Resurrection of the Body in Early Judaism and Early Christianity (review)

For most of the inhabitants of the Mediterranean world familiar with the philosopher's rejection of the body as a prison and a tomb for the soul, the belief in the resurrection of the body would have been peculiar, if not troubling. The oddness of bodily resurrection was not lost on Christians, who with various nuances, metaphors, and aims actively sought to theorize and defend such a shibboleth. The struggles of early Christians to articulate and secure a belief in the resurrection of the body has attracted substantial attention among modern scholars, but the ways in which bodily resurrection could be manipulated to mark off insiders from outsiders and function as "a symbol in the construction of community" (4) while conferring legitimacy on its espousers have awaited the treatment of Claudia Setzer's Resurrection of the Body. In the Jewish context, the belief had functioned for Jews as "part of an effective strategy to solve some problems created by their subjection to Rome" (47) such as taxation and economic deprivation. The doctrine solved the problem of subjection by evincing God's favor for his people, his judgment against the oppressors, and the bodily restoration of those who had suffered bodily (50).

The first Christians turned to the resurrection of the body for similar reasons (though, at least to this reviewer, the Platonic theory of the immortality of the soul and future judgment, expressed, e.g., at Plato, Rep. 10 or Cicero, Rep. 6, would have solved the problem equally well). Seeing 1 Corinthians as an open challenge to the might of Rome, Setzer regards the fifteenth chapter of this letter (the locus classicus for belief in resurrection of the dead) as the climax of an anti-imperial program that both envisions Christian victory over the powers of the age and overturns the accepted hierarchy of spirit over body (56–66). Paul's bold declarations in this epistle would be adopted as unproblematic by Ignatius of Antioch and were given no small push towards becoming "a litmus test for who belonged in the community" (73) by the author of 2 Clement and Polycarp.

It would remain for Christian apologists to establish more solidly and extensively the doctrine of bodily resurrection as a fundamental tool of defining Christian identity, drawing communal boundaries and legitimizing the authority claimed for its proponents (74–98, 125–43). Justin Martyr declared belief in bodily resurrection as definitive of "straight-thinking Christians" (dial. 80.5), and he denied the legitimacy of the title "Christian" for heretical groups who rejected the belief. The doctrine of resurrection is here directed not against outsiders (the Jews) but against rival claimants to Christian identity.

Setzer contends that boundary-drawing between Christianity and either Judaism or Greek thought ceased to be a significant feature of the discourse on resurrection in the apologists, for the apologetic task was by its very nature aimed at building bridges, not drawing boundaries. Apologists like Athenagoras, "provided a rationale for Christian theologians to accommodate Greco-Roman society" (96), a point exhibited in the heightened use of Greco-Roman rhetoric in the defense of resurrection offered by the apologists (especially Irenaeus, 126–31, and Tertullian, 133–38). Whereas the rabbinic sources had highlighted difference, the Christians highlighted sameness (147). Also, by emphasizing a doctrinal issue the apologists would have further heightened the appeal of Christianity to outsiders since it was easier to convert to a set of beliefs than to a way of life with strict ethical demands (134–35, 149–50).

Setzer's denial of boundary-forming mechanisms in the apologetic literature is an unfortunate move in an otherwise illuminating and fruitful approach to bodily resurrection in early Christian discourse. The apologists' struggles to clarify and defend resurrection, flying in the face of sensible Greek thought, could scarcely have built much of a bridge with inheritors of Greek paideia in the second century (such as Celsus or Caecilius, 99–108). The stereotypical representation of apologetics as a project of...