Steven Carr

Luke 24:36-39

While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you."
They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have."

The disciples had seen an empty tomb at the start of Luke 24, yet they thought they were being visited by a ghost, and Jesus has to reassure them they were not.

Why wwas it natural for the disciples to equate an empty tomb with the idea that Jesus would come back as a ghost?

EstherRose

Because they knew He died. It was probably easier to believe He was a ghost and the body moved than to believe in His resurrection.

WinAce

Easy answer - Luke was written for the gentiles, so the author had to invent this reassurance that Jesus was BODILY resurrected. If this hypothesis is correct, this statement by him will be omitted in Matthew, the Jewish gospel, since those would more easily accept a bodily resurrection.

Steven Carr

So Jews believed people could come back as ghosts?

And when Peter saw the tomb clothes, he believed there had been tomb-robbers, despite the Roman guard on the tomb?

And when the two on the Road to Emmaus told the Eleven that Jesus had risen and appeared to Simon, they still thought his body had been stolen?

judge

Hi there,
I have some thoughts here so hope you don't mind if I add them.

I think the answer to your question is that normally mens bodies decay "back to dust".
Why did this not happen to Jesus? After all he was a man, born of woman?

I believe the reason is that because Jesus was born of a virgin he did not inherit the corruptible nature passed on by the mans "seed" but not the womans "seed".

This did not mean he was immortal or mortal either. He was in an intermediste state, as Augustine said of adam..."It was not impossible for him to die, but it was possible for him not to die"

We cannot choose whether we will die although we may be able to choose how or when we die. Jesus on the other could choose whether he died at all. Thus He could be a true substitute.

We will experience a transformation but the courruptible seed of our earthly bodoes must die first.

Secular Pinoy

Is there really a corruptible nature that is inherited via our seeds? What is it like? Is it a gene or some other inheritable substance? It sounds rather like a metaphysical construct, rather than something that's real. But if you have some evidence for it, I might change my mind.

Basil

Supposing that the empty tomb narrative is historical (which I take it is not), if you were a disciple what would you think? You saw the empty tomb, for which any number of things could have taken place - confusion over where the tomb was, Joseph reburied the corpse, somebody moved the body for whatever reason. A ghost would appear more plausible than an actual Resurrection - tales of spirit sightings were fairly common, but claims of a resurrected corpse in Palestine were uncommon (though in some vodoo societies tales of "zombies" would have been quite common.) People at the time knew little of the human psyche and its ability to produce hallucinations, or memories of hallucinations, even at a collective level.

judge

Hmmm.... evidence that we are corruptible seems everywhere, ...death overtakes us all. Even if we escape accident, we grow old and die.

Doctor X

Well in Mk you have the young man in his white robe sitting in the empty tomb.

A ghoul?

Necrophiliac?

--J.D.

Secular Pinoy

That didn't really answer anything. How do we know that a "corruptible nature" (whatever that means, please define it) is transmitted through our seeds? What is it like? Is it a gene or some other inheritable substance? None of my questions are answered by your post, so I had to repeat myself.