The Resurrection of Jesus.

Kenan Osborne has gained a good reputation for a series of books on sacramental theology (holy orders and sacramental reconciliation) which are marked by a reliable summary of current research and his own perspective on the subject at hand. This work on the Resurrection of Christ derives from Osborne's own conviction that contemporary theology lacks a cogent account of how the Resurrection of Christ fits into a total Christology or, as he calls it, a "unified Christology." Little has been said historically in the magisterium about the Resurrection (apart, of course, from the creeds and professions of faith). Until recently the topic, among scholastic manualists at least, was largely apologetic. However, a good deal of recent scriptural work has been done on the question of the Resurrection.

Osborne's book presents a survey of contemporary theological research on the Resurrection, a close reading of the pertinent New Testament texts with an almost exclusive focus on the Gospel narratives, a theology of the Resurrection derived from that New Testament reading, and, finally, an effort to fit the above into a "unified Christology." At the risk of oversimplification, Osborne's thesis seems to be that the New Testament account of the Resurrection centers on what God did in Jesus (raising him from the dead). The Resurrection, reflected in the received experience of those who wrote of that event, is linked to the larger issue of what the "kingdom" or "reign" of God really is.

Osborne makes the interesting analogy between how the Gospel writers depict the Resurrection and how a mystic like John of the Cross writes about religious experience. For John, first there is an experience, then there is the writing of poetry to somehow capture the experience. Finally a prose commentary and perhaps a "map" shows how to read the account of the experience. (By the way: Osborne might have profitably commented on the prologue to John of the Cross's Spiritual Canticle, where the great mystic sets this process out in some detail.) Osborne's basic point, however, is a good one: If we accept the reliability of writings about religious experience like John's, why can't we accept similar accounts, even with imaginative elements, that speak of the Resurrection narratives? For Osborne, that the Gospel Resurrection accounts are "constructed" does not imply they are fictions in the pejorative sense of the term.

There is much useful material in this book, especially Osborne's summary of previous research. I very much liked, for example, his reflection on the "kingdom of God" in his final chapter, even though it was not clear to me how that chapter related to the theology of the Resurrection. In fact, the last chapter barely discusses the Resurrection at all. The final chapter seems tagged on to the book to put flesh on it.

I thought that this work had other weaknesses as well. Why was there no sustained analysis of 1 Cor. 15? That is an account of Resurrection faith predating the Gospels by perhaps as much as a generation, and in which Paul himself notes that he was "handing on" to the Corinthians something that he had received. Furthermore, Osborne does not even mention the New Testament kerygmas located in Acts, all of which end with an affirmation of Jesus being raised from the dead. Osborne's unremitting predilection for the Gospels at the expense of the Pauline corpus does not give enough of a rounded view of what the early church affirmed about the Resurrection, especially Paul's own attempt to explain to people who had a too-carnal notion of the Resurrection as "mere" resuscitation of a dead person.

It is clear that within a generation after the earthly life of Jesus, the Pauline communities taught that Jesus had lived, had died, and .was raised by the power of God from the dead. What is one to make of that? In other words, Osborne's treatment doesn't do justice to a topic that is complex and multilayered even with respect to the Gospel materials on which he concentrates. His reflections on theology are even more problematic. Osborne is such a good theologian and so widely read that we can only hope that this little book, useful in so many ways, is a "finger exercise" for something far more meaty in the future.

Lawrence S. Cunningham teaches theology at the University of Notre Dame.