...When Jews spoke of resurrection it was not something that they expected would happen to their god YHWH. Nor was it something that would happen to them again and again; it would be a single, unrepeatable event.
Likewise, when Christians spoke of the resurrection of Jesus they did not suppose it was something that happened every year, with the sowing of seed and the harvesting of crops. They could use the image of sowing and harvesting to talk about it; they could celebrate Jesus' death by breaking bread; but to confuse this with the world of the dying and rising gods would be a serious mistake. The early Christians did not engage in the relevant praxis; they only tangentially employed the same symbols... and they told a very different story from those of Adonis, Attis and the rest. Their answers to the worldview questions were radically different. And the set of beliefs and aims that were generated from within their worldview were simply not on the same map. It is of course quite possible that, when people in the wider world heard what the early Christians were saying, they attempted to fit the strange message into the worldview of cults they already knew. But the evidence suggests that they were more likely to be puzzled, or to mock. When Paul preached in Athens, nobody said, 'Ah, yes, a new version of Osiris and such like'. The Homeric assumption remained in force. Whatever the gods - or the crops - might do, humans did not rise from the dead.
- N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, p, 81.
