The central narrative of Christianity: an arrest at night after a final meal, a hearing before the priestly authority and then before the Roman prefect, execution by crucifixion outside the city, burial in a borrowed rock tomb, and a tomb found open and empty on the first day of the week, followed by appearances to the followers before a final departure. The four gospels agree on the shape and differ on the detail, on who comes to the tomb, on what is seen there, and on where the appearances happen, while the earliest written account is not a gospel at all but a list Paul quotes as already traditional. The Qur'an states that the opponents of Isa did not kill him and did not crucify him but that it was made to appear so to them, and that God raised him up, so that the same narrative stands as the foundation of one tradition and is explicitly denied by another.
Facts
Disputed
Scholarly NoteThe comparative category of the dying and rising god, which reads the death and resurrection of Jesus alongside similar patterns in other traditions' myths, descends from James Frazer's The Golden Bough and belongs to the same tradition of comparative mythology represented by Mircea Eliade's The Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and History (Princeton University Press, 1949), which treats cyclical death and renewal as a recurring cross-cultural pattern. That comparative category has been directly contested since the 1980s, when Jonathan Z. Smith's critique argued the supposed pattern was constructed by scholars rather than found consistently in the primary sources, and the dispute remains unresolved for every entry of that comparative type the atlas records, not only this one. 4 Mircea Eliade's The Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and History (Princeton University Press, 1949), read alongside Jonathan Z. Smith's later critique, examined whether the comparative category of the dying and rising god, applied to the death and resurrection of Jesus since James Frazer, is a pattern genuinely found across traditions' myths or one constructed by the comparative method itself. Weighing Eliade's cross-cultural reading of cyclical death and renewal against Smith's argument, from the 1980s onward, that the primary sources do not support it consistently, the atlas records the category as contested for every entry of that type rather than reliable for this one. History
Historical NoteMatthew's gospel alone records that the tomb was sealed and placed under guard at the request of the chief priests, who feared the disciples might steal the body and claim a resurrection, and that after the tomb was found empty the guards were bribed to say the body had been stolen while they slept. 1 Historical NoteThe empty tomb tradition and the resurrection appearances are treated by critical scholars as two originally separate strands of testimony, joined together in the developed gospel narratives, since Paul's own list in First Corinthians names the appearances alone and never mentions an empty tomb at all. 2 Scholarship and Forensics
Scholarly NoteThe Gospel of John alone among the four records the risen Jesus appearing first to Mary Magdalene at the tomb, who initially mistakes him for the gardener, a recognition scene absent in its specific detail from the shorter and more varied resurrection accounts given in Matthew, Mark and Luke. 1 Meaning
Central MotifA death followed by a return from the dead 1 Text
Source Text1 Corinthians 15:3 to 15:8, quoted by Paul as received tradition 2 Source TextMatthew 26 to 28, Mark 14 to 16, Luke 22 to 24 and John 18 to 21 1 Source TextQur'an 4:157 to 4:158, which denies the crucifixion 3 Controversy
Point in DisputeIslamic tradition itself is not univocal on the Qur'an's denial of the crucifixion: while the majority view holds that someone else was substituted for Jesus and crucified in his place, other Muslim commentators read the verse instead as denying only that his enemies achieved a real victory over him, not the physical event itself. 3 Learn More
The Passion, the Tomb, and the Appearances
The four gospel accounts share a sequence. A final meal is eaten in Jerusalem at Passover; there is an arrest at night in a garden after a betrayal; a hearing before the high priest and the council; a transfer to the Roman prefect, who orders crucifixion; execution outside the city between two others, with a titulus naming him king of the Jews; a death after some hours; and burial in a rock-cut tomb belonging to a member of the council. On the first day of the week women come to the tomb and find the stone moved and the body gone, and are told that he is risen. Appearances follow, to individuals and to groups, in Jerusalem and in Galilee, and the accounts end with a commission and a departure.
They differ, and the differences are on the surface of the text rather than hidden in it. The number and names of the women vary; one gospel has one figure at the tomb, another two, and they are described as a young man, as men in dazzling clothes, or as angels; the appearances are located in Galilee in one gospel and in and around Jerusalem in another; the last words spoken from the cross differ between accounts. The earliest written testimony is not narrative at all: it is a compressed list that Paul quotes in a letter as material he had received and passed on, naming those to whom the risen Christ appeared, and it is usually dated to within a couple of decades of the events it describes.
The Qur'anic Denial, and a Contested Comparative Category
The Qur'an addresses the crucifixion directly and denies it. In a passage rebuking those who boasted of killing the Messiah, it states that they did not kill him and did not crucify him, but that it was made to appear so to them, that those who differ about it are in doubt and follow only conjecture, and that God raised him to himself. Classical Islamic exegesis developed several readings of what appeared to happen, most commonly that another was made to resemble him and was taken in his place, and the Qur'an elsewhere has Isa speak of the day he was born, the day he dies and the day he is raised alive, which commentators relate to a return before the end. The result is that the same narrative stands as the foundation of one tradition and is explicitly denied by another, without the two disputing the existence of the figure at all.
The classification of the narrative is itself contested in scholarship. Comparative work from the late nineteenth century, above all Frazer's The Golden Bough, grouped a set of ancient figures who die and return under a single heading, and set the Christian material against them. That category has been heavily criticised since, most influentially by Jonathan Z. Smith, who argued that the ancient cases were far less alike than the grouping implied and that several of them did not involve a resurrection at all, and the debate is live rather than settled. The atlas classes this entry as it classes the others of that shape, and records here that the shared type is disputed for every entry in it, not only for this one.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Quotes the earliest surviving written testimony as material already received
Belongs to Tradition
Originated In
Related To
Sources
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.