Holmen's focus in this monograph on the death of Jesus as a source of New Testament theodicy reveals a two-fold reasoning: the continued relevance of the theme, and the lack of thorough and sustained investigations into it. With its special role within the New Testament canon and within the New Testament perspectives to suffering in particular, and its significance in the modern discussion of theodicy, the crucifixion forms a fascinating starting point for understanding New Testament approaches to suffering.

The death of Jesus is commonly regarded as the one radically novel perspective from which (the problem of) suffering is viewed in the New Testament. At other points, the New Testament has appropriated viewpoints present elsewhere in contemporary Jewish writings and in the Old Testament. Thus, the idea of suffering as God's retribution or as a test for discipline is both derivative and in line with the traditions known in the time contemporary to the formation of the New Testament canon. By contrast, quite novel is the re-focusing of suffering as intercessionary in the act of the crucifixion which appeared to the world as 'ridiculous', 'mad', 'absurd' and 'impossible'.