Uncle Menno

In his _Natural History_, Pliny the Elder reports several examples of people's souls leaving their bodies, wandering abroad, and returning after a time to reanimate their bodies. He also reports instances of the revivification of persons declared dead. Most interestingly, he notes explicitly that there are examples of people appearing after burial, but refuses comment on the grounds that "my subject treats the works of Nature, not supernatural happenings." (_Natural History: Man_, paras. 174-179.)

So the notion of a resurrection from the dead was not something unthinkable to a Roman like Pliny the Elder, who doesn't seem to have known anything of Christianity notwithstanding being an Apostolic contemporary.

Regarding debunking, Pliny was convinced that the Magi were a bunch of liars and couldn't do the magic they claimed to do; nevertheless, it is not clear just how Pliny defines "magic."

Diogenes the Cynic

This doesn't have anything to do with the question I asked you. I asked what evidence you had that whatever Jesus movement existed in Jerusalem before 70 CE (i.e. the "Jerusalem cult") shared beliefs in common with the Pauline/pro-orthodox movement. You cited the split between Sadducees and Pharisees about whether people would be raised from the dead on judgement day. That Jewish theological schism had nothing to do with the Messiah or with any beliefs at all -- Jewish, Christian or otherwise -- about Jesus. It was about whether everybody would be resurrected and judged.

What I'm asking is whether you can show that the Jersualem movement referred to by Paul as the "Pillars" (which presumably included Peter, James and John) believed in a physical resurrection of Jesus (or even that they believed he was the Messiah).

GakuseiDon

Hi Uncle Menno -- do you know where Pliny talks about this? I'm interested in those kinds of references.

Uncle Menno

There are references to the Magi scattered about in _Natural History_. (I'm using the Healy translation in the Penguin edition.)

In "Drugs Obtain from Man: Magic and Superstition", the heading for paragraph 104 is "The Magi Discredited" and the paragraph consists of one sentence: "The tricks of the Magi are ineffective, since they are not able to call down the gods, or speak with them, whether they try with lamp, bowl, water, glove, or any other thing."

Similarly, the opening line of Book XXX "Magic" reads "Previously in my work I have often shown the lies of the Magi for what they are, whenever the argument or occasion demanded, and I shall continue to expose their untruths even now...."

GakuseiDon

Thanks for that, Uncle Menno.

arnoldo

They believed in a physical resurrection of Jesus which Paul mentions in 1 Cor 15:20

Deus Ex

That is what Paul believed; it is not necessarily what the Jewish Church believed.

Uncle Menno

I'm not so sure that one can simply read Paul's references to the resurrected Christ as if he is referring to what we moderns seem to mean when we talk about a "physical" resurrection. For us, it seems to mean that biological processes that had ceased resume again; But Paul seems to have had a rather different concept.

When the Corinthians asked Paul precisely what kind of body Jesus had after the resurrection, he scornfully dismissed the idea that it was a "natural body". Here is some of the language he uses:

I wouldn't even begin to hazard a guess at what Paul is talking about here, beyond the fact that he thought that Jesus's resurrected or "spiritual" body was totally unlike his "natural" body. I think it's very difficult to say with certainty that, notwithstanding Paul's alignment with the Pharisaic tradition of a belief in resurrection, he means a "physical" resurrection.

arnoldo

True. . some even within the Jewish church believed there was no resurrection which is why Paul wrote this letter to the Corinthian church.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to arnoldo: Please be advised that we cannot be reasonably certain that Paul wrote everything that is generally attributed to him, and that includes 1st Corinthians chapter 15.

Do you by any chance have criteria for determining which writings of antiquity are authentic, and which are interpolations? Surely you will agree that all interpolations are not obvious. Today, how difficult would it be for some skeptic Bible scholars to write some modern interpolations of Paul's writings and convince at least some people that Paul was the author? In my opinion, not difficult at all.

What non-Biblical first century sources do you have regarding the miracles of Jesus, and the Resurrection?