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The resurrection of Jesus (Biblical Greek: ἀνάστασις τοῦ Ἰησοῦ, romanized: anástasis toú Iēsoú) is the Christian event that God raised Jesus from the dead on the third day[note 1] after his crucifixion, starting – or restoring[web 1][note 2] – his exalted life as Christ and Lord.[web 2] According to the New Testament writing, Jesus was firstborn from the dead, ushering in the Kingdom of God.[1][web 2] He appeared to his disciples, calling the apostles to the Great Commission of forgiving sin and baptizing repenters, and ascended to Heaven.
For the Christian tradition, the bodily resurrection was the restoration to life of a transformed body powered by spirit,[web 3] as described by Paul and the Gospel authors, that led to the establishment of Christianity. In Christian theology, the resurrection of Jesus is "the central mystery of the Christian faith".[2] It provides the foundation for that faith, as commemorated by Easter, along with Jesus's life, death and sayings.[3] For Christians, his resurrection is the guarantee that all the Christian dead will be resurrected at Christ's parousia (second coming).[4]
Secular and liberal Christian scholarship asserts that religious experiences,[5] such as the visionary appearances of Jesus[6][7][8][note 3] and an inspired reading of the Biblical texts,[9] gave the impetus to the belief in the exaltation of Jesus[10] as a "fulfillment of the scriptures",[11] and a resumption of the missionary activity of Jesus's followers.[6][12]
Scholars of Jesus as a historical figure tend to generally avoid the topic, since many believe the matter to be about faith, or lack thereof.[13]
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Nevertheless, what is perhaps most surprising is the extent to which contemporary scholarly literature on the 'historical Jesus' has studiously ignored and downplayed the question of the resurrection...But even the more mainstream participants in the late twentieth-century 'historical Jesus' bonanza have tended to avoid the subject of the resurrection – usually on the pretext that this is solely a matter of 'faith' or of 'theology', about which no self-respecting historian could possibly have anything to say. Precisely that scholarly silence, however, renders a good many recent 'historical Jesus' studies methodologically hamstrung, and unable to deliver what they promise...In this respect, benign neglect ranks alongside dogmatic denial and naive credulity in guaranteeing the avoidance of historical truth.