Resurrection: The Origin and Future of a Biblical Doctrine

by James H. Charlesworth

Resurrection is the central feature of the New Testament gospels and lies at the center of many of Paul's letters as well. In addition, the doctrine of the resurrection lies at the core of the Christian church's faith. The essays in this stunning collection explore the idea of resurrection as the idea appears not only in the New Testament texts but also in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the pseudepigraphal Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, and in contemporary theology. Charlesworth asks where the concept of resurrection appears and the ways we know it, and he also examines the concept of resurrection in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament. Casey Elledge explores the earliest evidence we have for a notion of a resurrection of the dead and investigates the hope for Israel in Judaism and Christianity found in the Testaments. Crenshaw looks at the Hebrew Bible's ideas of resurrection, and Hendrikus Boers examines the meaning of Christ's resurrections in Paul's writings. W. Waite Willis explores a theology of resurrection.

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Rachael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Several scholars of the bible and theology provide insight into the concept of the resurrection in Jewish and early Christian thinking. The upshot is that it did not appear in Jewish thinking until 2nd C BCE with 1 Enoch and later Daniel (written during the Maccabean revolt, 164-67 BCE). It also makes a clear appearance in the Dead Sea Scrolls in a couple of writings, including one aptly named On Resurrection, and other later apocryphal works such as the Psalms of Solomon (often attributed to the Pharisees because it does include references to the resurrection. In the first essay Charlesworth helpfully points out that there are many different ways that the concept of the resurrection can be employed, so what might appear to be references to the resurrection say in Ezekiel's discussion about the valley of the dry bones actually is not a reference to an individual resurrection of the body but rather a resurrection of the nation of Israel.

All of this was insightful and I did learn many things. My complaint is that I could have learned so much more. I did not think the insights into how the theology of the resurrection impacts us today was particularly penetrating and cringed when Charlesworth kept bringing up how exotic items in today's physics seems to open up scientific allowance for miracles (huh?, no, not really). And I was disappointed that the details were so lacking. For instance in Boer's treatment of the resurrection in Paul I didn't learn anything about what Paul thought about the resurrection, what he means by 'spiritual bodies' for instance, only that he used rhetoric about the resurrection in a pastoral manner to exhort his readers/listeners to good behavior as they have died in Christ, and thus to their sins, and participate in Christ and in his resurrection. That is all well and good, but it seems that much ink was spilled to make a handful of points and so much more remained to be said.

Overall it was a relatively fast read, I did learn some things, but was disappointed by the notable lack of detail.