I Believe in the Resurrection of the Body

by Rubem Alves

Book Overview

I wrote these things as celebrations of the resurrection. In the hope of the resurrection of the dead. To exorcise death, which we ourselves feed with our flesh. Invocations of joy and beauty. Whoever is joyful and loves beauty fights better. Resurrected bodies are more beautiful warriors because they bring in their hands the colors of the rainbow. And so bodies are transformed into seed which impregnates the earth so the future can be born. . . ...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1592443311
• ISBN13: 9781592443314
• Release Date: September 2003
• Publisher: Wipf & Stock Publishers
• Length: 80 Pages
• Weight: 0.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 5.5" x 7.7"

Customer Reviews

I Believe in the Resurrection of the Body

This small, but beautifully written book, translated from the Portuguese, contains a refreshing look at an old theme, the resurrection of Jesus. Part poetry, part verbal painting with it Alves reframes the idea of Christ's resurrection in such a way that whether it factually, scientifically happened or not, ceases to be important. Alves contends that God came to earth as Jesus, because God wanted to live in a human body--to experience its living--because he envied humanity and our humanness. Living life as a human was a gratifying thing for God. When God got here, in the form of Jesus, he wanted to experience all the wonderful and mysterious, gratifying and un-gratifying, joyfilled and sorrowful things about being a human. Alves says if we were to ask God what God wanted to be when he grew up, God would say: "There is nothing better to be than a man, a woman, a child. All of this is very good. Let everything be redeemed. The earth will yet be a place of laughter and play. That is what I want, this is my desire. God's desire is salvation; salvation is deep joy for life, for body, for nature."