Resurrection of the body in early Judaism and early Christianity; doctrine, community, and self-definition

Reference & Research Book News, August, 2005

BT873

2004-009982

0-391-04243-2

Resurrection of the body in early Judaism and early Christianity; doctrine, community, and self-definition.

Setzer, Claudia.

Brill Academic Publishers, [c]2004

191 p.

$69.00 (pa)

Setzer (religious studies, Manhattan College, Riverdale) explores why belief in resurrection of some form or another was considered so crucial in the first and second centuries that many people who claimed authority declared that others did not belong because they did not believe in it. The answer, she argues, lies in the peculiar utility of resurrection of the dead as a symbol in the construction of community, and as part of a strategy for coping with the distance between what is and what ought to be. Just because people used the idea of resurrection for practical purposes, she says, does not mean they did not fully believe in it.