The Resurrection of the Son of God - Post #4

In Chapter 3 N.T. Wright gives us a thorough and honest review of the development of the idea of resurrection within Judaism from the Old Testament.

The fullest Old Testament resurrection imagery doesn't appear within Hebrew scriptures until the much later writings. When it does appear, it emerges simultaneously as a metaphorical expression of hope for national/political restoration from exile and foreign oppression as well as a literal expression of hope for bodily resurrection. Both of these concepts are firmly rooted in Israel's Creational and Covenantal understanding of God. Because God is the Creator of all that is and has specifically chosen Israel to be his covenant people, they were confident that he would ultimately be faithful to his promise and establish them as his own people within the land they had been promised. Because God is the Creator of all that is and has specifically chosen Israel to be his covenant people, they were confident that he would ultimately be faithful also to the faithful from Israel who had already perished without seeing the fulfillment of his promises. He would raise them from the dead.

Wright goes out of his way to demonstrate that this resurrection hope cannot be confused with a hope for a disembodied afterlife. It also cannot be merely viewed as a hope for national/political restoration, though the literal hope for bodily resurrection cannot be separated from that literal hope for national/political restoration for which resurrection was a metaphor.

This view of resurrection was a much later development within Old Testament Judaism. Early mentions of what can be expected after death point us to Sheol, the place for the dead. These ideas contain an expectation of sleeping, or of an existence that is barely existence at all. Later on, this idea develops further into some kind of undefined hope for life beyond the grave. This finally emerges into an expectation of resurrection. This resurrection hope, Wright concludes, is still firmly based in Israel's Covenental and Creational understanding of God's character and nature.