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Varieties of Resurrection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Geoffrey Turner
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During the last decade a large number of books on the resurrection have appeared, which reflect a wide range of theological perspectives. What is puzzling is not that there should have been such an interest in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but that the interpretations should have been so various. Why is there no unanimity of understanding concerning the resurrection? After all it is an event that is described in only a few short texts; why do exegetes find it so difficult to interpret these texts? The previous sentence, however, has already introduced us to some of the problems involved in this extremely complex hermeneutical situation. Is the resurrection an event? and is it (can it be) described in the New Testament? Exegetes and dogmatic theologians differ over these problems as much as over their understanding of the texts, and yet what is the relation of such questions as these to the linguistic content of the texts?

These reflections are prompted by the publication of an English translation of an interpretation of the texts concerning the resurrection by the distinguished French exegete Xavier Léon-Dufour. The bulk of Léon-Dufour’s book is presented as a straightforward interpretation of the texts, from the christological hymn of Philippians 2.6-11 and other Pauline and pseudo-Pauline literature to the major texts of Corinthians 15 and the closing chapters of each of the Gospels. Léon-Dufour offers an interpretation of the meaning of the texts not only in the limited literal sense but also in the wider context of the whole gospel message of each of the evangelists. One has the impression of an exegete with a distinguished past moving towards the end of a career and wanting to make a final statement on that most important of ‘events’.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 56 , Issue 661 , June 1975 , pp. 272 - 276
Copyright
Copyright © 1975 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 Léon‐Dufour, X., Resurrection and the Message of Easter, Geoffrey Chapman, London, 1974, pp. xxii + 330, paper £2.95Google Scholar.

2 Ibid, p. 196.

3 Fuller, R. H., The Formation of the Resurrection Narratives, New York, 1971, p. 23Google Scholar.

4 Barth, K., The Epistle to the Romans, trans, by Hoskyns, E. C., London, 1933Google Scholar; Die christliche Dogmatik im Entwurf, Munich, 1927Google Scholar.

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6 Ibid., p. 446.

7 Bultmann, R. K., ‘New Testament and Mythology’ in Kerygma and Myth, ed. by Bartsch, H‐W., trans, by Fuller, R. H., London, 1972,1, p. 39Google Scholar.

8 Ibid., I, p. 41.

9 ‘The Primitive Christian Kerygma and the Historical Jesus’ in The Historical Jesus and the Kerygmatic Christ, ed. by Braaten, C. and Harrisville, R., New York, 1964, p. 42Google Scholar.

10 Barth, Karl, The Resurrection of the Dead’ in Faith and Understanding, trans. by Smith, L. P., London, 1969, p. 93fGoogle Scholar.

11 Marxsen, W., The Resurrection of Jesus as a Historical and Theological Problem' in The Significance of the Message of the Resurrection for Faith in Jesus Christ, ed. by Moule, C. F. D., London, 1968, pp. 15–50Google Scholar.

12 Pannenberg, W., Jesus, God and Man, trans, by Priebe, D. and Wilkins, L. L., London, 1968, pp. 88–106Google Scholar; and “The Revelation of God in Jesus of Nazareth” in Theology as History, ed. by Robinson, J. M. and Cobb, J. B., New York, 1967, pp. 101–134Google Scholar: and ‘Response to the Discussion’, ibid., pp. 221–276.

13 Gadamer, H‐G., Wahrheit und Methode, Tubingen, 1972, pp. 284–290 and 356–360Google Scholar.

14 Marxsen, W., The Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, trans, by Kohl, Margaret London, 1970, p. 23fGoogle Scholar; and Cullmann, O., Salvation as History, trans, by Sowers, S. G., London, 1967, pp. 64–74Google Scholar.