The Resurrection ed. by Stephen Davis, Daniel Kendall, S.J., Gerald O’Collins, S.J. (review)

504 BOOK REVIEWS Absent within this present offering is a clear and developed understanding of the biblical notion of sacrifice, as well as the specific role of the Holy Spirit within the work of redemption. Nonetheless, Gestrich has written a good book and one that deserves a wide reading. He has treated a sensitive and important topic, and he has done so with philosophical and theological precision. Moreover, one cannot help but perceive from reading this book that Gestrich is a theologian of faith. He possesses an authentic concern for the pastoral needs of the Church and a deep desire that God's splendor would return to a world that has been contaminated by sin. THOMAS WEINANDY, 0.F.M.CAP. Greyfriars Oxford, Great Britain The Resurrection. Edited by STEPHENDAVIS, DANIEL KENDALL, S.J., and GERALD O'COLLINS, S.J. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Pp. 367. $35.00 (cloth). ISBN 0-19-815091-1. Beginning on April 7 (Easter Sunday), 1996, a five-day "Resurrection Summit" organized by the editors of this volume was held at St. Joseph's Seminary, Yonkers, New York. Designed (perhaps dubiously) to attract media attention as a kind of orthodox counterpart to the peripatetic Jesus Seminar, the program nonetheless provided serious presentations by a number of reputable theologians, exegetes, and philosophers ofreligion. Each ofthe major papers was followed by a response which initiated more general discussion. Twelve major papers (the preface [p. x] incorrectly speaks of thirteen) and three responses have been incorporated into this volume, which may best be classified as the proceedings of a conference; other responses were excluded due to constraints of space. The papers are rather disparate, for the conference apparently did not envisage comprehensive coverage of issues relating to Jesus' resurrection. As is usual with publications of this genre, the value of the individual contributions varies widely; the three published responses are of uniformly high quality, each superior to the paper to which it is appended. Prefatory material composed by the three editors provides an account of the summit's planning and procedures, a summary of the papers contained in this volume, and capsule biographies of the summit's participants (including some who did not contribute to this book). A judicious account of the summit's papers and discussions by John Wilkens, editor of the London Tablet, is followed by Gerald O'Collins's "The Resurrection: The State of the Questions," which appears to have functioned as a keynote address. Far from BOOK REVIEWS 505 providing the thorough overview its title promises, this paper offers brief remarks in an apologetic tone on the meaning of resurrection language, the appearances, the empty tomb, and the foundations of Easter faith; particular attention is devoted to criticizing the tendency of John Hick and Sallie McFague to reduce the resurrection to the emergence of faith on the part of the early disciples. Aconcludingsection proposes several historical, theoretical, practical, and liturgical questions related to the resurrection as an agenda for future exploration. Archbishop Peter Carnley's response finds O'Collins imprecise in his critique of Hick and inclined to assume what needs to be proved; placing less emphasis on historical knowledge, Carnley advocates greater appeal to the present experience of the Spirit as foundational for faith in Christ's resurrection. The papers that follow address diverse aspects of the theology of the resurrection from a variety of perspectives. In her well-crafted plea against reduction of the resurrection to more privatized considerations, Janet Martin Soskice links faith in the resurrection to hope for the New Jerusalem. Carey Newman, the author of Paul's Glory-Christology (Leiden: Brill, 1992), argues that the resurrection triggered a close association of Jesus with God's glory; in substance, this identification amounted to a profession of his equality with God. The resurrection thus necessitated a redefinition of monotheism and led ineluctably to a rapid rupture between Jews and Christians. Allen Segal, for his part, offers an informative discussion of beliefs concerning life after death in the Hebrew Bible and such later Jewish sources as Josephus, the Mishnah, and the Talmud. Turning to the resurrection appearances, Stephen Davis distinguishes between normal vision (as in everyday seeing), subjective vision (equivalent...