"Resurrection of the Dead" - Part 1 - The Dead

This article begins the examination of the Greek word translated as "dead" in the Gospels. It is the beginning of a series of articles that will discuss the words translated as “the resurrection of the dead.” What Jesus meant by “the dead” will take more than one article to explore.

We must start with the view of death in Jesus’s time. The “resurrection” of the dead was the main context for most of Jesus's statements concerning “the dead,” but we think of the “dead” today much differently than they did in Jesus’s era. This article is less about poor translation—though that topic is unavoidable in any discussion of Jesus’s words—than it is about the views of death at the time and how Jesus’s views differed from them. The New Testament and the way it was translated have changed many people’s perspectives on death today.