Resurrection, << `rehz` uh REHK shuhn, >> is a religious belief that a dead person will return to life through the power of God. The person will be restored to life in his or her physical body and individuality, but in perfected form. Most believers expect resurrection to occur at the end of time and be accompanied by God judging people based on the good and evil of their lives.
The belief in resurrection is important in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The first references in Jewish literature to the resurrection of individuals at the end of time appear in the Book of Daniel (probably composed in the 160’s B.C.). Belief in final resurrection and judgment is also a major doctrine in Islam.
In Christianity, the resurrection of believers to eternal life at the Last Judgment is linked to the Resurrection of Jesus. Christians have traditionally believed that God defeated death through Jesus’s Crucifixion and Resurrection. The story of Jesus’s Resurrection is told in all four Gospels. Saint Paul discusses the resurrection of believers in I Corinthians 15. Resurrection is a topic of sermons in the Acts of the Apostles. During the first 300 years of Christianity, Easter Sunday gradually developed as a major celebration of Jesus’s return to life.
