OA

The Resurrection between Zarathustra and Jonathan Z. Smith

In this contribution I study three aspects of the history of the resurrection in antiquity. Firstly, after a short survey of the resurrection in the New Testament, I show that this doctrine was not particularly important in Qumran or among the Essenes. Secondly, I argue that the resurrection was not very important for the ancient Persians, who only started to thematize the doctrine in competition with Christianity. Thirdly, I suggest that J.Z. Smith wrongly interprets the ‘dying and rising gods’, since he takes insufficient account of the chronology of the evidence.