The roots of resurrection

+ freezing coral reefs to save them; ‘The Amazon of Sports’ expands into sports card US Edition - Today's top story: The roots of the Easter story: Where did Christian beliefs about Jesus' resurrection come from? [View in browser]( US Edition | 30 March 2024 [The Conversation] [The Conversation]( In Christian belief, Easter marks the day Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead after crucifixion. Resurrection is the focus – not only of Easter but arguably of Christianity itself. It is central to other core ideas of the faith, including that Jesus was the Messiah and Son of God. The idea of a resurrection itself, though, wasn’t a brand-new one in the first-century Middle East. “Religious teachings about resurrection [go back many centuries before Jesus walked the earth](,” explains Aaron Gale, a religion professor at West Virginia University. Most relevant to Christianity are Judaism’s own teachings about resurrection. These may have made the idea that Jesus rose from the dead more acceptable to his first followers, Gale writes – since, after all, he and they were Jewish. This week, we also liked stories about why [New Jersey is the only state]( that bans self-serve gas, making the [solar eclipse fun (and educational) for kids](, and [Easter in Bethlehem for Palestinian Christians](. [ [Get a global perspective on the news, with the best of The Conversation’s journalism from around the world, twice weekly.]( ] Molly Jackson Religion and Ethics Editor A mosaic of the Resurrection in the Basilica of St. Paul in Harissa, Lebanon. FredSeiller/Wikimedia Commons [The roots of the Easter story: Where did Christian beliefs about Jesus’ resurrection come from?]( Aaron Gale, West Virginia University Ideas about resurrection had been developing for centuries before Jesus’ life, but his followers took them in new directions. People have collected fossil horses throughout North America for centuries. Florida Museum/Mary Warrick [Horses lived in the Americas for millions of years – new research helps paleontologists understand the fossils we’ve found and those that are missing from the record]( Stephanie Killingsworth, University of Florida; Bruce J. MacFadden, University of Florida Horse fossils are abundant and widespread across North America. Scientists often use their long history to illustrate how species evolve in response to a changing environment. The U.S. sports card industry is an estimated $12 billion market. Mark Cunningham/MLB Photos via Getty Images [‘The Amazon of Sports’ has already cornered baseball’s apparel market – and is now on the verge of subsuming baseball cards, too]( Nathaniel Grow, Indiana University; John Holden, Oklahoma State University; Marc Edelman, Baruch College, CUNY Fanatics’ consolidation of the sports card industry risks a stagnant future for the hobby. - [As climate change and pollution imperil coral reefs, scientists are deep-freezing corals to repopulate future oceans]( Mary Hagedorn, Smithsonian Institution Just as the world’s zoos breed critically endangered animals in captivity to repopulate the wild, scientists are building a global effort to freeze corals for reef restoration. - [NASA’s mission to an ice-covered moon will contain a message between water worlds]( Douglas Vakoch, California Institute of Integral Studies Europa Clipper will contain a plaque that celebrates humanity’s relationship with water and a decades-old tradition of searching for life outside Earth. - [Fighting every wildfire ensures the big fires are more extreme, and may harm forests’ ability to adapt to climate change]( Mark Kreider, University of Montana A new study offers a rare window into the hidden effects of aggressive fire suppression that go beyond fuel accumulation. The practice may even change the course of forest evolution. - [I’ve been studying congressional emails to constituents for 15 years − and found these 4 trends after scanning 185,222 of them]( - [Many travel nurses opt for temporary assignments because of the autonomy and opportunities − not just the big boost in pay]( - [How AI and a popular card game can help engineers predict catastrophic failure – by finding the absence of a pattern]( - [Why Jersey girls − and guys − still don’t pump their own gas]( - [Easter 2024 in the Holy Land: a holiday marked by Palestinian Christian sorrow]( - [3 ways to use the solar eclipse to brighten your child’s knowledge of science]( - [What is Volt Typhoon? A cybersecurity expert explains the Chinese hackers targeting US critical infrastructure]( The Conversation Quiz 🧠- Here’s the first question of [this week’s edition:]( Oral arguments in the case of FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine were heard by the U.S. Supreme Court on March 26. 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