79: According to the Scriptures – Resurrection in the Old Testament

Alastair Roberts revisits the resurrection stories of the Old Testament.

Jesus expected his followers to know that he was going to have to die and would then be resurrected – but, famously, they didn’t figure it out until it happened. What were Jewish expectations of resurrection, and where is the idea found in the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible?

Alastair discusses the hints and implications found throughout the text, from metaphors which point to Israel’s return from exile as a kind of political resurrection, to more literal expectations of life beyond death.

He then discusses how we are to understand Christ’s resurrected body itself, and therefore ours: Saint Paul says that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,” and yet Jesus tells his disciples to notice that he has “flesh and bone.” What is a spiritual body? How did first century Jews think of flesh and spirit? And what can we expect?