinterpretations in art. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/y-JqH1M4Ya8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">David Bowie’s “Lazarus” from his 2016 album Blackstar.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Bethany, Jesus finds out that Mary and Martha’s brother Lazarus has died and is already entombed – he’s been dead for four days. He tells Martha that “<a href="http://biblehub.com/john/11-26.htm">whosoever lives and believes in me will never die</a>” (John 11:26) and then orders Lazarus to come out of the tomb, alive but still wrapped in his burial cloths (John 11:43–44).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123957/original/image-20160525-25213-1hk4k2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123957/original/image-20160525-25213-1hk4k2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123957/original/image-20160525-25213-1hk4k2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123957/original/image-20160525-25213-1hk4k2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123957/original/image-20160525-25213-1hk4k2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123957/original/image-20160525-25213-1hk4k2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123957/original/image-20160525-25213-1hk4k2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123957/original/image-20160525-25213-1hk4k2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A carved sarcophagus (4th century CE) depicts Jesus raising Lazarus (far right). The image of Jesus using a wand to perform miracles was common during the first centuries of Christianity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Dr Meredith J C Warren</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Jesus’s claim that “whosoever lives and believes in me will never die” has not always been interpreted as referring to Lazarus’s eternal life in heaven; some followers of Jesus seem to have believed that Lazarus was never to die a bodily death again after his resurrection. The final chapter of John, for example, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=h3UTDAAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=john%20ashton%20gospel%20of%20john&pg=PA42#v=onepage&q=john%2021&f=false">believed by most scholars to be a later addition</a>, reports that a “<a href="http://biblehub.com/john/21-23.htm">rumour spread among the disciples that this disciple would not die</a>” (John 21:21–23). The question this raised was, if someone has been brought back from the dead, can they then die again? Is it really the case, as is believed on Game of Thrones’ Iron Islands, that “what is dead may never die?”</p>
<h2>Death is not the end</h2>
<p>If you aren’t up to date with season 6, you’re going to want to stop reading here.</p>
<p>Coming back to life is not uncommon in the world created by George R R Martin. Aside from Jon Snow’s dramatic comeback, the current season boasts the <a href="http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/White_Walkers">White Walkers</a>, whose corpse army threatens the Seven Kingdoms; the Frankenstein-esque resurrection of The Mountain, <a href="http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Gregor_Clegane">Gregor Clegane</a>, by disgraced Maester <a href="http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Qyburn">Qyburn</a>; Daenerys Targarian’s second escape from the flames; and the drowning of <a href="http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Euron_Greyjoy">Euron Greyjoy</a> as a kind of baptism to the Drowned God of the Iron Islands. What is dead may never die, indeed. </p>
<p>Jon Snow’s return to life is facilitated by Melissandre. The <a href="http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Red_Priest">red priests and priestesses</a>, who serve the god R'hllor, Lord of Light, seem to be able to call back the dead at will. The most successful resurrectionist is probably Thoros, who has brought back <a href="http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Beric_Dondarrion">Beric Dondarrion</a> six times and counting, each time praying to the Lord of Light. In Martin’s Game of Thrones book A Storm of Swords – which differs from the TV series – Catelyn Stark is also <a href="http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Catelyn_Stark#Lady_Stoneheart">brought back to life as Lady Stoneheart</a> by Beric Dondarrion. Like Lazarus, Jon Snow has been dead for quite some time when he comes back to life.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PHyEDlmUxF0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Jon Snow’s resurrection, from HBO’s Game of Thrones, season 6, episode 2.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Of the remaining contenders for the Iron Throne, Jon Snow, Daenerys Targarian and Euron Greyjoy have all come back from the dead. Both Melisandre and the latest red priestess to join the series, <a href="http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Kinvara">Kinvara</a>, know of a prophecy about a <a href="http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/The_prince_that_was_promised">promised “prince”</a>. Melisandre used to believe this referred to Stannis Baratheon but now sees Jon Snow as the one foretold —- Stannis’s (permanent) death removed him from the running, but Jon Snow’s resurrection seems to confirm his eligibility. As we learned most recently, Kinvara believes the prophecy speaks about Daenerys “the Unburnt”, who has returned from what seems like certain death in the flames not once, but twice.</p>
<h2>‘What is dead may never die’</h2>
<p>The idea of a resurrected saviour whose reign will save the known world from the armies of darkness clearly relies on Christian images of Jesus as divine ruler and defeater of death. But this closer look at resurrection perhaps raises more questions – are characters who have come back to life able to die – or, for example, will Jon Snow now have special capabilities against the undead White Walkers? </p>
<p>Indeed, is resurrection a precondition for ruling the Seven Kingdoms – and, if so, are early hopefuls such as <a href="http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Gendry">Gendry</a> now out of the running for good? What is clear is that messiah figures in contemporary popular culture are constructed in the image of their biblical ancestors. And that trope certainly doesn’t look like dying any time soon.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59917/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>M J C Warren does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How do you bring someone back from the dead?M J C Warren, Lecturer in Biblical and Religious Studies, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.