This book examines the relationship between the growth of Christianity in Greece and the belief in resurrection from the dead. It gives a clear presentation of various generally unknown aspects about traditional Greek religion, such as stories about people being made physically immortal and the Greek fascination with the flesh.

This book examines the relationship between the growth of Christianity in Greece and the belief in resurrection from the dead. It gives a clear presentation of various generally unknown aspects about traditional Greek religion, such as stories about people being made physically immortal and the Greek fascination with the flesh.

This book originated in the Donatio Universitatis Carolinae award and research support that Professor Petr Pokorný received in 2017. It was envisioned, designed, and originally conducted as a project exploring the biblical roots of Christian culture. Experts in various theological and philosophical disciplines, both from the Czech Republic and abroad, were to probe this topic from their particular perspectives. The hoped-for output was to be a coherent collective study of the proposed topic. However, due to the unexpected passing away of Prof. Pokorný in early 2020, the project could not be executed according to the original plan. Rather than a collective monograph, therefore, the present book is a collection of essays that investigate various aspects of the Bible and Christianity in their relation to culture as a broad human phenomenon. The book is divided into two sections. While the first section focuses on particular issues in the Bible, the second addresses historical, philosophical, and cultural developments. As Petr Pokorný was actively and importantly involved in the initial stages of the project, two essays are written by him personally. The whole book, then, is dedicated in his honor.

This book begins by arguing that early Greek reflection on the afterlife and immortality insisted on the importance of the physical body whereas a wealth of Jewish texts from the Hebrew Bible, Second Temple Judaism and early (Pauline) Christianity understood post-mortem existence to be that of the soul alone. Changes begin to appear in the later New Testament where the importance of the afterlife of the physical body became essential, and such thoughts continued into the period of the early Church where the significance of the physical body in post-mortem existence became a point of theological orthodoxy. This book will assert that the influx of Greco-Romans into the early Church changed the direction of Christian thought towards one which included the body. At the same time, the ideological and polemical thrust of an eternal tortuous afterlife for the wicked became essential.

This volume examines the 'counter-narratives' of the core Christian story, proposed by texts from Nag Hammadi and elsewhere. A noteworthy body of highly respected scholars examine material that is sometimes difficult and often overlooked, contributing to the ongoing effort to integrate Nag Hammadi and related literature into the mainstream of New Testament and early Christian studies. By retracing the major elements of the Christian story in sequence, they are able to discuss how and why each aspect was disputed on inner-Christian grounds, and to reflect on the different accounts of Christian identity underlying these disputes. Together the essays in this book address a central issue: towards the end of the second century, Irenaeus could claim that the overwhelming majority of Christians throughout the world were agreed on a version of the core Christian story which is still recognisable today. Yet, as Irenaeus concedes and as the Nag Hammadi texts have confirmed, there were many who wished to tell the core Christian story differently. Those who criticized and rejected the standard story did so not because they were adherents of another religion, 'Gnosticism', but because they were Christians who believed that the standard account was wrong at point after point. Ranging from the Gospels of Judas and Mary to Galatians and Ptolemy's Letter to Flora, this volume provides a fascinating analysis of how the Christian story as we know it today developed against counter-readings from other early Christian traditions.

This book offers an original interpretation of the origin and early reception of the most fundamental claim of Christianity: Jesus’ resurrection. Richard Miller contends that the earliest Christians would not have considered the New Testament accounts of Jesus’ resurrection to be literal or historical, but instead would have recognized this narrative as an instance of the trope of divine translation, common within the Hellenistic and Roman mythic traditions. Given this framework, Miller argues, early Christians would have understood the resurrection story as fictitious rather than historical in nature. By drawing connections between the Gospels and ancient Greek and Roman literature, Miller makes the case that the narratives of the resurrection and ascension of Christ applied extensive and unmistakable structural and symbolic language common to Mediterranean "translation fables," stock story patterns derived particularly from the archetypal myths of Heracles and Romulus. In the course of his argument, the author applies a critical lens to the referential and mimetic nature of the Gospel stories, and suggests that adapting the "translation fable" trope to accounts of Jesus’ resurrection functioned to exalt him to the level of the heroes, demigods, and emperors of the Hellenistic and Roman world. Miller’s contentions have significant implications for New Testament scholarship and will provoke discussion among scholars of early Christianity and Classical studies.

Questions regarding the afterlife are many, and the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts pay a great deal of attention to them: why does Luke speak about several different forms of the afterlife? Why is resurrection described as a person's transformation into an angelic being? How many abodes are appointed for the righteous and the wicked after death? Alexey Somov addresses these queries in relation to the apparent confusion and variety found in the text, and in respect of the interrelatedness of these issues, and their connection with other eschatological issues in Luke-Acts, and in relation to the wider cultural context of the Mediterranean world to which Luke belonged. Every culture expresses its beliefs by means of special metaphors that allow it to comprehend supernatural realities in terms of everyday experience. Belief in the afterlife was part of this metaphorical system which Luke shared with the ancient eastern Mediterranean culture. Somov takes his analysis one step further by applying Cognitive Metaphor Theory to selected metaphorical aspects of the afterlife. While the inconsistencies and incoherence of the combined metaphors may seem jarring to a contemporary Western reader, Somov's reading enables a recognition of the specific religious metaphors used, which for Luke would have been current and widely accepted.

Back cover: In this work, John Granger Cook argues that there is no fundamental difference between Paul's conception of the resurrection body and that of the Gospels; and, the resurresction and translation stories of antiquity help explain the willingness of Mediterranean people to accept the Gospel of a risen savior.

In Debates over the Resurrection of the Dead, Outi Lehtipuu highlights the striking observation that in many early texts the way that belief in resurrection is formulated is used as a sign of inclusion and exclusion, not only in relation to non-Christians but vis-a-vis other Christians. Those who teach otherwise have deviated from the truth, are not true Christians, and do the works of the devil. Using insights from the sociological study of deviance, Dr Lehtipuu demonstrates that labelling was used as a tool for marking boundaries between those who belonged and those who did not. This was extremely important in the fluid conditions where the small Christian minority groups found themselves. In a situation where there were no universally accepted structures that defined what constituted the true Christian belief, several competing interpretations and their representatives struggled for recognition of their views based on what they believed to be the apostolic tradition. The most hotly-debated aspect of resurrection was whether it would entail the body of flesh and blood or not. When resurrection would take place was closely related to this. Controversies died since the scriptural legacy was ambiguous enough to allow different hermeneutical solutions. The battle over resurrection was closely related to the question of how scriptures were to be understood as well as to what constituted the human self that would survive death. To demonstrate this a wide variety of texts are studied, from theological treatises (including relevant Nag Hammadi texts) to apocryphal acts and martyrologies. Acknowledging the complexity and diversity of the early Christian movement, this volume views early Christian discourse as part of the broader ancient discursive world where similar debates were going on among both Jews and the majority population.

The Dubious Disciples provides a literary examination of the four scenes of the disciples doubting the appearance of the resurrected Jesus in the canonical Gospels. Each Gospel offers a unique account of this episode, and the differences between them dramatically affect how readers evaluate the disciples' actions and perceive the role of doubt in the Christian experience.