"The resurrection of Jesus is the ground of the Church’s being. It is the ground of every Christian’s hope. The present is not everything; there is a future, and the message of the Gospels and of Jesus is that in that future we will be safe. But the future is not everything either. The resurrection people are not just those who align themselves to what the dramatis personae in the Gospel traditions saw, they actually participate in the new era, the future made present, which he embodies."

By uncovering the process that gave rise to the famous Gospel stories, David Catchpole opens a door into each writer’s distinctive world of conviction, faith, struggle and controversy. Catchpole shows that the characters of the resurrection narratives — Jesus himself, the women and men, the ecclesiastical heavyweights and the "nobodies" of Christian history — embody issues which affect the "resurrection people" of any time, including our own.

David Catchpole is Professor and Scholar in Residence (New Testament) at Sarum College, Salisbury, England. He is the author of The Quest for Q.