If Christ Has Not Been Raised ... : Studies on the Reception of the Resurrection Stories and the Belief in the Resurrection in the Early Church

The present volume contains the proceedings of the fourth symposium of the Novum Testamentum Patristicum project (NTP), an international re-search project on the reception history of the New Testament in the early Church. The symposium was held in October 2012 at the University of Leuven. It was organised by Joseph Verheyden, Tobias Nicklas, and An-dreas Merkt, the coordinators of NTP. The topic of the meeting was the reception of the resurrection and empty tomb stories and the development of the belief in resurrection in the early Church.The belief in the resurrection constitutes the core issue of Christianity and of Christian tradition. The earliest references to the resurrection and witnesses to such a belief are found in the canonical gospels and in the letters of Paul, but the topic obviously remained of the utmost importance all through the early Church. Contributions to this volume offer studies on reception of the resurrection and empty tomb stories and the development of the belief in resurrection in the early Church by examining the most important early references on this topic.