Bernard Muller wrote:I think a spiritual resurrection was first wished for and then believed by the earliest proto-Christians.
gMark added up the empty tomb, a step in the direction of the physical resurrection.
But I think it was gLuke which started the physical resurrection (rather tentatively) at the end of the gospel.
Then the physical resurrection was added later in gJohn, gMatthew & gMark (after 16:8) to "prove" the resurrection.
The (hoped for) spiritual resurrection had nothing to do with the preaching of Jesus, but rather due to the circumstances of his welcome near Jerusalem and his crucifixion. http://historical-jesus.info/digest.html
HI Bernard.
I think g Mark was actually written after Matthew and Luke, and also gMark's story of the physically empty tomb implies to the reader a physical resurrection.
My research on the prophecies of the Messiah's resurrection: http://rakovskii.livejournal.com
outhouse wrote:I have always viewed the resurrection evolving from a spiritual resurrection. Rethinking that.
Now I have no reason to think that some people who heard others teaching and repeating what John and Jesus taught, had made claims based on quality of the repeated parables that he had been resurrected.
Much the same way we see claims Jesus was John resurrected as with Herods claim.
None of us are stupid enough to run with the apologetic crap, so how did this tradition evolve as we see it in different communities? [regardless of historicity of the man himself]
Apparently, this belief was ridiculed at some point. . .
“Indeed, people came even from the cities in Asia, sent by the Christians at their common expense, to succour and defend and encourage the hero. They show incredible speed whenever any such public action is taken; for in no time they lavish their all. So it was then in the case of Peregrinus; much money came to him from them by reason of his imprisonment, and he procured not a little revenue from it. The poor wretches have convinced themselves, first and foremost, that they are going to be immortal and live for all time, in consequence of which they despise death and even willingly give themselves into custody; most of them. Furthermore, their first lawgiver12 persuaded them that they are all brothers of one another after they have transgressed once, for all by denying the Greek gods and by worshipping that crucified sophist himself and living under his laws. Therefore they despise all things indiscriminately and consider them common property, receiving such doctrines traditionally without any definite evidence. So if any charlatan and trickster, able to profit by occasions, comes among them, he quickly acquires sudden wealth by imposing upon simple folk. http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/lucian/peregrinus.htm
First, I think a distinction has to be drawn between "physical" and "bodily" resurrections. They are not necessarily the same thing. A soma does not have to be made out of meat. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15, makes it clear that "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." Physical bodies rot away and are replaced by "heavenly bodies," which are not the same as "Earthly bodies." There are both (somata epourania and somata erigeia), "but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another." Paul thinks that "Heavenly bodies" are material, not immaterial, but he does not think they are the same physical bodies people lived and died with. "It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body." (1 Cor. 15:44). He uses both the terms pneumatikos and epouranios) to refer to resurrection bodies and explicitly says in 15:45 that Jesus was turned into a pneuma. So the use of the word "body" can be misleading. Paul thought "spiritual bodies" were made of something, that they had substance, but that it was not the same substance as physical bodies, which rotted away. He uses the analogy of plants growing out of seeds. Spiritual bodies emerge from dead physical bodies. So Paul thought Jesus rose as a "spirit" (again, he explicitly says so in 15:45), but that a spirit was still a material "thing" in some sense.
Now if that is established, then the question is what did Paul mean by "raised." I think it is significant that Paul says nothing about a secondary "ascension" event after the resurrection. Paul does not say that Jesus got up from his slab, walked around talking to people, and having them finger his nail holes and eating fish for a while before sailing up o the sky, just that he was "raised." then was "seen" by a succession of people ending with himself. Paul does not say exactly what anyone saw, or where or in what context and he does not say there was any difference between the nature of Jesus' appearances to Peter and James et al and to himself. I think it is very significant that he does not say anything about an intervening ascension between the appearances to the others and to himself. He draws no distinction between what they saw and what he saw. He does not say they saw a physically resuscitated Jesus, then Jesus went to Heaven, then appeared to Paul in visions. Just that they saw him and then he saw them. Without any knowledge of the Gospel narratives, the most reasonable inference is that everybody else saw visions just like he did. For Paul, the resurrection and the ascension were the same thing. There was not a physical resuscitation followed by an acsension, just an ascension straight from the grave - an apotheosis or exaltation followed by visions of Jesus in Heaven (I say I think they saw him in heaven based on Paul's claim in 2 Corinthians 12 that that's where he saw Jesus). The physical interlude on Earth was then a later accretion. I think it was possibly introduced as a means to counter Docetic beliefs, but I'm not married to that explanation. If you really look at it, the appearance narratives of the Gospels get progressively more "physical." Mark, of course, has no appearances. Mathew has a brief on an unnamed mountain in Galilee which appears to simply be an attempt to stick an ending on Mark and probably to rehabilitate the disciples after Mark deprives them of any witness to the resurrection. Luke has a hodgepodge of shape shifting appearances and disapparations and John has Thomas sticking his fingers into Jesus' wounds to show that he has a solid body and is not an immaterial spirit.
So the TL:DR of my thesis is that the original belief was simply that God had raised Jesus up to Heaven after his death. This event was perceived by some means (visions, dreams, inference from scripture, ecstatic mystic states, etc), then it got inserted that Jesus literally walked around on Earth for a day or forty before he got beamed up.
This discourse is an important one regarding the question. Paul's resurrected Jesus was "a life-giving spirit" (πνεῦμα ζῳοποιοῦν, 1Cor 16:45) with a body from spirit matter. According to the same chapter, a fleshly body would be switched out for an imperishable one (a spirit body) in a moment upon resurrection. This is also compatible with an empty tomb, as the fleshly body would be gone upon a "spiritual" resurrection.
Of course, this kind of view has to be adapted somewhat for the "Jerusalem" resurrection appearances in some of the gospels, but it's pretty much completely compatible with the "Galilean" appearances.
In this sense, a "spiritual" resurrection looks like the older concept, even if you cannot completely separate it from a bodily resurrection, given spirits seemed to have been imagined as having a body themselves. The big step would be to one that imagines a resurrection in the flesh.
It would be nice to know where the stories about the "Jerusalem" and the "Galilean" resurrection scenes have their origin (gJohn suggests separate origins), but I don't think we have any hint into any direction here.
The Son of God was crucified: I am not ashamed--because it is shameful.
The Son of God died: it is immediately credible--because it is silly.
He was buried, and rose again bodily: it is certain--because it is impossible http://www.tertullian.org/works/de_carne_christi.htm
Yes, but the "bodily" question is more or less meaningless when the distinction is between a physical body (σῶμα ψυχικόν) and a spiritual body (σῶμα πνευματικόν), as per 1Cor 16:44. They are both bodies.
It will be different if someone comes from a culture that imagines spirits as being bodiless.
It will be different if someone comes from a culture that imagines spirits as being bodiless.
I think the culture of the time, among Gentiles & Jews, were for the spirits to be bodiless. Paul gave a body to the spirit of Christians (in heaven), most likely as a compromise between whose (like Paul) who think heaven is only for spirits (Platonic view) and the ones looking for a renewed flesh & blood body on earth where that Kingdom of God would be expanded to.
The physical interlude on Earth was then a later accretion. I think it was possibly introduced as a means to counter Docetic beliefs, but I'm not married to that explanation. If you really look at it, the appearance narratives of the Gospels get progressively more "physical." Mark, of course, has no appearances. Mathew has a brief on an unnamed mountain in Galilee which appears to simply be an attempt to stick an ending on Mark and probably to rehabilitate the disciples after Mark deprives them of any witness to the resurrection. Luke has a hodgepodge of shape shifting appearances and disapparations and John has Thomas sticking his fingers into Jesus' wounds to show that he has a solid body and is not an immaterial spirit.
"Luke", in my view, was the first to feature physical reappearance of Jesus, but not necessarily in the same body as the one of Jesus, when living on earth. In the gospel, that reappearance looks rather brief (words & time) and tentative. But in Acts, she will extend that to make sure "... he presented himself alive after his passion by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days, and speaking of the kingdom of God." (1:3).
We certainly can see a progression here.
gJohn adapted the first reappearance from gLuke and made use of the forty days of Acts to feature a later reappearance to Thomas & others. But Thomas is not said to actually touch the resurrected Jesus.
That will be done later in the first one of the two reappearances in gMatthew (which I view as interpolations by two different authors): Mt 28:9 "And behold, Jesus met them and said, "Hail!" And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him."
Cordially, Bernard
I believe freedom of expression should not be curtailed
It will be different if someone comes from a culture that imagines spirits as being bodiless.
I think the culture of the time, among Gentiles & Jews, were for the spirits to be bodiless. Paul gave a body to the spirit of Christians (in heaven), most likely as a compromise between whose (like Paul) who think heaven is only for spirits (Platonic view) and the ones looking for a renewed flesh & blood body on earth where that Kingdom of God would be expanded to.
I am a bit hesitant to ascribe that kind of motivation to Paul. Who knows. Clear is that "Paul's" resurrection body was not from flesh & blood.
Do you by chance know of any source for how Jews in general saw spirits with regard to the body question?
