Levenson challenges the standard opinion of scholarship, which holds that the notion of bodily resurrection is a late development within Judaism supported only briefly by the early rabbis who employed methods of biblical interpretation at odds with modern scientific criticisms. By examining concepts such as ancestral lineage, family name, Sheol, and key biblical texts, Levenson convincingly demonstrates that the concept of resurrection developed over a long course of time from Judaism's roots,and by neglecting the concept in recent centuries Judaism has missed out on one of it's own treasured tenets of hope. Rarely does a book turn scholarship on its head as this one does -- a must read for Jewish and Christian scriptural, historical, and theological scholars.