The Resurrection of the Son of God
Why
did Christianity begin, and why did it take the shape it did? To answer
this question -- which any historian must face -- renowned New
Testament scholar N. T. Wright focuses on the key points: what precisely
happened at Easter? What did the early Christians mean when they said
that Jesus of Nazareth had been raised from the dead? What can be said
today about this belief?This book, third in Wright's series Christian
Origins and the Question of God, sketches a map of ancient beliefs about
life after death, in both the Greco-Roman and Jewish worlds. It then
highlights the fact that the early Christians' belief about the
afterlife belonged firmly on the Jewish spectrum, while introducing
several new mutations and sharper definitions. This, together with other
features of early Christianity, forces the historian to read the Easter
narratives in the gospels, not simply as late rationalizations of early
Christian spirituality, but as accounts of two actual events: the empty
tomb of Jesus and his "appearances."How do we explain these phenomena?
The early Christians' answer was that Jesus had indeed been bodily
raised from the dead; that was why they hailed him as the messianic "son
of God." No modern historian has come up with a more convincing
explanation. Facing this question, we are confronted to this day with
the most central issues of the Christian worldview and theology.
No comments:
Post a Comment