stephan huller

Spin can't be Tim O'Neill. I see nothing in O'Neill's profile which would indicate spin's superior ancient language skills. I think you are focusing too much on O'Neil's shared disdain of 'mythicists.' There is nothing to suggest that O'Neill knows anything about Biblical Hebrew. Just a thought ...

Chili

That's just plain bullshit Earl as the first Adam was a usurper of the animate being and an illusion at best. I think in Matthew 27:64c the high priest even called him an imposter as that is all he was and never more than that. The last Adam of course was the second Adam thinking he had had enough and wanted to die with "it is finished" and rose again and ascended, yes indeed, but to be subservient this time around, as yes, it is a mid-life event and nothing else.

Sorry for not reading the rest of your post.

Bert

DCHindley

Earl,

Would you like onions and cheese with your Chili?

DCH

Chili

Sorry DCH but i have no problem with the 'animate being,' but Adam was not the animate being but was the ego awareness of the animate being that was created by conjecture in Gen.3:5 and so was an outsider to the being itself and a total stranger really with maybe 'red hair,' to say now that 'red hair' is what makes the man in the 'like god' condition as man wherein he so became hu-man and earthly indeed.

So the second Adam here is just 'the stranger in exile' coming home to himself now as "the essence of [the animate] being" wherein he first was created to be instead of just his red hair (that he may have lost by now and saw the urge to take a second look at himself).

Then I would add that to call it a life-giving-spirit is an argument made from oblivion because there is no such thing as a life giving spirit in heaven after the dove hath descended to be the wherewithal and home of the stranger in search, who therefore can walk on the 'life giving water' now solid as rock, wherefore then the sea was no longer in the new heaven and earth of Rev.21:1.

So here now we end up in the progression from the spiritual to the physical instead, since there is beauty in thruth [for us to walk on] and not the other way around . . . which exactly is what the first Adam was after when he parted company with God in Gen.3. To wit: there is progression in the Gospels from 'life-giving spirit' to 'solid as rock' which so then is the purgation period of Joseph there first reborn as man.

Now i also understand that it may be dishonest for me to write as I do since you were talking 'Paul' who was a religionist making his 'Call to Order' wherein he must speak to the lost and there be all things to all men.

EarlDoherty

Well, Don, this certainly comes across as sounding more reasonable than anything spin has managed to say. But there are still objections to be made.

You say that “Paul used Christ as an example in 1 Cor. 15:12-16.” So why did he not do so in 15:39-45 when it was even more critical that he include it? Why, as my posting demonstrated, does he convey quite the opposite, that Christ was never a physical being, but is connected to the resurrection question only on the post-death side?

You claim that Christ going from physical to spiritual would serve a better purpose in Paul’s argument in 15:12-16, rather than spiritual to spiritual. Maybe so, but if so why didn’t he state it as such? And in light of that better-purpose idea, why doesn’t the same thing apply in 15:35-49 where it sure would have served much better? Spin can’t criticize me for judging that Paul should have said what I think would have been the best thing for him to have said, when you have just done it yourself.

And note that throughout the passage he uses the phrase “Christ was not raised” 4 times. Would he really have offered that possibility, even rhetorically, if that raising was a matter of early Christian faith supposedly based on historical eyewitness? If he could list “appearances” to still living people in 15:5-8 (which language scholarship has admitted suggests conviction of Christ’s spiritual presence rather than bodily return right in front of them—also borne out by Paul including his own vision of Christ with the rest as though they are all the same) why doesn’t he appeal to that witnessing or experiencing of Christ raised at the very points when he is making arguments involving that question?

I will also question your conviction that there would be no tendency to regard a spiritual body being resurrected as guaranteeing or helping persuade the Corinthians of their physical bodies being resurrected. But here you ignore the pervasive Platonic conception of paradigmatic parallelism which you are at least familiar with from my book and our discussions here (even if you don’t subscribe to it). If the salvation theory of the time sees that counterpart interaction between heaven and earth is the working system in God’s universe, then a spiritual to spiritual death-resurrection entirely within the heavens by the savior god will be accepted as the proper guarantee for their own physical to spiritual death-resurrection from earth to heaven. In any case, since the area below the moon was a part of the realm of corruptibility, it was near enough to earth and closely enough associated with it to serve just as well.

Finally, I again call your attention to verse 15. Paul declares that if the human dead are not raised, then Christ was not raised, and we apostles are false (meaning mistaken, preaching the wrong thing) witnesses of God for declaring that we have received God’s revelation that Christ was indeed raised. Nowhere in all this does Paul appeal to any earthly witness, any earthly dimension to the claim that Christ rose from the dead.

And I think that earlier in this thread I dealt with 15:20-21 in regard to “firstfruits” and standard translations (or maybe it was in the parent thread, my response to your review).

Earl Doherty

EarlDoherty

Am I the only one who rarely if ever understands anything chili says, let alone sees its relevance to what is being argued?

No wonder he is stripped off so often by the moderators into his own tangent thread.

Ah, the internet!

Earl Doherty

TedM

You have high expectations for how people are to proceed with arguments. What could Paul really have said about a physical to spiritual resurrection if Jesus had been an earthly man who after death was seen in various appearances? The 'HOW' of the transformation from physical to spiritual would have still been mysterious and unexplainable to Paul. Therefore his answer was simply that the physical became spiritual:

Paul, upfront, discussed the resurrection of the Christ, the 'last Adam', a man, who was buried and rose from the dead according to the scriptures. He mentioned upfront the importance of that resurrection as the foundation of faith that those who believe could also be resurrected. He mentioned appearances to over 500 people at one time by this resurrected man.

The most reasonable interpretation is that He wanted to reestablish resurrection as a reality for man by using Christ, a man, as the example of the first fruits of that resurrection. Had he been talking about activities in some heavenly dimension and not on earth, why in the world would he not have qualified THAT?

How could he talk about Christ as a man like Adam (the first earthling), who was seen by earthlings after his death and never qualify that this Christ hadn't lived on earth, didn't die on earth, wasn't buried on earth, and somehow traveled TO earth from this other dimension to make all of his post resurrection appearances?

Paul could easily have talked about those things. Isn't that a glaring silence MUCH louder than the one you mention? You spend so much energy looking for what is missing that you would expect to be there but when Paul writes about Christ as a man where are your endless questions about why Paul doesn't qualify that he isn't talking about the normal, obvious, most understandable meaning for 'man'?

I submit that your theory is the product of an overly imaginative, sharp yet highly demanding, and belief-biased mindset.

Chili

That may be so but whatever I write is true and eternally true and maybe that's why.

spin

Let's go through some of what Paul says in 1 Cor 15.

1 Cor 15:13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised.

This word for "dead" here actually means "dead ones" or "corpses". If dead bodies don't get raised, then christ didn't get raised. Clearly christ was a dead body. That implies that he was a living body before his death. We know that the spiritual body is immortal (15:52-55), so obviously christ was not a spiritual body before he died. This is not surprising. In the passage Paul frequently links the raising of Jesus to the raising of the other dead.

1 Cor 15:20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

Here clearly Paul makes christ of the same stuff as those others who have died. If christ is the first fruits of those who died his metaphor makes everyone who died fruit. Jesus is better of course--he is the first fruits--but he's the same stuff as the others. The word for "first fruits" (απαρχη, see Lev 23:10) indicates the best of the crop reserved for god and given to him first.

1 Cor 15:21 For since death [came] through one man, resurrection of the dead [came] through one man.

As the text makes no indication of a difference in significance between the two uses of the word "man", there is no reason from the text to think that the first man and the second were different types of entities. We take the first to mean an ordinary human being and we must, for lack of contrary textual pointers, do so for the second.

Paul, who puts Jesus among the dead, makes him one of the dead, so that the answer to Paul's rhetorical question in 15:35, "how are the dead raised?", applies to Jesus as well. He was a man, like Adam. He died. And he was raised from the dead.

The passage 15:35-49 is actually a part of a larger discussion about resurrection, which started earlier in chapter 15. Separating it from the rest of the chapter decontextualizes the passage. We really must read 15:35-49 in the light of the rest of the chapter, as part of it. There is no reason to exclude the practical question "how are the dead raised?" being relevant to Jesus. He is the same stuff as everyone else, just the first fruits.

1 Cor 15:44 It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is a spiritual body.

The first part strongly relates to the two previous verses of the form "sown/raised". It refers to the one entity, which lives an earthly life and will consequently live a spiritual life. The second part reiterates and strengthens the first, repeating the main words: in the process from physical body to spiritual body you don't get the first without the consequent second. This in no way implies that you can have the second without having had the first. We are dealing with two separate bodies. One has to perish before the second is raised. It is the one entity, however.

1 Cor 15:45 So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.

The first to be sown was Adam, while the first to be raised was Jesus. If Adam was sown a physical body, he will be raised a spiritual body. Analogously, if Jesus was raised a spiritual body, he was sown a physical body. This follows from the fact that Paul sees Jesus as the same stuff as other men (as explained regarding "first fruits" in 15:20). I've already provided this diagram:

[T2]{c:bg=silver}Physical body|{c:bg=silver}Death and
resurrection|{c:bg=silver}Spiritual body||
"First" Adam|->|(resurrected Adam)||
(pre-resurrected Jesus)|->|"Last Adam"[/T2]

1 Cor 15:47 The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven.

Adam, Genesis tells us, was formed from the dust of the earth, so Paul reuses the story. Jesus was from heaven, but Paul has nothing to bring more detail to what the body is. Of course, if Jesus had an existence prior to crucifixion in heaven, he would have had a spiritual body, then he could not die. A spiritual body is imperishable. However, Jesus did have an existence before he was raised, for he was crucified and died before being raised. This fits well with the notion of Jesus having a physical body prior to having been raised--after all he was born of a woman (Gal 4:4). But still Jesus was from heaven, but then so were the ten commandments and manna. It doesn't mean that any of them existed in heaven, to have come from heaven.

We know that christ died, so christ was not a spiritual body at the time, for the spiritual body is immortal. Christ is the same stuff as those who have died, the only difference being that he is the first fruits. He is a man and no sleight of hand will show that the term is used any differently from the first usage of the word in 15:21. His being born of a woman is consistent with being human. He was raised a spiritual body. In fact he was first (and so far only one) to be raised, making him analogous in Paul's thought to Adam, the first man. There is no sign that Paul considered Jesus as not having been human before he died, but Paul does let us know that he was not qualitatively different from other people in the physical life, only better, the first fruits. 15:44-45 suggests that Jesus had been sown physical before he was raised a spiritual body.

spin

Five tricks:

1. When one doesn't like the common meanings of words, he tries to present less common meanings as being the correct meanings (despite no contextual support). (Just think of "man" and "according to the flesh")

2. When one doesn't like how sentences relate to each other he tries to separate them. (Remember the paragraph marker in some English translations.)

3. When a text doesn't exclude something one wants to exclude, he argues that it excludes it by not including it. (Paul doesn't explicitly say that Jesus had 23 pairs of chromosomes, so Jesus wasn't human. Paul doesn't say that Jesus was included among those dead he was referring to in 1 Cor 15:35, so the passage doesn't apply to Jesus.)

4. Version jockeying for one's preferred meanings in English translations. (Consider how we got to "animal" bodies: of over fifteen versions I looked at only one gave "animal". Who wants to use "animal" for Jesus? Naaa, not me.)

5. Citing texts whose content cannot be shown to have evidential value to the topic. (one's defense of the Similitudes which his best date provides as written 40 years after the time of Paul. Others include gospels and pseudo-Paulines.)