The Trouble with Resurrection

Bernard Brandon Scott, Polebridge Press

The importance of the chronology of New Testament writings has become much more evident to me in recent times.

The primacy the Church has given the gospels over many years has in some ways led to a distortion of the New Testament as a whole.

Brandon Scott, in The Trouble with Resurrection, highlights the need to consider chronology of New Testament writings in any serious exploration of resurrection.

Once we already believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus, and once this idea is integrated in our faith, it becomes the lens through which we view all examination of “the resurrection”.

Scott invites the reader to re-examine the phenomenon that is central to our Christian faith. Rather than beginning at the gospels of John (thought to be the latest New Testament writings), as we so often do, he begins with the authentic letters of Paul, our earliest New Testament writings.

He examines the language Paul uses to describe “resurrection” and how the metaphors used to describe “resurrection” in Paul’s context might help us understand Jesus’ “resurrection”.

Scott invites us to try to make sense of the “resurrection” again today.

This is a scholarly and careful examination of the scriptures.

It is not an easy read but one that is definitely worth the effort.

Karyl Davison