On Resurrection

Reading the beginning of The Resurrection of the Son of God NT Wright does a good deal of work moving through the pagan writings around the ideas of resurrection and life after death (which are two different things). I wish everyone over here arguing about it would stop, and read the first hundred or so pages to get an idea about how to even talk about the subject to begin with.

That said, there is more on the topic (and I wish I could get my hands on the presentation) being talked about over at Singing in the Reign. The conclusion from the rabbinic text fits perfectly within the model suggested by Jesus talking with the Saducees: the object of resurrection is to make whole, restore, and to perfect the person. The Jewish worldview saw the created order as good, not evil or to be escaped as did the pagan views. The Jewish hope was a fully restored and perfected creation. The hope for the whole included the hope for the individual. This came about in the idea of resurrection, though not all Jewish people did believe and expect resurrection. Clearly all Christians did.

It is important once more to be clear on the key topic before we go any further. The texts we shall consider, however we understand their detailed nuances, are not speaking about a new contrual of life after death, but something that will happen after whatever ‘life after death’ may involve. Resurrection is not just another way of talking about Sheol, or about what happens, as in Psalm 73, ‘afterwards’, that is, after the event of bodily death. It speaks of something that will happen, if it does, after that again. Resurrection means bodily life after ‘life after death’, or, if you prefer, bodily life after the state of ‘death’.
The Resurrection of the Son of God, NT Wright, pg 108-9