The Missing Piece

The resurrection of the body is a key place to think about who we are and which facets of ourselves are integral to ourselves. The introduction to this book places the resurrection of the body within the context of ancient anxieties about the self: What makes us who we are? It also reviews the history of scholarship on this question and traces the way that ideas about resurrection have been divorced from broader thinking about the self.

Functionality

This chapter uses Jesus’s statement that people will not procreate in heaven to examine the importance of functioning body parts in the afterlife. It argues that early church interpretation of this passage wrestled with the futility and, thus, potential immorality of nonfunctioning body parts in heaven.

Imagining Beauty and Remembering Ourselves

The conclusion illustrates how societal valuations of different kinds of bodies continue to shape our conception of the afterlife not only in theological speculation, but also in the scientific ambitions of modern technology. It examines how modern technologies continue to be shaped by cultural concerns about memory loss and identity.