Recognizing the risen Christ by his wounds: Reading John’s account of the above-world body in Greco-Roman context

Abstract

When the risen Christ appears to his disciples, he offers the marks of his crucifixion as proof of physical resurrection and tokens of recognition but also as confronting symbols of trauma and suffering. Comparisons have been drawn between the appearance of the post-resurrection Christ and the expectations of those shaped by the Greco-Roman tradition to explain both the nature and function of these “marks” as scars. I argue that there are significant dissonances between the representation of scars and death-wounds narrated in Greco-Roman literature and the account of the above-world body of the resurrected Christ in the book of John. These differences impel us to read the “marks” on the body of the resurrected Christ as transfigured wounds rather than scars, with important implications for their narrative function and characterisation of Christ. The startling disjuncture here is that the fullness of life experienced in the world above, as exemplified in the post-resurrection Christ, is not incompatible with woundedness. This points toward a redefinition of what that life might entail, particularly as it relates to trauma, disability, and impairment and also for broader conceptions of authority, honor, and resolution in this world here below.