It kind of makes me think about that verse in Jude possibly referring to the assumption of Moses about how michael and satan argued over his body.
As for me personally I’m not sure what I believe concerning the resurrection of Jesus or of our own. It’s goes beyond anything I can currently experience and I don’t get a clear picture from the Bible.
It talks about the tomb being empty and Thomas poking his fingers into a wound making me envision it as his physical body coming back from the dead and then in other verses it says the body is like a seed and the seed must be buried in order for the spirit to be raised up and how he seemingly vanished and showed up in other places unrecognizable by his very disciples and it almost seems like a ghostly experience of his waxing snd waning from the physical realm but then again, the disciples thought he was a ghost as he was walking across the water.
Then it’s confusing because it says he went away into the clouds. But we know heaven is not actually behind clouds. We don’t imagine Jesus still floating through outer space ( though I joke that could be why it’s taking so long ) and so ultimately it’s not clear to me but ultimately I guess I land on his physical body coming back to life cloaked in immortality. I believe some sort of change occurred and through Christ thst came chsnge can occur in us.
I think all his post does is say that we know a follower of Jesus who evangelized Gentiles thought Jesus rose bodily from the dead 20 years after the fact. You could dispute the bodily but many think it’s there. We know this from autobiographically material. He also relays appearances to other followers of Jesus. Now does some of Paul’s Christian audience reject Jesus rose as well or do they all accept this but they eject everyone else will rise? Or are some of them saying Christ’s resurrection was spiritual and there is no bodily resurrection? The mere fact that Paul is responding to this issue means there were Christians with different takes on the issue in the 50s.
For me I think many of my Jesus’s earliest followers thought he rose from the dead. Whether or not he actually did, objectively in history, and exactly what each early Christian thought that resurrection entailed cannot be known. None of the theories you mention can be demonstrated. They are speculation but for a person who does not believe in miracles they would be an obvious solution to why this belief developed.
But did they think Jesus rose? How did this belief evolve? We could imagine a host of scenarios.
He actually rose
They imagined he rose,
They had spiritual encounters with Jesus
They had what they thought were spiritual encounters with Jesus
They flat out lied
They were sure who he was so they assumed he did as he taught and rose.
How do you actually prove one of this when we have no real evidence either way? The tomb story just isn’t convincing to many scholars. Many would dismiss it whole cloth. The presence of the women at the tomb is marshaled so frequently by apologists as well but critical scholars in general do not feel or see the force of the argument. I share their opinion. It’s just a non-issue and when Mark is your only source for a piece of history, that all but makes it impossible to conclusively view it as historical. Doesn’t mean it isn’t, just that we shouldn’t be convinced by it.
In the end, we have to explain why Paul does a complete 360 from persecuting to promoting and why the movement started by a crucified messiah actually lived on. Belief in the resurrection of Jesus was very early and in my opinion, the only real reason the movement survived Jesus’s death. It was a genuine belief. Whether that belief is real or not or was always bodily is a matter of faith and quite possibly how far you are willing to “accommodate” Christianity and the Bible. As long as Jesus is still alive, whether in his old
Body resurrected or in a new one makes no difference to me. Only the transforming and risen Jesus and God’s incarnation into humanity matter.
We also have to explain why Jesus was crucified and his closest associates were not. Many overlook this very serious issue. Paula Fredriksen in, Jesus of Nazareth, brought this issue to the limelight.
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To me it did answer the post because I believe everything spiritual is fundamentally subjective. It goes back to one of the reasons I believe which is that I cannot believe that reality is summed up in the mathematical equations of physics, which I equate to the objective reality. The mathematical equations are the objective reality because they force things upon us, caring nothing about what we want or believe. The spiritual is fundamentally subjective because it is all about choice where what we want and believe is part of its essence.
So like Strauss I think it was not objective historical fact but a subjective experience. What I refute is the notion that reality is only objective or that the subjective is therefore only internal or imaginary. The subjective (i.e. spirit) is the greater not the lesser reality. God is not less real but more real than what He created. All these particles and mathematical laws of nature are like the bits, pixels, and programing of a computer game – a simulated reality which serves an important purpose but is not the essence of reality.
How can you refute that actually? Its fundemntally established BY SCIENCE that reality is objective. Subjectivism is only what we are willing to believe (hense not always real)
Quoting from my reasons to believe No. 5
I feel there are profound pragmatic reasons to reject the idea that reality is exclusively objective because it immediately takes any conviction about reality to a conclusion that the people who disagree with you are detached from reality and delusional or in some other way defective, I don’t believe that this is at all conducive to the values and ideals of a free society. The plain fact is that our direct contact with reality is wholly subjective and it is the objective which is the abstraction that has to be fabricated. Now I certainly think there is very good evidence that there is an objective aspect to reality but I see nothing to support taking this to the extreme of presuming that reality is exclusively objective.
Quoting from my introduction which tackles the definitions of these terms
Our most basic access to the world is personal experience and this is the essence of what subjective means. The objective is an abstraction which we piece together as an understanding of what is the same for everyone. One of the most successful methods and strictest standards for this is found in science, which gives us written procedures anyone can follow to get the same results. While personal experience may be the most compelling reason for our own belief, it does not provide a basis for a reasonable expectation that others should agree. That expectation, derived from proof and evidence, is what the objective is all about and when we have them it only makes sense for this to take precedence.
Science establishes no such thing. I do think there is excellent evidence that there is an objective aspect to reality from the way science has defied our expectations. But science doesn’t even concern itself with the question of what is reality. That is a question of philosophy not science.
Right… reminds me of the pompous visitor to a native culture telling them that the manitou (or whatever) which they experience as a part of their lives are not real. Sorry, but I will not participate in such attitudes. That is just them thinking that they can dictate reality to other people.
Of course it does? Reality for science is our 5 senses. everyything outside of them is subjective or non-existant
That is the philosophy of empiricism not science.
I am a scientist but I do not believe in this philosophy of empiricism. It is neither taught in science nor is it needed in doing any science. Next you will be telling me that science is a way of life – but that is confusing science with some philosophy of life.
It is a form of science so… Without these 5 no scientific discovery ir anything would have been found
You have devoted your entire life to science and you say that"Science is not a way of life"? For real now?
Suspicioned confirmed.
Science is not a way of life. Science is just an activity. It is not a belief system. It is a way of investigating some kinds of questions where what you want and believe is irrelevant. However, what you want and believe is certainly not irrelevant to living your life, but essential. If someone thinks they can live their life according to what is objective alone then they are just plain delusional.
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Rrality cannot be subjected period. Unless you have some kind of pshychological imbalance or something else is wrong with your perception and mind ,we all share one objective reality. Its common sense and scientifically proven.
Money? Power maybe? Maybe he thought all this was worth the risk of his life to create a large movement that got much power . Although he didnt lived on to see it ,well look at the ealy church. Constantine made it tge largest religion in the empire. That was maybe Pauls dream.
Why would they? They werent the ones who were spreading the message until later after the ressurection. Then they got into hidding.
Here are the three options as I see them:
- Metaphysical Solipsism = reality is completely subjective. I have encountered quite number of people on forums with this sort of viewpoint, claiming there is no objective reality. Many will tell you that science proves this: such as here and here. So even while I disagree with this conclusion, your “period” let alone your preposterous claim that science proves reality is purely objective looks like nothing but blind willfulness to me.
- Metaphysical imperialism = reality is completely objective. It is possible to say that reality is completely objective but we don’t know or say we even cannot know what that is. But the latter is still imperialistic in your dictation of what people can or cannot know. Certainly any claim of knowledge about reality in combination with the insistence that reality is completely objective leads to an imperialism of thought very similar to cultural imperialism. This certainly seems to be the much more common viewpoint – fits right in with a world full of intolerant or at least very provincial people.
- Metaphysical diversity = reality itself has both objective and subjective elements to it. Large portions of reality are the same for everyone but there is also much of reality which is not the same for everyone. Some people experience spirits and such, or what other people choose to call imaginary friends. And if you don’t, as I don’t, define reality by your own experiences alone, then you see little reason to say that what other people experience is not real unless it interferes with living such as in schizophrenia (but even then I would only say that it is better for them to believe the things they see are not real rather than to insist that they are not real).
I find both positions 1 and 2 to be intolerably self-centered and arrogant, so I choose number 3 and I see it as one reason (of several) to believe in a spiritual side of existence because diversity seems to be an inherent character of spiritual beliefs. Thus I equate the spiritual with the subjective aspect of reality and the physical with the objective aspect of reality.
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Thats your based oppinion. I from the other hand find the 3 option arogant and anti-common sense.
Things is guess what. Your 3 option isnt supported by science either
Based on his own writings Paul worked for himself (he didn’t get rich) and suffered a lot of persecution for his evangelism. This seems very unlikely from the available literature.
Jesus didn’t send them out? They were just dumb mutes? I doubt the latter is remotely true and even then Rome doesn’t care. If the movement started by Jesus was a problem to Rome they would have stifled it the Roman way. That’s the point of crucifixion. Of course, I believe Rome killed Jesus, not just Pilate acting as a proxy for his potential high priest friend.
Vinnie
Money? Power? In your dreams. The church was tiny and Paul was attacked, both from within and without. Paul faced every hardship and was eventually martyred.
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So? He might have believed that eventually he will suceed but he didnt. Later in centuries though the church will gain power beyond imagination so…
He didn’t seem to think so.
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Paul thought that the end was nigh and Jesus was coming back very soon. Your speculations run contrary to what the data actually says.
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