I am currently reading The Resurrection of the Son of God by N.T. Wright, which my lovely wife very graciously bought for me! I must say that I am greatly enjoying the book and the historical case that Wright has made for the resurrection as an actual bodily resurrection, not some Platonic "spiritual" resurrection or mere resusitation. The whole scope of the book is enormous including both the canonical and non-canonical literature.

I must admit that I'm still thinking my through the use of the non-canonical literature in exegesis. First, I readily see that it is essential to read and understand it order to be better able to interpret the text and to get a good sense of the historical context of the gospels and the rest of the NT. But it seems that many scholars (though I don't think that Wright is one of them, but he mentions a few) get side-tracked by these other texts and start imposing them on the Scriptures, when Scripture might actually be saying something different. Apparently 2 Corinthians 4 is treated like this by some scholars, who believe that Paul has shifted in his belief from a bodily resurrestion (is there any other kind asks Wright) in 1 Corinthians to a non-bodily, shedding of the husk, Platonic, gnostic sort of resurrection, where the soul finally sheds the flesh and spends eternity in some disembodied state in heaven. I think as long as the non-canonical texts are kept in there proper place there is no harm in reading them, and actually, as I would argue, a great deal of treasure to be mined from Scripture because of them. Others would argue that they are too dangerous and must not be used at all in interpretation. This just seems like parnoia, especially given the fact that many people during Bible times would have been familiar with them. It would seem that books hold more power than most of us would like to believe. Remember reading is active; it makes us move.