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Raised from the dead—an old Pagan idea

Was Christianity new?  Was Christianity unique?

# 1 Raising miracles
Raising people from the dead was an old pagan idea.

Apollonius of Tyana, another first century AD divine man, did the same miracle.

#2 Raising the faithful at the end of time. Did you know early Christianity insisted that the dead faithful will be physically raised from the dead at the end of time, getting their old body back?

Raised from the dead got into Christianity by way of Judaism, which itself did not have the notion until the Babylonian captivity in the 6th century BC. The only other ancient people to believe in bodily resurrection were the Zoroastrians; their resurrection of the body theology goes back much further. Zoroastrians were in Babylon during the captivity.

Greek religion did not have bodily resurrection—because Greek thinking saw the earth and matter as imperfect, the divine was immaterial and perfect. Dead Greeks enjoyed a spiritual eternity.

 

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