The Life Passion Death And Resurrection Of Jesus Christ

For most Christian believers, what is truly remarkable and important about Jesus is not his life, but his resurrection from the dead. They may believe that Jesus' death is significant not as the end of Jesus' life, but as the first half of the saving event that comprises the Christian gospel: the death and resurrection of Jesus. For Christians, this great divine cosmic event, around which all of human history pivots, is what saves us from our sins. Apart from this, the death of Jesus would simply be the meaningless end to an interesting but insignificant life. In this lively and provocative work, Patterson reconstructs early Christian assessments of Jesus' significance and also questions basic assumptions about modern interpretations of Jesus' death. He emphasizes the importance of Jesus' life in relation to his death and resurrection. And he challenges individualistic notions of how Jesus' death relates to Christian ethics.

The wisdom of Wright's biblical reflections applies to anyone who is suffering and offers a passage to hope through Christ and his victory over death.

Engaging the Passion gathers an impressive array of scholars to survey how the death of Jesus has been portrayed and represented in Scripture, liturgy and music, literature, art and film, and theology and ethics—from the first to the twenty-first centuries. The contributors approach the passion from a variety of perspectives—diversely Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and secular. Their voices differ as well, from the challenging to the comforting and from the academic to the confessional. They address the faithful, the skeptical, and the curious.