Resurrection of Jesus

===Greco-Roman===
{{Main|Immortality#Ancient Greek religion}}

The Greeks traditionally held that a number of men and women gained physical immortality as they were translated to live forever in either [[Elysium]], the [[Islands of the Blessed]], heaven, the ocean, or literally right under the ground. While some scholars have attempted to trace resurrection beliefs in pagan traditions concerning death and bodily disappearances,{{sfn|Endsjø|2009|pp=54–70}} the attitudes towards resurrection were generally negative among pagans.{{sfn|Wright|2003|p=53}}<ref group=web>{{cite web| url = https://ntwrightpage.com/2016/07/12/jesus-resurrection-and-christian-origins/ | title = Jesus' Resurrection and Christian Origins, N.T. Wright}}</ref> For example, [[Asclepius]] was killed by Zeus for using herbs to resurrect the dead, but by his father [[Apollo]]'s request, was subsequently immortalized as a star.<ref>Emma and Ludwig Edelstein, ''Asclepius: Collection and Interpretation of the Testimonies'', Volume 1, Page 51</ref><ref>[[Sabine G. MacCormack]] ''Concise Encyclopedia of Greek and Roman Mythology'' p.47</ref><ref>Theony Condos, ''Star Myths of the Greeks and Romans'', p.141</ref> According to [[Bart Ehrman]], most of the alleged parallels between Jesus and pagan deities only exist in the modern imagination, and there are no "accounts of others who were born to virgin mothers and who died as an atonement for sin and then were raised from the dead."<ref>Bart Ehrman (2012), [https://www.huffingtonpost.com/bart-d-ehrman/did-jesus-exist_b_1349544.html ''Did Jesus Exist?''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180822020811/https://www.huffingtonpost.com/bart-d-ehrman/did-jesus-exist_b_1349544.html |date=2018-08-22 }}, ''Huffington Post''</ref>

From Hellenistic times on, some Greeks held that the soul of a meritorious man could be translated into a god in the process of [[apotheosis]] (divinization) which then transferred them to a special place of honour.{{sfn|Wright|2003|pp=56; 76}} Successors of [[Alexander the Great]] made this idea very well known throughout the Middle East through coins bearing his image, a privilege previously reserved for gods.{{sfn|Cotter|2001|p=131}} The idea was adopted by the Roman emperors, and in the Imperial Roman concept of apotheosis, the earthly body of the recently deceased emperor was replaced by a new and divine one as he ascended into heaven.{{sfn|Cotter|2001|pp=131, 135–136}} These stories proliferated in the middle to late first century.{{sfn|Wright|2003|p=76}}

The apotheosised dead remained recognisable to those who met them, as when [[Romulus]] appeared to witnesses after his death, but as the biographer [[Plutarch]] ({{c.|AD 46|120}}) explained of this incident, while something within humans comes from the gods and returns to them after death, this happens "only when it is most completely separated and set free from the body, and becomes altogether pure, fleshless, and undefiled".{{sfn|Collins|2009|pp=46, 51}}