Steven Carr

This is an interesting essay
http://www.christianorigins.com/resbody.html

Here , Christopher Price makes the point that Paul, writing to the Corinthians, was arguing against the Greek idea of immortality of the soul . He writes ' Greeks longed to be free from the confines of the body. While they did believe in the survival of the human soul after death, the notion that the body would be reunited with the soul in a physical resuscitation was foreign to their conceptual world.'

Was the idea that Jesus body and soul were reunited in a physical resuscitation (sic) really foreign to the conceptual world of the Corinthians who had become converted to Christianity by hearing wondrous tales of how the resurrected Jesus was touched by the disciples?

'If Paul was merely speaking of a non-physical resurrection (which, to a Jew, is something of a contradiction of terms), it is doubtful that he would have met with such skepticism. As discussed above, the Greeks already believed in the immortality of the human soul. Their skepticism was reserved for the Jewish belief in a physical resurrection.'

The Corinthians had converted to Christianity because they were sceptical of the Jewish disciples belief in a physical resurrection?

As Carrier points out in 'The Empty Tomb', they could not possibly have been doubtful of a physical resurrection. They wanted to know what sort of material the resurrected body was made out of - how such a body would not be subject to the ordinary laws of decay.

And Paul answers the real question of the Corinthians by emphasising the discontinuity of the old and the new body, in much the same way that Clement when writing to the Corinthians clearly states that the old body of the Phoenix is discarded by the new Pheonix and that is how the resurrection should be understood.

Carrier writes 'Third, Paul's doctrine could not have been of a reassembly and restoration of the flesh. Had that been so, he could not have failed to be explicit about it. It is simply too fundamental a point to avoid or leave obscure.'

sharon45

Jesus' resurrection could easily have been a purely symbolic one. After death, his teachings were passed on to those like him, willing to risk their lives in order to further institute what they believed to be goodwill and positive change within their community and the surrounding areas.

Layman

Actually, we do not really know why all of the Corinthians joined the Corinthian church. We do know that whatever that reason was, some of them had changed it and had to be reminded and reprimanded by Paul.

How does Carrier know that a faction among the Corinthians could not possibly have doubted a resurrection of the body? Remember that we are talking only about some, not all, of the Corinthians. (1 Corinthians 15:12: "how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead."). To say that Paul cannot be opposing people who deny a bodily resurrection is to say that no one who had become involved with the Corinthian church could have began mixing their pagan ideas with Christian ideas. Which is, of course, unfounded. Of course people could have joined the Corinthian church while not fully understanding certain, even important, beliefs or later reconsidering them in light of their Greek backgrounds. Paul faced a similar problem, though in the opposite direction, in Galatia, prompting him to exclaim, “I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel.� Gal. 1:6.

If only unchanging orthodox believers joined Christian churches how did any “heresies� arise? Marcion was a member in good standing with the Church in Rome until he started teaching that Jesus only appeared to be human and mutilated Paul’s letters and Luke’s gospel. How could he have joined the Roman church if he believed Jesus was not really human?

In any event, why is this not a problem for whatever it was Paul had originally taught in Corinth? It seems pretty obvious that “some� in the Corinthian church had managed to screw up the doctrine of the resurrection as taught by Paul (whatever it was). Which is why Paul has to stress that he is repeating the point he originally made to there: “Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain� and “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received.� 1 Cor. 15:1-3. So whether Paul had first taught the Corinthians that the resurrection was strictly a spiritual matter, or a transference of the soul from the old body to a new one, or something else altogether, this Corinthian faction had quickly managed to mess it up.

It was not impossible for some Corinthians to let their Greek backgrounds color their understanding of the Gospel that Paul had taught. In fact, it seems a likely – perhaps inevitable -- occurrence. This is why Marcion, Valentinus, and the Gnostics arose, because of Greek discomfort with the Jewish-source material on God’s redemption of the physical world, including our bodies.

I will say that I am more open to the idea that the "some" in Corinth were not simply reverting to Greek ideas of immortality, but affirmed a "realized exchatology" or "realized resurrection." The result is the same as far as Paul's affirmance of a bodily resurrection, but the position of his "opponents" is more nuanced. See Karl A. Plank, "Resurrection Theology: The Corinthian Controversy Reexamined," Perspectives in Religious Studies 8.1 (Spring 1981).

As my article shows, Paul emphasizes continuity with radical transformation. This is actually quite clever, a kind of threading of the needle. It is true to the Jewish/Christian emphasis on God’s redemption of creation, including our bodies; but it lessens the blow to the Greek distaste for such a high value on the material world. It is not the world as it is, but a world transformed by God that is the future hope.

And so now the author(s) of 1 Clement did not believe in a resurrected body either? That seems very unlikely given his statement that the “flesh� is raised:

1 Clement, The Apostolic Fathers, Vol. 1, trns. Bart D. Ehrman, page 83. See also Holmes/Lightfoot, page 59 (“And again Job says: ‘And you will raise this flesh of mine�) and Robertson-Donaldson, page 12 (“and again, Job says, ‘you shall raise up this flesh of mine’�).

As for the Phoenix, that hardly supports your point. Many early Christian writers used that example. Given how widespread the story was, comparisons to the resurrection were inevitable if not exact. The Apostolic Fathers, trns. Michael Holmes, page 59 n. 66 (“The story of the Phoenix was widely used (with varying levels of credulity) by early Christian writers.�). Indeed, Tertullian uses the same example in his unambiguously titled treatise, “On the Resurrection of the Flesh�:

Chap. 13.

Notice how Tertullian recognizes that it is an inexact metaphor, yet cannot help himself from using it. Even more important is his reference to “His own Scripture.� As Holmes explains, the Greek term in the LXX at Psalm 91:13 (92:12 in modern translations), the term used for “palm tree� is phoenix, which was confused with phoenix, which means “phoenix bird.� Thus, they read Psalms as saying, “The righteous man will flourish like the phoenix bird, He will grow like a cedar in Lebanon.� Thus making this passage and the Phoenix example irresistible to Christians looking for examples of resurrection in nature to beef up their belief in bodily resurrection.

So, 1 Clement’s use of the Phoenix is (like Tertullian's) to support the idea of the resurrection of the body. This counts against your case not only because he was writing the Corinthian church but because Clement also adds yet more weight to the fact that the analogy of the seed was used to reinforce the notion of the resurrection of the body (with radical transformation of course):

1 Clement 24 (Ehrman, page 81). See also Holmes/Lightfoot (“but then out of their decay the majesty of the Master’s providence raises them up�).

What are the “them� that are raised up? The seeds that were planted.

Of course, the author of 1 Clement is simply following the standard Jewish and Christian usage of the seed analogy to describe the resurrection of the body. The Gospel of John does so at 12:23-24 to refer to Jesus' resurrection:

Tertullian uses it in his Apology to describe the bodily resurrection of believers, chapter 48.

Additionally, Rabbi Meier used the metaphor of a grain of wheat sown into the ground but raised a blossoming flower: "If a kernel of wheat is buried naked and will sprout forth in many robes, how much more so the righteous." (b. Sanh. 90b). Another Rabbie, Eliezer, also uses the analogy of the seed to describe the resurrection:

Pirke de Rabbie Eliezer, Section 33.

Here we have two early second-century Rabbis – theological heirs of the Pharisees – using the same analogy Paul – also a Pharisee –, as well as the author of 1 Clement, to explain the resurrection. Specifically, they use the seed analogy to explain the continuity of the old with the new, but also its radical transformation (clothed with “many robes� and “many coverings�). And before you give me your line about Paul being unable to believe in the resurrection of the dead because all that would be left of some dead is dust, please reread my comments about an omnipotent God being able to resurrection people even from their dust. Whether you find such a concept rationale is irrelevant. The Jews and early Christians surely did. In fact, one notable Rabbi addressed this very question:
Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, Section 34. So too Tertullian in his Apology, chap. 48.

And if Paul meant that the old body stays in the grave after the resurrection of the dead, why is he not explicit about it? How could he leave that point so obscure that most scholars have concluded the opposite?

In any event, Paul is clear. The very term “resurrection� was explicit in that it was understood by Jews and Greeks alike to refer to the Jewish notion of a resurrection of the body. By using the Pharisaic analogy of the seed he was being clear. By saying “it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body� Paul is clear that the body that is sown is the body that is raised, albeit radically changed. Andrew Johnson, “Turning the World Upside Down in 1 Corinthians 15: Apocalyptic Epistomology, the Resurrected Body and the New Creation, EQ 85:4 (2003), 300 (“[H]e stays with the pattern of the preceding antithesis where ‘it’ is the understood passive subject of both spieretai and egeiretai and where the prepositional phrases describe how ‘it’ is sown and raised. The rhetorical effect is that the psychikon body and the pneumatikon body act in an adverbial sense to describe how ‘it’ is sown and raised. Hence, what is sown, namely a decayed/decaying fleshly body, is also raised, albeit in a changed form that can only be described as a pneumatikon body.�). And by Paul being “clearly dependent� on Daniel 12 to “articulate his own notions� on the resurrection (Alan Segal, Life After Death, page 425-26), Paul sends the same message as Daniel did, the resurrection of the dead will include the resurrection of their bodies, but in a transformed state. (Dan. 12:2-3: “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt. Those who have insight will shine brightly like the brightness of the expanse of heaven, and those who lead the many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.�). And for all the reasons I argue in the article to which you linked.

Magdlyn

An admirable post that yet seems to go a bit afield, IMO. It is all very well to quote Clement, Tertullian, rabbis of the 2nd century, Job pericopes out of context, and mis-translations of the word for palm tree. What about what Paul actually said as quoted here:

1Cr 15:35 But some one will ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?"
1Cr 15:36 You foolish man! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
1Cr 15:37 And what you sow is not the body which is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain.
1Cr 15:38 But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body.
1Cr 15:39 For not all flesh is alike...
1Cr 15:42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable...
1Cr 15:44 It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.
1Cr 15:45 Thus it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam [Christ?] became a life-giving spirit [a spirit! not even a body per se here].
1Cr 15:46 But it is not the spiritual which is first but the physical, and then the spiritual.
1Cr 15:47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven.
1Cr 15:48 As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven.
1Cr 15:49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.
1Cr 15:50 I tell you this, brethren: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God [yes, this famous bit you ignored], nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
1Cr 15:51 Lo! I tell you a mystery [a mystery! So who knows what he is talking about, if he does not?] . We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
1Cr 15:52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.
1Cr 15:53 For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality.

Seems to me, there is no question a ressurected body bears very little resemblance to a physical one, as Christ's body, post and maybe even pre-resurrection, did not either.

Steven Carr

Layman continues to insist that converted Christians simply doubted that Jesus was raised physically, while ignoring my point that they could not then have heard the Gospel stories.

He even finds an 'it' in '. By saying “it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body� Paul is clear that the body that is sown is the body that is raised, albeit radically changed.'

There is no 'it' in the Greek, as Carrier's book explains..

Nor does Paul reference the bit of Daniel Layman quotes as relevant . Perhaps Paul never thought it relevant.

Amusingly Layman's Lord and Saviour does not seem to be aware of the standard Jewish/Christian seed analogy. He said ' I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.'

So presumably Jesus thought a dying seed produces many bodies.

Layman's oft-repeated example is about a person getting new clothes after being resurrected. Nobody 'transforms' their clothes. They are taken off and new clothes are put on. All the rabbi was saying was that resurrected people would not be naked. They would be given new clothes.

Fair enough, but to suggest Paul is using the same analogy is ludicrous. He is not at all talking about whether resurrected people will be naked. He is explaining that the seed will die, and God will give it a new body. He says so. God gives it a body.

Doesn't Layman know that seeds germinate and what was inside sprouts out? Paul would have thought the same. The outside (what was visible) would be discarded and what was invisible would be made glorious by God.

As for Layman claiming Paul was not explicit about the body staying in the ground, what could be more explicit than saying that flesh and blood would not inherit the kinhdom of God and that the corruptible would not be raised.

What could be more explicit than Paul saying that the last Adam was raised a life-giving spirit?

It is only apologists who obfuscate Paul's very clear statement here.

What could be more explicit than 'nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable'?

It is only apologists who insist that the perishable did inherit the imperishable, and that the perishable was turned into the imperishable.

Paul says the perishable did not inherit the imperishable, which explicitly rules out teh perishable being granted the gift of incorruptibility.

As far as Paul is concerned , an earthly body belongs to the class of things that perish.

And so earthly bodies perish.

They are not given a makeover as imperishable. He explicitly denies that the perishable gets such a makeover.

Amaleq13

The "continuity" appears to be the continuation of the identity of the individual rather than the body in which that identity appears. The "transformation" is so completely radical that there does not seem to be any good reason to assume Paul considered there to be a direct connection between the flesh body and the raised body except the identity of the individual.

The individual is sown in corruption; the individual is raised in incorruption.

Carrier agrees with your interpretation of how the Pharisees addressed the issue but argues that Paul uses a similar analogy to argue a completely different solution.

"First, while the Pharisees resolve the incorruptible-celestial versus corruptible-terrestrial dichotomy by asserting that the distinction will be removed at the resurrection, Paul insists it will be maintained, and thus 'gets around' the problem in a completely different way: by giving us new celestial bodies." (The Empty Tomb, p.118)

He follows this statement with a footnote leading to 1 Cor 15:39-41:

"All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds.

There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.

There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory." (KJV)

Carrier continues on that same page to describe the difference between Paul's argument and that of the Rabbis:

"Hence, 1 Corinthians 15:54 contains a direct analogy with the Rabbinic solution of the celestial-terrestrial dichotomy. But when we compare it with the Rabbinical text, we see that death will be defeated, according to the Rabbis, when God changes the nature of the universe to accommodate our bodies, but according to Paul, when God changes our bodies to accommodate the nature of the universe. So the solution is entirely reversed."

"...when Paul resorts to the very same Pharisaic analogy of a naked grain of wheat, (1 Cor 15:37-38) unlike the Pharisees he does not see this as predicting that our bodies will be clothed in glory like the wheat sprout, but as predicting that we will be given entirely new bodies." (Carrier, The Empty Tomb, p 118. emphasis original)

Steven Carr

Even in Layman's quote, ''He plants naked (seeds) and they arise covered with many coverings...', we see that Jews believed that something could be created by God, and would not be an existing something transformed.'

But as Paul is not using the analogy in the same way, but says that the seed dies, the relevance is none.

And Laymans claim that Clement uses a seed analogy -, well just before then Clement compares a resurrection thusly 'Day and night show unto us the resurrection. The night falleth asleep, and day ariseth; the day departeth, and night cometh on.'

Is Clement claiming that the night is just the day transformed?

And take Clement's seed analogy which Layman thinks we should take as a model of how a resurrection is done 'The sower goeth forth and casteth into the earth each of the seeds; and these falling into the earth dry and bare decay: then out of their decay the mightiness of the Master's providence raiseth them up, and from being one they increase manifold and bear fruit.'

'From being one they increase manifold'??

Layman tells us that the point of this is that Clement is emphasising that a seed is planted and raised, so this is the same seed raised. Hence it will be the same body raised.

But if we are supposed to take Clement's analogy as woodenly as Layman wants us to, he is claiming that from one seed you get *many* things raised.

So the raising of a seed is not to be taken as a model of what Clement believed about a resurrection, unless you think that Clement believed many people would be raised from one dead body.

Clement is using day following night and night following day as an example of resurrection (a continuing cycle), and is using seeds to show that life continues, even when apparently dead. The seed 'analogy' is actually about seeds, and how God gives us fruits of the earth each year.

Clement is using it these nature examples merely to illustrate the providence of God.

God regenerates day and night, he controls the cycle of nature, and he raises a Phoenix, so surely he will raise us.

He doesn't mean them as models of how a resurrection will happen (although he goes out of his way to say how a Phoenix resurrects)


He then goes on to say that a resurrection will happen because nothing is impossible for God.

Again , such efforts at trying to persuade people that resurrections can happen (look, God resurrects nature each harvest), are hardly needed for people brought up on eyewitness accounts of resurrected Saviours.

NOGO

Can we call them Christian ideas at this point?
How about Paul's ideas. It seems to me that he is making things up as he goes along.

NOGO

It seems to me that the Gospels go out of their way to say that Jesus' body was the same.

1. Empty toomb
Why have an empty tomb if the resurrected body is different than the physical body.

2. The stone was removed.
Why remove the stone from the tomb if not to let the physical body out.

3. Jesus' wounds
How does an incorruptible body have wounds?

4. Jesus eats fish.
This is done as proof that Jesus is real and not a ghost.

NOGO

I think that Paul makes this most clear when he says

... We will be changed ...

referring to those who will be alive when the magic moment comes.

What is not clear, however, is whether Paul believed that Jesus resurrected the same way.

According to Paul Jesus was a spirit before.
If he incarnated did he pickup a body for eternity?