‘This book, along with its companion volume, The Reconstruction of Resurrection Belief, is the fortuitous product of retirement.’ So begins Peter Carnley’s preface to this volume. Fortuitous it certainly is, and indeed as much for Carnley’s readers as for his own opportunity for further scholarship focused upon the resurrection of Christ. There is overlap between the two books but there is more than enough distinctive material within each to allow for a two-volume approach. The two together offer an impressively rigorous examination of the subject matter. Both books are prompted by a response to N.T. Wright’s magisterial book, The Resurrection of the Son of God (2003). There is something to be said for reading this book under review here first, inasmuch as it is to some degree generated by a series of seminars at the General Seminary in New York, which focused specifically on Wright’s text.
The structure of the book is itself indicative of Carnley’s aims, in what is both a stringent critique and also an alternative understanding to that of Wright; the final dénouement is spelt out in the second companion volume. The first chapter establishes a methodology offering a sketch map of the territory to be covered. The following two chapters expand on this, developing the contrasting scenarios painted by Wright and Carnley. The ‘appearances traditions’ and the empty tomb narrative are examined in the next three chapters. Thereafter different modern approaches to faith unfold, leading to a discussion of the impact of resurrection in the development of earliest christologies. Finally come three chapters exploring the ‘subjective vision hypothesis’ pioneered by D.F. Strauss, a comparison of concepts of immortality and incorruptibility, and ultimately we are taken to heaven or, more accurately, ‘heavens’.
Chapter 1 examines the presuppositions of Wright’s thesis. Wright is clear that all must seek after an objective historical understanding of resurrection that can be proved or disproved by normal standards of historiography. This understanding, Wright argues, is rooted in Second Temple Apocalyptic Judaism. This framework or ‘straitjacket’, as Carnley sees it, is used throughout Wright’s analysis; Wright has an aversion to Plato and, whilst acknowledging that the stark contrast between ‘immortality of the soul’ and ‘resurrection of the body’ is now dated, nonetheless Wright still veers strongly in that direction with an approach not far distinct from the now discredited ‘biblical theology movement’. Carnley describes Wright’s approach as ‘ . . . a kind of monistic theological horizontalism’ (p. 20).
Carnley attacks this method head on, by moving to an analysis of the ‘hellenisation’ of the thought of late antiquity and thus particularly of Judaism; 2 Baruch, Josephus and the Wisdom of Solomon are all called as witnesses. These indicate a clear multivariety of approaches to resurrection in this period; the pioneering work of Martin Hengel is cited – the purist contrast between immortality and resurrection of the body cannot be maintained. Carnley illustrates how – if the Second Temple Judaism straitjacket is retained, and insisted upon unflinchingly – the clear element of surprise in New Testament reactions to the resurrection of Christ would not have arisen. Response to the resurrection of Christ was one of novelty, so to speak, hence the powerful impact on Jesus’ followers and equally its ability to provoke the beginnings of a new religion.
Carnley’s analysis of the ‘appearances tradition’ is marked again by an impressive rigour. In contrast to the writings of Paul, these appearance accounts are much later. Even if one accepts the rediscovery of possible ‘eye witness’ narratives, there is no reason why such accounts could not still have been developed as they were included – especially in the later gospels, Luke and John. Moving to the empty tomb narrative, Carnley points to the unaccountability of Paul making no reference to the story. Wright argues that Paul ignored it because the witnesses were women and their witness would have been unacceptable in a court of law. The Jewish law at that time, however, was highly nuanced and complex; it is not clear that the evidence of women could never be used. Furthermore, elsewhere in Paul, women play an important role. Wright’s approach is at the very best one of conjecture. Carnley’s analysis of the gospel material is equally careful. He notes that some argue for the ‘empty tomb’ narrative as a Marcan creation. Ultimately he rejects this; certainly, if the Passion narrative already existed pre-Mark as a continuous record (possibly used liturgically, or even generated in its present state, liturgically), then Mark is most likely to have been working with pre-existent material. Nonetheless, as Carnley indicates, Mark has clearly redacted his received material and so the account is not pristine. There is certainly ambiguity included in the various gospel accounts of the empty tomb and, of course, further redaction.
At this point in the book, there is a shift to a strictly theological analysis, rooted in the ‘nature of faith’. While it is clear that there are historical facts (here he differs with Ernst Troeltsch, who will only allow for probabilities), Carnley opts for the resurrection of Christ as a ‘revelatory event’: faith can be seen as knowledge if it is describing human relationships. Wright’s approach is shown to lapse into the propositional, whereas Carnley centres his argument on personal/relational elements, where trust lies at the heart. Here we begin to pick up echoes of themes explored in considerable depth in Carnley’s other concurrently written volume. The coming together of an amalgam of Stoic/Platonic philosophy has coloured New Testament thought – and indeed that of Judaism; from Judaism, Philo is an obvious exemplar.
Most crucially of all here is a lucid theological analysis indicating how the revelatory experience of the resurrection was a key to the emergence of what later is described as Christology. Terms like Lord, Son of God and Christ all emerge from the experience of resurrection, through Christ’s continuing presence amongst individuals and indeed the fledgling Christian community. Carnley argues that the very mundanity, the rootedness of Wright’s argument in a concretely understood resurrection, bypasses talk of the ‘glorified Christ’. Larry Hurtado is also quoted as arguing that the resurrection prompted talk of Jesus’ divine status: christological titles emerged. Moltmann here talks of ‘Christopraxis’, empirically grounded encounters with Christ. Christ can now be described as Lord, including the Aramaic usage of Mar (Lord) as in Maranatha: ‘May the Lord come’. This means, Carnley argues, that ‘we have to make a transition from an interest in historiography so as to focus on faith as a response of trust (fiducia) that is grounded in a form of religious empiricism involving the perceptual knowledge (fides) of the presence of the raised Christ apprehended through the medium of his Spirit in the immediate present of our own lives’ (p. 211). This is a concise statement of Carnley’s own understanding of the nature of the resurrection of Christ and its continuing impact in contemporary lives.
Precisely how we perceive or receive this presence occupies the next chapter. D.F. Strauss’s controversial ‘subjective vision hypothesis’ is the object of careful scrutiny, and the implication eventually is that it can be the source of some illumination. Dewi Rees’s work on those who have felt the presence of loved ones after their death, and also some reflection on ‘near death experience’ is brought to bear, together with a critique offered by Gerald O’Collins. The principle of analogy is crucial here, remembering that all such language includes both positive and negative analogies. Analogy using the insights of Rees and Strauss can be applied to faith, but it is analogy which allows for an objectivity to be established through the knowledge of the ‘steadfast love of God’. The penultimate chapter revisits immortality and incorruptibility, the second of which is Wright’s preferred understanding. Jesus is raised to revert to the same existence as before his crucifixion but now in an incorruptible state, never to die again. Carnley uses the critical work of James Barr to indicate how incorruptible – as used in the New Testament – has been misunderstood semantically. Finally, one is treated to a contrast between Wright’s and Carnley’s understanding of the ‘language of heaven’. Wright sees all the righteous, after death, entering an interim stage of existence following which all will be drawn together at the eschaton in ‘the Kingdom of Heaven’. In a careful argument Carnley dismisses what he believes to be an eccentric view which sees risen humanity ‘running the world on behalf of God’ (p. 263). Hereafter, Carnley sets out his own vision where heaven is described as a relational concept: all are promised a continuing relationship with the steadfast God ‘in Christ’.
Carnley’s final sentence runs: ‘As Christians, we dare to hope that on that day God will bring the righteous departed with him (1 Thess. 4.14) and that “when Christ who is our life appears”, we also and all the righteous departed, will be “revealed with him in glory.” (Col. 3.4)’ (p. 284). Carnley’s critical analysis is both devastating and coruscating in its analysis of Wright, but also riven with hope in his own vision of Christ’s glory in God. Both of his magisterial volumes offer a theologically and spiritually rich understanding of the impact of Christ’s resurrection and a profound contrast with the pattern set out by Wright.
