The Resurrection of the Son of God (2003)
N. T. Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God (2003) is one of his most ambitious and detailed works, forming the third volume of his monumental Christian Origins and the Question of God series. In this study, Wright explores the meaning, historical setting, and implications of the resurrection of Jesus within both the ancient Jewish and Greco-Roman worlds. His central aim is to answer a crucial question: what did early Christians mean when they said that “Jesus had been raised from the dead,” and what historical reality best explains that claim?
Wright begins by examining the larger context of belief about life after death in the ancient world. He surveys the range of ideas found in pagan philosophy and religion, noting that the Greco-Roman worldview generally affirmed the immortality of the soul but not the resurrection of the body. For most Greeks and Romans, death was final for the body, and if there was any continuation of life, it was understood as the soul’s liberation from material existence. Against this background, Wright argues that resurrection as a bodily event was almost universally denied or regarded as impossible.
He then turns to ancient Jewish thought, where resurrection did have a place, though it was still a contested concept. The Jewish Scriptures and later writings, such as those from the Pharisees and apocalyptic traditions, increasingly expressed hope for a bodily resurrection of the righteous at the end of history, when God would renew creation and judge the world. Yet even within Judaism, this hope was about a future event for all God’s people, not about an individual being raised from the dead within ongoing history. Wright shows that the belief in resurrection was deeply connected to Jewish views of covenant, justice, and God’s faithfulness to his people.
With this background in place, Wright proceeds to the central event: the resurrection of Jesus. He examines how the early Christian belief differed sharply from both the pagan and Jewish contexts. Christians proclaimed that Jesus of Nazareth had been raised bodily from the dead in the middle of history, not at its end. This belief transformed their understanding of God, the world, and the future. Wright argues that such a belief could not have arisen merely from subjective experiences or wishful thinking. Something extraordinary must have happened to generate the conviction that Jesus had truly overcome death.
Wright meticulously examines the New Testament evidence, especially the resurrection narratives in the Gospels and Paul’s writings. He notes that the accounts differ in details but share key features: the discovery of the empty tomb, the physical appearances of Jesus, and the transformation of the disciples from despair to bold proclamation. For Wright, these elements cannot be adequately explained by theories of hallucination, legend, or symbolic storytelling. Instead, they point to a real, bodily resurrection that both surprised and convinced the first followers of Jesus.
Paul’s letters receive particular attention, especially 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul defends the bodily resurrection as essential to Christian faith. Wright interprets Paul’s language about the “spiritual body” not as an immaterial state but as a transformed physical existence animated by the Spirit. The resurrection, therefore, inaugurates a new mode of life that anticipates God’s final renewal of creation.
Throughout the book, Wright emphasizes that resurrection was not a detached miracle but the climactic vindication of Jesus’ mission and identity. It revealed Jesus as Israel’s Messiah, the Son of God, and the one through whom God’s kingdom had decisively begun. The resurrection was not merely proof of life after death; it was the launching of new creation itself. This event redefined hope, reoriented eschatology, and reshaped early Christian worship and ethics.
In the final sections, Wright assesses modern historical and theological interpretations of the resurrection. He critiques skeptical approaches that dismiss the event as myth or metaphor, as well as overly spiritualized readings that separate resurrection from history. He insists that historical inquiry, though limited, points strongly toward the conclusion that the early Christians truly encountered the risen Jesus in a tangible and transformative way. Such experiences, grounded in the empty tomb and bodily appearances, best explain the rise of the Christian movement.
Wright concludes that the resurrection of Jesus is not an isolated miracle within history but the turning point of all history. It affirms that God’s purposes for the world are being fulfilled and that death itself has been defeated. The resurrection stands as the cornerstone of Christian faith and the foundation for Christian hope—a hope that envisions not escape from the world but its renewal.
In summary, The Resurrection of the Son of God combines rigorous historical scholarship with profound theological reflection. Wright demonstrates that the belief in Jesus’ resurrection emerged from solid historical roots and carried revolutionary implications for how early Christians understood God, humanity, and the destiny of creation. The book presents the resurrection not as an optional belief but as the central event that makes sense of the Christian story and the world’s future.