Divine Bodies

“Why does Christianity see bodily resurrection as salvation? How do ideas about embodied eternity encode time-bound cultural values concerning health, wealth, beauty, sex, and self? Candida Moss’s lithe essay investigates all these questions with lively erudition, with humor and with insight. Divine Bodies is divine reading.”—Paula Fredriksen, author of When Christians Were Jews

“[A]clever, provocative, and creative study of resurrection beliefs. . . . This is a wonderful little book: it represents the rare combination of careful research, topical subject matter in its interest in body and disability, and witty delivery that is the envy of any scholar.”—Zeba Crook, Biblical Theology Bulletin

“With enormous learning and gentle sensitivity Candida Moss explores the intricate pathways of the Christian imagination. In the process she skillfully and insightfully reveals the complex ironies of a hoped for future life and the ways it often mirrors an unexamined present.”—Harold W. Attridge, Yale Divinity School

“Are our bodies ourselves? Candida Moss shows how culturally constructed notions of human perfection and beauty have shaped New Testament passages about the resurrected body—and modern biblical scholarship as well. A thought-provoking work of intellectual and cultural history.“—David Brakke, The Ohio State University

“This fresh, careful study will change our classical images of bodily resurrection. Shining new light on both well-known texts and more neglected sources, Candida Moss shows how earthly disabilities are an integral part of resurrected, glorified bodies.”—Christoph Markschies, Humboldt-University Berlin

“In this thought-provoking book, Candida Moss invites readers to rethink our views about the resurrection and critically question our (often implicit) assumptions of the perfect and impaired bodies.”—Ismo Dunderberg, University of Helsinki

“Divine Bodies is a novel contribution to the field of resurrection and the nature of the human person. Moss writes with lucid prose, awareness of the vast breadth of literature on the topic, and engagement with a significant number of primary sources. Her work is one primarily of biblical exegesis and how historical background influences interpretation rather than a philosophical treatise on the human person. However, anyone interested in anthropology or the doctrine of the resurrection will be interested in her work.”—Jordan L. Steffaniak, Reading Religion

"Those familiar with [Moss's] work will recognize in this study the same elements of scholarship and style that mark her scholarship more generally: readability, clarity, technical more specialist matters assigned to footnotes with an encyclopedic span of scholarship in multiple languages, creativity, thoughtfulness, an interest in the links of ancient ideas with contemporary notions, and wit."—Harry O. Maier, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

“Written with verve and imagination by the biblical scholar Candida R. Moss, the extended essay demonstrates how much our own concepts of our identity as bodily beings, as well as the cultural assumptions of our times about beauty and socio-economic standing, influence our imagining about life after death.”—Donald Senior, Bible Today

“[A] lively investigation . . . Gently and humorously, Moss welcomes us as co-conspirators in her hunt for meaning in bodies. . . . I imagine readers will leave this book living in their bodies differently.”—Trish Beckman, Christian Century

"Candida Moss's Divine Bodies provides fresh, provocative close readings of biblical texts and says something genuinely new about its topic. The book is readable for a non-specialist, but the footnotes still ground the specialists in the relevant scholarly bibliography. Further, Moss is able to make insightful contributions and to signal

where her biggest contributions lie without chastising other scholars."—Taylor Petrey

“Drawing upon previously unexplored evidence in ancient medicine, philosophy, and culture, this illuminating book both revisits central texts—such as the resurrection of Jesus—and mines virtually ignored passages in the Gospels to show how the resurrection of the body addresses larger questions about identity and the self.”—Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology