Debates over the Resurrection of the Dead: Constructing Early Christian Identity by Outi Lehtipuu (review)

This book analyzes debates about the resurrection of the dead from the second to fourth centuries as a social phenomenon. This is familiar territory, with numerous studies appearing in recent years, especially Bynum, Wright, Setzer, Vincent, Petrey, and several edited volumes. The sociological lens the author applies for evaluating early Christian differences is also familiar. The author argues that the debates about the resurrection were useful for establishing “identity” and “maintaining boundaries” between insiders and outsiders (2). Studies by King, Boyarin, Lieu, Buell, and others have popularized this approach. In Lehtipuu’s analysis, the dual functions of “group demarcation” and “identity construction” explain the fierceness with which Christians disagreed among themselves (8). The book exceeds previous approaches by considering a richer depth of resurrection literature, including Nag Hammadi sources, and by focusing on scriptural hermeneutics as a key aspect of early Christian debates.

A thematic approach allows for rich comparisons between different early Christian authors. Chapter One analyzes what the term “resurrection” meant across a wide variety of Christian, Jewish, and Greco-Roman texts. In contrast to Wright, who argues for a relatively uniform view of the resurrection, and building on Setzer’s sociological analysis of resurrection discourse, Lehtipuu emphasizes the variety of meanings of the term “resurrection.” The difference between the terms “resurrection,” “resurrection of the body,” and “resurrection of the flesh” is “the heart of the debate” between early Christians (15). A similar problem arises with the timing of the resurrection. Was Christ’s resurrection a special case that vindicated his unjust death, or was it an eschatological event that was a prototype for the general resurrection? Is it a future event, or are the believers resurrected in the present life? The accounts from the New Testament are also “ambivalent” (46). In Jewish texts, the semantic range included revival from the dead, the awaking of spirits, or bodily resurrection. Following Endsjø, Greco-Roman texts also advance some views of the resurrection. These multiple sources are divided on its meaning, and Lehtipuu concludes that “resurrection is an ambiguous category in ancient Jewish, Christian, and other Greco-Roman sources” (65).

Chapter Two makes the methodological case for resurrection as a tool for marking boundaries between Christians. This research draws on sociological approaches to thinking about group dynamics with respect to the management of differences. Groups draw boundaries between themselves and outsiders, but also designate some members of the group as rivals, deviants, and enemies. These boundaries protect from what the group considers threatening, but also function to strengthen group identity. Lehtipuu’s contribution is the argument that the interpretation of scripture is at stake in labeling outsiders. A series of close readings of Tertullian and two texts from Nag Hammadi, the Treatise on the Resurrection and Testimony of Truth, make the case that Pauline texts are particularly important to this debate.

The final two chapters treat what Lehtipuu sees as the two central controversies among Christians in this period. Chapter Three discusses the status of the flesh in the resurrection. She looks at how early Christians used scripture to describe their divergent views in a hermeneutical contest. She starts from Bynum’s observation that whether the flesh is resurrected or not, both continuity and change are present in how early Christians imagined the resurrection. Lehtipuu accepts the idea that Christians imagined the resurrection differently, and she divides them up between those who believed in the resurrection of the flesh and those who did not. On the side of the resurrection of the flesh are Tertullian, Athenagoras, Irenaeus, Pseudo-Justin, 3 Corinthians, and others. On the opposing side are Origen, the Treatise on the Resurrection, the Gospel of Philip, the Testimony of Truth, and others. This chapter reviews the various arguments—scriptural and logical—against the resurrection of the flesh and how its defenders responded. Rather than seeing the proliferation of expositions on the resurrection as a response to criticism...