'Resurrection is not the redescription of death; it is its overthrow, and with that the overthrow of those whose power depends on it. Despite the sneers and slurs of some contemporary scholars, it was those who believed in the bodily resurrection who were burned at the stake and thrown to the lions. Resurrection was never a way of settling down and becoming respectable; the Pharisees could have told you that. It was the gnostics who translated the language of resurrection into a private spirituality and a dualistic cosmology; thereby more of less altering its meaning into its opposite, who escaped persecution. Which emperor would have sleepless nights worrying that his subjects were reading The Gospel of Thomas? Resurrection was always bound to get you into trouble, and regularly did.'
Tom Wright, Surprised by Hope, p.62.
