Image Details

Fred Anderegg

Dry bones come to life, with a helping hand from heaven, in this wall painting of Ezekiel’s vision of “bodily resurrection”; (Ezekiel 37:1–14), preserved in the third-century A.D. synagogue at Dura-Europos in modern Syria. The ten young men, wearing Greek garb typical of the period when the panel was painted, represent the entire house of Israel. According to author Lang, the concept of bodily resurrection was borrowed from the teachings of the Iranian prophet Zoroaster when the exiled Jews were living in Babylonia and Persia in the sixth century B.C. and later. In the Jewish adaptation of this Zoroastrian belief, the resurrected nation would return to Israel and rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.