The Resurrection of the Son of God: Christian Origins and the Question of God, Vol. 3 [Paperback]

Essentially, Wright starts by analyzing the pagan worldview as it was (theoretically speaking) around the time of Jesus. As noted above, his command of the literature is impressive, he gives a convincing portrait of what a pagan living sometime between 200 BCE and 200 CE would have believed about the nature of life, death and the after-life. It is clear, to the discerning reader, that from the outset his goal will be to show why it is a mistake for scholars to read too much paganism into the early church and, thus, into the New Testament documents themselves. He illustrates this by giving an account of the stories, praxis, questions and answers, and symbols of both second temple Judaism and paganism, and then by arguing that the data of Christian literature proves a best fit within the Jewish worldview.

From there, he goes on to show how the Christian story was a linear offshoot of the Jewish story, particularly concerning the resurrection. Christians would have been seen a "radical" Jews by the surrounding Jewish community, because of their beliefs concering the resurrection and the man named Jesus of Nazareth whom, apparently, God had raised from the dead marking the beginning of the kingdom and the promise of a future resurrection for those whom follow the Christ. Wright argues his point by analying the relevant passages themselves and, for the most part, his analysis is brilliant, original and refreshing.

However, I still disagree with Wright on many points including his estimation of the pagan influence on early Christianity and, thus, on the writings of the New Testament (particularly Paul) as well as some of his exegesis of Scripture and, ultimately, his conviction that Jesus is the resurrected, divine, Son of God. I suspect that in a conversation he and I would have to agree to disagree: fair enough. After all, Wright's three books are just telling a story, a story from a particular point of view. It is a higly detailed and fairly coherent story, but it is still just a story, one of many. I like that Wright himself admits as much (see book one), and leaves it to the reader to make his decision. I have made mine (for now). I envite you to read this work, for it has the potential to challenge you re-consider the story you now tell, and replace it with something closer to the one Wright wants to tell the world. If this intruigues you, this book is well worth your time.

Wright traces the development of the Christian belief in resurrection by contrasting it with the prevailing notions of life after death in the Jewish and Greek cultural worlds. What emerges is clear: nothing quite like the resurrection stories in the Gospels was ever in view before the evangelists wrote them down. He argues cogently that the differences in the resurrection stories in the gospels, far from proving their lack of trustworthiness, point toward a sense of awe and wonder that everyone involved felt regarding Jesus' appearances. This should be expected when someone has an experience that is literally the first of its kind in human history.

As a methodological point, I especially appreciate Wright's assertion that history is not made up of repeatable events, but unrepeatable events, such as Caesar crossing the Rubicon. No one expects Julius to march on Rome again any time soon, but no one seriously doubts the he did just that. The same criteria should be extended to the resurrection of Jesus.

I also enjoyed his point that dead people stayed dead in the ancient world just as in the modern (or is it post-modern?) one. Modern NT scholarship often assumes no one who lived in the first century knew anything at all about the world or how it operates, and therefore their understanding of the world needs correction through the lenses of the enlightenment.

As always, Wright writes with an almost devotional warmth and never slides into the dreaded trap of speaking theologese, though it's clear that he could if he so chose.

This work is likely to offend fundamentalists and liberals alike, which is always refreshing. Buy this book. You may hate it or it may change your life, but Wright's work is worth your money.