Does one need to believe in the resurreciton to be Christian?

In consideration of the question, is a belief in the resurrection essential to being a Christian, I submit the following transitive idea. Non-Christians around the world believe in resurrection, therefore, the two notions are not married.

According to Ohyun Kwon "the primitive church clearly related the resurrection of Jesus to the old testament." In his research, he has personally studied the Old Testament, The Apocrypha, and the Pseudepigrapha, including the Dead Sea Scrolls in search of references to an early understanding of resurrection. In lieu of full disclosure, he explains that he was only able to personally study those that were written in Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic or Latin and those which were written in original languages like Ugaritic found him employing the assistance of his professors.

In his studies, he concludes that the idea of resurrection is not a revelation at the time of Jesus, nor is it imported from Egyptian, Iranian or Hellenistic influences. He suggests that there are fundamental elements of Judaism that form a basis for the germination and emergence of the Christian revelations and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He explains that early ideas of resurrection are "pregnant with the Canaanite mythology of Baal's dying and rising again (Ohyun K. 1984)"

Personally, this discovery transcends the question of needing to be christian to believe in resurrection. Images of John Barleycorn and Dionysus who are both ritualistically rent to pieces as are the fields and vines from which their spirits are derived. Although my denomination derives from the Christian doctrine, I am not a disciple of Jesus. I do, however, derive spiritual sustenance from the changing of the seasons and in particular from the blossoms on my pear tree each spring. For me, there is no greater miracle of resurrection than a quince bush in bloom.

KWON, O. (n.d). THE FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF RESURRECTION FAITH IN EARLY JUDAISM (APOCRYPHA, PSEUDEPIGRAPHA, OLD TESTAMENT; ISRAEL). Retrieved from ProQuest: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses database.