KrisK10

...or the risen body was the earthly body transformed.

I would note too that what Paul is calling foolish in 1 Cor 15:36 is not so clearly what you suggest (i.e. those who discuss the raising of corpses). He may simply be calling those at Corinth questioning the raising of corpses "fools".

If I am right about what the Corinthians are doubting, Paul would not necessarily attack the idea of a raised soul as you suggest he should have done. It makes sense that he would just concentrate on their doubts about the body.

2 Cor 5 is full of ambiguity too. After Paul says, "if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens", he says, "For in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling...we wish not to be unclothed but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life."

I know a lot of people have tried hard to make the case that Paul did not believe Jesus was raised in a way that entailed his corpse being gone from its final human resting place, and this may be one way to read Paul, but IMHO I think another way to read Paul is that he believed Jesus was raised in a way that entailed his corpse being gone from its final human resting place (i.e. seed becomes plant, corpse becomes spiritual body; seed and corpse are both gone after each transformation). Its a huge topic and I don't have the time right now to get into it. Sorry.

Kris

Toto

Reviewed by James McGrath on Exploring Our Matrix blog Nice review, and some interesting comments

Steven Carr

Transformation?

Yes, the corpse could well vanish, in Paul's thought.

As Paul says 'Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.'

What part of 'destroyed' means 'transformation'?

And Paul writes about a 'naked' seed. It has no material of its own.

Paul explains to the Corinthians that the difference between earthly and heavenly things is like the difference between birds, fish, man, animals, the Sun and the Moon.

These things are always transforming into each other, aren't they?

'Fish' and 'The Moon' are just the right analogies to use when talking about how earthly corpses transform into resurrected beings.....

And then , just to rub in the idea of transformation, you would naturally talk about clothing and tents.

People change clothes by transforming their old clothes into new clothes. Nobody would ever think of taking off their old clothes and putting on new ones. That sort of metaphor makes no sense.

Similarly with buildings. If you want to hammer home to idiots the idea of a transformation, you talk about buildings. When people change houses, they transform their old house into a new house, rather than leave one house and move into a new one.

And if you want to stress that the mortal body gets out of the grave and becomes immortal, you use the idea of the mortal body being 'swallowed up', in the way that a drink of water is swallowed, engulfed, and devoured, leaving none behind. Water becomes everlasting once it enters the stomach, doesn't it?

Perhaps Paul means Jesus previous mortal body was inside the new body, having been engulfed by the spiritual body?

KrisK10

Since Toto recently referred back to this thread, which I started almost a year ago to introduce my book, I hope it is not too presumptuous of me to do the same and give an update.

After originally introducing my book with one scholar endorsement, I would like to add that it now has five (Richard Carrier, James F. McGrath, Robert M. Price, Robert J. Miller, and Gregory C. Jenks). I have included these endorsements at the end of this post for anyone interested.

I think many here would find the hypothesis I propose in my book intriguing. My goal was to plausibly explain the rise of the beliefs and traditions in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7: Jesus "died for our sins...was raised on the third day...and appeared" to many people. In doing so, I presupposed that Jesus existed and that this passage was not a later interpolation.

In a nutshell, I argue in my book that the discovered empty tomb tradition is plausibly a legend, as is the gospel burial account, which is an integral part of the discovered empty tomb tradition. With this as a starting point, I propose it is plausible that Jesus was buried in the ground by an indifferent burial crew (possibly even including one Joseph of Arimathea) who only cared to mark the site with whiting or a pile of loose rocks. This would be an expected outcome for someone in Jesus' situation and being from the poorer classes.

I then go on to look at various known cases of radical rationalizations that have occurred in religious movements when faced with an event that threatens to disconfirm their beliefs. I propose that this process is the source of the early Christian belief that Jesus died for our sins and was raised (and would return very soon).

As for the appearance traditions, I argue that a few individual hallucinations of a beloved leader would not be unusual, nor would a fringe legend of a simultaneous appearance to over 500 people, the latter seeming a reasonable conclusion given that the appearance to the 500+ does not show up in any other literary source. Since there must have been a need to designate leaders in the new movement – those who had the ability to teach, preach, and defend the group’s new beliefs – the traditions of the appearances to the Twelve and to all the apostles could simply be designations of authority without any underlying group hallucination at all. This would be consistent with the hierarchical structure in the two appearance traditions – Peter apparently being the leader of the group known as the Twelve (“he appeared to Peter, then to the twelve”), James apparently being the leader of the group known as all the apostles (“he appeared to James, then to all the apostles”). We know too that an appearance of Jesus was required in order to confer authority to someone in the early church, for Paul says, “Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?” (1 Cor 9:1).

With regard to the third-day belief -- "raised on the third day according to the scriptures" -- I attempt to lay out a plausible argument that this belief is a scriptural inference from Ps 16:10. This was actually proposed more frequently back in the 1950’s and 1960’s, but it looks to me as if it was not flushed out very well.

In sum, my book is not so much new information as it is a layman’s synthesis of scholarly opinion, with the addition of perhaps a few small missing links and some perhaps clearer way of saying some things.

I should add that those looking for a confrontational repudiation of Jesus' resurrection will be disappointed in my book. Instead, my book is written as an invitation to both believer and non-believer to follow along in a non-confrontational inquiry that is openly driven by doubt. Its format is to follow a sequence of questions which all seem to have plausible answers and that together form an overall plausible answer for what might have happened at Christian origins.

I should add too that a plausible non-traditional explanation for the rise of the beliefs and traditions in 1 Cor 15:3-7 has some impact on the historical reliability of the gospels. Why? Because 1 Cor 15:3-7 is used by traditionalists as "external evidence" for the historical reliability of the gospels. But if there is another plausible explanation for the rise of these beliefs and traditions, there is nothing about 1 Cor 15:3-7 itself that supports the conclusion that the gospels are more likely historical rather than legendary expansions of these beliefs and traditions. In short, I believe that traditional scholarship should not be using 1 Cor 15:3-7 to support their assertion that the gospels are historically reliable.

For those interested, my book is available at Amazon.com (or via: amazon.co.uk), and as an ebook.

Thanks for letting me introduce my book again and all the best!

Kris K.


Endorsements For Doubting Jesus’ Resurrection: What Happened in the Black Box? (or via: amazon.co.uk)

“Rare is it when a lay author puts in the effort of wide research, gathers the references to every point together, interacts with the leading disputes, and offers something soundly argued that hadn’t been so well argued before. Komarnitsky does all of that and presents a surprisingly excellent demonstration of how belief in the resurrection of Jesus could plausibly have originated by natural means. Though I don’t always agree with him, and some issues could be discussed at greater length, everything he argues is plausible, and his treatise as a whole is a must for anyone interested in the resurrection.”
– Richard Carrier, Ph.D. Ancient History

“If you liked my book Beyond Born Again, you’re going to love this one by Kris Komarnitsky! He shows great acuity of judgment and clear-eyed perception of the issues. He does not claim to have proof of what happened at Christian origins, but he does present a powerfully plausible hypothesis for what might have happened, which is all you need to refute the fundamentalist claim that things can only have gone down their way. By now it is a mantra – it is also nonsense, and Kris shows that for a fact.”
– Robert M. Price, Ph.D. Theology, Ph.D. New Testament

“Komarnitsky is addressing an important topic in a considered and rational way. This book offers the open-minded reader an opportunity to work through some of the key questions surrounding the Easter mystery that lies at the heart of Christian faith.”
– Gregory C. Jenks, Ph.D. FaithFutures Foundation

“Proving the exception, this book shows that if a layman takes the time to investigate a topic, including learning how the relevant disciplinary tools are applied and familiarizes themselves with what experts have already written on a subject, they can draw balanced and even insightful conclusions that enhance the conversation. Those interested in a plausible natural explanation for the birth of Christianity will want to seriously consider this book.”
– James F. McGrath, Clarence L. Goodwin Associate Professor of New Testament Language & Literature, Butler University

“Clearly written and well argued, Doubting Jesus’ Resurrection lays out a plausible and intriguing case for a non-supernatural explanation of the New Testament resurrection accounts. Don’t be put off by the fact that Komarnitsky is not a scholar – his book makes a solid contribution to the historical-critical understanding of these immensely important texts. This book deserves serious attention from scholars and all those interested in Christian Origins.”
– Robert J. Miller, Professor of Religious Studies, Juniata College