The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is a central tenet of the Christian faith. One of the earliest creeds (concise summaries of Christian beliefs), the nicene creed, declares that Jesus "for us … and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures."
Resurrection is often misunderstood as merely a metaphor for a spiritual afterlife. But as prominent New Testament scholar NT Wright explains, the word "resurrection" had a very specific meaning in the ancient world:
"Resurrection" denoted a new embodied life which would follow whatever "life after death" there might be. "Resurrection" was, by definition, not the existence into which someone might (or might not) go immediately upon death; it was not a disembodied "heavenly" life; it was a further stage, out beyond all that. It was not a redescription or redefinition of death. It was death's reversal.
For Christians, resurrection isn't just a way of expressing a spiritual truth. We believe that in the first century something happened that was completely unique in human history up to that point: a man actually, physically died; he was buried in a tomb for three days; and then he actually, physically was raised back to life, never to die again.
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