Since his student days, Gerd Ludemann has noted how both New Testament scholars and theologians have tended to be evansive about what actually happened at the resurrection of Jesus. How was Jesus seen? Was the tomb really empty, and, if so, what happened to the body?
Dissatisfied with so much of what he read, he set out to write his own book, making a thourough examination of all the passages relating to the resurrection in the New Testament, beginning with the fanmous verse in 1 Corinthians 15 and going through to the last chapter of John's Gospel.
The results of this exhausttive study are largely negative, Ludemann succeeds in demonstrating just how much tradition and the evangelists themselves have contributed to the Easter story.
THis is an honest scholarly book with the ring of truth, and needs to be read without prejudice. Those who do so will find that in fact it is remarkably positive.