The resurrection of Jesus represents the climax of each Gospel narrative and the heart of Christian theology. The four resurrection narratives, important in their own right and quite diverse, make an excellent subject for a redactional study.
I. Howard Marshall credits the author with looking at the accounts of the resurrection "with minute care to see exactly how each Evangelist tells the story and to bring out more effectively the distinctive theological understanding found in each Gospel." Marshall assesses The Resurrection Narratives as "an important contribution to the study of the Gospels.”
Each Gospel account is studied in turn to isolate the redactional method and theological emphases of each evangelist. Then the traditions behind the Gospel accounts are studied to discover the development and historical worth of the individual pericopes. This is done by examining both the empty-tomb narratives, which are mostly paralleled in all four Gospels, and the appearance narratives, which are generally independent traditions.
"Both the original traditions and the later interpretations [of Jesus’ resurrection] were the product of eyewitness testimony and deal with the accurate reflections of the original followers of Jesus,” contends the author. The method of redaction criticism, properly applied to the narratives, "is not a threat to a high view of Scripture and indeed supports such a position.”