Wright:

N.T. Wright:

• Critical realist

• Resurrection accounts contain truth that must be analysed

Compelling evidence:

• Gospels based on eyewitness accounts

• Death and resurrection of Jesus is unexpected.

• No firm tradition of resurrection/life after death

• Unusual reaction.

Life after life after death:

• Sudden mutation of belief within Christianity

• Focused belief in bodily resurrection.

• Jesus’ visits were public events

• Life after life after death

Resurrection is the only option:

• Other explanations dismissed:

• Jesus simply swooned - Romans knew how to kill people

• Followers were mistaken - common but never results in resurrection claims

• Prescientific explanation - people still understood that dead people stayed dead.

• Jesus’ body was stolen - this would have been said.

What is the name of Wright’s scholarly approach to the New Testament?

• Critical realism.

How does Wright view the relationship between resurrection accounts and historical truth?

• He believes the accounts contain historical truth that must be critically analysed.

According to wright, what is necessary to fully understand the event of resurrection?

• Analytical study of the evidence.

What is Wright’s stance on the possibility of proving the resurrection?

• It cannot be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt.

How does Wrightks assessment of myth in the NT compare to Bultmann’s

• Wright believes there is far more history and much less myth than Bultmann expected.

On what are the testimonies of the gospels based according to Wright?

• Eyewitness accounts from the followers of Jesus.

Why were the followers not initially expecting his resurrection?

• They did not expect the messiah to die, especially as a criminal.

What role did followers expect the Messiah to fulfil prior to Jesus’s death?

• He was expected to lead them to victory against their enemies,

Why was the idea of resurrection not an obvious conclusion for the early followers?

• It was not a standard part of traditional Jewish beliefs about life and death.

Describe the Greek dualist concept of the afterlife.

• The belief that the soul lives on after death without a body.

How does Wright characterise the spectrum of Jewish beliefs about the afterlife?

• They were vague and included a wide range of different ideas.

In some Jewish traditions, what was Sheol?

• A place where the dead are in a state of sleep.

What was one source of confusion for Jewish believers who expected a bodily resurrection?

• There was no clarity regarding which specific body would be used.

How did some Jewish believers use life after death metaphorically?

• To represent the return of the nation of Israel.

What was the consistent outcome for messianic figures who lived before Jesus?

• Their claims failed and they were killed.

What distinguishes the aftermath of Jesus’ death from that of previous failed messiahs?

• Previous movements never resulted in claims of resurrection.

What were the two common options for followers after their messiah was killed?

• They could give up their cause or search for a new messiah.

Wright claims that the unique reaction of Jesus’ followers implies what happened?

• Something different.

Critical realism:

• An approach acknowledging that objective truth exists but must be accessed through critical interpretation.

The Greek dualist idea separated what?

• Separated the soul from the body after death.

Under Wright’s view, the follower’s lack of expectation for a dying messiah makes the resurrection testimonies more what?

• More compelling.

Sheol:

• A Jewish concept of a place of sleep for the dead, illustrating the vagueness of their afterlife beliefs.

How did the criminal status of Jesus’s death affect his follower’s expectations?

• It made his death even more contradictory to their expectations of a victorious messiah.

Jewish believers who used the resurrection as a metaphor were referring to what?

• The return of Israel.

Wright argues that the New Testament contains what?

• less myth than Bultmann was prepared to accept.