Revisiting The Empty Tomb

"The Gospels disagree on what happened at the empty tomb: on who was there, and on what they saw or heard. The fact that our earliest written witness to the risen Christ, Paul, says nothing of the empty tomb has long provoked the question, what were the earliest believers saying about Easter, and what did they think it meant? Daniel A. Smith seeks to get behind the theological and apologetic concern to "prove" the resurrection and asks, where did the accounts of the early tomb come from, and what purpose did they originally serve? He shows that Paul is a valuable witness to the development of Easter traditions; that Q was already interested in connecting the disappearance of Jesus with his future role; that Mark was interested in the disappearance of Jesus, rather than in his restored presence as risen; and that both sources had interests different from the later Gospels. Chapters provide careful and insightful discussions of the earliest traditions about Jesus' disappearance; at last Smith draws significant implications for a theory of Christian origins." -- BOOK JACKET.

Christian faith depends upon the resurrection of Jesus, but the claim about Jesus' resurrection is, nevertheless, disputed. This book, written by a New Testament scholar and a systematic theologian in conjunction, develops the conditions for the claim. It carefully analyzes the relevant texts and their possible interpretations and engages with New Testament scholarship in order to show nuances and different trajectories in the material. The picture emerging is that the New Testament authors themselves tried to come to terms with how to understand the claim that Jesus had been resurrected from the dead. But the book does not stop there: by also asking for the experiential content that gave rise to the belief in the resurrection. Sandnes and Henriksen argue that there is no such thing as an experience of the resurrection reported in the New Testament--only experiences of an empty tomb and appearance of Jesus, interpreted as Jesus resurrected. Hence, resurrection emerges as an interpretative category for post-Easter experiences, and is only understandable in light of the full content of Jesus' ministry and its context.

This Book answers key questions that surround Jesus' death and argues that the events of that fateful weekend in Jerusalem changed the world forever. Layer upon layer of detail draws the reader into the frightening hours leading up to Jesus' death. The volume traces the movements of all involved in his tragic execution and follows the story to the empty tomb, examining the improbability that anyone could be raised from death. Walker discusses at length the location of Jesus' burial, drawing on the evidence of the Gospels, archaeology, and church history, and focuses on the two likely sites: the Garden Tomb and the church of the Holy Sepulchre. Walker also explores the impact of Jesus' resurrection on Christians then and now, noting how the message of the Garden Tomb has been a source of inspiration to millions of people from all over the World: "He Is Not Here, For He Is Risen."

Back cover: In this work, John Granger Cook argues that there is no fundamental difference between Paul's conception of the resurrection body and that of the Gospels; and, the resurresction and translation stories of antiquity help explain the willingness of Mediterranean people to accept the Gospel of a risen savior.

Bryan combines literary, historical, and theological approaches in this study of the doctrine of the Resurrection. Throughout, Bryan exhibits a willingness to face hard questions as well as an appropriate reverence for a faith that for almost two thousand years has enabled millions of people to lead lives of meaning and grace.

Risen Indeed? Resurrection and Doubt in the Gospel of Mark traces the literary dynamics and explores the theological dimensions of the Gospel of Mark’s thematization of skepticism regarding resurrection. In every place where it seems to depict resurrection—Jesus's and others'—Mark evades the issue of whether resurrection actually occurs. Austin Busch argues that, despite Mark's abbreviated and ambiguous conclusion, this gospel does not downplay resurrection but rather foregrounds it, imagining Jesus’s death and restoration to life as a divine plot to overcome Satan through cunning deception. Risen Indeed? constitutes a careful literary reading of Mark's Gospel, as well as an assessment of Mark's impact on the traditions of Christian literature and theology that emerged in its wake.

In 2003 the British New Testament scholar N. T. Wright published The Resurrection of the Son of God, arguing vigorously that the Resurrection of Christ should be handled purely as a historical event—subjected to historical reason and critical-historical research. This book critically examines Wright’s arguments. Peter Carnley demonstrates the flaws in the view that the Resurrection should be understood essentially as Jesus’ return from the dead to this world of space and time in a material and physical body. Carnley argues that the Resurrection of Christ is a “mystery of God,” which must necessarily be appropriated, not by reason alone, but by faith. Evidence relating to a past occurrence can be known only retrospectively. Yet Easter faith has to do with apprehending in the present a concretely experienced reality—which Saint Paul called “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:2). An epistemology of the identification of the Spirit in faith as the living presence of Christ will be found in the companion volume to this book: The Reconstruction of Resurrection Belief.

This collection of essays by leading experts in New Testament scholarship addresses core themes in the study of early Christianity. It is dedicated to Henk Jan de Jonge (Emeritus Professor in the New Testament, Leiden University) in honour of his important contributions to the field of New Testament Studies.