I

This book was originally conceived as the final part of the monograph Jesus and the Victory of God (1996),1 which is the second volume in the series Christian Origins and the Question of God, the first volume of which was The New Testament and the People of God (1992; hereafter referred to as NTPG). The study now offered to the reader's attention is thus the third volume of this series. That is, I had to adjust the original plan of the series, and therefore I am often asked what caused these changes. Therefore, I think it would be appropriate to say something about this.

A few months before the completion of Jesus and the Victory of God (hereinafter referred to as the IPB), Simon Kingston of SPCK came to me to tell me that the cover for the book was ready and that the amount of text that was available needed to be printed urgently, and asked how we should proceed in this situation. If the material now offered to the reader's attention had to be compressed to about seventy pages (I presumptuously thought at the time that such a reduction was possible), then the IBT would have to have a volume of at least eight hundred pages and, thus, already exceed the limits defined for it, which is not always pleasant for an already elderly scientist.

As it happens, I was thinking about the topics I was going to give at Yale Theological Seminary in the fall of 1996, right after graduating from the Institute of Theological Studies. It was assumed that the theme would be related to Jesus in one way or another. I was wondering whether I should give a concise article on the resurrection of Jesus in the book to be published, or try to fit into the lectures the arguments on this subject, which I had not sufficiently covered in the book and which I had hoped to expound exhaustively in the lectures (of course, I had not hoped to cram in the whole variety of texts on the subject). In the end, the problem was solved in this way: I omitted the section on the resurrection in the IBT, planned to give lectures on the resurrection at Yale, and to publish the latter in the form of a small book that would serve as a kind of link between the IBT and the book on Paul, which now (after the publication of this book) has become the fourth volume of the series. (As a result, some IBP reviewers have accused me of neglecting or even not believing in the resurrection of Jesus.

The Shaffer lectures were wonderful, at least for me. Those who hosted me and my wife at Yale gave us an extremely warm welcome. My gratitude to them for the honor they have given me is more than any words. The result of reading these lectures was the understanding that the topics touched upon in them need to be developed further. For this purpose, when I was invited to give lectures in the next three years, I began to offer these topics each time, which in the end, as I then hoped, would take shape in a small book. In this way, I was able to deliver on the resurrection in the Drumwright Lectures at Southwestern Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, the Bishops' Lectures in Winchester, the Hun-Bullock Lectures at Holy Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, the Dubo Lectures at the University of the South in Swanee, Tennessee, the Kenneth W. Clark Lectures at Duke Seminary in Durham, North Carolina. Sprunt Lectures at Union Seminary in Richmond, Virginia. (A version of the lectures given at Sewani was published in the Theological Review of Sewani 41.2, 1998, 107–156; I have published other versions of the same lectures from time to time, as well as several essays on the same subject; see Bibliography below for a detailed list.) I had the opportunity to give similar lectures, among other things, at the Summer School of Princeton Theological Seminary, which was held at the University of the Apostle Andrew; I was even able to give a one-person lecture, which included a concise argument on the problem, in a number of educational institutions, in particular, at St. Michael's Seminary in Baltimore, at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, as well as at Truet Seminary, at Baylor University in Waco (Texas). I have the warmest memories of visiting these wonderful and hospitable educational institutions.

But the most important thing that happened to me as I finished working on the material of these lectures, clarifying a lot and filling in many gaps, was the appointment of me as a visiting lecturer at the MacDonald Chair at Harvard Theological Seminary for the fall semester in 1999. Unexpectedly, I got the opportunity to devote not two or three lectures to the topic that concerned me, but as many as twenty, and my listeners were highly erudite and intelligent and, in the best sense of the word, critical students. Naturally, with each lecture I became more and more convinced of the need for an even more thorough and large-scale development of the problems covered in the curriculum. My previous plan to write a small book based on the materials of these lectures, as I expected, failed. But on the other hand, I received a favorable opportunity to lay the foundation for work on the book, which is now held in the hands of the dear reader. In this regard, I want to express my deepest gratitude to my colleagues and friends at Harvard, and in particular to Al MacDonald, the founder of the department, whose personal support and constant interest in my work inspired me to great achievements. Thus, although the book in its eventual form was quite different from what had been conceived at Yale, the seeds sown then sprouted and bountifully harvested at Harvard. I am sure that my friends in both of these most illustrious schools will not make much objection to the indissoluble bond which has now been established between them, particularly because of my book.

II

This book has reached its current size in part because, as I was working on the material and working through vast amounts of secondary literature, it always seemed to me that all sorts of unsympathetic concepts concerning key ideas and key texts had become undeservedly widespread. And to eradicate them, as is the case with various weeds that have flooded a wonderful garden, very often the only way left is to dig them up by the roots. In particular, it has become almost commonplace in New Testament studies that the early Christians did not think of Jesus as rising from the dead in the most bodily way; at the same time, Paul, who is constantly quoted, is presented as the main witness to what is now fashionable to call the "spiritual" view of this problem. This seems to me to be an extreme misconception (although researchers do not like to say that some of their colleagues are frankly wrong, I will still dare to use the term "delusion" as a designation of opinions that I think are incorrect, in view of the vital importance and seriousness of the problem), which has become too widely accepted to remain calm, and not to take up a shovel and eagerly begin to dig up this multitude of weeds at the roots. and then proceed to sow a noble and useful crop; Such an adequate remedy against weeds, in my opinion, is an alternative approach rooted in the historical soil. The reader may be satisfied that I do not give many examples of various "fallacies" about Judaism and the New Testament in different places. I preferred to turn to the primary sources and let them shape the structure of the book, rather than allow endless idle talk about the "clear formulation of the question", which most often does not contribute to a constructive search for an answer. (The first part of the IBP provides the necessary background for further discussion around the main problems and methods.)

The book would take on incredible dimensions if I entered all the details of the discussions or set myself the task of quoting at least once every researcher with whom I express agreement or disagreement. In the same way, it could be doubled if I were to analyze all sorts of interesting and original, but misleading, solutions to this or that problem.