Steven Carr

So what did the disciples see when Moses appeared to them?

A spirit of a devil?

A resurrected body?

A non-resurrected body?

A soul?

A psyche?

An intermediate state of conscious but happy?

Why is this such a hard question for Christians to answer?

Jim Larmore

Steve,

I don't believe its such a hard question to answer if you look in the word of God the Bible. To begin with Jesus told his disciples in Matt.17:9 to " Tell the VISION to no man, until the son of man be risen again from the dead" . A vision is not "necessarily" a real manifestation of anything it could have been a supernatural "dream" if you will .

However , even if you want to say that Moses is alive and well in the celestial realms its ok because if you look in Jude 9 it says " Yet Michael the archangel , when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, dare not bring against him a railing accusation, but said , The Lord rebuke thee."This text basically says Moses was resurrected some time after his death and taken to heaven. So Moses was a "resurrected glorified body" when he appeared on the Mount of Transfiguration and thats what the disciples saw with Elijah and Jeus.

This notion of a soul being something separate from the body is not Biblical. When we are resurrected we will be made immortal at that time but not till then. In 1Cor. 15:51-55 it says "Behold I show you a mystery we shall not all SLEEP , but we shall all be changed, In a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump for the trumpet shall sound and the dead whall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality.
Only God can give us immortality and the soul doesn't automatically receive immortality until the last trump of God sounds. Remember in Ezekiel it says souls can die.

In 1Thess 4:16-17 says "For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God and the dead in christ shall rise FIRST, then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Its at this 2nd comming that we shall all be changed to a glorified soul which contain a body and breath ( spirit ) . The wicked and lost souls will remain asleep until after the mellinium when the wicked dead will be resurrected to try to take the holy city Rev 20:9 . Its at this time the Lord will rain down fire and brimestone on them and it shall destroy them. This is what most people call Hell fire. They will not burn eternally like many saythey will but shall be consumed away, Mal. 4:1-4 says they shall be ashes under our feet. In Rev. 20:7-10 says that they would be destroyed and then in Rev. 21:5 says He would create all things new again, How could He do that if everything was still burning?

Sorry I got carried away but this all sort of fits together. There are so many lies in the christian beliefs today, The devil has indeed worked hard to make it confusing and to make it all look like a joke to unbelievers but its not a joke . The truth is the truth no matter who speaks it and the truth is in the Bible if we search for it The forever the Bible speaks of with regards to Hell fire is the effect not the action. The wicked will be eternally dead but will not burn eternally. The Bible says the wages of sin is DEATH not etenal burning. Remember etenal life only goes to the righteous not the wicked.

Yahzi

Oh... my... god!

He got that from "Buffy!"

At the end of season 5 of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," she sacrifices herself to save the world. Because she died a mystic death, her friends are able to resseruct her. They're convinced she's in some alternate hell dimension (cause when Angel got whacked, that's where he went), but she finally confesses to them that she was just happy... "I was finished. Done. At peace. There was no pain." Nor was there time or consciousness.

The CoE is getting it's theology from TV now!!!

Admittedly, BtVS was the best show on TV ever. Ever. But still.

Steven Carr

So there is such a thing as a group hallucination.

The disciples could have a vision of a deceased prophet, and there was nothing physical there to be seen.

The word for how Moses 'appeared' is 'ophthe', which is the same word for how Jesus 'appeared' as a 'life-giving spirit' in 1 Corinthians 15.

'ophthe' is used a few times in the NT, and almost always means a non-physical appearance.


Acts 2:3. Tongues of fire 'appeared' to Peter and rested on each one of them. Did real , physical fire come down from Heaven and rest on Peter, when it 'appeared' on Peter? Were the apostles heads physically on fire? If not why did Jesus physically appear to Peter when he 'appeared' to Peter?

Acts 6:2. The God of glory 'appeared' to our father Abraham. It seems that God was in the habit of making bodily appearances. Either that or 'appeared' in 1 Cor. 15 does not mean a bodily appearance.

Acts 16:9. And a vision 'appeared' to Paul in the night. This says straight out that Paul and 'ophthe' mean a vision. Did the man from Macedonia physically travel to Paul when he 'appeared' to Paul?

Revelation 11:19 The Ark of the Covenant 'appeared' within his Temple. The whole of Revelation is a vision, and we have another use of 'ophthe' to mean vision.

Revelation 12:1. A great portent 'appeared' in heaven. Still more visions.

Revelation 12:3. And another portent 'appeared' in heaven. Still more visions.

One thing the New Testament insists upon is that Peter and Paul were precisely the sort of people to have dreams and visions and to act upon those dreams and visions as though they were real. (Acts 10, Acts 16 etc.)

So naturally, we can conclude that Jesus did NOT appear in a vision when he 'appeared' as a 'life-giving spirit'

But what is Lamore's alternative?

LARMORE
"This text basically says Moses was resurrected some time after his death and taken to heaven. So Moses was a "resurrected glorified body" when he appeared on the Mount of Transfiguration and thats what the disciples saw with Elijah and Jeus.


CARR
So Jesus was NOT the first person resurrected! Jesus was NOT the first-fruits.

Wright says in his resurrection book 'There were partial anticipation and analogies, even though the event itself was significantly new.'

Surely it was hardly significantly new, if Moses had been resurrected to a glorified body.

Wright also says in his resurrection book about the early church :-'Both pagan and Jewish observers of this new movement found it highly anomalous: it was not like a club, not even like a religion (no sacrifices, no images, no oracles, no garlanded priests), certainly not like a racially based cult.'

What pagan and Jewish observers have written about the early church ie early enough to see what any eyewitnesses about the resurrection might have behaved?

Curiously, Wright also writes 'And the problem with all such theories is that they are themselves based on nothing more than elaborate guesswork. We simply do not know very much about the early church, and certainly not enough to make the kind of guesses that are on offer in this area.'

SO when Wright is confronted with theories he does not like, all information about the ealry church vanishes, and we (sorry, people with theories he does not like) are reduced to guesswork.


Yet he can tell us all the possible range of beliefs of all Christians , Jews and pagans in the 1st-century Roman Empire, depsite not knowing very much about the early church.

Why is Wright is never reduced to guesswork, unlike people who study the early church, and produce theories he does not like?



Wright also writes 'Those Romans who supposed that a 'Nero redivivus' was alive and kicking certainly had no thoughts of interpreting this phenomenon within the worldview of second-Temple Jewish eschatology.

Who were the Romans who thought a Nero redivivus was alive and kicking? I though 1st-century pagans had no concept of a bodily resurrection? Of course, this was AFTER Jesus's resurrection, yet Greeks could hardly have recently invented the idea based on the teachings of a despised sect preaching ideas they found inconceivable.

Wright also writes 'Among the more striking aspects of the mutation is the fact that nowhere within Judaism, let alone paganism, is a sustained claim advanced that resurrection has actually happened to a particular individual.'

(Notice the qualification 'sustained'. Wright knows there were claims, and needs some way of dismissing parallels)

Yet Moses was resurrected! Doesn't Wright know this?

What does Wright think the disciples saw when they saw Moses?

Bernard Muller

Steven Carr wrote:

Yet Moses was resurrected! Doesn't Wright know this?

What does Wright think the disciples saw when they saw Moses?

I do not give a damn about Wright, but the "historical" solution is all in Philo of Alexandria's works, which likely were known widely, and why not by "Mark".

Philo tells us that Moses, as a soul, went to heaven right after his death, in another abode. Philo tells us also, when any of the (ethereal) heavenlies (God, angels, etc.) feel like going on earth, they have the ability to take human form.

Then "Mark" has Jesus saying that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob are not dead (Mk12:26-27).
GMark also features the mostly naked man in 14:51-52 in a cold night (who could he be except an angel on earth?).

We just have to add up.

Best regards, Bernard

Roger Pearse

It all seems so terribly plausible. What other alternatives do they have?

But Buffy... well, it would be nice to think some of them watch something so honest.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Doctor X

Does not someone consult the Witch of Endor to raise a spirit to talk to . . . damn slow dial-up . . . I cannot remember if it is Saul or David taking to Samuel . . . or David talking to Saul . . . will have to look up later.

This suggests--at some point--an "underworld"--Sheol--concept not unlike the Greek--the spirits sort of . . . you know . . . hang out . . . existed in Jewish thought.

--J.D.

Vorkosigan

Bernard, this is a very interesting suggestion. Do you think he is supposed to be an angel? One of the Patriarchs? Jesus himself somehow?

Vorkosigan

NOGO

Perhaps Layman can tell us where the Bible speaks of a "Spirit" (or soul, call it what you want) which survives the death of the body.

The fact is that he wont be able to come up with anything.

The truth is that the very idea of the resurrection of the body
denies the existing of anything which can live without the body.

Paul says that "the dead will rise first, then we will be changed"
There is no concept here of anything which like the Soul or Spirit can live outside the body.

Think of the very concept of the end of the world.
Why must there be an end-of-the-world anyway?
If we die and go to heaven in any form whatsoever then there is no need for the end of the world and final judgement.

The concept of the end of the world is related to the cosmology of the time. People believed in heaven and earth where heaven was above the dome which covered the earth. Just inside the dome were the stars, moon and sun. There was just no other place for humans than on earth, therefore, to have the kingdom of God the present earthly kingdoms need to be destroyed (end of the world) and replaced with the rule of God.

Christians say it every day

"Our Father which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done in earth,
as it is in heaven..."

So the kingdom of God is here on earth with bodies, no Souls, no Spirits.

2 Peter has the earth destroyed and replaced with a new earth. Why have a new earth when you are a Spirit?

Layman

What is the name of this book? And have you read it? If so, please give me the cite and language where Wright says what you claim he says.