I’ve missed blogging for the last two weeks. I intentionally took a little break to put together a talk that I’ve been asked to give for my Tres Dias group at the end of the month, and various other events and distractions extended my ‘little break’ to two weeks!! The Superbowl (my team won!!!!), a freak Texas ‘blizzard’, as well as some extra time spent with friend and family have extended this break as far as I can stand. Writing about my continuing journey into coming to a fuller knowledge and understanding of God has become nearly as important to me as actual Bible Study and daily prayer.

I am almost finished with N.T. Wrights ‘The Resurrection of The Son of God’ and I must say that, perhaps in combination with all of the other distractions going on during the last month, it has been the most challenging theological tome that I have read to date.

The main thrust of the book is the argument for the bodily, physical resurrection of not only Jesus but of the Christian believer as well. Wright starts off with all of the Old Testament works indicating the Jewish hope for bodily resurrection leading up to the Second Temple period, including various apocypha that point toward a bodily resurrection. He then explores in great depth all of the New Testament writings themselves arguing for the bodily resurrection.

Wright then delves into the writings of the patristics concerning bodily resurrection from Clement to Polycarp all the way through the second and third century apologists such as Justin Martyr and Theopholis before turning to the theologians such as Tertullian and Origen.

Wright then turns to the alternative polemics against bodily resurrection of early Syriac Christianity and the gnostic writings such as are found in the Nag Hammadi texts and elsewhere and provides arguments against these writings and how they are notably late and have significant Platonic influences. Although I have briefly read through the ‘Gospel of Thomas’ and other Nag Hammadi texts before, Wrights exposition of them and polemic against them has given me much more exposure to these gnostic writings than I have had before. Some pretty interesting stuff there….gotta wonder where the writers got their source material.

Coming from the Armstrong tradition of resurrection being a purely spiritual experience (we’re all going to be glorified ‘Spirit Beings”) and then moving from there to the Baptists and Charismatics who really don’t speak much about a bodily resurrection and just pretty much give the standard fare of ‘going to Heaven when we die’, I have found Wright’s arguments in this book very compelling and thought-provoking.

I must admit that I had never really given much thought to ‘bodily resurrection’ until a year or two ago when I first heard it preached, although seemingly in passing, at the Methodist church during a sermon on the final judgement. I remember at the time going, “huh?,” but didn’t put much more thought into it until about a year ago when I read Wrights more popular and much easier to read “Surprised By Hope.”

After reading “Surprised By Hope” and doing a quick survey of the scriptural material on the subject, I was fairly well convinced of the idea of ‘bodily resurrection’ (in a glorified and incorruptable body of course) and began to realize how much some of the gnostic spiritualization of resurrection has pervaded Christianity. I also see where the Christian worldview, both individually as well as corporately is somewhat compromised by the lack of emphasis on bodily resurrection. I’m sure that I will find more significance on the topic of ‘bodily resurrection’ or as Wright puts it both in this book as well as in ‘Surprised By Hope’ as ‘life after “life after death”‘ once I have had time to digest the considerable material covered in this book.

Although “The Resurrection of The Son of God” has been a very interesting and enlightening read, I will be glad when I have finished it. I have about 150 or so of the 800+ pages left and am looking forward to moving on to different material. I have at times felt bogged down by the sheer magnitude of all of the sources that Wright explores in this book, and am looking forward to reading something perhaps a little lighter.

I’ll be (hopefully) getting back into my regular blogging this week, and although I may touch some more on this book, there are many other things that I want to write about as well.

And, oh yea, I turned 43 today! Happy birthday to me!!