Zombies and Jesus

Hello folks, hope you've had a good Easter holiday.

For my first 'official' post on here I thought I'd stick with the theme of resurrection, as after all that's what us Christians celebrate at Easter. Recently a certain type of enemy in games has become very popular and seems to be cropping up all over the place. As you might of guessed, it's Zombies. They've been shuffling into games like Plants vs Zombies, Burn Zombie Burn!, Left 4 Dead and Dead Rising as the main antagonist, but they've even infested games that have no business having Zombies in them, such as Call Of Duty: Black Ops, Borderlands and Red Dead Redemption.

Now then, some folks on the 'net have seen the story of the resurrection and have jumped to the conclusion that Jesus was a zombie. Stick Zombie Jesus into Google and you'll get a myriad of sites that say that he was. It's no surprise that atheists are the majority of the folk that proclaim Jesus as a member of the undead. Now of course, you can already guess that I'm already going to say that Jesus wasn't a zombie. But rather than just chuck a load of scripture about, I'm going to delve into zombie lore and see how accurate the description is.

So then, Zombies.

 The quick definition of a zombie is that of a person brought back from the dead by either supernatural, scientific or biological means. By this definition, Jesus was a zombie. But then so is anyone who has been resuscitated by a paramedic. This is, I think, where the whole thing has stemmed from. But the more you look into the details of zombies, the more you see that the description is not quite accurate. It will probably be helpful to define what a zombie actually is then.

There are actually two types of zombie, with the one sort having influenced the other. The original zombie comes from folklore, mostly African and Haitian Vodun and Voodoo. A sorcerer, or bokor, can raise the dead to do their bidding as a mindless slave. Some research into this was done in the 80's which claimed that the zombies were people drugged with a potent toxin cocktail, but the results proved inconclusive. Needless to say, the shambling slaves of the bokor inspired the writers of fiction and film.

The second sort of zombie is the sort you find in all those games I mentioned, as well as the classic 60's film Night of The Living Dead, and some other recent movies such as Zombieland, Shaun of the Dead. This type is becoming an increasingly popular foe. These zombies are dead bodies that have been re-animated by some means, the most popular reason being some sort of pandemic or parsiteoid, although in some cases the reason is not revealed. The re-animated corpse has only one desire, which is to feed on the flesh of the living, which in turn will spread the infection and create more zombies. In most cases, being bitten by a zombie will cause you to become infected, die, and become re-animated as a zombie. The only way to successfully kill this sort of zombie is to destroy it's brain somehow. It's this sort of zombie that Jesus has been likened to.

So then, now we have the definitions of what a zombie is. From here, it's time to look at some scriptures alongside the zombie definitions and note the differences.

Brains

Your average Zombie has only one thing on it's mind- the urge to feed on the living. They are creatures of instinct, whose only purpose is to eat or infect anything that might be alive. While they do posses some intelligence, sometimes able to use tools, they do not have enough to string a sentence together. The best they can manage is a long drawn out moaning sound, which may just be a reaction to the sight of prey or an anouncement to other zombies that prey is near. When they meet a non-zombie, their only reaction is to try to bite them or eat them. The person they once were is long gone. They are slaves to their only desire, to spread the zombie infection by any means possible.

 By contrast, Jesus displayed a lot of intelligence. In Luke 24 he has a long conversation with two of his followers. A bit later, he meets up with the deciples and reasons with them that he's not a ghost, but he's actually alive. In John 21, he asks Peter questions and responds to his answers. It also looks like he made a fire and cooked dinner. Acts 1 gives a brief depiction of how Jesus said goodbye to his followers. It states that for a period of forty days he continued to teach them, presumably to prepare for his eventual departure.

Dinner

 Zombies will eat anything that was alive or recently alive. They prefer their food raw. Very, very raw. Older zombie lore has them treating brains as a sort of delicacy. When Jesus raises a little girl in Mark 5, he informs the crowd she will need some food, and Jesus himself fancied a bite to eat. But unlike a zombie, Jesus was particularly picky about what he ate. As I've mentioned previously, Jesus had cooked a meal of fish for his old friends. Luke and John reveal that he had meals of fish and bread. This is a far cry from your average zombie meal, which is usually a recipe of "grab living thing and eat it". No reference is made to Jesus or any other ressurected person trying to attack or eat anyone. In fact, those documented as acting a bit like zombies (See Matthew 8, Mark 5 and Luke 8) were in fact demon possessed, so they don't really enter into this little discussion.

Did Jesus command the desciples to eat flesh?

Some proponants of Jesus being a zombie raise the issue of the language Jesus uses about the Last Supper. After all, he does liken the bread to his body and the wine to his blood, using that as a hint towards his undead nature. But it's obvious that Jesus is using symbolism here, as in the next verse he refers to his drink as the 'fruit of the vine'. (See Mark 14, Luke 22 and Matt 26) My counter claim does go a bit wibbly if you look at John 6 though, where Jesus claims you have to eat him to gain eternal life, a claim it's recorded made a fair few people stop following him. However in the context of the whole chapter it all makes more sense, as he is using the concept of manna from heaven from the book of Exodus to help emphasise the point that the stuff he's saying comes from God. It should be noted that these events occured before Jesus died and was ressurrected.

All that is ressurrected is not a zombie

So as we look at what is recorded in scripture, it's evident that Jesus was not a zombie. He was ressurrected, like the creature he is being compared to, but he is not the same thing. Zombies have undergone some notable changes after their re-animation, whereas Jesus showed he was very much the same guy they put in the tomb. Although given some of the treatment he had during his execution he may well have looked a bit like one of Romero's undead horde, what with all the scars from the whips and nails and whatnot. We can note however that his references to eating flesh and blood are symbolic more than anything else, symbols that would resonate with his Jewish desciples We see that his hunger was not for people, but for good old fashioned fish  and bread. In his conversations with his bewildered desciples, he continued to teach them, proving that he was of sound mind. In short, he shows no sign of the zombification you see in Night of The Living Dead or any of the movies inspired by it, and will therefore not be popping up in Resident Evil 6.

There you have it then. My first post in my new blog venture. Hope you enjoyed it. For a spot of research, take a look at a few of the links below. If my blog peaked your interest, pop back for another dose of random theology or videogame based musings. If you've any questions or anything, or even wish to see me look into something theological or videogamey, feel free to leave a comment. For now, I'm going to have a rest, as this one took more out of me than I thought it would. :P


Linkage

Wikipedia article on parasiteoids

Wikipedia article on Zombie

How Stuff Works article on Zombies


An atheist reasoning Jesus wasn't a zombie

  
 A Christian Site answers the zombie question