Table of Contents

Part I. The Setting
1. The Hope of Israel
2. Death and the Afterlife in the Greco-Roman World beyond Israel
3. The Christian Claim
Part II. Witnesses
1. Paul
2. Mark
3. Matthew
4. Luke
5. John
Part III. Questioning the Witnesses
1. What Should We Make of the Witnesses' Claims?
2. So What? A Partially Unscientific Postscript
Additional Notes
Additional Note A: On Varieties of Faith in Early Christianity
Additional Note B: On Whether the New Testament Narratives Are Useful Sources of Information about Anything That May Actually Have Happened
Additional Note C: Are the Passion Narratives Examples of "the Prophetization of History," or of "the Historicization of Prophecy"?
Additional Note D: The Resurrection of the Dead and Torah
Additional Note E: The Alexamenos Graffito and Texts of Terror
Additional Note F: Further Reflections on Paul's Understanding of Resurrection as Involving a Transformed Physicality
Additional Note G: Further Reflections on Paul's Understanding of Our Present Experience of Transformation in and through Christ
Additional Note H: The New Testament and the Negative Eschaton: The Possibility of Damnation
Endnotes
Selected Bibliography and Sources
Abbreviations
Index

About the Author

Christopher Bryan, sometime scholar of Wadham College, Oxford, is C.K. Benedict Professor of New Testament Emeritus at the University of the South. Since his semi-retirement in 2008 he continues to write and teach, and is currently editor of the Sewanee Theological Review, one of only two Anglican quarterly journals of theology currently published in the United States.

Reviews

"This is an exciting contribution to the literature and immensely readable. It is particularly strong in presenting the Gospel texts as performed text and in exploring some of the questions provoked by such a reading, with reference to classical and modern exemplars. Bryan has a large appreciation of the way theatre works and his references to both Greek drama and Shakespeare are effective and illuminating. The breadth of reference throughout is stimulating and
heartening in a work that also pays such close attention to text."--Fr. Peter Allan CR, Lecturer and Vice-Principal, the College of the Resurrection
"As in the earlier Render to Caesar, Christopher Bryan constructs straightforward, consecutive and easily traceable arguments, and writes strikingly clear prose-with an occasional touch of whimsy. These are uncommon virtues in the academic world. Indeed, he has actually hewn a good read through the dense exegetical thickets that scholarship has cultivated around the Resurrection-the thorns and brambles are there for those vocationally committed to
dealing with them, but relegated to the plentiful footnotes."--Robert Jenson, Senior Scholar, Center of Theological Inquiry (ret.)
"Bryan offers not only an elegant and erudite exposition of what the NT says about Jesus' resurrection and the good grounds for believing it but also a survey of numerous ancillary areas." --The Catholic Biblical Quarterly