Surprised by Hope

This

Linked me to this... Which looks like an interesting read... to me at least.

From Publishers Weekly

Wright, one of the greatest, and certainly most prolific, Bible scholars in the world, will touch a nerve with this book. What happens when we die? How should we think about heaven, hell, purgatory and eternal life? Wright critiques the views of heaven that have become regnant in Western culture, especially the assumption of the continuance of the soul after death in a sort of blissful non-bodily existence. This is simply not Christian teaching, Wright insists. The New Testament's clear witness is to the resurrection of the body, not the migration of the soul. And not right away, but only when Jesus returns in judgment and glory. The "paradise," the experience of being "with Christ" spoken of occasionally in the scriptures, is a period of waiting for this return. But Christian teaching of life after death should really be an emphasis on "life after life after death"-the resurrection of the body, which is also the ground for all faithful political action, as the last part of this book argues. Wright's prose is as accessible as it is learned-an increasingly rare combination. No one can doubt his erudition or the greatness of the churchmanship of the Anglican Bishop of Durham. One wonders, however, at the regular citation of his own previous work. And no other scholar can get away so cleanly with continuing to propagate the "hellenization thesis," by which the early church is eventually polluted by contaminating Greek philosophical influence. 

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Review

"This book is N.T. Wright at his finest." (Rob Bell, author of Velvet Elvis )

This book will be widely read because it stirs together Scripture, tradition, art and world affairs with pleasing metaphors and public courage. (The Dallas Morning News )

"Wright's unwavering faith in the resurrection is quite evident as he defends the Easter narratives on historical and theological grounds." (America Magazine )

"N.T. Wright can write. . . when it comes to questions of Christ's resurrection and what that means, no one is more persuasive. Wright's new book, Surprised by Hope, builds on C.S. Lewis' succinct defense of the faith and takes it to a new level." (World Magazine )

His conclusions are both simple and world-shaking (Library Journal )

A crystal-clear, powerful course-correction for all of us--Christian or otherwise. If you want to know what Easter is about, get yourself a copy of Surprised by Hope and hunker down for the read of a lifetime....literally. (Phyllis Tickle, Beliefnet.com )

"In calling Christians to an epistemology of love and a re-emphasis of the Easter season, Wright knocked it out of the park." (Beliefnet (A "Top Religious Book of the Year") )