The doctrine and theology of resurrection is of central importance within Christianity, significant within strands of ancient and contemporary Judaism, and a fundamental feature of Islamic eschatology. It likewise has a place in the Zoroastrian religion where the concept has important roots. A large number of passages within Bābī-Bahā'ī scripture deal directly or indirectly with such interrelated eschatological themes as "life", "death" and "resurrection". Developed Bābī-Bahā'ī doctrine proposes a non-literal or "spiritual" interpretation of these concepts. This mode of interpretation has some background in ancient gnosticism and, for example, in medieval and later theosophical Sufism as well as in Islamic philosophical-theological-mystical gnosis (irfān).

    Modern Bahā'īs understand the general "resurrection" as a spiritual renewal; a transformative coming to the "life" of faith from the "tomb" or "death" of unbelief and materialistic selfishness. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is interpreted as a non-bodily event in which the story of the "empty tomb" is basically an example of  apologetic symbolism, a view championed by a growing number of modern academic and lay biblical scholars. The Galilean messiah's "flesh and bones" did not come back to (quasi-) physical life on or beyond this physical world. While his physical body remains somewhere around Jerusalem, his spiritual, resurrected "body" conquered "death" through the spiritual "life" of the community of his followers, the ever-living "body" of the church. It was this "body" which came alive after the crucifixion while the divine reality of Jesus was raised up to those "many mansions" of the afterlife where it continued to have a resurrecting influence upon humanity. This is intimated in the largely symbolic resurrection appearances of Jesus.

    `Abd al-Bahā (1844-1921) gave interesting "spiritual" interpretations to select post-crucifixion "appearances" of Jesus. He noted that the mention of Mary Magdalene caused Bahā'-Allāh to beam with joy and singled her out as the earliest and primary witness to the spiritual continuance ("resurrection") of the Founder of Christianity. In this paper discussion of these and related issues will be attempted along with some remarks about ancient and contemporary responses to the "spiritual" understanding of resurrection.