The Last Things Paperback

This remarkable book is driven both by a sense of personal urgency and by distinguished scholarship. Professor Thiselton confronts his own old age and experience of illness in employing hermeneutics to increase understanding of biblical and theological explorations of death and resurrection. He addresses both doubt and belief about the resurrection of the dead. He explains contrasting ideas about God’s covenant and about both the sacraments and scriptural authority. He deploys biblical scholarship, theological history and secular academic philosophy to define and expound belief about the second coming, or return, of Christ; about personal resurrection; about holiness, and teachings about purgatory and punishment; about judgment and justification; and about the beatific vision of God. The scholarship employed in this proclamation of faith makes it a complex book demanding repeated readings. It also makes it a marker for serious Christians confronted by trivialisation of faith through popular science, secular assertiveness, and simplistic conservative notions of moral authority. It demands hard work from readers who are not academic theologians, but the rewards are very great.