Abstract
The Resurrection of Jesus provides an explanatorily powerful hypothesis accounting for the emergence of “resurrection” belief within the framework of the comparative study of religion. This review article focuses on a central question that illuminates the methodological and theoretical implications attending this project, namely, “What does it mean to say that Jesus ‘rose from the dead?’” Challenging the idea that this explanatory model allows for Christian theological claims to be inferred, this article explores how the category of “resurrection” can be problematized in historical discourse—not only because “resurrection” implies an eschatological narrative that was never fulfilled—but also to avoid the theologically freighted implications of the category in the historical study of Christian origins.
