‘This book is unashamedly a book of systematic theology’ (p. ix). These are Peter Carnley’s opening words, meant at that point to distinguish his analysis from ‘the focus of New Testament Studies … the interpretation of ancient texts and … [so] … more concerned to address the constructive work of articulating an understanding of Christian faith in the Resurrection of Christ for today’. This is undoubtedly a work of systematic theology, but it is much more than this. It is also an analysis of the philosophical ‘soup’ out of which the early Christian writers extracted the ingredients for their own theological recipes; furthermore, it engages with New Testament scholarship whenever it needs to and, alongside Carnley’s Resurrection in Retrospect, it presents one volume of a marathon diptych of studies into this crucial area for all Christian believers. It is a systematic and scholarly piece of work, but it never loses sight of key issues for the contemporary Church. Why, for example, do some people turn out to be believers and others not?

One central element in Carnley’s argument is set out at the beginning of his first chapter. This is the establishment of two quite different approaches to resurrection belief. The first approach outlined is historical in its emphasis and seeks to establish that the resurrection happened, that is, that it is to be understood as a historical event of the past, just like any other event within human history, rooted in historical research. Figures to have followed such an approach include Brooke Foss Westcott in the nineteenth century and Wolfhart Pannenberg in the twentieth. In recent years, the outstanding example is N.T. Wright, who becomes something of a constant antagonist for Carnley with whom he contends throughout. The other stream of scholars with whom Carnley would ally himself see the resurrection as ‘a mystery of God with an uncompromising transcendent character’ (p. 1). Here, alongside himself, Carnley includes James D.G. Dunn, John Knox and others, although in this combative analysis, he is even to take Dunne to task at certain points in his argument.

Given this broad framework, investigation begins by contrasting those passages in the New Testament which tend to be patient of historical analysis with those which more clearly attempt to describe transcendent accounts of the resurrection. Mark and Matthew are seen by Carnley to be the key documents which set the scene – free of the developed apologetic narratives included in both Luke’s and John’s Gospel. Carnley is clear that the account we now have of Mark, ending at ch. 16, v. 8, is the gospel as Mark originally intended. Matthew, he notes, attempts to fill all the gaps left intentionally by Mark in his account. Here, as one notes throughout the book, specific scholars are cited and engaged with, using their best insights, but also viewing them critically, where their arguments appear not to follow through or where they lead to unsatisfactory and for Carnley, unsustainable conclusions: Leslie Houlden is both hero and scoundrel at this point. He is praised for his analysis of Mark and the other evangelists but arraigned for his non-cognitive conclusions.

Remembering the distinction made at the outset between a historical and a transcendent approach, Carnley now naturally turns to Paul and his undeniably Spirit-filled accounts of the resurrection of Christ. Indeed, it is noted how Paul, at no point, gives an account of, or alludes to, either the empty tomb or physical descriptions of the resurrection. Instead it is the spirit of Christ which takes centre stage and phrases like being ‘in Christ’ (a favourite expression for Paul) become the focus. At more than one point in the book, Carnley indicates a positive response to Troels Engberg-Pedersen’s groundbreaking work on the Stoic background to Pauline thought. This, it is argued, is the key source for the language of ‘indwelling’ and so the experience and instantiation of the concept of being ‘in Christ’ and encountering the ‘raised Christ’. Carnley approves of Engberg-Pedersen’s ontological understanding of the Spirit as a material and physical reality. Philo is cited as a further exponent of a similar ontology in Jewish thought, although is not perceived to be an original thinker. As is the case throughout, however, Carnley is never entirely captured by one scholar and later he engages with Engberg-Pedersen for his failure also to see the Platonic or perhaps Platonic/Stoic influences on Paul. Carnley’s grasp of the philosophical background is impressive throughout.

Having established this ontological base for talk of the Spirit, Carnley brings to note other scholars who have contributed here. Evagrius’s talk of ‘divine encounter’, using the five senses, marks the beginning. Others are cited and, from the nineteeenth century, Rudolf Otto’s work on the numinous is important with his talk of the ‘mysterium tremendens et fascinans’. Both Bultmann’s existential reinterpretation, following his demythologization project, and Barth’s ‘word’ centred theology, rooted in Scripture yet standing to a degree above the biblical texts themselves, are rejected as realistic ways forward for a full ontological understanding of how humanity encounters the risen Christ. The unsatisfactory nature of the various attempts of recovering the so-called ‘historical Jesus’ are described and then put aside.

Moving to a different philosophical world, Wittgenstein’s ‘seeing as’ becomes an important component in Carnley’s developing argument and he draws out resonances with Sarah Coakley’s work on Gregory of Nyssa. Earliest experiences of the resurrection of Christ, it is argued, defied normal expression and remained a transcendental mystery. John Hick’s use of Wittgenstein’s thought becomes part of the development of a ‘grammar of God’; that is, a theological discourse to be used in grounding talk of encountering the ‘risen Christ’ and working towards a credible identification with the same human being, Jesus, who was raised by God. This moves the reader into the realm of memory and of precisely how the human Jesus was remembered. The key scholar cited here is the twentieth-century American New Testament writer, John Knox. Knox talks of a memory within the Church, of both a ‘stable core’ and of ‘detailed facts’ about the life and death of Jesus. This is developed further by talking of dispositional and episodic memories. Ultimately both are important. First, one recognizes the risen Christ through clear memories and echoes of the disposition of such a man. But episodic incidents from Jesus’ life are also crucial so that the actual man Jesus can be finally identified in encounters with the Spirit of Christ.

Here Carnley’s work is particularly refreshing. The extreme scepticism of Bultmann and his school, whereby we can know virtually nothing about Jesus, is replaced by a critical appraisal of the positive work of more recent scholars including Richard Burridge and most notably, Richard Bauckham, with his emphasis on ‘eye-witness’ traditions. This is brought together again with further discussion of the dispositional and episodic memories held by the early Church of Jesus, which were passed on through the tradition such that they can be of use at any point in history, including our contemporary reflection on experience. It is the collective/shared experience of Jesus that is crucial in identifying that this is the same man, the Jesus who died on the cross, who is encountered in talk of resurrection and the Spirit of the risen Christ.

Following an extended reflection on the ‘resurrection of the body’ and a further critique of N.T. Wright’s historical approach, there are new insights into precisely what Paul was referring to by talk of ‘the resurrection of the body’. These insights reinforce the double notion of an experience of the ‘Spirit of the risen Christ’, together with the promise finally of an encounter with the transcendent Christ. This is arrived at through a further critique of Engberg-Pedersen’s work. Carnley describes a ‘methectic’ understanding in Paul, which was derived from the increasing overlap, in middle Platonism, between Stoic and Platonic thought. This allows for the coming together of these two experiences of the risen Christ. This ‘methectic’ process both describes and allows for the notion of indwelling and incorporation into Christ, which many scholars (including James D.G. Dunn) have found difficult to understand or interpret. This enables Carnley to conclude on a practical note indicating that such insights draw the Christian church both to its essential vocation to worship and also, by the indwelling mind of Christ, to live a moral life, which shows a proper responsibility for humanity and all creation.

This book is not for the faint-hearted. It is a closely packed argument and if there is one critical note to strike it is of a certain repetition in elements of the arguments with Engberg-Pedersen, John Knox, James D.G. Dunn and others which reappear regularly as the argument develops. N.T. Wright never disappears from the horizon and is frequently back on the stage! Nonetheless, this is a minor criticism of such a carefully argued case for the reality of Christ’s resurrection and of the possibility for us both to be indwelt by it today and to be ‘transforming transformers’ of our world.