Bernard Muller

OK, LAYMAN, I am giving you something to work on:

Did Paul believe in bodily resurrections?

Paul never explained the physicality of the heavenly body, but mentioned it is "spiritual" (1Co15:44-49), as opposed to "natural".

But in '2Corinthians', the earthly body (with NO new body mentioned) is to be left behind in order to join the Lord:
2Co5:6-8 "So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord."

And when Paul related of him going briefly to third heaven to meet ("unseen") Christ, it is "whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows" (2Co12:3).

Paul did not think one needs a real body in order to "be present with the Lord"!

Now, let's go back to the "spiritual body" of 1Cor15:44-46:
Does "body", something normally physical/material, make "spiritual" other than ethereal?

We have in the same epistle:
1Co10:4 "... [the Israelites of the exodus] drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ."

Here, the rock cannot be a real rock (which would follow Moses' people around!), but something invisible/immaterial, as the Christ of the story (in the O.T., there is NO visible rock/Christ moving along with the Israelites). Therefore, "spiritual" in "spiritual rock" renders the whole expression ethereal. Same thing for "spiritual food" (previous verse) and "spiritual drink". The "spiritual" adjective prevails on the noun (even if the later one is about something normally material), and makes it ethereal/invisible.

PS: the Didache also follows the same idea:
Ch.10 "You gave food and drink to men for enjoyment ...; but to us You did freely give spiritual food and drink ..."
and so is 1Peter:
2:5 "you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God ..."

It appears Paul's "spiritual body" has no physicality and is like an ethereal living entity, such as a soul or spirit.

Best regards, Bernard

Layman

You ignored all of my arguments. Why not try addressing them?

Vorkosigan

What! This thread goes >BOOM<! That's what I get for going to all those meetings yesterday....I'll be back here later tonight. Sorry about the delay, Layman.

Steven Carr

I NEVER precluded a bodily resurrection of the dead.

I (or rather Paul) said that they would get a new body , discarding the old body, which would presumably still be there rotting away like the discarded seed case of a plant when the plant emerges from the seed case.

The new body would presumably be of an ethereal nature.
Paul says nothing in 1 Corinthians 15 which contradicts this

In verse 51, Paul does not say our BODIES will be transformed :-

51Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed--

HE says 'we' will be transformed, not out bodies.

If I transform the San Francisco 49ers, I can do that by getting rid of the old players, and bringing in new players. This is not a transformation of the BODIES of the 49ers, making them fitter and stronger and faster. It is new bodies for old.

Similarly , 'I' can be transformed, but that need not mean that my body will be transformed. It could mean that I will get a new body.

This is backed up by what Paul said earlier.

'37When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body.

How plainly does Paul have to write before Christians get the message?

You do NOT plant the body that will be, because flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. God gives it a new body, and the old body will lie around discarded.

'If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.' -says Paul - two different things, who then explains that the spiritual body is made of heavenly stuff.

Paul would have been revolted by the idea of a flesh and bones body with wounds being thought to be immortal.

Layman

Like I said, why not try and work on something yourself? Like the litany of arguments articulated above.

Absolutely.

I disagree, Paul quite clearly explained that the heavenly body was a new "soma" that was transformed from the old "soma."

Bernard, of course Paul believed in an intermediate state where the human soul/spirit would be with Christ. That is not at issue. The issue is what kind of resurrection Paul believed in. The answer is that he believed in a bodily resurrection.

Since you did not read my post, I will bring it to you again:

So Paul believes that part of man can be with Jesus immediately upon death, but there remains a resurrection that will reiunify the soul with the body for full participation in the Kingdom of God.

Actually, the question is whether applying the term "spiritual" to a physical object renders it nonphysical. That is obviously not the case.

It appears again that I can best address this by reposting from my post.

Is the "spiritual" man in 1 Cor. 2:14-15 a nonmaterial one? So once a man accepts the things of the Spirit of God he becomes invisible? Is this really your point?

And you are obviously wrong about the "spiritual" mannah, drink, and rock referred to in 1 Cor. 10:1-5. These are obvious references to the very real, very material, food and water that God provided to the Israelites during the Exodus. Let's break it down.

Q-Who are the "fathers" who were "under the cloud"?

A-The Israelites of the Exodus who were guided by a fire at night and a cloud by day.

Q-What is the "spiritual food" that they were eating?

A-It is the mannah and meat that God provided to them to eat. It is "spiritual" not because it is ethereal--it is obviously quite material--but because it was provided from heaven by God.

Exo 16:4, 35: "Then the LORD said to Moses, "Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that I may test them, whether or not they will walk in My instruction.... The sons of Israel ate the manna forty years, until they came to an inhabited land; they ate the manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan."

Psa 78:23-28: "Yet He commanded the clouds above And opened the doors of heaven; He rained down manna upon them to eat And gave them food from heaven. Man did eat the bread of angels; He sent them food in abundance. He caused the east wind to blow in the heavens And by His power He directed the south wind. When He rained meat upon them like the dust, Even winged fowl like the sand of the seas, Then He let them fall in the midst of their camp, Round about their dwellings."

Neh 9:15: "You provided bread from heaven for them for their hunger...."

Deu 8:3: "He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD."

Neh 9:20: "You gave Your good Spirit to instruct them, Your manna You did not withhold from their mouth...."

Joh 6:31 "Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, 'He gave them bread out of heaven to eat.'"

Q-What is the spiritual drink and what is the spiritual rock?

A-The drink is the water that flowed forth from a rock or various rocks at the command of Moses through the power of God. It, like the mannah and the meat, was quite material. The reason that it was spiritual is because it was from God.

Exo 17:5-6 "Then the LORD said to Moses, "Pass before the people and take with you some of the elders of Israel; and take in your hand your staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink." And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel."

Num 20:1-13 Then the sons of Israel, the whole congregation, came to the wilderness of Zin in the first month; and the people stayed at [/b]Kadesh.[/b] Now Miriam died there and was buried there. There was no water for the congregation, and they assembled themselves against Moses and Aaron.... Then the glory of the Lord appeared to them; and the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, "Take the rod; and you and your brother Aaron assemble the congregation and speak to the rock before their eyes, that it may yield its water. You shall thus bring forth water for them out of the rock and let the congregation and their beasts drink." So Moses took the rod from before the Lord, just as He had commanded him; and Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly before the rock. And he said to them, "Listen now, you rebels; shall we bring forth water for you out of this rock?" Then Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; and water came forth abundantly, and the congregation and their beasts drank. But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, "Because you have not believed Me, to treat Me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them." Those were the waters of Meribah, because the sons of Israel contended with the Lord, and He proved Himself holy among them."

Psa 78:15-16: "He split the rocks in the wilderness and gave them abundant drink like the ocean depths. He brought forth streams also from the rock and caused waters to run down like rivers."

Neh 9:20-21: "You gave Your good Spirit to instruct them, Your manna You did not withhold from their mouth, And You gave them water for their thirst. Indeed, forty years You provided for them in the wilderness and they were not in want"

Q-Why talk about the rock "following" the Isrealites?

A-Because all of these phenomenons followed them around. The food and drink provided for the Isrealites for forty years in the desert. That this was the belief of later Jews is further supported by later Jewish writings.

C.K. Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, at 222.

Ben Witherington, Conflict and Community in Corinth, at 219.

Edgar Krentz, Preaching to an Alien Culture, in Word and World, at 470. Available online at:

http://www.luthersem.edu/word&world/...6-4_Krentz.pdf

So, when Paul uses the term "spiritual" to refer to a physical object he does not render it nonphysical. Far from it, he is emphasizing it's source in God. Spiritual mannah is mannah from God. Spiritual drink is drink from God. A spiritual rock is empowered by God to provide spiritual drink. The mannah, drink, and rock were all physical. As is the body that Paul says will be resurrected by the Spirit of God.

Steven Carr

'If all Paul means by 'resurrection' is the escape of the spirit to be with God, then how can he envision this as happening immediately upon the death of the believers and also at a definite future event--the final judgment?'

Because Paul, like all Christians, is not consistent.

Even today there are Christians who believe they will go to Heaven or Hell upon death, and then later will be judged on the day of judgement as to whether they will go to Heaven or Hell.

Your question is a problem for Christian theology, not for Bernard.

How can people go to God upon death, when they will only be judged later?

Oh and by the way, your comparison of adjectives to compare attributes is most illogical.

A beautiful rock is different in beauty to a beautiful body, even though the word is the same.

So comparing a spiritual rock to a spiritual body , and saying they are spiritual in the same way is totally illogical.

But such is Christian apologetics. They do things they would laugh at, if somebody tried to claim a beautiful rock has a nice pair of breasts, because somebody wrote about a beutiful woman with a nice pair of breasts.

But even your claim that 'spiritual' means 'source from god', undermines your claim that the source of Jesus's resurrected body was the body he had before death. He had a new body.

Layman

Carr,

You've lost this one. And your attempt to salvage already refuted arguments does you no credit.

First, you have admitted that the living at the time of Christ's return will have their bodies transformed into new bodies fit for the kingdom of God. Their bodies will not fall lifeless to the ground. Having admitted this, you've lost the argument.

Second, you have committed shameless contortions to ignore the obvious implication of the seed analogy. Paul is not talking about a seed husk, but the seed itself--which is transformed into the plant. A seed is not a magic pill that unleashes some mystical energy. The seed becomes the plant.

As such, it is a fitting analogy to the concept of bodily resurrection held by the Pharisees. And, as I have shown, the Pharisees used the same analogy as Paul to stress the transformation of the body into a new, glorious being. The seed analogy explains the continuity with radical change quite nicely.

The context is a story of a Rabbi explaining the concept of the resurrection to an Egyptian who has questions about how the body is raised, and seems especially concerned about its nakedness.

From the Talmud:

Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 90b
http://religion.rutgers.edu/iho/parable.html#wheat

Third, you continue to ignore that Paul speaks about he and Christians departing to be with Jesus immediately upon death. Yet he also speaks of a later resurrection. If, as you claim, resurrection was merely the spirit escaping the earthly body, how can it happen at death and at the second coming? Obviously, these are two different events. Upon death the human soul enters into an intermediate state. Upon the second coming, the body is resurrected and reunited with the soul.

E.P. Sanders explains the two different doctrines, and their sequence, concisely:

Paul, at 31-32.

Third, you are deceiving yourself and others about what is "transformed." I remind you once again of my above posts:

Fourth, you have forgotten that Christ will give life to our mortal bodies!

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."

Layman

There is no justificaiton for such a conclusion. We should not attribute to Paul obvious inconsistencies when there is no need to do so other than to preserve some failed skeptical argument.

How is this relevant?

No, it is a problem for those who claim Paul believed that Christians immediately went to be with Jesus but would not be with Jesus until the resurrection. Obviously, these are two distinct events in Paul's mind.

Perhaps because God knows for whom the bell tolls?

You make absolutely no sense here. I'm not saying that a spiritual rock is the same thing as a spiritual person is the same thing as a spiritual body. I'm saying that Paul's use of the term "spiritual" to refer to a physical object does not render the physical, nonphysical.

What shows a truly warped sense of argument is arguing that when Paul says "spiritual" mannah he means something physical. When Paul says "spiritual" drink he means something physical. When Paul says "spiritual" rock he means something spiritual. But when Paul says "spiritual" body he by definition means something that is not physical.

My claim is that when Paul uses the term "spiritual" in the relevant passages he means "source from God" or 'source from heaven." I backed it up relevant examples that you have chosen to ignore. Please explain how Paul does not mean what I have shown he does mean?

premjan

I think Jesus and co (therefore Paul too) used physical metaphors for all spiritual things with impunity (kingdom of God, resurrection and so on).

Steven Carr

Yes, he means something physical, but made out of some sort of perfect, ethereal matter, in the same way that the heavenly bodies were considered to be perfect. (See 1 Cor. 15 where Paul attempts to explain to you that there are heavenly bodies, different from earthly bodies)

A heavenly, perfect body , certainly not a flesh-and-bones body with wounds, which had to eat.