Resurrection Archives – J. David Stark

Daily Gleanings: Resurrection (13 September 2019)

Forthcoming from Baker Academic in February 2020 is Brandon Crowe’s Hope of Israel: The Resurrection of Christ in the Acts of the Apostles. According to the publisher, the volume

highlights the sustained focus in Acts on the resurrection of Christ, bringing clarity to the theology of Acts and its purpose. Brandon Crowe explores the historical, theological, and canonical implications of Jesus’s resurrection in early Christianity and helps readers more clearly understand the purpose of Acts in the context of the New Testament canon. He also shows how the resurrection is the fulfillment of the Old Testament Scriptures.

The first half of the book demonstrates the centrality of the resurrection in Acts. The second half teases out its implications in more detail, including how the resurrection is the turning point of redemptive history, how it relates to early Christian readings of the Old Testament, and how the resurrection emphasis of Acts coheres in the New Testament canon. This first major book-length study on the theological significance of Jesus’s resurrection in Acts will appeal to professors, students, and scholars of the New Testament.

Daily Gleanings: Pistis (6 September 2019)

Just out from Baylor University Press is David Downs and Benjamin Lappenga’s Faithfulness of the Risen Christ. According to the publisher, the volume contributes to the ongoing discussion of the pistis Christou and related phrases by

focus[sing] upon the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus …. They claim that when Paul writes of Christ’s pistis, he refers to the faithfulness of the risen and exalted Christ. Downs and Lappenga carefully survey Paul’s use of pistis in Philippians, the Corinthian letters, Galatians, Romans, and Ephesians, revealing how pistis epitomizes the risen Christ’s continuing faithfulness toward all those who participate in him by pistis. Downs and Lappenga effectively reframe any future consideration of the pistis Christou construction for both New Testament scholars and theologians by showing that the story of Jesus in the letters of Paul extends to the faithfulness of the exalted Christ Jesus, who will remain faithful to those justified through union with Christ.

Free books for March from Faithlife

March’s free and reduced-price companion volumes from Faithlife include:

Logos: Paula Gooder, This Risen Existence: The Spirit of Easter, and for $1.99, Dennis Ngien, Fruit for the Soul: Luther on the Lament Psalms

Verbum: Bonaventure, The Life of Saint Francis, and for $0.99, Bonaventure, Mystical Opuscula

I haven’t yet found a dedicated Spanish “free book of the month” page, but the past several months have also had on offer a free Spanish resource. This month’s is, in translation, A. W. Pink’s Reflexiones paulinas: Estudios en las oraciones del Apóstol (vol. 1).

Ratzinger, The Infancy Narratives

Today, the Pope’s new book on the Gospels’ infancy narratives goes on sale. The volume is the third of a three-part series. The two earlier volumes have respectively discussed the narratives from Jesus’ baptism to his transfiguration (2007) and the final entrance into Jerusalem to the resurrection (2011). The present volume:

focuses exclusively on the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life as a child. The root of these stories is the experience of hope found in the birth of Jesus and the affirmations of surrender and service embodied in his parents, Joseph and Mary. This is a story of longing and seeking, as demonstrated by the Magi searching for the redemption offered by the birth of a new king. It is a story of sacrifice and trusting completely in the wisdom of God as seen in the faith of Simeon, the just and devout man of Jerusalem, when he is in the presence of the Christ child. Ultimately, Jesus’ life and message is a story for today, one that speaks to the restlessness of the human heart searching for the sole truth which alone leads to profound joy. (Amazon)

Philip Pullella of Reuters also has an interesting short discussion and digest of the release.

The Resurrection of the Son of God

In Acts 13:16–41, Paul addresses the Pisidian synagogue. In this discourse’s context, Paul asserts “we preach to you the good news concerning the promise that had come to the fathers—that this promise God has fulfilled for us their children by raising Jesus” (Acts 13:32–33; ἡμεῖς ὑμᾶς εὐαγγελιζόμεθα τὴν πρὸς τοὺς πατέρας ἐπαγγελίαν γενομένην, ὅτι ταύτην ὁ θεὸς ἐκπεπλήρωκεν τοῖς τέκνοις [αὐτῶν] ἡμῖν ἀναστήσας Ἰησοῦν). From here, the following quotation of Ps 2:7 confirms Jesus’ resurrection by Yahweh’s hand (cf. Acts 13:37).¹ This resurrection in incorruption situates Jesus as the means by which the ancestral promise becomes actualized (Acts 13:34–37) because it situates him as the recipient and mediator of the things vouchsafed to David (Acts 13:34)—namely, an everlasting covenant in which the wandering return and receive forgiveness from Yahweh (Isa 55; cf. Deut 30).²

1. Chrysostom, Hom. Act., 29 (NPNF¹, 11:182–85).

2. Ibid.; N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God 2; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), 268–74, 576–77.