Resurrection is recorded in the Bible. Where did the idea originate? Is this the first recorded instance of someone (or something) rising from the dead?

by lserlohn
arrsquared

I am not by any means a historian, but your question is more literary than historical, feel free to remove is any of this is viewed as questionable.

From a purely literary perspective, the theme is pretty much as old as we have recorded stories in writing or pictures. It has been largely linked to agricultural cycles, the birth, death and regrowth of crops. An older sumerian mythology is actually referenced within the old testament of the bible -

Ezekiel 8:14-15 New International Version (NIV)

14 Then he brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the house of the Lord, and I saw women sitting there, mourning the god Tammuz.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ezekiel%208:14-8:15&version=NIV

The story of Tammuz, involves him being pulled into the underworld for half the year coinciding with the agricultural winter, his worshipers mourning his death at the solstice (as referenced above), then he returns from the underworld as the crop growth begins again.

He is just one of many dying and rising deities, so really what you are actually looking for is Joseph Campbell's work regarding the Hero's Journey aka monomyth, which says this structure of myth surrounding a heroic transformation, even if not a literal death and resurrection, is the same story repeated through all of time, all cultures and peoples.

filosophikal

I think the oldest recorded resurrection myth is the Sumerian goddess Inanna/Ishtar.

If you are specifically thinking of Jesus, the idea of resurrection had become widely known religious, heroic, and literary themes by the time of the writing of the gospels.