The Resurrection of the Son of God
Wright (N.T.)
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Christian Origins and the Question of God: Vol. 3. The four volumes are:-

Cover Blurb
  1. N. T. Wright takes us on a fascinating journey through ancient beliefs about life after death1, from the shadowy figures who inhabit Homer's Hades, through Plato's hope for a blessed immortality, to the first century, where the Greek and Roman world (apart from the Jews) consistently denied any possibility of resurrection. We then examine ancient Jewish beliefs on the same subject, from the Bible to the Dead Sea Scrolls and beyond.
  2. This sets the scene for a full-scale examination of early Christian beliefs about resurrection in general and that of Jesus in particular, beginning with Paul and working through to the start of the third century. Wright looks at all the evidence, and asks: Why did the Christians agree with Jewish resurrection belief while introducing into it — across the board — significant modifications?
  3. To answer this question we come to the strange and evocative Easter stories in the gospels and ask whether they can have been late inventions. Wright seeks the best historical conclusions about the empty tomb and the belief that Jesus really did rise bodily from the dead, recognizing that it was this belief that caused early Christians to call Jesus ‘Son of God'. In doing so, they posed a political challenge as well as a theological one. These challenges retain their power in the twenty-first century.
  4. N. T. Wright is the Bishop of Durham. He is one of the world's foremost New Testament scholars, a regular broadcaster and best-selling author. He has taught New Testament studies at Oxford, Cambridge and McGill Universities. Several of his books have won awards, including volumes from the …for Everyone Bible guide series. He won the prestigious Michael Ramsey Award for theological writing.
Amazon Customer Review
  1. This was the most exciting book I have read for years. I couldn't put it down (didn't sleep for a week!)! People constantly say to Christians, "Where is your evidence?" expecting that we would be floored! Here is the evidence, with a long and careful discussion of all the details, including Homer and Virgil, Philo and Pliny, Josephus and Plato, the Dead Sea Scrolls and lots you haven't heard of. And he goes through the Gospels and the Letters too, very carefully and hugely informatively. And I have been reading the Bible for many years!
  2. His thesis is, what historical explanation is there for the sudden large and demonstrable change in how people thought about resurrection, other than that Jesus Christ actually rose from the dead as the Gospels tell us? The book is a cold historical examination of the facts, and also addresses the concerns of a huge number of modern commentators.
  3. This is that rare and beautiful thing: a work of true scholarship that really makes a difference to the way we think. Before, we believed it for pretty good reasons, now we believe it with copper-bottomed first-class unassailable2 reasons.
Contents
    Preface – xv
    PART I: Setting the Scene
  1. The Target and the Arrows
  2. Shadows, Souls and Where They Go: Life Beyond Death in Ancient Paganism
  3. Time to Wake Up (1): Death and Beyond in the Old Testament
  4. Time to Wake Up (2): Hope Beyond Death in Post-Biblical Judaism 129
    PART II: Resurrection in Paul – 207
  5. Resurrection in Paul (Outside the Corinthian Correspondence) 209
  6. Resurrection in Corinth (1): Introduction 277
  7. Resurrection in Corinth (2): The Key Passages 312
  8. When Paul Saw Jesus 375
    PART III: Resurrection in Early Christianity (Apart from Paul) – 399
  9. Hope Refocused (1): Gospel Traditions Outside the Easter Narratives 401
  10. Hope Refocused (2): Other New Testament Writings 450
  11. Hope Refocused (3): Non-Canonical Early Christian Texts 480
  12. Hope in Person: Jesus as Messiah and Lord 553
    PART IV: The Story of Easter – 585
  13. General Issues in the Easter Stories 587
  14. Fear and Trembling: Mark 616
  15. Earthquakes and Angels: Matthew 632
  16. Burning Hearts and Broken Bread: Luke 647
  17. New Day, New Tasks: John 662
    PART V: Belief, Event and Meaning – 683
  18. Easter and History 685
  19. The Risen Jesus as the Son of God 719
  20. Bibliography 739
  21. Indexes 780


In-Page Footnotes ("Wright (N.T.) - The Resurrection of the Son of God")

Footnote 2: We’ll see!

Book Comment

SPCK Publishing (21 Mar. 2003). Paperback.


"Craig (William Lane) - Review of N.T.Wright - The Resurrection of the Son of God"

Source: Faith and Philosophy 22:2, 239-245, 2005


Author's Introduction
  • The present work is Wright's third in his series of books on Christian origins, the sequel to "Wright (N.T.) - The New Testament and the People of God" (1992) and "Wright (N.T.) - Jesus and the Victory of God" (1996). It is cause for reflection that whereas John Meier1, that other producer of prodigious tomes on the historical Jesus, refuses even to touch the topic of Jesus' resurrection, Wright has devoted over 800 pages to this subject alone. The result is one of the most impressive studies of the historicity of Jesus' resurrection published to date.
  • One of the most remarkable features of this large book is that it is almost exclusively dedicated to discussion of the primary sources alone. One would have expected so lengthy a study to be choking with references to the vast secondary literature on the resurrection and to involve itself in discussion with that literature. But, while he obviously knows that literature (the book includes a 29-page bibliography of such sources), Wright concentrates on discussing the primary source documents of ancient pagan, Jewish, Christian, and biblical literature that mention the subject of resurrection from the dead. By page 681 Wright can boast, "We have now surveyed the entire corpus of writing about Jesus and his resurrection in the first two centuries, setting it within the framework of beliefs about life after death in the ancient worlds of paganism and Judaism." The reader has realized long before then that were Wright to engage the secondary literature in the customary fashion, five more volumes of equal length would have been spawned. This preoccupation with primary sources leaves it largely to the reader to work out for himself what Wright would say to this or that contemporary scholar who does not share his views. But the advantage won for Wright is that this procedure makes Wright's book timeless, rather than tied to current fashion or scholarship. His study will remain a valuable sourcebook for future generations of students of the resurrection. After all, barring what Wright calls "a happy accident of archaeology" which yields new sources (such as discovery of what Wright regards as a lost ending to the Gospel of Mark), these will remain all the sources we have, so that if one's handling of them has been thorough and careful, one can ride out the shifting currents of scholarship.
  • One of the curiosities of the book is that Wright is constantly taking aim throughout it at those who construe the Christian hope of life after death in terms of the immortality of the soul rather than resurrection of the body. This is the reason for his strange locution that resurrection is "life after 'life after death'" (p.30). I take this to mean that the Christian hope is that following a period of unembodied existence2 after death we shall experience reimbodiment in the resurrection. One would have thought that no such correction of popular misunderstanding would have been necessary subsequent to "Cullmann (Oscar) - Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead?" (1958). But Wright is a churchman as well as a NT scholar, and I suspect that in his role as a clergyman he must constantly encounter persons who deny the resurrection of the body in favor of the immortality of the soul. Hence, his tilting at this windmill.

Author's Conclusion
  • On the basis of his argument, Wright judges the historical probability of the twin facts of the empty tomb and post-mortem appearances of Jesus to be "so high as to be virtually certain, as the death of Augustus in AD 14 or the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70" (p. 710).
  • Now comes the final step in the argument: what is the best explanation of the facts of the empty tomb and appearances? Wright casts his argument here as an inference to the best explanation (p. 716), but he again focuses on explanatory power. The resurrection hypothesis explains the empty tomb and appearances; its rivals do not (p. 717). Wright recognizes that we here come face to face with worldview considerations; there is, he says, no neutral ground. It is not entirely clear to me what Wright's answer to Enlightenment naturalism is (pp. 710-716). He seems to say that the spirit of the Enlightenment is not to close a priori any door to understanding and then to invite the naturalist to shift grounds and see if the facts do not make better sense within a theistic worldview than within a naturalistic view. Wright concludes with a summary of reasons for rejecting the principal alternative explanations of the empty tomb and appearances (p. 718). But here again there is confusion. The four rivals he considers are in fact denials of the empty tomb and appearances, not explanations of them. These hypotheses should have been considered and rejected in his earlier discussion about the necessity of the empty tomb and appearances in explaining the origin of the disciples' belief in Jesus' resurrection. The rivals that should be considered here are those few hypotheses that concede these two facts and then try to explain them naturally. Wright's reference here to Habermas' survey of rival hypotheses is all that he provides by way of refutation.
  • There is much, much more in this wide-ranging book. I think it is best seen as the most extensively developed version of the argument for the resurrection from the fact of the origin of the disciples' belief in Jesus' resurrection, an argument which may be supplemented by comparably strong or even stronger independent arguments for the empty tomb and post-mortem appearances of Jesus and, then, for his resurrection. It is an invaluable reference work and a benchmark of resurrection scholarship.

Paper Comment

Review of "Wright (N.T.) - The Resurrection of the Son of God".



In-Page Footnotes ("Craig (William Lane) - Review of N.T.Wright - The Resurrection of the Son of God")

Footnote 1: Footnote 2:
  • Is this really what he says? Does he argue that we 'sleep' while 'alive' between death and resurrection or that we are conscious?
  • See my note on disembodied existence.


"Wright (N.T.) - The Resurrection of the Son of God: Preface, Bibliography & Indexes"

Source: Wright (N.T.) - The Resurrection of the Son of God


Sections
  1. Preface – xv
  2. Bibliography – 739
    1. Stylistic Shorthands – 739
    2. Primary Sources – 739
    3. Secondary Sources, etc. – 741
  3. Primary Sources – 745
    1. Bible – 745
    2. Other Jewish Texts – 745
    3. Other Early Christian and Related Texts – 746
    4. Pagan Texts – 747
  4. Secondary Literature – 751
  • Indexes – 780
    Index of Ancient Sources – 780
    1. Old Testament – 780
    2. Apocrypha – 784
    3. Pseudepigrapha – 785
    4. Qumran – 786
    5. Josephus – 787
    6. Philo – 787
    7. Rabbinic Works – 787
    8. New Testament – 788
    9. Christian and/or Gnostic Works – 799
    10. Greco-Roman Texts – 802
    11. Persian Texts – 806
    12. Egyptian Texts – 806
    Index of Modem Authors – 807
    Index of Selected Topics – 812

    • Notes1 (Preface)
    1. Mainly recounts the genesis of the book, and how it fits in to the Christian Origins and the Question of God series which includes:-
    2. The excised chapter was expanded as a result of a series of three Shaffer Lectures at Yale in 1996, and subsequently during further lecture series over the next three years.
    3. However it was then greatly expanded from a small book reflecting 3-4 lectures to a huge one reflecting 20 or so, starting at Harvard in 1999.
    4. Wright’s aim is to show that the trend that suggests that the early Church – in particular Paul – thought of the resurrection in a (merely) “spiritual” sense is plain wrong.
    5. In the book he has focussed on the primary rather than secondary literature. Though he has “read as much as he could” of the latter, this book is not a “state of the question” treatise.
    6. The book would have doubled in size had he followed up all the possible “secondary roads” off the “main highway”. So, there is no (further) mention of the Turin Shroud3.
    7. He acknowledges some unevenness of treatment – sometime he has just stated rather than argued for his own views (particularly with respect to Paul; a fault he hopes to remedy in the next volume of the series).
    8. This volume pursues a single line of thought, outlined in the first Chapter ("Wright (N.T.) - The Target and the Arrows").
    9. The entry-point is a discussion of how resurrection – rejected by pagans but accepted by many Jews – was reaffirmed and redefined by the early Christians. Wright includes a range of material otherwise inaccessible to many readers.
    10. Terms: We are referred to the prefaces of the first two volumes. However,
      • Pagan: not pejorative, but a bucket-term4 used to refer to all non-Christian/Jews. Not a term they used of themselves, but used of them by the latter two groups.
      • god: he uses the small “g” to remind himself and the reader that the issue in the first century was not whether someone was a theist (they all5 were) but which of the many candidate-gods the person believed in. However, when he capitalises “God”, he specifically means the Judeo-Christian covenant and creator god “who raised the dead” – ie. the one and only true god.
    11. Literal versus Metaphorical resurrection:
      • These terms, while easily understood, tend to be used improperly, as they apply to the way words refer to things, not to the things to which words refer, for which the terms ‘concrete’ and ‘abstract’ are more appropriate. So, “Plato’s Theory of Forms” refers literally to an abstract entity, while “the greasy spoon” refers metaphorically to a concrete entity.
      • So, ‘sleep’6 is a metaphor for a concrete state of affairs7, while in Ezekiel 37, metaphorical ‘resurrection’ language is used of a concrete political event (the return from Babylon). The metaphor allows Ezekiel to denote the concrete event while connoting a ‘new Genesis’ (says Wright8).
      • All those in the (pre-Christian) first-century conversation – whether they believed in resurrection (Pharisees) or not (Sadducees and pagans) – used the term anastasis to denote a hypothetical future concrete event – ‘standing up’ from the dead. This book addresses the question whether the early Christians used the term in this sense, or were innovators as in much else.
    12. In the final section – acknowledgements – Rowan Williams (then recently promoted to Archbishop of Canterbury) gets a warm mention (he and Wright taught together at Oxford, 1986+) and is a joint-dedication recipient. He is said to have written a distinguished book of the resurrection. From the Bibliography, this would seem to be Resurrection – Interpreting the Easter Gospel. Is Wright sincere in his praise9?



    In-Page Footnotes ("Wright (N.T.) - The Resurrection of the Son of God: Preface, Bibliography & Indexes")

    Footnote 1: These will (hopefully) be very brief jottings on items of particular interest (to me).

    Footnote 2: There’s a reference to the (now) 4th volume on Paul – "Wright (N.T.) - Paul and the Faithfulness of God". I’ve not been able to locate a 5th and 6th volume.

    Footnote 3: He footnotes The Shroud of Turin by Mary & Alan Whanger, 1998. I have the following:- Footnote 4: He doesn’t mention whether the term “pagan” has any religious connotations

    Footnote 5: These are my words, but they seem to be assumed (probably wrongly) by Wright.

    Footnote 7: Wright refers to this ‘state of affairs’ as ‘death’ without saying whether the state of ‘being dead’ applies to an existent being, or only to a once-existent being. If intermittent existence is allowed, this question is orthogonal to that which addresses the possibility of resurrection.

    Footnote 8: So, does Wright see in Ezekiel the connotation of the creation of Adam, rather than of the resurrection of the saints?

    Footnote 9: The book gets 5*s from all 3 reviewers on Amazon, but reading one of them gives me the impression that Williams may sin against Wright’s strictures about confusing the metaphorical with the abstract. Either way, it’s a ‘book for reflection’ rather than analysis, it seems.


    "Wright (N.T.) - The Target and the Arrows"

    Source: Wright (N.T.) - The Resurrection of the Son of God


    Sections
    1. Introduction: The Target
    2. The Arrows
      1. Shooting at the Sun
      2. Resurrection and History
        1. The Senses of ‘History'
        2. No Access?
        3. No Analogy?
        4. No Real Evidence?
      3. Resurrection in History and Theology
        1. No Other Starting-Point?
        2. Resurrection and Christology
        3. Resurrection and Eschatology
    3. The Historical Starting-Point


    Notes
    1. Introduction: The Target:
      • Doubts about the historicity of the “evocative” Church of Holy Sepulchre as the site of Golgotha and the Garden Tomb
      • Analogy with the Resurrection – which of the gaggle of historians has the correct account?; how do the “tantalizing narratives” of the Gospels fit together? What precisely happened – did Jesus really rise from the dead on the third day after his execution, as billions of Christians affirm?
      • This question is similar to the fourth1 of five questions raised in "Wright (N.T.) - Jesus and the Victory of God" – why did Christianity begin and take the shape it did?
      • This book will focus more on the primary sources than is usual, and is not a history of interpretation. Space limits the number of interlocutors Wright can interact with.
      • Wright will mingle together questions about the historical beginnings of Christianity with questions about God more than is currently popular, despite the acknowledged different methodologies of History and Theology. To do otherwise is to side with a Deism in which God keeps out of history. The opposite position is a “rank supernaturalist” one wherein a miracle-working god routinely violates historical causation2. In between are positions (pantheism, panentheism and process theology) in which god is part of the space-time world and the historical process itself. Wright just notes the many-sidedness of the topic.
      • He takes issue with Archbishop Peter Carnley (Wikipedia: Peter Carnley). I couldn’t quite make out what the objection was, exactly, but it seems that Carnley is happy with historical investigation provided it comes up with sceptical results, as this is good for faith, which should not rest on the mundane. Wright insists that historical investigation is important, and can be made without theological presuppositions. It looks like he agrees that there’s a balance to be struck – neither just pillaging history for apologetic purposes, nor writing off history for theological purposes, nor adopting a merely factual interest in Jesus. What actually happened has always been important, and interest in it isn’t a vote for liberal Protestantism. Demonstrably spurious reconstructions should be resisted. He notes in a footnote that early Christian writers made a distinction between the encounters with Jesus immediately post-resurrection and subsequent Christian experience of “the risen Jesus”.
      • Wright will focus first of all on what the early Christians believed about God themselves and Jesus. Only in part V will he move on to the historian, being careful not to acquiesce to the historian’s own worldview, usually that of post-Enlightenment scepticism.
      • The book divides into two questions:-
        1. What did the early Christians think had happened to Jesus, and
        2. How plausible are those beliefs?
      • The two questions overlap – and Wright thinks that it’s difficult to account for the “striking” beliefs uncovered in Parts II – IV unless they were true. Hence, his conclusion in Part V will be positive. Even so, it is a priori possible that the early Christians believed Jesus had been raised bodily, but were wrong. Wright thinks the onus is on those who take this view to explain the early Christian beliefs, and notes (but doesn’t here detail) the variety3 of reasons given.
      • He wants to challenge a “dominant paradigm”:-
        1. Resurrection was a fuzzy concept in contemporary Judaism.
        2. Paul held to a “spiritual” rather than bodily resurrection.
        3. The initial Christian belief was in Jesus’ heavenly exaltation; belief in the empty tomb came later.
        4. The resurrection stories are later inventions to bolster the latter.
        5. These experiences – like Paul’s – were “religious” experiences internal to the individual – effectively fantasy4 or hallucination.
        6. Whatever happened to Jesus’ body – and some doubt it was even buried – it was not “resuscitated”, let alone “raised from the dead” as a face-value reading of the Gospels requires.
        Wright claims that there are “excellent, well-founded and secure historical arguments against each of these positions”.
      • Positively, Wright will try to establish:-
        1. A new Jewish context
        2. A different view of Paul
        3. … and of all other early Christians
        4. A new account of the Gospel stories
        5. That the only explanation for the establishment of Christianity is that the tomb really was empty and people really did meet Jesus alive again.
        6. The best historical explanation for these phenomena is that Jesus really did rise bodily from the dead.
        (i) – (iv) correspond to Parts I-IV of the book, with (v) and (vi) corresponding to Chapters 18 and 19 in Part V.
      • It is important to survey the whole terrain, not just a few hot spots. Hence the length of the book.
      • Wright will address two controversial preliminary topics:-
        1. What sort of historical task is an investigation of the resurrection? Answering this question is essential to avoid accusation of begging the question whether the investigation is possible at all.
        2. How did the Jews and gentiles of Jesus’ day think of the destiny of the dead? Chapters 2 & 3-4 will address this question.
      • While the early Christians remained within the Jewish spectrum of opinion on the topic of resurrection, their ideas were clarified to a unique degree – and Wright puts this down to their belief that Jesus had been raised bodily. The historian needs to account for this “sudden and dramatic mutation from within the Jewish worldview”.
      • Wright will reverse the usual treatment by leaving the Gospel accounts until last, as they are both amongst the most difficult passages, and were written last. All the earlier witnesses took the affirmation that Jesus had been raised literally, and this evidence should be taken when approaching the Gospels.
      • So, what can historians say about Easter? Wright thinks that the best explanation for the “Christian mutation” was that:-
        1. The tomb was found empty, and
        2. Several people – including at least one who had not previously been a follower of Jesus – claimed to have seen him alive in a way for which they were unprepared by their previous ideas about life after death5 (including about resurrection) and for which the language of ghosts, spirits, etc. was inappropriate.
      • Wright will argue that the best historical explanation is that the tomb was indeed empty, and Jesus was indeed seen alive because he had truly been raised from the dead. .
      • That the dead remain dead wasn’t a belief invented by Enlightenment scepticism or “the scientific worldview”, but was as much common-sense in NT times as today. So, to justify challenging this “basic and fundamental assumption”, Wright will advance historical arguments – but also the theological argument6 that arose from early Christian reflection on Jesus as God’s Son, and that God is to be known as Jesus’ father.
      • So, is the project even possible …?
    2. The Arrows:
      1. Shooting at the Sun: Folk-tale analogy between the sun and its water-reflection and God and pantheistic explanation. Invocation of passages from Deuteronomy & Romans 6 on divine immanence, but suspicion of quasi-historical “proofs” along the lines of Josh McDowell.
      2. Resurrection and History:
        1. The Senses of ‘History':
          • Wright gives five senses used in this context:-
            1. Events that really happened, whether or not anyone was there to witness.
            2. Significant events in the first sense. “Historic” events. Bultmann’s distinction between geschichte and historie.
            3. Provable events - “by analogy with mathematics and the hard sciences”.
            4. Writing about events in the past as well as oral tradition (once considered as the more reliable).
            5. What “modern” – ie post-Enlightenment – historians can say about (the past) that fits into the post-Enlightenment worldview7.
          • So, when we consider the resurrection of Jesus, which sense are we considering it in? The book will be taken up mostly in sense (I), but sense (V) will cause the most trouble, though sense (III) is also difficult. No-one takes the other two senses to be problematical in the context of Jesus’ resurrection.
          • So, the focus will be on whether the resurrection was something that happeed – and just what did happen?
          • Wright quotes the “rightly famous” "Crossan (John Dominic) - The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant" as saying – of the Quest for Jesus – that some scholars said it couldn’t be done, which others said it shouldn’t be done, and that some who said the former intended the latter; he suggests this is even more true of the resurrection.
          • Wright says there are six objections8, and he will divide them into those raised by the “couldn’t” camp and those from the “shouldn’t” camp.
          • He returns (unhelpfully, in my view9) to the “arrows and the sun” analogy.
            1. The “couldn’t” camp thinks there’s either nothing to find, or it’s invisible.
            2. The “shouldn’t” camp thinks the quest is doomed and a kind of hubris – it is out of our range.
        2. No Access?
          • Marxsen: no ancient source – bar the fabulous Gospel of Peter – purports to describe Jesus’ exit from the tomb, and even this text doesn’t describe the resurrection itself. The target may exist, but it is out of sight.
          • While this appears cautious and scientific, Wright claims it is neither: it says both too little and too much10.
            1. Too little: a positivistic demand of direct access – “first-hand witness accounts” – is not how historians work. They deduce that certain inaccessible events took place because they follow from others to which we do have access. Otherwise there would be silence and no “history” at all. In a footnote he quotes the analogous methodology of scientists and textual critics, citing "Polkinghorne (John) - Science and Christian Belief: Theological Reflections of a Bottom-up Thinker" for the former.
            2. Too much: All we have are texts, so we don’t even have direct access to the disciples’ faith. Again, if we apply the same “relentless suspicion” in “regular postmodernist11 fashion” we have “a long and stony road ahead”.
          • Wright says that Marxsen persistently mixes12 up the senses of “history” that Wright has distinguished. So – with respect to “Jesus’ transition from death to life” – no-one wrote about it (IV), so nothing can be proved (III), so “we modern historians” can say nothing about it (V) – whatever “it” is (I) – though it is certainly significant (II).
        3. No Analogy?
          • Ernst Troeltsch: Historians can only write about things that have some analogy with their own experience; we’ve not come across a resurrection before, so nothing can be said – though the Resurrection might be historical for all that.
          • So, the Resurrection satisfies senses (I) and (IV) but not (III) or (V).
          • A footnote refers to Hume’s general point about the miraculous13: “No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that it’s falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which is endeavours to establish.”, but Wright thinks Troeltsch’s point is “more nuanced”, in that it’s not rejecting the historicity of the Resurrection, only saying we can say nothing about it.
          • Pannenberg claims the analogy will only arise when we are resurrected at Christ’s return, but Wright (correctly) thinks this gives too much away.
          • Historians can talk of one-offs – such as the first space flight (prior to the second one). While this might be countered by reference to analogous “flights”, Wright thinks there were at least partial14 analogies to Christ’s resurrection in the Jewish tradition.
          • Wright claims that taking Troeltsch’s point seriously would leave us with nothing to say about the rise of the early church15, which was also unprecedented and no analogous event has since occurred.
          • So – if we accept the above point about the early Church – then Troeltsch’s argument tells us that the events after the crucifixion require explanation, analogy or no analogy16.
        4. No Real Evidence?
      3. Resurrection in History and Theology:
        1. No Other Starting-Point?
        2. Resurrection and Christology:
        3. Resurrection and Eschatology:
    3. The Historical Starting-Point:

    Paper Comment

    PART I: Setting the Scene - Chapter 1



    In-Page Footnotes ("Wright (N.T.) - The Target and the Arrows")

    Footnote 1: The first three are fascinating:–
    1. Where does Jesus fit in to Judaism?
    2. What were his aims? and
    3. Why did he die?
    Footnote 3:
    • Bart D. Ehrman disagrees with this, though I can’t remember where.
    • Ehrman’s view is that all sorts of things might have happened, and it’s not possible to know which. Each individual hypothesis might be objectionable, but it’s not up to the critic to select one to nail his colours to.
    • Wright makes no mention of Ehrman in his extensive bibliography.
    Footnote 4: Presumably there are other causes for “internal” experiences than these two options. “Visions” are – presumably – internal as not everyone can see them, but not thereby “fantasy”.

    Footnote 6: We’ll have to wait and see what this comes to. I’m suspicious.

    Footnote 7: This can’t just be dismissed, as maybe Wright wants to do.

    Footnote 8:
    • Wright doesn’t seem to say at this point either what these objections are, or what they are objections to.
    • But one may presume that the three subsequent sub-sections (b) to (d) in this section and the three (a) to (c) in the next are the six, and correspond to the division between the camps.
    Footnote 9:
    • It doesn’t really matter how the objections are forced into these categories.
    • The divide amongst the “objectors” seems to be between the “hard headed” who think the problem is a “this world” one that we just can’t solve for lack of evidence and the “spirituals” who think it impious even to look.
    Footnote 10: As usual, I don’t understand this turn of phrase, but it doesn’t really matter.

    Footnote 11:
    • This seems a bit random. Can one be both a positivist and a postmodernist or are these just used as terms of abuse?
    • I agree that you can set the bar too high, and be excessively sceptical, but not all historians who adopt a “healthy scepticism” to outlandish claims are positivists or postmodernists.
    • It just is the case that the bar has to be set higher in evaluating the miraculous, and the gaps left by absent or inaccessible evidence can filled in in different ways.
    • Of course, the resurrection of Jesus is such a pivotal event (if it was one) that it deserves special treatment.
    • But, even so, we can’t say how it occurred – which is why people are so keen to believe that the Shroud of Turin is genuine and was created by “resurrection radiation”.
    • Finally, I’m not impressed by the choice of an extreme sceptic as the only opponent in this regard. Presumably many moderate historians would adopt a “no access” stance.
    Footnote 12:
    • Wright says “fails to distinguish the senses”.
    • Without reading Marxsen, who can say, but the sentence I’ve compressed out of Wright’s text seems reasonable enough, and not a muddle.
    • If we’re strictly talking about the “transition” then we strictly have to remain silent as we really are cut off from the event.
    Footnote 13:
    • I think Hume’s point is entirely right, and think that all right-thinking people should share this view.
    • The issue then – of course – is whether Hume’s stricture is ever satisfied (as Hume denied, but which Wright thinks happened in this case – the rise of the Church being inexplicable without the Resurrection, he claims).
    Footnote 14:
    • We’re referred to resuscitations & healings.
    • But I’d have thought that these are also equally – if not more – doubtful.
    Footnote 15:
    • Wright gives a long – and to my mind unconvincing – paragraph in support of this claim.
    • The point is that the rise of the early Church is (to a naturalist) entirely natural and (as Wright admits) can be explained in terms of a portfolio of partially analogous events – even if there is no exact parallel (and this might be debated).
    • But in the case of the Resurrection we’re talking about a supernatural event, so finding an analogy – without begging the question – is difficult.
    Footnote 16: I think I agree that the “no analogy” argument isn’t that important, but don’t accept Wright’s rejection of it.


    "Wright (N.T.) - Shadows, Souls and Where They Go: Life Beyond Death in Ancient Paganism"

    Source: Wright (N.T.) - The Resurrection of the Son of God


    Sections
    1. Introduction
    2. Shadows, Souls, or Potential Gods?
      1. Introduction
      2. Witless Shadows in a Murky World?
      3. Disembodied1 but Otherwise Fairly Normal?
      4. Souls Released from Prison?
      5. Becoming a God (or at least a Star)?
    3. Further Life from within the World of the Dead?
      1. Introduction
      2. Eating with the Dead
      3. Spirits, Souls and Ghosts
      4. Returning from the Underworld
      5. Cheating Death: The Scheintod Motif in Novels
      6. Translated to Be With the Gods
      7. Transmigration of Souls
      8. Dying and Rising Gods
    4. Conclusion: The One-Way Street

    Paper Comment

    PART I: Setting the Scene - Chapter 2


    "Wright (N.T.) - Time to Wake Up (1): Death and Beyond in the Old Testament"

    Source: Wright (N.T.) - The Resurrection of the Son of God


    Sections
    1. Introduction
    2. Asleep1 with the Ancestors
      1. Next to Nothingness - 87
      2. Disturbing the Dead - 93
      3. The Unexplained Exceptions - 94
      4. The Land of No Return - 96
      5. The Nature and Ground of Hope - 99
    3. And Afterwards? - 103
      1. Introduction - 103
      2. Delivered from Sheol? - 103
      3. Glory after Suffering? - 105
      4. The Basis of Future Hope - 107
    4. Awakening the Sleepers2 - 108
      1. Introduction - 108
      2. Daniel 12: The Sleepers3 Wake, the Wise Shine - 109
      3. The Servant and the Dust-Dwellers: Isaiah - 115
      4. On the Third Day: Hosea - 118
      5. Dry Bones and God's Breath: Ezekiel - 119
      6. Resurrection and the Hope of Israel - 121
    5. Conclusion - 127

    Paper Comment

    PART I: Setting the Scene - Chapter 3


    "Wright (N.T.) - Time to Wake Up (2): Hope Beyond Death in Post-Biblical Judaism"

    Source: Wright (N.T.) - The Resurrection of the Son of God


    Sections
    1. Introduction: The Spectrum - 129
    2. No Future Life, or None to Speak of: The Sadducees - 131
    3. Blessed (and Disembodied1) Immortality - 140
    4. Resurrection in Second-Temple Judaism - 146
      1. Introduction - 146
      2. Resurrection in the Bible: The More Greek the Better - 147
      3. New Life for the Martyrs: 2 Maccabees - 150
      4. Judgment and Life in God's New World: Resurrection and Apocalyptic - 153
      5. Resurrection as the Vindication of the Suffering Wise: The Wisdom of Solomon - 162
      6. Resurrection, in Other Words: Josephus - 175
      7. Resurrection at Qumran? - 181
      8. Pseudo-Philo, Biblical Antiquities - 189
      9. Pharisees, Rabbis and Targumim - 190
    5. Resurrection in Ancient Judaism: Conclusion - 200

    Paper Comment

    PART I: Setting the Scene - Chapter 4


    "Wright (N.T.) - Resurrection in Paul (Outside the Corinthian Correspondence)"

    Source: Wright (N.T.) - The Resurrection of the Son of God


    Sections
    1. Introduction: The Early Christian Hope - 209
    2. 1 and 2 Thessalonians - 213
    3. Galatians - 219
    4. Philippians - 225
    5. Ephesians and Colossians - 236
    6. Philemon - 240
    7. Romans - 241
      1. Introduction - 241
      2. Romans 1-4 - 242
      3. Romans 5-8 - 248
      4. Romans 9-11 - 260
      5. Romans 12-16 - 263
    8. Interlude: The Pastoral Epistles - 267
    9. Paul (outside the Corinthian Correspondence): Conclusion - 271

    Paper Comment

    PART II: Resurrection in Paul - Chapter 5


    "Wright (N.T.) - Resurrection in Corinth (1): Introduction"

    Source: Wright (N.T.) - The Resurrection of the Son of God


    Sections
    1. Introduction: The Problem - 277
    2. Resurrection in 1 Corinthians (apart from Chapter 15) - 278
      1. Introduction - 278
      2. 1 Corinthians 1-4: God's Wisdom, God's Power, God's Future - 280
      3. 1 Corinthians 5-6: Sex, Lawyers and Judgment - 286
      4. 1 Corinthians 7: Marriage - 291
      5. 1 Corinthians 8-10: Idols, Food, Monotheism and Apostolic Freedom - 292
      6. 1 Corinthians 11-14: Worship and Love - 294
    3. Resurrection in 2 Corinthians (apart from 4.7-5.11) - 297
      1. Introduction - 297
      2. 2 Corinthians 1-2: Suffering and Comfort - 300
      3. 2 Corinthians 3.1-6.13: the Apostolic Apologia - 302
      4. 2 Corinthians 6.14-9.15: Fragments? - 307
      5. 2 Corinthians 10-13: Weakness and Power - 307
    4. Conclusion: Resurrection at Corinth - 309

    Paper Comment

    PART II: Resurrection in Paul - Chapter 6


    "Wright (N.T.) - Resurrection in Corinth (2): The Key Passages"

    Source: Wright (N.T.) - The Resurrection of the Son of God


    Sections
    1. 1 Corinthians 15 - 312
      1. Introduction - 312
      2. 1 Corinthians 15.1-11 - 317
      3. 1 Corinthians 15.12-28 - 329
        … … (a) Introduction - 329
        … … (b) I Corinthians 15.12-19 - 331
        … … (c) 1 Corinthians 15.20-28 - 333
      4. 1 Corinthians 15.29-34 - 338
      5. I Corinthians 15.35-49 - 340
        … … (a) Introduction - 340
        … … (b) 1 Corinthians 15.35-41 - 342
        … … (c) 1 Corinthians 15.42-9 - 347
      6. 1 Corinthians 15.50-58 - 356
      7. 1 Corinthians 15: Conclusion - 360
    2. 2 Corinthians 4.7-5.10 - 361
      1. Introduction - 361
      2. 2 Corinthians 4.7-15 - 362
      3. 2 Corinthians 4.16-5.5 - 364
      4. 2 Corinthians 5.6-10 - 369
      5. Conclusion - 370
    3. Conclusion: Resurrection in Paul - 372

    Paper Comment

    PART II: Resurrection in Paul - Chapter 7


    "Wright (N.T.) - When Paul Saw Jesus"

    Source: Wright (N.T.) - The Resurrection of the Son of God


    Sections
    1. Introduction - 375
    2. Paul's Own Accounts - 378
      1. Galatians 1.11-17 - 378
      2. 1 Corinthians 9.1 - 381
      3. 1 Corinthians 15.8-11 - 382
      4. 2 Corinthians 4.6 - 384
      5. 2 Corinthians 12.1-4 - 386
    3. Paul's Conversion/Call in Acts - 388
    4. Conversion and Christology - 393
    5. Conclusion - 398

    Paper Comment

    PART II: Resurrection in Paul - Chapter 8


    "Wright (N.T.) - Hope Refocused (1): Gospel Traditions Outside the Easter Narratives"

    Source: Wright (N.T.) - The Resurrection of the Son of God


    Sections
    1. Introduction - 401
    2. Resurrection in Mark and its Parallels - 404
      1. Healing - 404
      2. Challenge - 405
      3. The Future Vindication of Jesus - 408
      4. Puzzles - 411
        … … (a) Herod - 411
        … … (b) The Disciples' Perplexity - 414
      5. The Sadducees' Question - 415
        … … (a) Introduction - 415
        … … (b) No Marriage in the Resurrection - 420
        … … (c) God of the Living - 423
        … … (d) Patriarchs, Exodus and Kingdom - 426
    3. Resurrection in the Matthew/Luke Material (Sometimes Known as ‘Q') - 429
    4. Resurrection in Matthew - 434
    5. Resurrection in Luke - 435
    6. Resurrection in John - 440
    7. Resurrection in the Gospels: Conclusion - 448

    Paper Comment

    PART III: Resurrection in Early Christianity (Apart from Paul) - Chapter 9


    "Wright (N.T.) - Hope Refocused (2): Other New Testament Writings"

    Source: Wright (N.T.) - The Resurrection of the Son of God


    Sections
    1. Introduction - 450
    2. Acts - 451
    3. Hebrews - 457
    4. The General Letters - 461
    5. Revelation - 470
    6. Conclusion: Resurrection in the New Testament - 476

    Paper Comment

    PART III: Resurrection in Early Christianity (Apart from Paul) - Chapter 10


    "Wright (N.T.) - Hope Refocused (3): Non-Canonical Early Christian Texts"

    Source: Wright (N.T.) - The Resurrection of the Son of God


    Sections
    1. Introduction - 480
    2. Apostolic Fathers - 481
      1. 1 Clement - 481
      2. 2 Clement - 483
      3. Ignatius of Antioch - 484
      4. Polycarp: Letter and Martyrdom - 486
      5. The Didache - 488
      6. Barnabas - 489
      7. The Shepherd of Hermas - 491
      8. Papias - 492
      9. The Epistle to Diognetus - 493
    3. Early Christian Apocrypha - 494
      1. Introduction - 494
      2. The Ascension of Isaiah - 495
      3. The Apocalypse of Peter - 496
      4. 5 Ezra - 498
      5. The Epistula Apostolorum - 499
    4. The Apologists - 500
      1. Justin Martyr - 500
      2. Athenagoras - 503
      3. Theophilus - 506
      4. Minucius Felix - 508
    5. The Great Early Theologians - 510
      1. Tertullian - 510
      2. Irenaeus - 513
      3. Hippolytus - 517
      4. Origen - 518
    6. Early Syriac Christianity - 527
      1. Introduction - 527
      2. The Odes of Solomon - 528
      3. Tatian - 531
      4. The Acts of Thomas - 532
    7. 'Resurrection' as Spirituality? Texts from Nag Hammadi and Elsewhere - 534
      1. Introduction - 534
      2. The Gospel of Thomas - 534
      3. Other Thomas Literature - 537
      4. The Epistle to Rheginos - 538
      5. The Gospel of Philip - 541
      6. Other Nag Hammadi Treatises - 544
      7. The Gospel of the Saviour - 546
      8. Nag Hammadi: Conclusion - 547
    8. The Second Century: Conclusion - 551

    Paper Comment

    PART III: Resurrection in Early Christianity (Apart from Paul) - Chapter 11


    "Wright (N.T.) - Hope in Person: Jesus as Messiah and Lord"

    Source: Wright (N.T.) - The Resurrection of the Son of God


    Sections
    1. Introduction - 553
    2. Jesus as Messiah - 554
      1. Messiahship in Early Christianity - 554
      2. Messiahship in Judaism - 557
      3. Why Then Call Jesus Messiah? - 559
    3. Jesus, the Messiah, is Lord - 563
      1. Introduction - 563
      2. Jesus and the Kingdom - 566
      3. Jesus and Caesar - 568
      4. Jesus and YHWH - 571
    4. Conclusion: Resurrection within the Early Christian Worldview - 578

    Paper Comment

    PART III: Resurrection in Early Christianity (Apart from Paul) - Chapter 12


    "Wright (N.T.) - General Issues in the Easter Stories"

    Source: Wright (N.T.) - The Resurrection of the Son of God


    Sections
    1. Introduction - 587
    2. The Origin of the Resurrection Narratives - 589
      1. Sources and Traditions? - 589
      2. The Gospel of Peter - 592
      3. The Form of the Story - 596
      4. Redaction and Composition? - 597
    3. The Surprise of the Resurrection Narratives - 599
      1. The Strange Silence of the Bible in the Stories - 599
      2. The Strange Absence of Personal Hope in the Stories - 602
      3. The Strange Portrait of Jesus in the Stories - 604
      4. The Strange Presence of the Women in the Stories - 607
    4. The Historical Options - 608

    Paper Comment

    PART IV: The Story of Easter - Chapter 13


    "Wright (N.T.) - Fear and Trembling: Mark"

    Source: Wright (N.T.) - The Resurrection of the Son of God


    Sections
    1. Introduction - 616
    2. The Ending - 617
    3. From Story to History - 625
    4. Easter Day from Mark's Point of View - 627

    Paper Comment

    PART IV: The Story of Easter - Chapter 14


    "Wright (N.T.) - Earthquakes and Angels: Matthew"

    Source: Wright (N.T.) - The Resurrection of the Son of God


    Sections
    1. Introduction - 632
    2. Ruptured Earth and Rising Corpses - 632
    3. The Priests, the Guards and the Bribe - 636
    4. Tomb, Angels, First Appearance (28.1-10) - 640
    5. On the Mountain in Galilee (28.16-20) - 642
    6. Matthew and the Resurrection: Conclusion - 645

    Paper Comment

    PART IV: The Story of Easter - Chapter 15


    "Wright (N.T.) - Burning Hearts and Broken Bread: Luke"

    Source: Wright (N.T.) - The Resurrection of the Son of God


    Sections
    1. Introduction - 647
    2. Luke 24 and Acts 1 within Luke's Work as a Whole - 649
    3. The Unique Event - 656
    4. Easter and the Life of the Church - 659
    5. Luke and the Resurrection: Conclusion - 660

    Paper Comment

    PART IV: The Story of Easter - Chapter 16


    "Wright (N.T.) - New Day, New Tasks: John"

    Source: Wright (N.T.) - The Resurrection of the Son of God


    Sections
    1. Introduction - 662
    2. John 20 within the Gospel as a Whole - 667
    3. The Contribution of John 21 - 675
    4. The Gospel Easter Stories: Conclusion - 679

    Paper Comment

    PART IV: The Story of Easter - Chapter 17


    "Wright (N.T.) - Easter and History"

    Source: Wright (N.T.) - The Resurrection of the Son of God


    Sections
    1. Introduction - 685
    2. The Tomb and the Meetings - 686
    3. Two Rival Theories - 697
      1. 'Cognitive Dissonance' - 697
      2. A New Experience of Grace - 701
    4. The Necessary Condition - 706
    5. The Historical Challenge of Jesus' Resurrection - 710

    Paper Comment

    PART V: Belief, Event and Meaning - Chapter 18


    "Wright (N.T.) - The Risen Jesus as the Son of God"

    Source: Wright (N.T.) - The Resurrection of the Son of God


    Sections
    1. Worldview, Meaning and Theology - 719
    2. The Meanings of 'Son of God' - 723
      1. Introduction - 723
      2. Resurrection and Messiahship - 726
      3. Resurrection and World Lordship - 728
      4. Resurrection and the Question of God - 731
    3. Shooting at the Sun? - 736

    Paper Comment

    PART V: Belief, Event and Meaning - Chapter 19


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