Resurrection

The story of Jesus’ trial and crucifixion is a key part of the New Testament, but is handled in very short chapters in four Gospels. Each version tells much the same story from a different perspective, but each is only a couple chapters and pages long. Terry Dick has taken that framework and expanded it to a short, book-length story. The bulk of the book is a more story-like version of Jesus’ prayer in the garden, his capture and subsequent crucifixion. However Dick also includes several imagined dialogs between Jesus and God, Jesus and Satan, and the ultimate confrontation between Jesus, God and Satan leading to the Resurrection.

The parts of Resurrection that follow the story from the Gospels simply take the biblical text and make it more accessible, written much like a historical novel that has enough supporting history to flesh out the personal interactions not usually documented. Those parts not discussed within the Gospels are either expository material aimed at explaining the need for Jesus’ sacrifice, or Jesus’ own thoughts about his upcoming trials. The fictionalized interactions between Jesus, his followers, and those involved in his trail and crucifixion, feel smooth and fit within the Biblical narrative. It is those additional scenes that, while providing additional depth to the scope of Jesus’ trials, also are the most speculative and, while thought-provoking, not the strongest part of Resurrection.

For readers interested in a novelization of the period around Jesus’ crucifixion, Resurrection will fit the bill and also provide some of the theological doctrine behind the necessity of the Crucifixion and subsequent death and resurrection of Jesus.