Steven Carr

Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, explains that there are 2 bodies - the resurrected spiritual body,and the dead , natural body.



'Though Moule is no doubt right that Paul can envisage here the possibility of 'exchange' (losing one body, getting another one) rather than 'addition', as in 1 Corinthians 15, we should not lose sight of the fact that even if such an 'exchange' were to take place the new body would be more than the present one. (N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 2003: p. 367)'

Far from being obviously wrong, the idea that Paul *could* mean 2 bodies is 'no doubt right'!




In 'Resurrection of the Son of God', N.T.Wright explains how these 2 bodies come to be.


Richard Carrier commentates as follows :-

Wright thus admits that Moule's understanding of what Paul could mean (which corresponds to mine) is no doubt right, and then fully allows that 1 Corinthians 15 can indeed be interpreted that way, though he does not assert it should be. Hence Wright concludes that even if that's what Paul meant, our "new body" would still be "more than the present one." That is absolutely clear and unambiguous: Wright is saying point blank that this interpretation is acceptable even if not certain, and that even 1 Corinthians 15 can mean 'exchange'. All Wright wants to add is that even if we accept this, Paul is still saying the new body will be substantially better than the one we have now, which is exactly my view. Thus, Wright clearly comes as close to conceding my argument as he can without actually endorsing it.

That Wright appears to assert entirely contradictory things elsewhere in his book (e.g. Wright, p. 358) only demonstrates that his book was not coherently written and lacked a competent editor. For there is no other way to interpret his words on p. 367 than as accepting Moule's (and my) argument as potentially correct. On the very next page he confirms this attitude when he says (emphasis added) that Paul "looks forward to eventual bodily resurrection, to a new body which will have left behind the decay and corruption of the present one, and which will function in relation to present life like a new and larger suit of clothes to be put on over the existing ones" (Wright, p. 368). A new body, leaving the present one behind. Wright does not challenge or criticize this conclusion, but practically affirms it.

In fact, not only does Wright grant this as a live possibility (Wright, p. 367) and even arrive at almost the same conclusion himself (Wright, p. 368), he actually adds his own speculations as to how this 'exchange' of bodies would take place:
Did Paul, perhaps, believe that Jesus' new body, his incorruptible Easter body, had been all along waiting 'in the heavens' for him to 'put on over the top of' his present one?...[Either way] Paul probably believed that, at Easter, Jesus' 'mortal body' was 'swallowed up by life', a new bodily life in continuity but thus also discontinuity (immortality instead of mortality) with the previous one. (Wright, p. 371)

And then:
The creator will therefore make a new world, and new bodies, proper to the new age. From one point of view the new world, and the new bodies, are the redeemed, remade versions of the old ones; that is the emphasis of Romans 8. From another point of view the new world, and the new bodies, are 'stored up in heaven'...[though that may only mean] that they are safe in the mind, plan, and intention of the creator God. (Wright, pp. 372-73)

Wright repeatedly waffles between the idea of an entirely new body and a new "outer body" enclosing our old "inner body" (a view that makes little sense--on whether "putting on a new garment over an old one" would allow retention of the old body, see the relevant question below). But he clearly agrees that the resurrection body is a new body newly created by God, and not just the old body refurbished. He even hints (twice) that Paul may have imagined these new bodies as already 'stored up in heaven', waiting for us, which would make Paul's view almost identical to that of the modern day Heaven's Gate cult, whose members also imagined their new bodies as already waiting for them "in heaven" and their old bodies as mere "containers" to be left behind. Wright allows that maybe this only meant the idea of these new bodies was 'stored up' in God's mind, which is how I would interpret 2 Corinthians 5, but the difference is not that great. Wright still allows that it could be an entirely new body, and not a mere restoration and improvement of the old one.

Despite all that, since Wright waffles even here, and appears to contradict himself elsewhere, I only allowed that he "comes close" to conceding my view. I don't assume he agrees with me.

CJD

You could've just added this to the "You Idiots!" thread, since I was pretty much summing up Wright's view in the matter.

As an aside, what appears to be waffling, is often just humility. A lot of times, things such as this are not exactly clear (black/white) in the texts we are looking at. Contrary to what skeptics assert, mystery is not all that bad.


CJD

Steven Carr

It is a complete mystery to me how we can have an incorruptible body over the top of our present perishable body (which will still rot away inside us of course, it is only the incorruptible body which won't perish)

It seems absurd to me that Paul was claiming that we have one body on top of another, like Russian dolls.



Is this the most desperate attempt at harmonisation of all time?

The Gospels say Jesus had his old body, complete with wounds.

Paul says Jesus had a new body.

Solution. We wear our new body on top of our old body.....

Incidentally, on page 367, NT Wright claims that Paul was also using Hellenistic ideas when talking about the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15.

As for Wright's humility when faced with mystery, there is little that is mysterious to Wright.

He claims to know that our resurrected body will be more solid than our present body (page 367). How does he know that? He gives no evidence other than his assured pronouncement that this is so.

As the resurrected body could enter locked rooms while our not-as-solid current body has some difficulty getting through walls, it is a mystery to me how our resurrected body did that - especially if it is a covering on the old, natural, perishable body.

darstec

I don't think he was saying this at all. I think he meant that this new body, though just like the old one but new and improved, was the temple of the soul. The new body covered the soul.

I think there is too much interjection of modern well developed philosphies into the embryonic philosophy of Paul. Of course it is difficult to determine just who wrote what epistles and what interpolations, or for that matter which passages of one epistle got mixed up with passages of another. We have nothing pristine with which to work. So maybe we cannot expect coherency from the works of different authors or even the same author at different times in his life especially when they are all atttributed to somebody name Paul.


Paul doesn't necessarily "know" any of that. His knowing comes from his believing. But a current body passing through locked doors is not a significant jump. There are literal hundreds of such stories of a metaphysical nature from many cultures. In fact I've read "explanations" in Fundamentalist books explaining how the faithful might be able to do this with enough faith (using such factoids that the space between atoms is huge), and thus underscoring that the resurrected Jesus was able to do so.

Besides, one can do/explain anything with enough rationalization.