Toto

Enough so that a person who accepts the scientific method can feel safe that Randi's million dollar prize is safe.

Isn't it sort of ironic (or pathetic) that we are using the products of scientific and engineering development, based on quantum mechanics, to argue over the truth value of an ancient document written by people who believed that the earth was a disk covered by a dome, and that demons ruled the world?

But that's a rhetorical question that would drag this too far off topic.

aikido7

There's an African proverb which states that one is never dead until one is forgotten.

Of course, proverbs, like parables, sometimes subvert conventional truth to point to a metaphoric truth--though to many students of the Bible, both fundamentalist and skeptical, the italicized statement above is probably nonsensical.

Steven Carr

It would have been nice if somebody could have told me what answers Wright gives in his books to these questions.

Steven Carr

http://www.ftimes.com/Main.asp?Secti...rticleID=16476

is an interesting article.

'He also thinks the Gospel reports about women as the first witnesses argue against fiction: The Gospel writers wouldn't have made this up because the ancients discounted women's testimony.'

John 4:39-42 'Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I ever did." So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers. They said to the woman, "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world."

So it appears there is another huge blunder in the Bible as Wright assures us that ancients were not prepared to believe just because of what a woman said.

Toto

Some on line sources on Wright:

Dr. NT Wright's take on the bodily Resurrection of Jesus

Farewell to the Rapture

More Links on NT Wright and his thinking

Wright v. Borg

Vorkosigan

From Christianity Today. on NT Wright:

"In a thoroughly postmodern way, he deals in narratives¡Xthose of Judaism, Jesus, and the early church¡Xrather than individual snippets of sayings."

Guess I am not the only one who has noticed the affinities between NT scholars and postmodernism.

What does Wright say? Nothing could be more postmodern than....

"[P]roposing, as a historical statement, that the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth was empty because his body had been transformed into a new mode of physicality...will of course evoke howls of protest from those for whom the closed world of Enlightenment theory renders any such thing impossible from the start. But if Christianity is only going to be allowed to rent an apartment in the Enlightenment's housing scheme, and on its terms, we are, to borrow Paul's phrase, of all people the most to be pitied--especially as the Enlightenment itself is rumored to be bankrupt and to be facing serious charges of fraud." (124)

Steven Carr

How can a few documents , even if totally true, establish on
a historical basis 'a new mode of physicality'?

If new forms of matter are being discovered by theologians, then I would need more than an old book to confirm it.

What is this new physicality? Can Wright tell us anything which
is similar or we can observe, or which has been observed?

To say that Jesus entered a new mode pf phsyicality is not history, but totally ad hoc special pleading.

Steven Carr

Wright discusses just these questions in

http://www.bib-arch.org/bswb_BR/br801wright.html


WRIGHT

"For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout of command, with the voice of an archangel and the trumpet of God. The dead in Christ will rise first; then we, who are left alive, will be snatched up with them on clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord" (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17).

What on earth (or in heaven) did Paul mean?

It is Paul who should be credited with creating this scenario. Jesus himself, as I have argued in various books, never predicted such an event. The gospel passages about "the Son of Man coming on the clouds" (Mark 13:26, 14:62, for example) are about Jesus' vindication, his "coming" to heaven from earth. The parables about a returning king or master (for example, Luke 19:11–27) were originally about God returning to Jerusalem, not about Jesus returning to earth. This, Jesus seemed to believe, was an event within space-time history, not one that would end it forever.

Paul's description of Jesus' reappearance in 1 Thessalonians 4 is a brightly colored version of what he says in two other passages, 1 Corinthians 15:51–54 and Philippians 3:20–21: At Jesus' "coming" or "appearing," those who are still alive will be "changed" or "transformed" so that their mortal bodies will become incorruptible, deathless. This is all that Paul intends to say in Thessalonians, but here he borrows imagery—from biblical and political sources—to enhance his message. Little did he know how his rich metaphors would be misunderstood two millennia later.

-----------------------------------
So Wright ducks the fact that Paul is supposed to have said that
this would happen in his lifetime.

But how can 'be snatched up with them on clouds to meet the Lord in the air' be the metaphor Wright claims it is? Wright never explains how people would see Paul transformed (but still on the ground), and say 'Yes that is just what Paul meant when he said that he would be snatched into the clouds and meet the Lord in the air'.

Wright simply argues by diktat.

Wright cites scripture to back his case - Luke 19:11-27, about God returning to Jerusalem, not Jesus returning to earth.

The passage is most interesting. See how Wright ignores the context. It was told just before Jesus was killed and rose from the dead, and it is about a person who was about to go to a distant country, become king and then return.

Surely it is about Jesus, not God?

11While they were listening to this, he went on to tell them a parable, because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once. 12He said: "A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return. 13So he called ten of his servants and gave them ten minas.[1] 'Put this money to work,' he said, 'until I come back.'
14"But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him to say, 'We don't want this man to be our king.'
15"He was made king, however, and returned home. Then he sent for the servants to whom he had given the money, in order to find out what they had gained with it.
16"The first one came and said, 'Sir, your mina has earned ten more.'
17" 'Well done, my good servant!' his master replied. 'Because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of ten cities.'
18"The second came and said, 'Sir, your mina has earned five more.'
19"His master answered, 'You take charge of five cities.'
20"Then another servant came and said, 'Sir, here is your mina; I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth. 21I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow.'
22"His master replied, 'I will judge you by your own words, you wicked servant! You knew, did you, that I am a hard man, taking out what I did not put in, and reaping what I did not sow? 23Why then didn't you put my money on deposit, so that when I came back, I could have collected it with interest?'
24"Then he said to those standing by, 'Take his mina away from him and give it to the one who has ten minas.'
25" 'Sir,' they said, 'he already has ten!'
26"He replied, 'I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away. 27But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them--bring them here and kill them in front of me

Verse 27 is interesting, if Wright is correct that this is about God's return.

Vorkosigan

Wright simply argues by diktat.

Imagine a believing NT scholar doing that.

Vorkosigan