I want to bring to your attention, if I may, an absolute blockbuster of a book. It's by the present Bishop of Durham, Tom Wright, and is entitled The Resurrection of the Son of God. It is a massive piece of work, over 800 pages long and, if you like useless statistics, that must mean that it has well over 400,000 words. If you tried to read it aloud, it would take over 60 hours. It is not to be messed with; this is theology on a heroic and staggering scale.

I am going to attempt the impossible, to provide a summary of the first section. The book is based on the assumption that if we are to understand the resurrection of Jesus, we need to get our heads around what Jews, Greeks and others at the time would have made of the claim that Jesus had risen from the dead. Let me give you an example. If we ask what Greek speakers might have understood about resurrection, here is the answer - Tom Wright puts it in trenchant fashion:

In so far as the ancient non-Jewish world had a Bible, its Old Testament was Homer. And in so far as Homer has anything to say about resurrection, he is quite blunt: it doesn't happen. [N T Wright: Resurrection of the Son of God, SPCK, 2003, p.32]

There was, in fact, within Greek culture, a range of views about what happened after death. Firstly, nothing: death was death. 'I wasn't, I was, I am not, I don't care' as epitaphs on tombstones had it (see Wright, p.34). Secondly, there was the belief that there was a shadowy, grey place called Hades: a place of ghosts and phantoms, a place that was literally hope-less.

Thirdly, there was the view of Plato:

... the young must be taught the true philosophical view: death is not something to regret, but something to be welcomed. It is the moment when, and the means by which, the immortal soul is set free from the prison-house of the physical body.

[Wright, p.48].

Plato, then, completely reversed Homer's view of Hades and sees it as a place of delight - but there is judgment. Virtuous souls will go to the Islands of the Blessed and the wicked will be put in Tartarus. But note this:

... neither in Plato nor in the major alternatives just mentioned do we find any suggestion that resurrection, the return to bodily life of the dead person, was either desirable or possible. [Wright, p.53].

Fourthly, there developed a view that mortals such as emperors, could become gods -

'Oh dear,' the Emperor Vespasian is reported to have said on his death-bed, 'I think I'm becoming a god' [Wright, p.55]

and even become, literally, stars in the heavenly home of the immortal gods. Fifthly, there were some who believed in transmigration of souls - but belief in resurrection? No.

Now what about beliefs about resurrection and life after death in the Old Testament? Here, again, there are a range of views. Firstly, there was for some a belief in a place similar to Hades: grey, shadowy and inescapable. Secondly there was the belief that at death:

... the body returns to the dust, and the breath to God who gave it, meaning not that an immortal part of the person goes to live with God, but that the God who breathed life's breath into human nostrils in the first place will simply withdraw it into his own possession. [Wright, pp.98-99].

Thirdly, there was:

... the hope of the biblical writers, which was strong and constant, focused not upon the fate of humans after death, but on the fate of Israel and her promised land.

[Wright, p.99].

Fourthly, a hope that the power of God was in truth stronger than death and Sheol:

Yea, he shall see that even the wise die,

the fool and the stupid alike must perish

and leave their wealth to others.

Their graves are their homes for ever,

their dwelling places to all generations,

though they named lands after their own.

Man cannot abide in his pomp,

he is like the beasts that perish ...

Like sheep they are appointed for Sheol;

Death shall be their shepherd;

straight to the grave they descend,

and their form shall waste away;

Sheol shall be their home.

But God will ransom my soul

from the power of Sheol,

for he will receive me. [Psalm 49:10-12, 14-15].

And some might be raised:

'Come, let us return to the Lord;

for he has torn, that he may heal us;

he has stricken, and he will bind us up.

After two days he will revive us;

on the third day he will raise us up,

that we may live before him. [Hosea 6:1-2]

But now we leave the biblical Old Testament world and enter the world at the time of Jesus; what were the range of beliefs then?

Firstly, there were those like the Sadducees who said there was no future life.

Secondly, there were those who believed in the immorality of the soul (an idea imbibed from Greek thinking).

Thirdly, there were those who believed in a future, communal resurrection - an event which would take place not immediately at death, but would happen after 'life after death' and would be about the restoration of Israel by Yahweh.

There are no traditions about prophets being raised to new bodily life ... no traditions about a Messiah being raised to life: most Jews of this period hoped for resurrection, many Jews of this period hoped for a Messiah, but nobody put those two hopes together until the early Christians did so. [Wright, p.205].

So, there you are - that's the first two hundred pages summarised. I am not going to summarise the next six hundred pages, but essentially Tom Wright's argument is this. If those from a Greek background had no real concept of resurrection, and if the Jews had the range of beliefs they did, none of which involved the physical resurrection of an individual ahead of the Great Day - how did such a startling, new, provocative and intriguing idea as the resurrection of Jesus come into existence? Answer: because it happened; it really did. It is the only answer that makes real sense of all the information we have available.

You will need to read Tom Wright's book, not least because my summary of the first part of the book and my summary of his major argument are simply not adequate. How could they be? Please, read his book for yourself.

I should like, if I may, at this point to speak more personally. I have struggled with the Resurrection all of my life - not because I disbelieve it, quite the opposite, but because it is so central to my belief that if it could be demolished by historians, it would reveal a terrible hole at the very centre of my faith, and the faith of other Christians. To try to ensure that my faith really is well-founded and is not a matter of gullibility or self-deception, I have probed the historicity of the Resurrection a great deal. I have read all of the arguments put forward, for and against - everything from Who Moved the Stone? to Dominic Crossan. The more I have read and the more I have pondered, the more convinced have I become of the deep truth in the deep structures of the New Testament accounts of Jesus' resurrection.

I can rehearse and refute all the arguments put forward by those who deny the Resurrection. You will have heard the arguments frequently: Jesus was not really dead; someone stole the body; the disciples, in their bereavement, imagined it. I have also rehearsed and taught the arguments in favour of the historicity of the Resurrection. You, too, will have heard them, so there's no need to repeat them here, but you can imagine the form they take - for example, something remarkable must have happened to change the disciples from fearful cowards to courageous witnesses; or, if you were making up the story of the Resurrection, you would not have chosen women as your chief witnesses because, in a court of law at that time, their evidence carried no weight.

After years and years of reading and thought, I find myself satisfied, in spite of all the questioning, that the resurrection of Jesus really happened. The tomb was empty. I do not deny that there are some aspects of the stories which are perplexing - but on the balance of probabilities (which is what historical analysis is), I believe that the resurrection of Jesus really did happen. Now, with the publication of Tom Wright's magisterial tome, there can be no excuse for saying that the arguments in favour of the Resurrection are flimsy. Wheel this book onto the battlefield, and we have a powerful new piece of weaponry in our armoury.

I recognise, of course, that the consequences for believing in the Resurrection are huge (have I not staked my entire life upon them?) but the consequences are not for us as individuals alone. This is not a subject which is a matter of individual preference or (horrible phrase) life-style choice. The Resurrection is a matter for public discourse and of the greatest public importance. If it is true, then it is not the world which judges the reality, or otherwise, of the Resurrection, but the Resurrection which judges the reality of the world. It is as stark and thunderous as that.

But I now want to add another dimension to this debate and it's this: the historical fact of the Resurrection, I believe. I have, as I have said, good grounds for doing so: it will, as history, withstand the most powerful scrutiny. What I find perplexing, very lovely and very entrancing, is the style of the Resurrection.

Perhaps I can put it like this. Tom Wright's magnificent book, as I have indicated, is approximately 400,000 words long. The account of the resurrection of Christ in the Gospel of Mark is only 195 words long - and yet it is to the gauzy simplicity and beauty of that account that God entrusted Himself. It was to the dirt-under-the-nails humanity of people like Peter that He revealed Himself and to the vulnerable Mary Magdalene and the rumbustious brilliance of Paul. He makes Himself known in the breaking of bread and in the prayers. It is all so courteous, so self-effacing. That is how God was then, and is now. No matter how powerful we can make the case for believing in the historical fact of the Resurrection, the mode, the style, of that Resurrection is quite different. It is not about power but about wounding. It is not simply about life beyond death but also about life within life now. It is not about knockdown, absolutely guaranteed proof but about conversations on a beach in the early morning light. It was the case then, and it is the case now, that the Risen Christ comes to us and to our world with wounded hands and wounded side. He speaks our name. He calls us to Himself. He urges us to expect that we shall receive the Spirit ... He is the dawn of a new age ...

It is certainly in the fact, the historical fact, of the Resurrection that we can trust, but it is also in the grace and encounter of the Risen Christ with us today that we can trust - for in that encounter we are given His peace and his love. Easter is our home and Easter is our future.

© Christopher William Herbert, 2006