Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A fascinating presentation of the greatest mystery of all time, August 15, 2007
This excellent presentation by N.T. ("Tom") Wright, a top biblical scholar, Anglican bishop of Durham, prolific writer and historian is a treasure for anyone for whom the resurrection of Jesus Christ matters, whether as a Christian believer or simply as someone intrigued by a major historical puzzle.
The DVD is essentially a summary of Wright's recent book, _The Resurrection of the Son of God_ which was published in 2003. He begins by laying the groundwork with a fascinating and quite detailed description of the prevailing beliefs about death and the afterlife in the ancient world - Ecclesiastes, Homer, Plato - and with glimpses of the relevant sites as they look today: the site of Plato's "academy", the acropolis in Athens, the Western Wall of the Temple in Jerusalem, and the ruins of an extremely weird place which seems to have been a kind of metaphysical maze located somewhere in Greece in which people used to try to contact the souls of the deceased. This is not only creepy, but effective in that Dr. Wright uses it as a startling visual metaphor for the fact that the ancient world had no concept of the resurrection of the dead, only "a dead end": ghosts, yes; seances, yes; visions, yes; dreams, certainly, but nothing remotely like the stories about the empty tomb of Jesus the Messiah in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and the references in St. Paul's writings.
This is central, as until now many scholars have made the assumption that people in the ancient world could be lumped together as believing in all sorts of things that "modern science" has "disproved" (as though anyone could possibly have been unaware of what happens to the body after it dies!) and without any effort to survey exactly what these beliefs were, much less take them at all seriously. Sadly, they have also opine that anyway it didn't matter whether Jesus rose bodily from the dead, the unstated assumption being that the physical world is unimportant, an ancient platonic belief recurring in many forms of gnosticism and alive and well today. Wright addresses all these issues succinctly and in detail.
Wright next moves on to the beliefs about death and resurrection in the Jewish world, describing not only the references in the Bible (Ecclesiastes, Daniel, etc.) but with recent research about the Essenes and the community of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, all of which will be news to many of us. As he conducts us on a visual tour of all the settings in which these things happened, the viewer's imagination is kindled so that when the figure of Jesus is introduced - a fiery young rabbi preaching around the Sea of Galilee with an urgent message announcing the coming of God's kingdom - it comes alive and for the first time it's possible to grasp not only why it mattered to people as much as it did, but why the stories of Jesus' resurrection, contrary to what many scholars have been saying, were so radically counter-intuitive to the conventional wisdom of the times.
Last of all, Bishop Wright moves on to the stories of the empty tomb and the post-resurrection appearances and what they were like. At this point there is more use of actors and scene depictions, but these are accomplished with economy and a clean, spare style. The actor portraying Jesus in particular is extremely effective, with an unconventionally rugged, strikingly strong face that is unforgettable. The scene in which the encounter at Emmaus is related and shown is worth the whole dvd all by itself.
I strongly recommend this production to anyone who cares about what happened on that first Easter, for whatever reason.The Resurrection of the Son of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God)The Resurrection of the Son of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God)
|
|
|
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Well Done, April 4, 2008
This is an excellent production. In just 50 minutes he summarizes his beleif in the bodily resurrection of Jesus and the future resurrection of God's people. Wright is one of the best Jesus scholars and New Testament theologians in the world today. Watching this DVD, read his book on the Resurrection of the Son of God and his new Surprised by Hope will give you a firm foundation on Christian teaching about life after death.
Thanks Bishop.
|
|
|
|
DVD ~ Dr. N.T. Wright
by N. T. Wright
