100 Fun Facts About Resurrection

According to Christian belief, God raised Jesus from the dead on which day after his crucifixion?

The third day counts both ends: the Gospels put the crucifixion on a Friday, the eve of the Sabbath, and the empty tomb at dawn on Sunday, and part of a day was reckoned as a whole one.

In the oldest manuscripts, Mark's Gospel ends abruptly with the women at the tomb doing what?

Fleeing and telling no one: the oldest copies stop at 'for they were afraid', with no appearance of the risen Jesus at all, and the twelve further verses printed in most Bibles are absent from them.

How does Mark's Gospel describe the empty tomb's messenger, whom it never calls an angel?

A young man in white, sitting on the right inside the tomb, is all Mark describes; Matthew has an angel descend and roll back the stone, while Luke has two men in dazzling clothes.

Which New Testament letter preserves one of the earliest creeds, listing those who saw the risen Jesus?

First Corinthians: Paul says he is handing on what he himself received, and scholars date the formula to within a few years of the crucifixion.

In the early creed Paul quotes, the risen Jesus appeared at one time to more than how many followers?

Five hundred: Paul adds that most of them were still alive when he wrote, a remark often read as an invitation to go and ask them, before closing the list with himself.

The Greek term prototokos, applied to the risen Jesus, means what?

Firstborn: the Greek joins 'first' to a root meaning to give birth, and Colossians calls Jesus 'firstborn from the dead' so that he might hold first place in everything.

In Luke, Jesus appears to two followers walking to which village, who recognise him at the breaking of bread?

Emmaus: the pair walk and talk with the stranger for miles without knowing him, and the instant he breaks the bread and they see who he is, he vanishes from their sight.

Which Dutch master painted the risen Jesus breaking bread with two disciples in a quiet 1648 panel now in the Louvre?

Rembrandt returned to this supper several times; the 1648 panel drops the theatre of his early work for a still room and a soft glow around Jesus at the moment the pair realise who he is.

Which apostle refused to believe Jesus had risen until he could see and touch the wounds?

Thomas had missed the first appearance and demanded to touch the wounds; when Jesus offered them a week later, John never says he did, only that he answered 'My Lord and my God'.

The Latin phrase Noli me tangere, said by Jesus to Mary Magdalene in John 20:17, means what?

Touch me not is the Latin Bible's wording; many modern translations read 'do not cling to me', and he gives his reason at once: he has not yet ascended to his Father.

Which pope, later called 'the Great', fixed Mary Magdalene's image as a repentant prostitute in a 591 sermon?

Gregory I merged her with the unnamed sinner who anoints Jesus's feet in Luke, though no Gospel calls her a prostitute, and the Eastern Church always kept the two women apart.

According to Luke, Jesus had cast how many demons out of Mary Magdalene?

Seven: Luke lists her among the healed women who then paid for the group's travels out of their own means, alongside Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward.

According to Acts, for how many days did the risen Jesus appear to the apostles before ascending?

Forty: that is why churches mark the Ascension on the fortieth day of Easter, which always lands on a Thursday.

Luke's Gospel places the Ascension at Bethany, a village on which hill?

The Mount of Olives: a small domed chapel on its summit, now inside a mosque compound, shows a slab of rock said to bear Jesus's last footprint.

The risen Jesus's instruction to make disciples of all nations is traditionally called what?

The Great Commission closes Matthew's Gospel: on a mountain in Galilee the eleven disciples bow before the risen Jesus, though the text admits that some doubted.

Greek Orthodox Christians call the Church of the Holy Sepulchre by which Greek name, meaning Resurrection?

Anastasis: the fourth-century builders gave the name to the rotunda raised over the tomb itself, and Greek Orthodox Christians still use it for the whole church.

Which Roman emperor ordered the pagan temple over the tomb site replaced by a church around 326?

Constantine had Hadrian's pagan temple torn down, and tradition credits his mother, Helena, with finding the True Cross on the same site.

Under a 1757 decree freezing the rival churches' rights, which object above the Holy Sepulchre's entrance may nobody move?

A wooden ladder: it already appears in an engraving dated 1728, and because it stood on the ledge when the rules were fixed, nobody may take it down.

For centuries, families of which faith have kept the key and opened the door of Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre?

Muslim: the Joudeh family guards the old iron key and the Nuseibeh family unlocks the door each morning, a neutral arrangement that spares the rival churches a fight over it.

Which name, Latin for 'little house', is given to the shrine enclosing the tomb in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre?

The Aedicule was restored in 2016, when the marble over the burial shelf was lifted and the tomb itself was opened for the first time in centuries.

Jerusalem's Garden Tomb, a rival to the Holy Sepulchre as Jesus's burial place, is favoured mainly by pilgrims of which tradition?

Protestant pilgrims prize its quiet garden, but archaeologists date the rock-cut tomb, found in 1867, to centuries before Jesus, far too old to be the Gospels' new tomb.

The Garden Tomb sits beside a rocky outcrop with what name, proposed in the 19th century as Golgotha?

Skull Hill's eroded cliff face looks like a skull, and General Charles Gordon championed it after an 1883 visit, so the spot was long known as Gordon's Calvary.

Which technique, applied by three laboratories in 1988, dated the Shroud of Turin's linen to the Middle Ages?

Radiocarbon dating put the linen between 1260 and 1390, a close match for the 1350s, when the shroud first turns up in the records at Lirey in France.

The first photograph of the Shroud of Turin, taken in 1898, caused a sensation because the image looked far clearer as what?

A negative: while developing his pictures, amateur photographer Secondo Pia saw a lifelike face emerge, because the light and dark on the cloth itself are reversed.

In 1532, what left the symmetrical marks that flank the Shroud of Turin's image?

A fire in its chapel at Chambery in France charred the folded cloth, which is why the burn marks repeat down both sides; the shroud only reached Turin in 1578.

In Matthew's Gospel, whom did the chief priests bribe to say the body had been stolen?

The tomb guards were paid to say the disciples came by night while they slept, and Matthew adds that the story was still going round in his own day.

The Ahmadiyya movement teaches that Jesus survived the cross and ended his days in which land?

India: the movement's founder taught that Jesus went east after the crucifixion to preach to the lost tribes of Israel and died an old man in Kashmir.

Which 1965 Hugh Schonfield book argued Jesus choreographed his own crucifixion to survive it?

The Passover Plot has Jesus staging his own crucifixion to fulfil the prophecies, drugged to seem dead, until a soldier's spear thrust wrecked the plan.

Which US president took a razor to the Gospels, making a private Bible that leaves out the miracles and the resurrection?

Jefferson kept the book private, but from 1904 Congress had it printed and gave copies to new lawmakers, a custom that lasted into the 1950s.

Which Scottish philosopher argued in 1748 that no testimony can establish a miracle such as a dead man's return to life?

David Hume's test was to ask which is likelier: that a dead man really rose, or that the witnesses deceive or are deceived.

Which Jewish sect, per Josephus and the New Testament, did not believe in an afterlife or resurrection?

The Sadducees tried to trap Jesus with a riddle about a woman widowed by one brother after another, asking whose wife she would be when the dead rise.

Which Jewish text, in Catholic Bibles but not the Hebrew one, has brothers die under torture sure God will raise them?

In 2 Maccabees a mother watches her sons tortured to death for refusing to eat pork, and one tells the king that God will raise them up to live again for ever.

Which Egyptian god, murdered and pieced back together by his wife Isis, did James Frazer class among the 'dying and rising gods'?

Osiris never returned to the living: once revived he ruled the underworld as lord of the dead, which is why some scholars deny that he 'rose' at all.

According to John's Gospel, Lazarus had been in his tomb how long when Jesus raised him?

Four days: his sister warned of the smell when Jesus asked for the stone to be moved, and Orthodox Christians still honour him as Lazarus the Four Days Dead.

Lazarus was the brother of which two sisters?

Mary and Martha each tell Jesus their brother would not have died had he been there, and the narrator records simply that Jesus wept.

Later tradition makes Lazarus the first bishop of Kition, now Larnaca, on which Mediterranean island?

Cyprus: a tomb unearthed at Larnaca was taken for his second grave and the Church of Saint Lazarus stands over it, though Provence claims him as Marseille's first bishop instead.

In Acts, which apostle raises Tabitha, a seamstress of Joppa whose mourners show him the clothes she made?

Peter sent the weeping widows out, knelt, prayed and told her to get up; they had been showing him the coats that Tabitha, called Dorcas in Greek, had sewn.

On which day is the Harrowing of Hell, Christ's descent to the dead, commemorated?

Holy Saturday marks the day Jesus lay dead; the Apostles' Creed says he descended to the dead, and the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus tells the story at length.

In the Western churches, Easter is the first Sunday after which event on or after 21 March?

A full moon, though one read from church tables rather than the sky; Orthodox churches still reckon it by the Julian calendar, so their Easter usually falls later.

Eastertide runs for fifty days from Easter Sunday and ends at which feast?

Pentecost ends the season because Acts sets the Spirit's descent on the disciples at the Jewish harvest festival held fifty days after Passover.

Among Russians, the Easter greeting 'Christ is risen!' and its reply are traditionally followed by which gesture?

A kiss, traditionally three on alternating cheeks: the greeting and its reply, 'Truly he is risen!', replace hello among Orthodox Russians through the Easter season.

In Orthodox tradition, what are the women who went to anoint Jesus's body and found the tomb empty called?

The Myrrhbearers brought myrrh to the tomb at first light, and their feast honours men as well, among them Nicodemus, who brought myrrh and aloes to the burial.

Early Christian tomb carvings showed the resurrection as a wreath around which monogram of Christ's name?

The Chi Rho joins the first two Greek letters of 'Christ', and the wreath around it stood for the resurrection's victory over death.

In 1944 a British officer halted the shelling of Sansepolcro because he remembered an essay praising which treasure there?

A Renaissance fresco: by his own account Tony Clarke recalled Aldous Huxley calling Piero della Francesca's Resurrection the greatest picture in the world, and ordered his guns to stop.

Piero della Francesca painted his Resurrection not for a church but for which building in his native Sansepolcro?

The town hall suited it: the town is named after relics of Christ's tomb that two pilgrims are said to have brought home, and the fresco is still in the building, now the Civic Museum.

In Acts, what was the young man Eutychus doing when he fell from a third-floor window and had to be revived?

He was dozing through a sermon: Paul, due to leave next morning, had talked past midnight, and after reviving him he went back upstairs and talked on until daybreak.

In 1 Kings 17, which prophet raises a widow's son, a feat his own successor later repeats?

Elijah stretched himself over the boy three times at Zarephath and prayed; his successor Elisha later repeats the feat for a Shunammite woman's son.

Which great-grandfather of Noah 'walked with God' and was simply taken, the Bible's first such case?

Genesis gives Enoch 365 years, short by the standards of his family, and says only that God took him; the Letter to the Hebrews reads that as being spared death altogether.

Which Hebrew Bible book, set among Jewish exiles at Babylon's court, promises that many who sleep in the dust will awake?

Daniel 12 has the sleepers wake, some to everlasting life and some to shame; scholars date those visions to the 160s BC, when Antiochus IV was persecuting Jews for their faith.

Which member of the Jewish council asked Pilate for Jesus's body and laid it in a rock-cut tomb?

Joseph of Arimathea went boldly to Pilate, Mark says; medieval legend later made him first keeper of the Holy Grail and brought him to Glastonbury.

In John's Gospel, Mary Magdalene at first mistakes the risen Jesus outside the tomb for which worker?

A gardener was her guess, and she asked him where the body had been taken. She recognised Jesus only when he spoke her name.

In C. S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, who is killed on the Stone Table and returns to life?

Aslan dies in place of the traitor Edmund and rises again. C. S. Lewis said he was imagining how Christ might appear in a world like Narnia.

Which US state is said to be named after Spain's term for the Easter season, when Ponce de León landed in 1513?

Florida comes from Pascua Florida, the Spaniards' 'festival of flowers' name for Easter, which Ponce de León is thought to have borrowed for the lush coast he found.

Saul of Tarsus was on his way to arrest believers in which city when a vision of the risen Jesus blinded him?

Damascus is where Saul was led by the hand, sightless, until a wary disciple named Ananias laid hands on him. He became the apostle Paul.

Which prisoner did the Jerusalem crowd ask Pontius Pilate to free at the festival instead of Jesus?

Barabbas, jailed after a deadly uprising, bears an Aramaic name meaning 'son of the father', an irony scholars have noted beside Jesus's own title.

Jesus told his critics the only sign they would get was the sign of which Old Testament prophet?

Jonah's stay inside a great fish was the comparison Jesus drew: the Son of Man would lie as long in the heart of the earth.

Which mythical bird does a poem in the Old English Exeter Book explain as an allegory for the resurrection of Christ?

The phoenix, reborn from its own ashes, came to Christians from Greek and Roman writers. The Exeter Book poem reworks a Latin original by Lactantius.

Which St Petersburg jeweller made bejewelled Easter eggs each year for Russian tsars to give their wives and mothers?

Fabergé's first, the Hen Egg of 1885, opened to reveal a golden yolk with a golden hen inside. The Easter tradition continued under Nicholas II.

Which Hollywood star directed The Passion of the Christ with its dialogue entirely in Aramaic, Hebrew and Latin?

Mel Gibson shot the film in Italy, where lightning struck both a crew member and Jim Caviezel, the actor playing Jesus.

Which Italian poet's fictional journey through Hell, set in spring 1300, ends just before dawn on Easter Sunday?

Dante timed the Inferno so that he and his guide Virgil climb out beneath the stars on the very morning the church celebrates Christ leaving the tomb.

Judas led an armed crowd to arrest Jesus at which place outside Jerusalem, whose name means oil press?

Gethsemane is where Jesus prayed in anguish while his closest disciples kept falling asleep, shortly before the arrest.

In Matthew's Gospel, which natural event strikes as an angel descends and rolls back the stone from Jesus's tomb?

An earthquake accompanies the angel, who then sits on the stone, his appearance like lightning.

In Luke's Gospel, what does the risen Jesus eat in front of his startled disciples to show he is no ghost?

Broiled fish, handed over by the disciples, settles the matter. He had just invited them to look at his hands and feet, saying a spirit has no flesh and bones.

Beside which body of water, named Tiberias in John's Gospel, does the risen Jesus cook his disciples breakfast?

The Sea of Galilee is where the disciples, after a night of catching nothing, filled their net at a stranger's word and found breakfast already cooking on shore.

Which passer-by from North Africa did Roman soldiers force to carry the cross of Jesus to Golgotha?

Simon of Cyrene came from a Greek city in modern Libya, and Mark even names his two sons, Alexander and Rufus.

According to Mark's Gospel, what was torn in two from top to bottom at the moment Jesus died?

The temple curtain tore as Jesus breathed his last, and a Roman centurion standing opposite the cross then called him the Son of God.

Which artist, still in his early twenties, carved the Vatican's Pietà of Mary cradling the dead Christ?

Michelangelo signed it across Mary's sash, the only work he ever signed, reportedly after overhearing visitors credit a rival sculptor.

Which composer's oratorio Messiah, written in just 24 days, devotes its final part to the resurrection of the dead?

Handel first presented Messiah in Dublin in April 1742, and London heard it only a year later.

Which solemn day in Holy Week commemorates the crucifixion and death of Jesus?

Good Friday passes without a Eucharist being celebrated in Catholic churches. Communion is given from bread consecrated the evening before.

According to Matthew, what did the chief priests buy with the thirty silver coins Judas threw back at them?

A potter's field was bought for burying strangers, and the phrase survives in English for any burial ground for the poor, unknown or unclaimed.

Which synagogue leader's twelve-year-old daughter did Jesus raise with the Aramaic words Talitha cumi?

Jairus heard the mourners ridicule Jesus for saying the girl was only asleep. Jesus put them all out of the house, then took her by the hand.

Which Hebrew prophet saw a valley of dry bones join together and stand up alive as a vast army?

Ezekiel is told the bones stand for the whole house of Israel, whose people were saying their hope was lost. God promises to open their graves and bring them home.

In 2 Kings, a corpse thrown hastily into a prophet's grave revives on touching the bones of which miracle worker?

Elisha was already buried when a burial party, spotting a band of raiders, threw their dead man into his grave. The man revived and stood up on his feet.

At the gate of which Galilean town does Jesus stop a funeral procession and raise a widow's only son?

Nain is where Jesus told the grieving mother not to cry and touched the coffin. The bearers halted, and the young man sat up and began to speak.

Which follower was chosen by casting lots to take Judas Iscariot's place among the twelve apostles?

Matthias beat one other candidate, Barsabbas. Both had followed Jesus since his baptism, the condition set for becoming a witness of the resurrection.

Which Jewish leader, who had first visited Jesus by night, brought a great weight of spices for his burial?

Nicodemus supplied a mixture of myrrh and aloes, and John says the body was wrapped in linen cloths with the spices, following Jewish burial custom.

Which Jewish high priest is portrayed as presiding over the Sanhedrin trial of Jesus before the case went to Pilate?

Caiaphas may have left a physical trace: Jerusalem road workers in 1990 found an ornate bone box carved with his family name, though scholars dispute the match.

In Mark's Gospel, which woman goes with Mary Magdalene and another Mary to anoint the body of Jesus?

Salome and her companions bought spices once the Sabbath had ended, and on the way they wondered who would roll the stone from the entrance for them.

In John's Gospel, Mary Magdalene greets the risen Jesus as Rabboni, an Aramaic word meaning what?

Teacher is how John translates it for his readers, and Mary says it at the moment she realises who the stranger beside her is.

In Luke's Gospel, where does the dying Jesus promise a repentant criminal on the next cross they will be that day?

Paradise is promised only to the second criminal, who had rebuked the first for mocking Jesus and admitted that the two of them deserved their sentence.

Which composer's Second Symphony, nicknamed the Resurrection, ends with a vast choral setting of a hymn by Klopstock?

Gustav Mahler used only the first two verses of Klopstock's hymn, then wrote further verses himself that dwell more openly on redemption.

Which Russian author's last novel, Resurrection, follows a nobleman trying to atone for a sin committed years earlier?

Leo Tolstoy published it in 1899 and gave its royalties to help the Doukhobors, a persecuted pacifist sect, emigrate to Canada.

Which surrealist painted Christ of Saint John of the Cross, a crucifixion floating above a bay with no nails or blood?

Salvador Dalí hung a Hollywood stuntman from an overhead gantry to study the pose, and set the scene over the bay beside his own home in Catalonia.

Which Bavarian village is said to have vowed during a plague to stage a Passion play every ten years?

Oberammergau first performed the play in 1634, and the production involves more than 2,000 people, every one of them a resident of the village.

Which English hymn writer wrote the Easter hymn Christ the Lord Is Risen Today in 1739?

Charles Wesley's own brother John later left it out of the Wesleyan hymn book, because he wanted no hymns tied to a particular season.

Which composer's rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar drew criticism for ending without any resurrection of Jesus?

Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote the music to Tim Rice's lyrics, and the same complaint was made about its fellow musical Godspell.

Which Northumbrian monk wrote in the 8th century that Easter took its English name from a goddess called Eostre?

Bede mentions her in a book on reckoning time, saying April was once named for her, and scholars have debated whether he invented the goddess.

Which council of bishops in 325 settled that Christians should calculate Easter independently of the Jewish calendar?

Nicaea endorsed the method already used at Rome and Alexandria, ending a dispute over whether churches should rely on Jewish reckoning of the month of Nisan.

Eastern Orthodox churches date Easter by which older reckoning, often placing the feast later than in the West?

The Julian calendar runs 13 days behind the Gregorian one used by Catholic churches, so the two Easters usually fall on different Sundays.

Which relic of the crucifixion did France's Louis IX acquire in 1239 and build Paris's Sainte-Chapelle to house?

The crown of thorns came from Baldwin II, a cash-strapped Latin emperor in the East, after it had been pledged to Venetian lenders against a huge loan.

Jesus foretold that a disciple would deny knowing him three times before which bird was heard that night?

A rooster crowed while the final denial was still on the disciple's lips, and Luke adds that Jesus turned and looked straight at him.

In Matthew's Gospel, what does Pontius Pilate do before the crowd to declare himself innocent of Jesus's blood?

Washes his hands is the answer, with water and in open view of everyone, and the gesture gave English its idiom for disowning responsibility.

In Orthodox churches, Easter eggs are traditionally dyed which colour, with the hard shell standing for the sealed tomb?

Red recalls the blood shed at the crucifixion, and cracking the shell open stands for the resurrection itself.

Which Hebrew word do Catholic churches leave unsaid and unsung throughout Lent, substituting a different acclamation?

Alleluia comes from a Hebrew phrase meaning 'praise Yah', and the Roman Rite ties it so closely to joy that it is added to verses and responses all through the Easter season.

Which name did Pope John Paul II give the day one week after Easter in 2000, as he canonised Faustina Kowalska?

Divine Mercy Sunday took its name from the visions the Polish nun reported, and John Paul II himself died on the eve of the feast in 2005.

Which Marian antiphon do Catholics recite in place of the thrice-daily Angelus throughout the Easter season?

The Regina Caeli calls on Mary, as Queen of Heaven, to rejoice because her son has risen, and it also closes Night Prayer during those weeks.

Which Roman historian's Annals, covering Nero's persecution of Christians, record Christ's execution under Pilate?

Tacitus, writing around AD 116, is among the earliest non-Christian authors to mention the crucifixion, and he suggests Nero used Christians as scapegoats for the blaze that gutted Rome.

Which name does Christian tradition give the unnamed Roman soldier who pierced the side of Jesus with a lance?

Longinus was later said to have been healed of failing eyesight by blood from the wound, and Bernini carved a statue of him for the Vatican's great basilica.

In Acts, where in Athens does Paul's talk of the resurrection of the dead draw mockery from some of his listeners?

The Areopagus heard him out until that point, then split: some scoffed, some asked to hear more, and one of its own members, Dionysius, became a believer.

Which denomination's unmarried men held the first recorded Easter sunrise service, in a graveyard at Herrnhut in 1732?

The Moravians had kept an all-night prayer vigil before climbing to the hillside graveyard to sing, and the next year the whole congregation joined them.