Steven Carr

I have been to a magic show.

You know how some of these tricks go.

The magician makes something solid go through the wall of a box, and then he at once invites the audience to see that what went through the wall of the box was made of perfectly solid material that they are quite familiar with.

What does the magician hope to prove to the audience by that examination of the material? That a magic trick had occurred of course!

Jesus does the same thing in the Gospels. He enters a locked room and at once invites the disicples to see that what went through the wall of the room was made of perfectly solid material that they are quite familiar with.


What does Jesus hope to prove to the disciples by that examination of the material? That a miracle had occurred of course!

So far, so obvious.

But remember Jesus denies being a spirit when he does that in Luke's Gospel, and Paul says Jesus did become a spirit in 1 Corinthians 15.

So Christians like NT Wright are forced to conclude that when Jesus showed the disicples that the material that had passed through a wall was the same solid material they were familiar with, he was not proving that he was really Jesus by showing that a miracle had occurred.

No, Jesus was proving that he was made of a material that *could* pass through walls. A 'transphysical' material.

Hasn't Wright ever been to a magic show? When the magician gets the audience to examine the material, it is not to prove that the material is one which can pass through walls. Otherwise there would be no trick!

Jesus proved he was Jesus by 'proving' that he was not made of a material that could pass through walls. It took a miracle to do that, and who could to miracles? Only the real Jesus, of course.

To make the Bible non-contradictory, Wright is willing to contradict his Lord and Saviour by denying a miracle of Jesus, and by contradicting all common-sense readings of the scenes in the resurrection.

youngalexander

With a chap like Jesus, always up with the latest technology, well, could it be invisibility?

A technology that squeezes electromagnetic waves into minuscule structures may yield superfast computer chips, ultrasensitive molecular detectors and perhaps even invisibility cloaks?

Clivedurdle

The Men Who Stare at Goats (or via: amazon.co.uk)

Solo

In lieu of a Good Friday prayer:

Try to imagine something: you are a bright, sensitive, 1st century Jewish village bloke, way surpassing mentally your peers, unattached, and therefore restless and unsteady. You hit the mid-life crisis point. Something happens. You can't sleep, you grow miserable, agitated, lose appetite - you are as Winston Churchill put it "in a ruck" ("cannot fuck"). You start to wander around......Then suddenly - things start to happen, by themselves, magic things: not because you want to impress anybody, it's more like somebody BIG wants to impress you. It turns you into a bird. After dark, suddenly you find yourself levitating in a room. You look for your legs - they are not there. You are hungry ? Wish for an apple ? Hey, there it is. On the table - gift from BIG. You can predict future - you feel there are dangers ahead for humanity (ie Greater Israel) . You receive infomation that you are the most important person on earth. You will avert the disaster ! Everything hangs on you. The thoughts you have are not your own. There is HIS presence - at once familiar, at once alien. It likes you and lifts you higher and higher. Then you pass into a sea of light. You are in heaven.

You come to and things suddenly start to turn to worse. You return home. You talk to family and friends and they want to hide you. They tell you you are possessed by a demon. And the presence turns into a persecuting demon. It tells you that you are mad, and will be destroyed in madness. In fact it already happened; you are witnessing your last moments which had happened a long time ago, just before you died. You are dead now. The world is dying and you will not get the message out. The secrets may not be told by anyone alive ! Some moments seem like before. Ha, you can levitate again - the storm has passed ! You are relieved to see the Presence to be friendly again. You test it: you wish for an apple ! But it does not appear on the table, as it did before. Fooled you again, you miserable piss-ant ! Go find you messages from BIG in insects ! So you look for ants that contain messages from BIG to tell you what to do. You are at your wits end. You see an ant. You grab it and decode it. The digested message says: 'GOD MAKES FOOLS OUT OF SOLITARY MEN'.

That's the magic show that the Jesus worshippers were talking about. Oh, yeah they did get better (with most though, as Paul says, God was not pleased and overthrew them in the wilderness, meaning, they became cuckoos permanently). The lucky ones wrote their gospels. The occasional very lucky one, would grab an ant in three-years time to see if he could get some meaningful ending to the story of his acquiantence with Jesus. He would eat it and get:....TO MAKE WISE MEN OUT OF FOOLS.

Jiri

Cege

I've been to magic shows! I've seen them on tv, too, and especially enjoyed the series a few years ago that actually explained and showed on video how some of the "big" illusions are accomplished. Years ago, in Atlanta, my church had a Christian magician perform for the evening service, and it was a wonderous, first-rate performance! (The magician explained several times to the audience that he was not performing magic, but illusions. He also explained that he would not reveal how the illusions were performed but only that actual magic did not occur during his show.)

Here's the quotation from Luke:
Luke 24:36-42 (NIV):While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you."
They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have."

When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, "Do you have anything here to eat?" They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence.

And from I Cor 15:42-44 (NIV): So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 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.

The body that Jesus exhibits in Luke to the disciples is not the same kind of body that natural humans have. It's a spirtual body, but not a ghost. That body can disappear and reappear miles away. It can enter locked rooms and allow humans to touch, feel, and even place a hand inside it via a healed cut in the chest wall. That body can eat and swallow food although it's an imperishable body.

Maybe there was a magic show, or appeared to be a magic show, to those gathered together who believed they saw a physically recognizable (but just barely) Jesus appear in a new type of body, but that is what the gospels and Paul's letter tells.

Steven Carr

As always , people add words to Paul. Where is 'the body that is' in the Greek that you are claiming should be translated 'the body that is sown'.

People add the word 'body' to Paul, and hey presto, as if by magic , Paul is talking about bodies.

But people have to make Paul harmonise with the Gospels, and the only way they can do that is to change Paul's words to make them fit their preconceived ideas.

And they also really, really dislike quoting Paul saying Jesus became a life-giving spirit.

In fact, Wright in his 700 plus page book on the resurrection, never once quotes in full the verse 'The first man Adam became a living being, the last Adam a life-giving spirit.'


You obviously haven't been to a magic show.

Jesus goes out of his way to trash the disciples (and your) belief that it is not exactly the same body that Jesus had before the resurrection.

Jesus does that in just the same way that a magician trashes the audience belief that he really was using an object that could pass through walls.

Perhaps Jesus was wearing transformed clothes that were also made of a material that could pass through walls.

By Cage's logic, Jesus must have been wearing spiritual clothes that can disappear and reappear miles away.

Cege

It's not my claim, but the claim of the NIV translation that I quoted.

What is the literal Greek translation?

I'd never considered the clothing Jesus was wearing. What does the Greek say he was wearing?

Steven Carr

I guess 'spiritual bodies' must have been pretty common.

Acts 8:39 When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing.hilip, however, appeared at Azotus....

Philip just disappeared from the sight of the eunuch and appeared at Azotus...


Now Wright claims that this is proof of a special kind of 'transphysical' body, which can only be got at a resurrection.

The author of Acts thinks it is an ordinary body and a miracle has happened.

Guess Wright is wrong once more.....

How did the guy get a reputation as a scholar?

Steven Carr

Sown in perishability, raised in imperishability.

Presumably it is referring to 'the dead', who are the subject.

But Paul does not say 'the dead bodies'


It doesn't. Presumably the author just assumes that normal clothes can pass through walls, if God works a miracle.

Cege

I guess so, too. Paul also described a man, presumably himself, being 'caught up into the heavens' to receive revelations.

Resurrected bodies were pretty common, too, from the descriptions of Jesus' prayers raising the dead, the dead coming to life out of the tombs of Jerusalem just as Jesus died on the cross, Jesus back to life, and several dead people raised from the dead as described in Acts.

It would seem that actual miracles happened or stories were stretched and exaggerated to the point they could only be considered miracles to the ears of those hearing the stories.