Steven Carr

Paul in 1 Corinthians 15: 45
"So it is written: "And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam [was made] a quickening spirit.
That is 'eis zoopoieo pneuma'

And I'll quote one of Layman's own posts.

LAYMAN
After reviewing Paul's letters, E.P. Sanders described succinctly Paul's views of resurrection:


quote:
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Paul, that is, thought of the resurrected Jesus neither as a corpse which had regained the ability to breathe and walk nor as a ghost. He regarded Jesus as 'first fruits' of the resurrection (1 Cor. 15:20) and thought that all Christians would become like him. He denied that the resurrected body would be the 'natural' body, but maintained that it would be a 'spiritual' body (1 Cor. 15:44-6). 'Not a natural body' excludes a walking corpse, while 'spiritual body' excludes a ghost (which would be called in Greek simply a 'spirit', pneuma).

CARR
So Sanders said that if Paul had wanted to , he would have called Jesus a spirit, pneuma.

But Paul DID call Jesus a spirit, pneuma! Exactly the term we would expect according to Layman's own quotes!!!!


----------------------------------------------------

LAYMAN wrote in the bodily resurrection thread
'Spiritual is being used to describe flesh and blood humans. Natural men cannot understand the things of God. The spiritual man can do so.'

and he started the thread by saying

'The terms "spiritual" and "natural" do not change this. They are modifiers differentiating the nature of the body before and after, but in no way implying that one is physical and the other is not. According to Paul, the current body is a natural body. But, after the resurrection, it will be a spiritual body.............

In 1 Cor. 2:14-15, Paul distinguishes between the "pyschikos" person and the "pneumatikos" person. The difference is not between a physical and a nonphysical person. Rather, it is between the "natural" man and the "spiritual" man. The difference is not materiality, but acceptance of the workings of the spirit of God. The natural man is common and unable to understand the things of God. The spiritual man, while a physical being, is able to understand the things of God.'

CARR
It is the essence of Layman's case that Paul is using the words in 1 Cor.2 in the same way as in 1 Cor 15.

ie only AFTER resurrection will Christians (including Jesus(!)) be able to understand the things of God.

Before then, they are just a 'natural' man, and not a 'spiritual' man. Even Jesus was just a natural man, unable to understand the things of God, and only after the resurrection was he raised a spiritual man, able to understand the things of God.

So if Layman is a natural man, why on Earth does he think he can do theology?

He says himself he is not a spiritual man, which he will only become after he has been transformed at the resurrection.


Layman, of course, has an answer

LAYMAN
'Christians are in the spirit now. Their spirits are alive because of Jesus.'

What does this mean? How can this be consistent? Layman says 'spiritual' means 'able to understand God', and he built his case on it meaning exactly that, and derided Bernard Muller , when Muller said that Paul was NOT using spiritual in 1 Cor. 15 the way Paul used it in 1 Cor. 2.


Now he is switching terms. Spiritual means something else. Apparently, your liver and kidneys will become spiritual.


How can he get a 'spiritual' body? How can his liver be a spiritual liver? What does that mean? Explain it in terms of 1 Corinthians 2, where Paul says 'spiritual' means 'able to understand the things of God.'

Why does Layman keep referring us to 1 Cor.2, when the usage is irrelevant? We are not going to get a spiritual spleen, able to understand the things of God.

What IS a spiritual body?

Layman says 'Clearly, therefore, the term "spiritual" is used by Paul to refer to spiritual objects to indicate that they are infused or touched by God.'

How could Jesus NOT have had a spiritual body before he died, using this definition? The man WAS God. How could his body be a physical incarnation of God, and not be infused by God?

Perhaps Layman can complete the following sentence.....

'The body of Jesus was the physical incarnation of God, and it was not infused by God because.......'

Layman

Steve,

Whyare you starting a new thread selectively parsing quotes out of context to start a new argument, when we've explored the whole issue in detail on the bodily resurrection thread?

The answer is that you are getting your butt kicked in the bodily resurrection thread and can't defend the contortions your positions have forced you to undertake. Instead, you like to ask more and more questions without answering any yourself. In other words, you are trying to win the argument--whatever your argument is--by being annoying.

I will repeat:

Jim Larmore

This last paragraph sums up the debate, I believe you are trying to confuse the issue with twisting the somantics around a little.

Steven Carr

Notice Layman ducked the challenge to complete the following sentence.....

'The body of Jesus was the physical incarnation of God, and it was not infused by God because.......'

How did Jesus have a body transformed to a spiritual (one infused by God) after the resurrection, when he was the physical incarnation of God BEFORE the resurrection?


Layman continues to repeat Romans 8, although Paul is clearly talking about what God is doing now, and ignores 2 Corinthians 12 when Paul talks about this transformation when the present body is discarded and we will get new bodies.

And Paul does call the Risen Jesus a 'pneuma' , a ghost, according to Layman's own authority and his own quotes!

Layman ignores his own quotes when necessary....

And a plant emerges from a seed case, which is Paul's own analogy. The seed case is just the shell for the plant to emerge from. One plants something which dies and then something new emerges from the dead thing (Paul , of course, did not know that seeds do not die)

The Bible is so inconsistent.

Sometimes Paul speaks about transformation, sometimes about discarding bodies.


Paul argues from paragraph to paragraph, sometimes contradicting what he has already said, just as he does on the Law and on predestination.



Even Layman's own cites proves that

Layman cited Romans 8:11
"If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit which dwells in you."

So it is NOT Jesus who will do that.

And Layman cited Philippians 3:20-21

'For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.'

So it IS Jesus who will do that.

Layman's own cites contradict each other!

Clearly Paul has no idea what he is talking about, which is confirmed by the fact that he never describes what he , or any of the other disciples, saw in 1 Corinthians 15.

They saw visions, and took them as a resurrected Christ, and tried , from first principles, to work out what a resurrected body could be.

Amazing that Paul, when trying to describe what happens to people who return from the dead, never talks about what was actually seen when Moses, Lazarus, Elijah, or Jesus returned from the dead..


(But I do like his chutzpah in claiming that an analogy designed to prove that resurrected people are not naked, is a close analogy to Pauls use of a seed analogy,and so proves what Layman said Paul was trying to make it prove, although Paul's point had nothing to do with clothes. Did Paul intend to convey to the Corinthians that their very clothes would be transformed into clothes that never wear out?)

ROMANS 8
Layman wrote about Romans 8
'Christians are already in the Spirit. But, even so, their bodies are dead. Nevertheless, at some future point the Spirit will "give life to your mortal bodies." That this is referring to the resurrection of the believers is reinforced by Paul's connection of it with "he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead."

CARR
Romans 7
'For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.'

Surely Paul has already been resurrected?

Paul is speaking metaphorically in Romans 7 and 8 about 'death' and 'life'. He is not talking here about the physical death that believers will have and the physical life they will have afterwards.

It is more a metaphorical description of whether or not their faith is alive or dead now.

Certainly it is really bad eisegesis to take something clearly metaphorical and say it is about factual death and factual life.

And that Paul connects it with somebody who has the power of life and death does not make it any less metaphorical.

Layman

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Steven Carr
Notice Layman ducked the challenge to complete the following sentence.....


The irony of this allegations is rather amusing. You've been ducking addressing the above points in a thread actually devoted to the topic for weeks now.

I'll get to your latest contortions and distortions as time permits.

If you can take weeks to respond to specific arguments, I can take more than a couple of hours.

Steven Carr

What points?

You claim that when Paul says to live people that their bodies are dead, but will be made alive, he is talking about a literal death and a literal resurrection.

Clearly Romans 8 is not talking about a literal resurrection of the believers dead body, as they are not literally dead in the first place.

I wonder why Philo also says there are two people, a heavenly man and an earthly man, almost exactly the same language and time as Paul.

Layman

Twice you fled the bodily resurrection thread without responding to my substantive posts. It takes you weeks to offer any kind of response, though you distort and ignore much as usual.

Then you chide me for not responding to you within a few hours.

Like I said, you are arguing by annoyance.

Layman

Sigh.

Here is the scripture that Sanders is referring to:

1Co 15:42-44: "So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body."

Sanders point is clear. Paul says Jesus has a body. The use of the term "soma" makes this clear. As I showed in my opening post on this, "soma" means a material body.

When speaking of the resurrection of Jesus or believers, Paul refers to the resurrection of the "soma." Soma is Greek for "body" and it carries the same emphasis on physicality as does its English equivalent. "The soma denotes the physical body, roughly synonymous with flesh in the neutral sense. It forms that part of man in and through which he lives acts in the world. It becomes the base of operations for sin in the unbeliever, for the Holy Spirit in the believer. Barring prior occurrence in the Parousia, the soma will die. That is the lingering effect of sin even in the believer. But it will also be resurrected. That is its ultimate end, a major proof of its worthy and necessity to the wholeness of human being, and the reason for its sanctification now." Robert H. Gundry, Soma in Biblical Theology, at 50.

http://didjesusexist.com/resbody.html

Your citation to Paul's discussion of "The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam [was made] a quickening spirit" and claim that the term is 'eis zoopoieo pneuma'."

Actually, it's "eis pneuma zoopoioun." And here is the context:

1Co 15:42-46: "So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So also it is written, "The first MAN, Adam, BECAME A LIVING SOUL." The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual."

Before and after the reference to the "life-giving spirit" Paul does describe what form Jesus takes, and he describes it as a "spiritual body" by using the term soma. When speaking of the resurrection of Jesus or believers, Paul refers to the resurrection of the "soma." Soma is Greek for "body" and it carries the same emphasis on physicality as does its English equivalent. "The soma denotes the physical body, roughly synonymous with flesh in the neutral sense. It forms that part of man in and through which he lives acts in the world. It becomes the base of operations for sin in the unbeliever, for the Holy Spirit in the believer. Barring prior occurrence in the Parousia, the soma will die. That is the lingering effect of sin even in the believer. But it will also be resurrected. That is its ultimate end, a major proof of its worthy and necessity to the wholeness of human being, and the reason for its sanctification now." Robert H. Gundry, Soma in Biblical Theology, at 50. So before and after Paul is quite explicit that Jesus' form has corporeality.

In any event, Paul is not talking about the form of their resurrection here. This is pretty obvious on its face because he refers to Adam as a "living soul." Because a soul is no more corporeal than a spirit, it's silly to argue that because he call Jesus an "eis pneuma zoopoioun" he means that Jesus is incorporeal. Jesus is no more incorporeal as Adam was.

Paul seems to be equating Jesus in some sense with the Spirit of God.

James D.G. Dunn, "1 Corinthians 15:45--Last Adam, Life-Giving Spirit." The Christ and the Spirit: Christology.

That Paul is identifying Jesus with the Spirit of God is also supported by Romans 8:11 and 2 Cor. 3:6, which speak of the life-giving (zoopoieo) function of the Spirit.

"The implication, then, is that Paul intended to represent the risen Christ as in some sense taking over the role of or even somehow becoming identified with the life-giving Spirit of God." James D.G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, at 262.
So Paul is not describing the kind of body Jesus has when he refers to him as the life-giving Spirit. He is identifying him with the function of the Spirit of God. When Paul is describing what kind of body Jesus was resurrected in, he is clear that it is a material one.

Actually, it is not. What I was showing is that the use of the term "spiritual" to refer to a noun does not render the noun immaterial.

I do, but it's not the one you self-servingly offered. It is possible to be a spiritual man without having a spiritual body. Paul is talking about two different things.

Actually, I never claimed that the "spiritual person" was the same thing as the "spiritual body." Far from it. what I chided Muller for is his argument that the adjective ("spiritual") prevails on the noun ("body"). I have shown that it does not. When Paul applies the term "spiritual" to a material object he never implies that the material object is thereafter noncorporeal.

Because Jesus was incarnated into human form. That's the whole idea of Christianity. Jesus was fully human. Jesus allowed himself to be incarned into a soulish body. Witness Lee summarizes this point well:

http://www.affcrit.com/pdfs/1998/04/98_04_a3.pdf

Bernard Muller

Layman wrote:
1Co 15:42-46: "So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So also it is written, "The first MAN, Adam, BECAME A LIVING SOUL." The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual."

Layman chose his translation always to his advantage. The Greek word for "soul" can be as well translated by "being" or "creature".
And what is written, as the reference of Paul, is in Ge2:7
NKJV "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man BECAME A LIVING BEING."

Sometimes, "being" is also translated by "soul" but it is clear here we are dealing with a flesh & blood human, not a soul.

That defeats Layman's argument:
This is pretty obvious on its face because he refers to Adam as a "living soul." Because a soul is no more corporeal than a spirit, it's silly to argue that because he call Jesus an "eis pneuma zoopoioun" he means that Jesus is incorporeal. Jesus is no more incorporeal as Adam was.

Best regards, Bernard

Layman

I did not choose this translation, Carr did.

Not at all. It is best translated "soul," which is why so many leading translations so render it.