the context of our passage. Paul’s primary concern in 1 Corinthians 15 is the doctrine of bodily resurrection. This is by far the longest chapter in the New Testament epistles. (And 1 Corinthians is the longest of all the epistles.) Its importance is proportional to its length. Of all the truths Christians affirm, none is more essential to our faith than a belief in literal, bodily resurrection. That starts, of course, with the literal resurrection of Christ’s physical body, and (as Paul argues meticulously