Hi Wanda,
This is a great question for all of us to put their thinking cap on and examine what is required to create or engender a resurrection. The Bible says: “The living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all.” (Ecclesiastes 9:5; Psalm 146:4) Therefore, when we die, we cease to exist. The dead can’t think, act, or feel anything. “To dust you will return”,God explained what happens when we die when he spoke to the first man, Adam. Because Adam was disobedient, God said to him: “Dust you are and to dust you will return.” (Genesis 3:19) Before God created Adam “out of dust from the ground,” Adam did not exist. (Genesis 2:7) Likewise, when Adam died, he returned to dust and ceased to exist.
The same thing happens to those who die now. Speaking of both humans and animals, the Bible says: “They have all come to be from the dust, and they are all returning to the dust.”—Ecclesiastes 3:19, 20.
I have no medical background but to me there is a very rapid pejorative deterioration when a human's blood is no longer circulating in their body and the lungs no longer have the capacity to supply the blood with oxygen. The time line likely varies but I understand that brain cells begin to die around 4 minutes and after 10 minutes an irretrievable condition is achieved (unless it is a special case such as hyperthermia which could add up to an hour).
But the subject here is - what is required for a successful resurrection where a human can live again? And Bob mentioned that every molecule would have to be made new again. The longer a person is dead the deterioration would be accelerated and very soon go way beyond what medical science could achieve in a restoration attempt. So would it be fair and safe to say that a human body would not have to reach a dust like state to require a God like regeneration. There are many examples in the Bible of people being supernaturally revived after being dead for varying lengths of time. So my question here - is at what point after a person dies and is brought back to life by God (even if only a hour plus after dying) does it qualify as a resurrection - in a legitimate Biblical definition or sense of the term?
John