Steven Carr

It would have been better for you to have quoted the rest of the chapter.

14We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18Therefore encourage each other with these words.

Wright does not believe a word of what Paul wrote. He denies that Paul wrote that the Lord will come down from heaven. Wright denies that Paul wrote that 'we who are still alive' will meet the Lord in the air.

1 Cor 15 is an attempt by Paul to describe the resurrected body of Jesus. Yet he works entirely by theological reasoning, analogy and first principles. Why not simply report what sort of body he saw? Or report that the disciples could touch Jesus?

Indeed, if the Corinthians had heard any of the Gospel post-resurrection stories, why would they ever have had to ask what sort of body Jesus had?

1 Corinthians 15 is most interesting.

'Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God'.

Here Paul is saying that Jesus's resurrected body had flesh and blood.

'When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. '

Here Paul is saying that the body that was planted in the ground was the same body that came out of the ground.

'If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.'

Here Paul is saying that there was only one body of Jesus, and that the body which was resurrected was the natural body of Jesus before the crucifixion.

'So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being" ; the last Adam, a lifegiving spirit.'

Here Paul is saying that Jesus's body was not a spirit.

'The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. '

Here Paul is saying that the resurrected body of Jesus contained flesh and blood made from the dust of the earth, but now incorruptible.

Layman

And a reference for the "latter statement" I mentioned?

Llyricist

Steven,

I'm a little confused by your dissection of 1 cor 15. Were your comments intended to be sarcastic?

Paul Baxter

I apparently fell asleep or something while typing last night, so this statement :

As far as physicality in non-gospel sources, I have no idea what you think you are talking about. (I use the NASB):

Should have read:

As far as non-physicality in non-gospel sources, I have no idea what you are talking about.

I apologize for the way it came out originally, but the timer for re-editing it has expired.

tx to Vork for pointing this out to me.

CJD

In response to Toto's post on the 20th c. theosophist.

Maybe I am missing something, but just because we rightly point out that Saint Paul stood on the shoulders of Jewish Wisdom tradition, does it necessarily follow that he took it in the same direction as the Gnostics? (who were removed by a good 30 years from the Apostle).

Is not placing a flesh-and-blood human in the middle of Sophia the one thing that makes Saint Paul so radical (within Jewish monotheism)?

Finally, why is pre-existent unformed and chaotic matter strictly Gnostic, when by most rabbinic (and I should add, not a few Christian) accounts that is exactly what we see in the Creation narrative?

Regards,

CJD

Paul Baxter

Stephan,

Wright mentioned in the book that he is not convinced one way or the other either about Markan priority or the existence of Q, FWIW. I could try to look up page numbers if it's important to ya.

On I Thess, in my opinion you are not quite being fair (to Wright). He interprets some of this language figuratively, on the premise that that is how Paul meant it to be taken. Referring to the 'literal' interpretation he says "The multiple apocalyptic resonances of the passage on the one hand, and the glorious mixed metaphors on the other, make this interpretation highly unlikely. Fortunately, the rest of the passage is reasonably clear . . ." (TROTSOG p215)

It seems like I remember seeing an article he wrote on this passage online, but I can't find it at the moment.

Layman

Of course Carr is being unfair. Of course Wright believes Paul wrote what is written. Wright's only crime, in this instance, is not taking it as literally as Carr.

Paul Baxter

Could anyone tell me how the Doherty or Carrier thesis has been reviewed in their professional communities? Anyone get the journals? (I'm asking, I promise, out of ignorance)

Toto

Carrier is working on a PhD at Columbia.

Doherty has an undergraduate classics degree, but did not get an advanced degree for health reasons, and works as a professional writer. His work has been accepted by the scholars around the Journal of Higher Criticism at Drew University, and by some Europeans, but most New Testament scholars ignore him - probably because they have nothing to say. The trend in current scholarship, as far as I can see, is towards post-modernish literary criticism or applied social science, and avoids the old fashioned question of what actually happened.

Paul Baxter

tx for the info