Why Resurrection?: An Introduction to the Belief in the Afterlife in Judaism and Christianity

Few questions exert such a great fascination on human conscience as those related to the meaning of life, history, and death. The belief in the resurrection of the dead constitutes an answer to a real challenge: What is the meaning of life and history in the midst of a world in which evil, injustice, and ultimately death exist? Resurrection is an instrument serving a broader, more encompassing reality: the Kingdom of God. Such a utopian Kingdom gathers the final response to the problem of theodicy and to the enigma of history. This book seeks to understand the idea of resurrection not only as a theological but also as a philosophical category (as expression of the collective aspirations of humanity), combining historical, theological, and philosophical analyses in dialogue with some of the principal streams of contemporary Western thought.

Carlos Blanco is the author of El pensamiento de la apocaliptica judia, Why Resurrection? (Pickwick Publications), and Mentes maravillosas que cambiaron la humanidad. He has been a Visiting Fellow at the Committee on the Study of Religion at Harvard University, and he is currently a researcher and professor at Instituto de Cultura y Sociedad (Spain).