Anastasis — The Resurrection (ἀνάστασις)

Monographie d'Étude Philologique & Historique

Etymology & Roots

Anastasis (ἀνάστασις) is formed from ana- (ἀνά — from bottom to top, again) + stasis (στάσις — act of standing, position, stance) — itself from the verb histēmi (ἵστημι — to stand, to place). Literal meaning: to rise from below, to stand up, to move from a lying position (dead) to a standing position (alive).

The corresponding verb anistēmi (ἀνίστημι) is used in the NT to:

• Get up in the morning, rise from the table (anastas — having stood up)
• Rise from the dead — active: "He raised (anestēsen) Jesus" (Ac 2:24) / passive: "Jesus [...] who was raised (anastas) from the dead" (Rm 8:34)
• The raising of the sick: Jesus says to Jairus's daughter talitha koum — "arise" (anastasis-in-act)

The corresponding Hebrew is qiyam (קוּם — to arise, to stand up) and tehiyyah (תְּחִיָּה — rebirth, resurrection) — which the LXX translates as anastasis and egeirō. Resurrection in biblical thought is always bodily and personal — not the dissolution of the body and survival of the soul.

Two Greek terms designate resurrection in the NT:

• Anastasis (ἀνάστασις) — to stand up, to arise
• Egeirō (ἐγείρω) — to awaken, to lift from the bed — often used passively (ēgerthē — He was awakened/raised)

Both share a vision of the corpse as sleeping (koimōmenoi — sleepers — 1 Co 15:20 ; 1 Th 4:15) that will be awakened — a metaphor of sleep and waking up, bodily and integral.

Historical & Cultural Context

Bodily resurrection was a distinctly Jewish belief — foreign to the classical Greek world. For the Greeks, the ideal was the survival of the immortal soul after liberation from the prison-body (Plato) — not a return to a physical body. The resurrection of bodies seemed both absurd (why return to a prison?) and impossible.

The Anastasis of Jesus provoked two radically different reactions depending on the cultural audience:

• In Athens (Ac 17:32): "When they heard about the resurrection of the dead (anastasin nekrōn), some mocked (echleuazon)" — resurrection scandalizes Greek thought
• In Thessalonica (Ac 17:2-4): many Jews and Greek "God-fearers" believed — resurrection fits into Jewish hope

The resurrection of Jesus is not presented as the survival of a disembodied soul — it is a body that comes out of the tomb, that eats (Jn 21:12-13: Jesus eats fish), that is touched (Jn 20:27: Thomas touches the wounds), that is recognized — but also transformed (pneumatikon — pneumatic body): he passes through closed doors (Jn 20:19), is not recognized immediately (Lc 24:16).

Theological Shift

The influence of Platonism progressively shifted Christian hope from bodily resurrection to the survival of the immaterial soul:

1. The privatization of death: death understood as the liberation of the soul to Heaven — not as sleep awaiting the general resurrection. Individual hope (my soul in Heaven immediately upon death) supplants communal hope (we will resurrect together at the end).

2. The spiritualization of the resurrection: interpreting Jesus's resurrection as a subjective vision of the disciples or as a symbol of the continued life of His message — erasing the bodily dimension that the NT obstinately maintains (Lc 24:39: "Touch Me and see — a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have").

3. Immortality substituted for resurrection: the doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul, inherited from Platonism, replaced resurrection as the primary eschatological horizon in popular Christian piety.