Religious History of Zombies (and Does Jesus Qualify?)

One question’s been shambling all over the internet lately, popping up everywhere from Reddit threads to theology TikTok: Was Jesus a zombie?

Curious minds are debating (albeit perhaps tongue in cheek) whether Christianity’s savior technically qualifies as a member of fiction’s most famous undead horde. After all, Jesus famously died, was buried, and then, three days later, rose again. Some would say he was quite literally the walking dead.

Is it possible Jesus qualifies as a zombie? And what makes a zombie, a zombie, anyway? Is it just rising from the grave, or does a "real" zombie need to be lurching around a graveyard, moaning for “braaaaaaains”?

As Halloween approaches and "zombies" prepare to wander the streets in search of tricks or treats, it seems fitting to explore these questions. 

A Brief History of Zombies

While modern pop culture most frequently depicts zombies as the result of a viral outbreak or nuclear radiation, the modern zombie has roots that reach deep into Haitian spiritual folklore, where tales of the “zombi” described reanimated corpses controlled by sorcerers or spirits. In Haitian spirituality, the dead were sometimes revived by a sorcerer called a bokor, who enslaved those he resurrected.

It's believed the myth has origins in the region's brutal practice of slavery. Slavery and indentured servitude were so common in colonial Haiti that many enslaved believed that the only way to fully control one's life was to take it. However, fear of being resurrected as an undead slave to a new master often prevented enslaved Haitians from the act of suicide. 

These stories made their way to the Western world in the early 20th century, often stripped of their cultural and spiritual context. Early Hollywood seized on the concept with films like White Zombie (1932), which depicted voodoo-style resurrection through black magic.

Over time, the shambling, undead zombie evolved from a Haitian symbol of slavery and spiritual domination into something more universal: a metaphor for humanity’s fears of loss, control, and the creeping unknowns of the nuclear age.

Related: The Secret Religious History of Halloween's Top Monsters

Zombies Invade Hollywood

The zombie film genre as we know it today was truly born with George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968), which reimagined zombies as cannibalistic hordes driven by insatiable hunger. From there, the undead spread like, well… a plague.

Movies like Dawn of the Dead, Return of the Living Dead, and 28 Days Later expanded zombie lore and redefined the archetype for new generations, films like Shaun of the Dead endlessly (and lovingly) parodied the genre, and TV shows like The Walking Dead ensured they stayed a cultural juggernaut well into the 21st century.

In modern pop culture, zombies have become a flexible symbol for everything from consumerism to pandemics to existential dread. Whether slow and stumbling or fast and feral, they endure as a reflection of what we fear most: not death itself, but the loss of humanity.

Was Jesus a Zombie?

So, was Jesus a zombie? Well, He hit some of the familiar beats: death, burial, and return. Some people have even begun referring to Easter as "Zombie Jesus Day":

But Jesus’ resurrection has few of the other hallmarks that have made zombies such an enduring icon in the last century.

The Gospels describe Jesus emerging from his tomb and appearing to his followers, who at first don’t recognize him. His crucifixion wounds are still visible, and he invites Thomas to touch them. It’s easy to see why modern audiences, steeped in decades of horror cinema, might draw such a connection.

Yet, the comparison only goes so far. Zombies in film and folklore are reanimated bodies, soulless, decaying, and enslaved to instinct, while Jesus’ resurrection is described as transcendent, conscious, and divine.

In Christian theology, He isn’t a corpse walking the earth, but a being who has conquered death itself and who returned to earth to fulfill a divine mission – and that mission quite clearly wasn’t to gobble up as many brains as possible. Both Jesus and zombies are resurrected, but that’s where the similarities end.

What Type of Undead Was Jesus?

Internet denizens have gotten into the nitty-gritty details on just what kind of 'undead' Jesus actually was, drawing on everything from global folklore to the realms of Dungeons & Dragons in the pursuit of categorizing Him. Undead are typically classified into two types, corporeal and incorporeal. Corporeal undead have physical bodies, and can vary intelligence from mindless zombies to intelligent beings like vampires. Incorporeal undead are spirits with no physical form, and include beings like ghosts, specters, and wraiths. Here are just some of the types of corporeal undead Jesus has been called: 

• Ghoul: Often depicted as emaciated and hairless, ghouls are similar to zombies but prefer to hang out in graveyards and eat the flesh of corpses. 
• Mummy: A resurrected human who hasn't fully deteriorated through natural or magical means. They are often depicted wrapped in bandages, and are typically depicted as mindless monsters with a singular goal (such as guarding a tomb). 
• Lich: Liches are powerful spellcasters who've achieved immortality through death, their souls bound to a physical object called a phylactery. Their bodies are often rotting and dessicated, and they are powerful necromancers. 
• Revenant: Revenants are reanimated corpses which retain their human intelligence in the afterlife, but are often driven by a specific mission - typically revenge. 

The biblical account of the resurrection clearly doesn't perfectly reflect any of these undead myths. And yet, "zombie Jesus" advocates point out that the folklore and mythology on which these descriptors are drawn are also often flexible. Even the pop culture "rules" on what constitutes a zombie have changed over time. Jesus, they argue, is a zombie. If not in letter, then in spirit.

What do you think? Was Jesus a zombie? A different type of undead? Or simply the resurrected son of God?