This book by Frank J. Matera, professor emeritus at The Catholic University of America and pastor at St. Mary's Church, Simsbury, Connecticut, is written for “a wider audience than the academic community” (2) with a view toward illustrating why the resurrection of Jesus is so important for Christian faith and practice. For Matera, “the resurrection of Jesus is the foundation of Christian faith; it is that without which Christianity is no longer Christianity,” so that “if we downplay the resurrection by saying that Jesus did not really rise from the dead, but rather his disciples believed in him anew despite his shameful death, there really is no basis for faith in the general resurrection of the dead of all believers” (10–11). This thesis is worked out by means of a survey of the theology embedded in the New Testament, beginning with the gospel tradition apart from the resurrection narratives, followed by a consideration of the resurrection narratives in the gospels, with sensitivity to differences within the texts themselves and among the four gospels. Matera's aim is not to ask “what happened,” but to “seek to understand the theological significance of what happened” (37). He explains that his intentions are not apologetic, but rather are to strengthen and inform the faith of those who already believe that God raised Jesus from the dead. Nonetheless, he also invites “those who do not believe, or who have fallen away, to consider the central claim of the New Testament: God raised Jesus from the dead” (17).

The book offers an excellent and full summary of what the gospels say about Jesus' appearances and the empty tomb and what the implications of those discussions mean for those who read the New Testament today. Interesting information from Paul's writings, from Acts of the Apostles, Hebrews, 1 Peter, 1 John, and the book of Revelation help Matera to demonstrate the importance of the Resurrection both for the early church and for today. All of this makes this book useful for undergraduate students and for church study groups.

Despite the positive features of this work, there are some questions worth considering. First, there appears to be an odd promotion of some idea of conditional salvation throughout that does not square with the author's own presentation of Paul's doctrine of justification by grace through faith. Hence, we are told that “while resurrection is a gift, God's sheer grace, it is a gift that requires a response from those who hope to attain it” (131). Second, Matera consistently insists that Jesus did not raise himself from the dead; only God did that. Yet Cyril of Alexandria, for example, read John 2:19–22 to mean that Jesus did indeed raise himself from the dead and that this was not in conflict with the fact that God also raised him, since, as the Son, he was one in being with the Father and the Spirit. More attention to the Trinitarian relations ad intra and ad extra might have been helpful here; it is ambiguous, for instance, in light of the fact that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and Son in eternity, to write that “the Spirit was the outcome of Jesus' resurrection.…Without the resurrection, there would be no Spirit” (7). Third, Matera speaks frequently about the Resurrection and only seldom about the risen Lord actively engaging us here and now through the power of his Holy Spirit—resurrection is seen more as a happening that “released” the power of the Spirit (138) than as an event in the life of Jesus that enabled him, as the living Lord, to mediate between us and the Father here and now and in the future. More discussion of how our union with Christ himself, through the Spirit, is the enabling condition of the Christian life might have been helpful here. Finally, in Matera's discussion of the Incarnation and Resurrection, it is not entirely clear that Jesus' uniqueness was his because of who he was rather than because of the Resurrection (124–25).