GakuseiDon

Yes, I pretty much agree, actually. Paul is talking about a transformation.

When Paul says "So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption" (1 Cor 15:42), is Paul talking about two different bodies IYO, or one body that gets transformed? The word "raised" is also the same word used in the Gospels when Jesus raised Lazarus.

Heh? You appear to be confusing me with someone else here, since I haven't tried to do that. To be honest, I can't really make sense out of most of your comments, I'm afraid. You seem to be channelling Chili. Maybe someone else may do a better job, because I honestly can't see where you think the problem is.

There is a progression from Paul to the Gospels, and to Justin Martyr and Irenaeus. Statements from Paul like "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor 15:50) were later used by the gnostics to claim that Christ didn't actually come in the flesh. Thus the later emphasis on the Risen Christ having flesh, eating, etc. But even there, it was an "incorruptible" or "perfected" flesh, since it had to exist above the firmament. That is the underlining theme running from Paul to Irenaeus.

Steven Carr

Sorry, I can't find the word 'body' or 'it' in the Greek. Nobody can.

The nearest noun before that is the dead, so you can translate it as 'The dead are sown in corruption. The dead are raised in incorruption.'

The nearest noun after it is 'body' , so you can translate it as 'A body is sown in corruption. A body is raised in incorruption.'

All perfectly consistent with what Paul wrotes, which is never that a mortal body is raised, or what Justin wrote 'The resurrection is a resurrection of the flesh which died.'

Paul didn't say it , because he didn't believe it. Dead bodies were dead.

GakuseiDon

So, what is Paul saying is being raised, in your opinion? Isn't it the same thing that was sown (which I assume means "put into the earth")?

Also, for 1Cr 15:52-54:
52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal [must] put on immortality.
54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

People alive at the time will have their bodies changed, so their bodies won't be "left behind". I think that is pretty clear?

Steven Carr

An extremely good question. I wish I knew, and I don't think Paul knows.

He regards us as being made of life (psyche), body (soma), and spirit (pneuma)

Life is what you lose when you die. For Paul, there is no hope in people with a psychicon body. They will lose all when they die.

For Paul, the body is just material. God breathes life into it, as he did with Adam, but when the life goes, the body just rots.

That leaves 'pneuma' - spirit, as the only thing that can provide continuity between the dead person who died and the person who is resurrected.

Again, there is no word 'body' in there. Paul could easily have put in the word body, but he left it out.

Careless writing on his part, I hear you say? He just forgot to pen the word 'body'?

I think not. I think he ommitted the word 'body' , because he didn't think bodies would be raised.

As for changed, the word is 'alasso', which Paul uses elsewhere to mean 'exchanged' as in Romans 1:23 where God is exchanged for an idol.

It is also used in the LXX to mean 'exchanged'. See Genesis 13:13 where one animal is exchanged for another.

So there is no problem there. His usage is entirely consistent with a usage of 'exchanged'.

Of course, the Corinthians were confused by Paul's writings in 1 Corinthians (even the bit where Paul says God will destroy both stomach and food), which is why Paul is even clearer in 2 Corinthians 5, and even clearer in 3 Corinthians were a fake Paul says all the things the real Paul never did.

GakuseiDon

Well, Paul actually tells us:

1 Cor 15:35 But someone will say, "How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?"

Unless Paul has forgotten the topic by the time he reaches 15:42, the rest of that passage would appear to be indicating what kind of body that the dead will be raised in. To repeat the passage I gave before:

1 Cor 15:42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. [The body] is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption.

True, "soma" isn't used in 15:42 itself, but surely that is the topic still under discussion. In fact, between 1 Cor 15:35 and 1 Cor 15:44, "soma" is used 10 times. I just can't see it as meaning anything other than that Paul is talking about the dead body that has been put into the earth being the one that is to be raised in incorruption.

As I mentioned before, Paul uses "body" 10 times starting from 1 Cor 15:35, and introduces it as the topic of discussion, so its omission may not be strange. Perhaps someone with a knowledge of Greek can give their comment on whether Paul doesn't mean "body" here.

Well, I suppose it is possible, it just doesn't seem likely.

mikem

There are five other passages where the "allasso" root is used:

Acts 6:14: we have heard him say that this Jesus will destroy this place and will change the customs which Moses delivered to us.

Romans 1:23 & 26 exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural.

Galatians 4:20 I could wish to be present with you now, and to change my tone

Hebrews 1:12like a mantle thou will roll them up, and they will be changed.
(Some manuscripts read "they will be changed like a garment".)

The above verses indicate that the meaning of the Greek word depends upon the immediate context.

In I Corinthians 15: 51 to 54 it means "changed" not "exchanged".

In Phillippians 3:20,21 Paul writes:

But our commonwealth is in heaven, and from it we await a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power which enables him even to subject all things to himself

In Phillippians Paul uses yet another word from which we derive the word metempsychosis. He is clearly talking about the same event as he does in 1 Corinthians.

To render alasso as "exchanged" in I Corinthians 15:52 would make no grammatical sense. "...and the dead shall be raised imperishable, and we shall be exchanged"? "We" shall be exchanged for what? If Paul had meant exchanged he would have surely said that our mortal bodies will be exchanged for immortal ones. Instead he talks of corruption "putting on" incorruption and immortality "putting on" immortality. Nothing is exchanged there. Paul is talking about transformation, as he does throughout the whole of the previous passage.

Steven Carr

You have clearly done your homework.

So have I. I have already researched it. It is the obvious objection, although it is an important objection for you to raise, and one that must be answered.

In Philippians , Paul uses the same word 'metaschmatizo' that is often used for changing clothes. We will discard our old clothes (ie body) and get new clothes, ie a new body.

Paul also uses the word for how Satan 'transforms' himself into an angel of light.

He doesn't mean Satan has become an angel of light. He means Satan is wearing a disguise. The clothes metaphor of 'metaschematizo' fits very well with Paul's thought.

And notice that Paul refuses to use the word 'body' in your quote of ' corruption "putting on" incorruption and immortality "putting on" immortality.'

You use your logic, if he had meant body he would have said body.

And of course, the image of a transformation of a body by a body 'putting on' something makes no sense. It is literally very superficial. What part of the story of the Gospels would you describe as the corpse of Jesus 'putting on' something? What was 'put on' what'? What was underneath what?


Nobody ever said the disciples 'put on' the Holy Spirit. They would receive the Holy Spirit. To get into a body , to transform it, you don't 'put on' something.

However it makes perfect sense to the rest of Paul's thought for we mortals to put on incorruptibility. Paul says that we are naked until we received our heavenly dwelling. Naturally a naked person (ie one stripped of his present clothing, his present body), will 'put on' something.

We mortals (and Paul avoids using the word body like the plague) here, will be 'swallowed up' (kapatino) by this incorruptibility, until nothing of the mortal of us remains.

Entirely different from the Gospel conception, where what had previously been mortal of Jesus was perfectly visible, and hadn't 'put on' anything. If Paul had written 'received' (analogous to the disciples receiving the Holy Spirit and being filled with it) , I might wonder about your point


But until people start talking about 'putting on' the Holy Spirit, it makes no sense.

Of course, Paul is rather confusing in 1 Corinthians 15, which is why 2 Corinthians 15 had to be written to resolve the worries the Corinthian Christians still had. In 2 Corinthians 5 , Paul is much clearer about our present bodies being destroyed and us 'putting on' a new , heavenly dwelling afte discarding our previous body and so being naked.

But basically, Paul is saying in 1 Corinthians 15, that if you wonder how bodies can be transformed, then you just haven't got it. They won't be, because what goes into the ground dies.

If the Corinthians were wondering how a headless corpse could still be a human being , if resurrected without a head, then an answer of 'The perishable must put on imperishability', is an obscure answer to say the least.

An answer of 'God gives it a new body' is much more to the point.

GakuseiDon

I just don't think that your interpretation fits I'm afraid Steve. Paul says that "corruption must put on incorruption". The only thing that "corruption" can be referring to is the fleshly body AFAICS, though I'd be interested in others thoughts on that.

That fits nicely with the physical body somehow transforming into a spiritual body. (So in a sense Paul did believe in a "spiritual" resurrection, but his notion of "spiritual" is different to our modern one).

Furthermore, if Paul is consistent with Middle Platonist beliefs, the world below the firmament is the temporary world and the world above is the permament world. Christ returning is the end of the temporary world, so all temporary matter not tranformed is destroyed. If Paul believed that the physical body was left behind, then I don't know how "corruption" can put on "incorruption".

Steven Carr

In Paul's thought, all below the firmament would be corrupt, including us, and not just our bodies.

And a corpse cannot 'put on' anything, without being a corpse that has put something on. As I said, this is just so superficial, in all senses of the word. It is certainly not a transformation of the material of the corpse.

Have you ever put anything on which has altered the composition of your body?

When God transformed water into wine, the wine was not water with wine put onto it.

'Put on' something is just not a transformation metaphor. It is a clothing sort of metaphor. We will discard our old clothes and put on new clothes.

The Gospels do not have the mortal body of Jesus inside anything. It has not put anything on.

You clearly disagree. What was 'put on' to the body of Jesus?

And , as I have already pointed out, and as you have already ignored, Paul gives lots of examples of things that do not transform into each other, because they are made of different substances (in Paul's view) - men, birds, animals, fish. sun, moon and stars.

Why give examples of things which don't change into other things? Was it to drive home to those idiotiic Corinthians that things change into other things?

Please ignore it again, because then I can just cut and paste and it will cut down on the the time I take to post it.

Steven Carr

I see you have stressed 'body' in that question and said that Paul always keeps in mind the topic of the question he has answered.

I remind you that Paul thinks it is a dumb question.

That is the point. Asking what sort of body dead corpses are raised up in is dumb. You just don't get it, do you? (That is what Paul would say.)

How dead bodies are raised is *not* the topic of Paul's letter. It is the topic of the dumb Corinthian Christians.

Paul does use the word 'body' a lot.

To remind the Corinthians that their heavenly bodies will not be made out of their earthly bodies. One body comes from heaven, one from the dust of the earth.