During Lent I'm sharing a series of thoughts and summaries from reading N.T. Wright's The Resurrection of the Son of God. They will be from the second half of the book dealing mostly with the New Testament Narratives...
Wright concludes the chapter Hope Refocused (3): Non-Canonical Early Christian Texts by writing, "The old slur, that the church quickly settled down and became comfortable and bourgeois, and the suggestion that sometimes accompanies it, that the increasing ‘bodiliness’ of the doctrine of the resurrection was part of this process, are without foundation. If anything, the boot is firmly in the other foot. Which Roman emperor would persecute anyone for reading the Gospel of Thomas? The early Christian non-canonical writers increasingly carry the theme that the resurrection is a doctrine that is revolutionary and will result in the ultimate overthrow of the kingdoms of this world by the creator God who will recreate a new world. Chapter Eleven, Page 549
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