170. n. t. wright, res. of son of god- review

7/30/2019 170. N. T. Wright, Res. of Son of God- Review

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REVIEWS OF BOOKS 235

N. T. Wright, The Resurrection ofthe Son ofGod. Christian Origins and the Question of

God 3. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003. Pp. xxi + 817. $39.00, paper.

. T. Wright's contribution to scholarly discussion on Jesus' resurrection is the third

installment of the recently installed Bishop of Durham's investigation into early Chris

tian history, belief, and development. What began as a seventy-page conclusion toJesus

andthe Victory ofGod(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996) has become a massive tome, ten times

larger than its originally conceived length. In this bookWright proposes to answer the

question, what really happened on Easter morning? He is asking a primarilyhistorical

question, though he takes up theological questions at the end.

In order to laythe groundworkfor his investigation of the early Christian documents,

Wright begins his journey along the road of resurrection speculation in the documents

of the Greco-Roman world (pp. 32-84). The considerable literature discussed indicates

that the ancients knew quite well what happened to people after they died: they stayed

dead (e.g., p. 33). This becomes one sharp edge of Wright's polemic: The notion that a

person might rise from the dead was no more at home in the worldviewof thefirstcen

tury than it is in the post-Enlightenment worldviewof the twenty-first century.

The next group of materials Wright investigates brings his studyone step closer to the

NT writings. Approximately forty pages of exegesis explore non-existent, latent, and

developing resurrection hopes ofthe Old Testament. Wright concludes that Israel's confi

dence in the creational and covenanted purposes of God pushed the writers of the OT to

a growing conviction that the nation's full andfinalrestoration from exilewould take place

in new, resurrection bodies (e.g., Pss 16; 73; 49; Dan 12:2-3; Isa 53:1-12,26:20-21). In this

section, Wright admirablyholds together the silence or vagueness about resurrection

expectation found in much ofthe OT with the hints and clear affirmations of resurrection

that italso contains. Most importantly, he synthesizes the OT data in such away that belief

in resurrectionflowsnaturally, ifboldly, from the OT's affirmations of God ascreator and

of creation as good.

Thefinalpreparatory step, taking the reader through page 206, investigates resurrec

tion hope in post-biblical Judaism. This section of Wright's work underpins several of

his arguments about the meanings of NT texts. He concludes that resurrection is used to

speak of God's restoring Israel from exile (parallel to Ezekiel's vision of the Valley of

DryBones in Ezek37) and of God's giving restoration ofbodilylife to the dead (p. 204).

Bodily restoration would happen at one fell swoop as one important facet of the age to

come (p. 205). Wright is anxious to undermine the widely held notion that resurrection

might refer to non-bodily revivification or even to continuing existence of the soul afterdeath. He also wants his readers to see clearly that no early Jewish writing indicates that


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In Part Two ofhis investigation, Wright engages the earliest written source from primi

tive Christianity: Paul. Nearly two hundred pages, over four chapters, take the reader

through resurrection in the Pauline corpus outside of the Corinthian correspondence

(pp. 209-76), then through the waters of 1 and 2 Corinthians that scholars have made

exceedingly rough over the past century (pp. 277-374), andfinallyinto Paul's accounts of

seeingJesus that onefindsin Paul's own letters and in Acts (pp. 275-398). The conclusions

that Wright draws in these chapters become the themes to which he repeatedly returns in

his study of earliest Christianity: Early Christian belief in resurrection falls, to a certain

extent, within the early Jewish worldview, especially as represented by the Pharisees. This

means, among other things, that resurrection is bodily. Different from every other early

Jewish group, however, Paul envisions resurrection as something that has already begun

in Jesus. This, in turn, accounts for his inaugurated eschatology. Paul distinguishes himselffrom his Jewish contemporaries in that resurrection has become a central element in his

thinking, determinative for other elements. Wright also never seems to grow tired ofmen

tioning that resurrection has political implications aswell: When Christians proclaim that

the resurrected Christ is the Lord and bringer of peace, the unspoken polemical edge is

that Caesar is not.

Much could be said about Wright's investigation of Paul, but a few words will have to

suffice. First, much ofWright's interpretation of Paul is highly commendable, especially

his recognition of the pervasive presence of resurrection in Romans. Throughout hisstudy on Paul, Wright highlights the continuity that Paul expresses between the present life

and the life to come (e.g., pp. 223, 231). This becomes an important leg in his larger

argument that NT resurrection expectation focuses on a new embodiedexistence. Wright's

description of the present resurrection-life of the believer (Rom 6) as a "metaphor" merits

further investigation (see p. 249). The term "metaphor" does not, for Wright, undermine

its reality. Nonetheless, the question remains as to whether Paul's description ofthe Chris

tian now raised to new life in Christ is to be taken as a metaphor or as a literal description

of something that happens to falloutside ofWright's definition of resurrection. Through

out the Paul section, readers who cut their Pauline teeth on Geerhardus Vos, Herman

Ridderbos, and Richard Gaffin willfindtheir understanding and appreciation of Paul's

resurrection theology confirmed and deepened by Wright's exegesis.

Part Three covers the remaining New Testament and early Christian writings with the

exception of the Gospels' resurrection narratives. Wright's whirlwind tour through the

Gospels' non-Easter material lends further support to his thesis that the NT expectation

of resurrection falls broadly along Pharisaic lines, but with the added twist that resurrec

tion would now be divided into two historical moments. Similarly, his survey of the other

NT documents indicates a belief that stands strongly over and against pagan denials ofresurrection and that recasts the Jewish, Pharisaicbelief. Throughout, Wright also estab


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REVIEWS OF BOOKS 237

atightorbit. It bears pointing out that Wright's decision to characterize the early Chris

tian writings enables him to leave aside the positions that several of the NT letters (e.g.,

1 Corinthians; 2 Timothy) were written in part to refute. Thus, his generalizations areaccurate, but some readers will no doubt want to argue for greater pluriformity within

early Christianity based precisely on the presence of "aberrations" in various commu

nities.

Nearly one hundred pages comprise Wright's section on the Easter Narratives. After

dealing with general questions, he discusses the peculiarities of each Gospel. The thrust

of his argument is to show that each of the Gospels only makes sense against the back

drop of belief in a bodily resurrection of Jesus. Moreover, Wright argues that the bodily

resurrection is not only the lone plausible explanation of the narratives; it is also the

most historically likely explanation for the events the Gospels narrate. Wright highlights

throughout the refocused nature of NT resurrection reflection as something that is com

prehensible only within the early Jewish worldview of Jewish creational monotheism.

The strength of this section lies in Wright's ability to see through interpretations of the

resurrection narratives that attempt to undermine the message of a bodily resurrection.

For instance, in his exposition of the Road to Emmaus story in Luke 24, Wright contends

strongly against the likes of J. Dominic Crossan who puzzlingly assert that "Emmaus

never happened. Emmaus always happened" (pp. 656-59). Against "Emmaus as

example," Wright argues that Luke has narrated the events involving the risen Christ asunrepeatable events. Although it may strike the reader as odd that Wright leaves his

discussions of the Easter narratives for the end of his work, the resultant strength with

which he is able to counter the various opinions raised up against orthodox Christianity

shows the wisdom of his course.

In the final section, Wright hopes to land his knockout punch. Having laboriously

investigated the belief of the early church, he now argues for the historical likelihood of

that belief. He presents a highly methodologically self-conscious argument for the histo

ricity of the resurrection ofJesus. Following this comes a short chapter on the significance of the resurrection: It confirms Jesus as Lord, Christ, and Son of God. Wright's

pastoral heart and prophetic voice here sound a call to the twenty-first century church to

live in accordance with the implications of its confession, recited globally in the Apos

tolic and Nicene Creeds, that Jesus was raised on the third day.

The sweep of Wright's study is tremendous. Few NT scholars can move with as much

ease among Greco-Roman, Old Testament, Second Temple Jewish, New Testament,

and Early Christian texts. As he does so, Wright correctly identifies several misreadings

of the early documents. Notable in this regard are some scholars' total denial of resur

rection expectation in the OT and some heinous misinterpretations of Paul's "spiritual

body" in 1 Cor 15. Wright is to be commended forperforming a great service to scholar


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The work is not without its problems, however. First, the book is a somewhat strange

combination of carefully constructed argument and bare assertion. Repeatedly one

finds Wright saying things such as, "If the writer had wanted to say x, this is not how hewould do it" (e.g:, pp. 315,634,637). Readers would have benefited more if Wright had

engaged the actual arguments that scholars who hold these positions have advanced.

Such glossing over of argumentation will, in all likelihood, undermine the force of

Wright's work for persuading an unsympathetic reader. This is a serious flaw.

A second shortcoming concerns Wright's aversion to the "intermediate state." He so

adamantly repudiates the intermediate state as thefinalhope that Paul's words in Phil 1

about desiring to depart and be with the Lord become, on Wright's reading, at best

unexpected and at worst nearly incomprehensible. Because of Wright's perpetual cari

caturing oftheposition that a Christian's hope is "going to heaven when I die," one doesnot expect him tofindin the NT such a positive assessment of the intermediate state as

it is often discerned. Afinalcritique has to do with Wright's attempt, in the last section of

the last chapter, to associate Jesus' resurrection with Jesus' pre-existence as Son of God.

Wright attempts to wring this out of Pauline passages such as Rom 1, 5, and 8 (pp. 732-

33) that are simply dry for this purpose. The argument would perhaps have been more

successful if Wright had appealed to the Gospel of John.

Notwithstanding such weaknesses, the main contours ofTheResunecon of the Son of God

helpfully encourage the reconsideration not only of historical questions about Jesus' resurrection but also of the theological implications that answers to those questions entail.

JAMES R. DANIEL KIRK

Duke University

Durham, North Carolina

E. Brooks Holifield, Theohgy in America: Christian Thoughtfiom theAge of the Puritans to

CivilWar.

New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003. Pp. ix + 617. $35.00, cloth.

It is hard to believe that it took over forty years for Sydney Ahlstrom's desire for a

comprehensive treatment of theology in America to be realized. After Ahlstrom's lengthy

andground-breaking survey of thefieldin 1961, it was widely assumed that such a treat

ment would come from his own pen. But when he died in 1984 without a theology in

America book to accompany his other magnum opus, A Religious History ofthe American

People( 1972), it remained for others to assume the task. With Theology in America, Ahlstrom's

student Brooks Holifield has taken up the challenge and succeeded brilliantly in this com

prehensive treatment of American theology from colonial founding to civil war.From his post as the Charles Howard Candler Professor of American Church History


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170. n. t. wright, res. of son of god- review

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