The Reality of the Resurrection: The New Testament Witness

In The Reality of the Resurrection Stefan Alkier bridges the chasm between history and theology. Through a patient historical, canonical, and hermeneutical study, Alkier demonstrates that the resurrection of Jesus is inextricably bound to the general eschatological resurrection of the dead. Jesus' resurrection is no isolated miracle but is instead the crucial disclosure of the nature of reality, the identity of God, and the destiny of human beings. Interpretation of Jesus' resurrection is thus necessarily and unavoidably both historical and theological.

Through a descriptive exegetical survey of New Testament rhetoric, Alkier locates the resurrection of the Crucified One within a distinct narrative world. He then employs the semiotics of C. S. Peirce to develop a creative epistemology that avoids propositional literalism and modernist reductionism. Alkier finally outlines how resurrection impacts Christian praxis.

The Reality of the Resurrection witnesses to that which Paul names as of "first importance"--not only for the early Christian communities but also for the shaping of our communities today.

Stefan Alkier (Ph.D., Bonn) is Professor of New Testament and the History of the Early Church, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main. His past books include Zeichen aus Text und Stein: Studien auf dem Weg zu einer Archäologie des Neuen Testaments (with Jürgen Zangenberg, 2003), Wunder und Wirklichkeit in den Briefen des Apostels Paulus: Ein exegetischer Beitrag zu einem Wunderverständnis jenseits von Entmythologisierung und Rehistorisierung (2001), and Urchristentum: zur Geschichte und Theologie einer exegetischen Disziplin (1993).

Leroy A. Huizenga (Ph.D., Duke University) is Chair of the Department of Theology, Associate Professor of Theology, and the Director of the Christian Leadership Center at the University of Mary in Bismark, ND.