Where Did the Doctrine of the Bodily Resurrection Come From?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Secret Alias
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Where Did the Doctrine of the Bodily Resurrection Come From?

Post by Secret Alias »

Jewish sources make clear that ancients argued the belief is unsupported by the Torah - there are no passages which argue for a resurrection. Nevertheless Jews, Samaritans and Christians all agree on this doctrinal point - even though more ancient traditions in each denied it originally. Why did it win out? What is the origin of the belief?
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Where Did the Doctrine of the Bodily Resurrection Come From?

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Secret Alias wrote: Wed Dec 11, 2019 3:52 pm Jewish sources make clear that ancients argued the belief is unsupported by the Torah - there are no passages which argue for a resurrection. Nevertheless Jews, Samaritans and Christians all agree on this doctrinal point - even though more ancient traditions in each denied it originally. Why did it win out? What is the origin of the belief?
  1. The concept was culturally available (from the Egyptians, for example).
  2. The concept was actually employed in the North (Elijah and Elisha), albeit merely as a superlative example of a miracle rather than as a point of theology.
  3. The concept was a perfect analogy for the (future or imminent) restoration of the kingdom to Israel/Judea.
  4. The concept became the perfect solution to a key problem of theodicy: how can God be just if he allows martyrs (such as those during the crisis under Antiochus Epiphanes) to die unrewarded? The rewards must have been postponed, which necessarily entails resurrection.
It is all down, once again, to those promises made concerning the kingdom of Israel and the eternal nature both of the Levitical/Aaronic priesthood and of the Davidic kingship. If God promised it, it is going to come to pass, even if the only way that can happen is by resurrection.
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Charles Wilson
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Re: Where Did the Doctrine of the Bodily Resurrection Come From?

Post by Charles Wilson »

Wonderful Question, SA!

Ecclesiastes 9: 3 - 6 (RSV):

[3] This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that one fate comes to all; also the hearts of men are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead.
[4] But he who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion.

[5] For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward; but the memory of them is lost.
[6] Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and they have no more for ever any share in all that is done under the sun.

About as plain as it can get. Yet, it's not good enough is it? Herod's dinky gets eaten by worms and that's not enough pain and suffering for what he has done to the Observant Jew.

The Law is Just and good and not a burden but to Paul, it is.

There is no book of Plato in the Bible but there might as well be. The Ancients had no way of connecting a consciousness to a body.

"Yossarian was cold, too, and shivering uncontrollably. He felt goose pimples clacking all over him as he gazed down despondently at the grim secret Snowden had spilled all over the messy floor. It was easy to read the message in his entrails. Man was matter, that was Snowden’s secret. Drop him out a window and he’ll fall. Set fire to him and he’ll burn. Bury him and he’ll rot, like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was Snowden's secret. Ripeness was all..."

It is against this that the Platonic Ideal Triumphs. It simply cannot be that my perceptions are simply what my body tells me they are. The "I" must Float Eternally over this passing fleshly body.

You know more about Philo than I do, SA, but the Impingement of Alien Cultures (Platonism) on the unique view of the Body and Being of Judaic Sensibilities won out. Jesus could not have died on the Cross since, by John 1, he was Eternal. So must you be as well.

The Old Testament Body could reason with God since the person WAS inextricably Linked to the Body. With Paul and the NT, there is an unclosable Gap between the person and the body, and the person and God.

Best to you, SA,

CW
Charles Wilson
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Re: Where Did the Doctrine of the Bodily Resurrection Come From?

Post by Charles Wilson »

Josephus, Antiquities, 17, 6, 2

"So these wise men persuaded [their scholars] to pull down the golden eagle; alleging, that although they should incur any danger, which might bring them to their deaths, the virtue of the action now proposed to them would appear much more advantageous to them than the pleasures of life; since they would die for the preservation and observation of the law of their fathers; since they would also acquire an everlasting fame and commendation; since they would be both commended by the present generation, and leave an example of life that would never be forgotten to posterity; since that common calamity of dying cannot be avoided by our living so as to escape any such dangers; that therefore it is a right thing for those who are in love with a virtuous conduct, to wait for that fatal hour by such behavior as may carry them out of the world with praise and honor; and that this will alleviate death to a great degree, thus to come at it by the performance of brave actions, which bring us into danger of it; and at the same time to leave that reputation behind them to their children, and to all their relations, whether they be men or women, which will be of great advantage to them afterward..."

This is the "Golden Eagle Episode". Notice that all of the Rewards are listed as occurring "in this Life" and not in any "Life Beyond". Even the last phrase is not a Promise of Glory in an Afterlife but a Promise of an "...advantage to them afterward".

The Promise of the "Eternal Soul" is not apparent here. Platonism came later.

CW

Edit Note:

Revelation 5: 9 - 10 (RSV):

[9] and they sang a new song, saying, "Worthy art thou to take the scroll and to open its seals,
for thou wast slain and by thy blood didst ransom men for God
from every tribe and tongue and people and nation,
[10] and hast made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
and they shall reign on earth."

Hellenistic Solution. (I wish Outhouse was still Posting...)
davidmartin
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Re: Where Did the Doctrine of the Bodily Resurrection Come From?

Post by davidmartin »

The concept of immanence plays into this i think
all is occurring in one eternal moment, which mitigates against the need for future states except for teachers and prophets as reminders
this is where you can find essentially Jewish thought in the gospel of Thomas, everything occurs on earth there, no heaven, no hell - all is a process playing out
this seems to jibe with ancient thought processes
the loss of faith in this life and body, well then you need more i guess
that's what i like about Judaism, stubbornly refuses to change with the times preserving more ancient ways
thats why i can't accept Jesus as a preacher of resurrection of the body and all that apocalyptic restoration stuff if he knew his stuff, he'd know this wasn't original to Judaism and emphasise this life
Secret Alias
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Re: Where Did the Doctrine of the Bodily Resurrection Come From?

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[5] For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward; but the memory of them is lost.
[6] Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and they have no more for ever any share in all that is done under the sun.
I still don't see that this is a reference to the resurrection of the dead. And what's more - it's not Torah so who cares. Only the Torah matters.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: Where Did the Doctrine of the Bodily Resurrection Come From?

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The concept was actually employed in the North (Elijah and Elisha), albeit merely as a superlative example of a miracle rather than as a point of theology.
But do the resurrection of dead individuals necessarily translate to the existence of a universal judgement after the end of the world where the dead rise? I am still in the dark on this. Let's suppose the heretics (= the Sadducees, Samaritans, Marcionites) all denied the resurrection of the dead. How did all these traditions TOGETHER overthrow the old guard and install an exactly identical belief in three traditions that were mutually hostile toward one another? That's what I am wondering about. I can see one tradition went the way of bodily resurrection. But all three together?
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Charles Wilson
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Re: Where Did the Doctrine of the Bodily Resurrection Come From?

Post by Charles Wilson »

Oh!!! As in, "Torah, Torah, Torah"?
As in:

Genesis 2: 7, 3: 19 (RSV):

[7] then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
...
[19] In the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
you are dust,
and to dust you shall return."

No Resurrection of the Body there, is there?
No Resurrection in the Josephus material quoted and that's near the death of Herod. Again, this is from the Judaic POV.

So the Triumph of the Soul found in Platonism came after this.
Secret Alias wrote: Wed Dec 11, 2019 3:52 pmWhy did it win out? What is the origin of the belief?
Put aside your anger, please. The Non-Belief in an Immortal Soul was displaced in the Herodian Court with the Hellenization of the Court. Herod organized the Court on the Greek Model as Herod was taught by Nicholas of Damascus. The cities were Hellenistic. There was a Culture War between Judea and The Decapolis but the names and organization of Jerusalem were Hellenistic.

The question with the Resurrection on the Body is always, "Which Body do I get back at the Resurrection? Can I be twenty-something again?" Epistemological Confusion, indicative of a Derivative Result. If you don't/can't believe in ghosts and also, when you die, you're dead, how do you rationalize that Immortal Soul?

You declare that you are dead and gone and at the resurrection you get your body back so you can be conscious again. God cannot take on Imperfection so the Soul of Evil people are burned in the Lake of Fire. The Good People live on in the presence of God, complete with their Bodies.

It's crushingly contradictory but those were the Rationalizations demanded by amalgamating a Genesis/Ecclesiastes view of Human Existence with a Platonic Immortal Soul.

CW
Last edited by Charles Wilson on Wed Dec 11, 2019 9:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Where Did the Doctrine of the Bodily Resurrection Come From?

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Secret Alias wrote: Wed Dec 11, 2019 6:24 pm
The concept was actually employed in the North (Elijah and Elisha), albeit merely as a superlative example of a miracle rather than as a point of theology.
But do the resurrection of dead individuals necessarily translate to the existence of a universal judgement after the end of the world where the dead rise?
No (as my response already implied), but that is where the issue of theodicy comes in. It came to a point at which resurrection was about the only way the promises of God could still be true in any kind of a literal sense. Without a resurrection, what happens to martyrs is fundamentally unjust; but God is just. So there must be a resurrection (of the martyrs, at the very least) to set things right.

Christianity got the resurrection from Judaism; no real mystery on that score, right? Christianity and Judaism are not independent on this issue.
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Secret Alias
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Re: Where Did the Doctrine of the Bodily Resurrection Come From?

Post by Secret Alias »

But the Samaritans - who base all their exegesis on the Torah- also adopted it, even though the Pentateuch says nothing about it. https://books.google.com/books?id=pzo6K ... an&f=false
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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