Good question and thanks for explaining some of your views. If Jesus’ resurrection was physical (remember He told Thomas to touch Him and touch His scars?), then so will ours be. I think the biblical emphasis on Jesus’ body being physical says something. After all, He is Creator of the Universe — does He normally have a human-style body ? The empty tomb was a reality for the earliest Christians and this for the reason that it showed Christ had victory over death. Thomas was told to touch the scars on Jesus’ hand, for example. And of course some saw Him risen as well. The details in the Book of Revelation are controversial in terms of how people figure chronology (and the book may not entirely be meant for that). But in 1 Thessalonians 4:16, when it refers to “the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a loud command … and the dead in Christ will rise first…” and the following verse refers to “those who are still alive …will be caught up together…” I know it is a bit obscure, but the people who are still alive at that time are referred to as “still alive” thus in physical bodies. There may be better verses on this, but I think that suggests something right there.
The original sin stuff ca. 33 min was a turn off for me. I was trying to skim through parts but once I hit that its over for me.
Good question…but it does say in the text that Jesus now sits at the right hand of the Father…does He sit in a twin-natured hybrid body, as you put it? Good question, good speculation…but if He created the whole Universe, I suspect He can figure out this other stuff…
It would be very interesting and helpful to have some kind of immersive look at how the Israelites understood all these pieces: the heart, stomach, spirit, soul, etc. Then instead of throwing in “that’s cool that they believed their heart was in their stomach and didn’t know what their brains did,” when I read, I would like to try reading the Bible with an ancient Israelite’s “full body” perspective 
@SkovandOfMitaze I find the Bible Project helpful for these perspectives too, but I’m curious to experience the Bible with all these things put together!
I don’t think his feelings were much involved, except when he was rejoicing in his salvation, which was pretty much all of the time. I’m pretty sure he thought and actually knew our flesh is resurrected (Not the same atoms and molecules, but a body like our Lord’s, physical but also different)
Clearly what I meant.
Was his brain different? Can you have a rearranged brain and still be the same person?
You can still be the same person and eat physical fish but appear and disappear, apparently at will, not to mention ascend in a cloud. (And I didn’t say nor necessarily imply anything about ‘rearrangement’.)
KateKnut…Yes it would be interesting to know what the residents of Judea/Galilee of that era believed or understood by heart, stomach, spirit, soul…they believed differently from the Greeks and Romans, at least for theological reasons. In Luke 24, when it says they came to the tomb where they knew the Romans had placed His body, they saw the stone rolled away and “they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.” (v 3) What right there tells you of their thinking of the relationship between words like body, soul, and spirit? And while they were scouring the surroundings of that empty cemetery, “two men whose clothes gleamed like lightning stood beside them” (v. 4 of Luke 24). There was a belief in a general resurrection of the dead, which developed at the end of the “Maccabean rebellion of the second century B.C.E… But in the case of Jesus, his followers believed he had been raised before the end of the age …[i.e.,] with the resurrection of Jesus the first resurrection had begun” – see Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism, p 99
I doubt he believes that. He was talking about ancient thought there.
In the class Fr. Cheng mentioned the book “The Corinthian Body” by Dale B. Martin, Professor of Religious Studies, Yale University. I’m going to get it as an inter-library loan. I don’t know that much about Dale Martin.
For more information you could ask your librarian.
Aye Robin, that’s what the synoptics, therefore Marcan, metaphor attributed to Jesus thirty years and more after the possible event nearly says. The Father is not mentioned. This figure of speech shows that the the risen divine-human has all delegated power over humanity’s mediocre infinitesimal corner of heaven. Which lends itself to a general resurrection once we’re extinct. Or from His resurrection. Else no one was minding the store of ten billion souls for hundreds of thousands of years. The Son of Man created nothing before He was 30. Let alone the mediocre universe. Jesus has to be figured out in the light of eternity like everything else. By us. To be credible.
Ascending in a cloud to heaven, which because heaven is up in the sky? In all honestly that would make a good springboard for Biblical accommodation. God is so accommodating he even goes so far as to have the ascension follow ancient beliefs. At any rate, I don’t really disagree with you on anything, I just think the issue is complex and I am not comfortable with a black or white response.
I would say it was not pure vision (the followers just thought in their heads he was still alive). Beyond that I have more questions than answers and I don’t want to push accommodated scripture too far.
Or you could watch his open yale course on the New Testament( @KateKnut ). I watched about third of it. Got my hands on one by Ehrman from my local library as well. Martin seems to be a solid critical scholar.
https://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/rlst-152
| Lecture 1 | Introduction: Why Study the New Testament? |
|---|---|
| Lecture 2 | From Stories to Canon |
| Lecture 3 | The Greco-Roman World |
| Lecture 4 | Judaism in the First Century |
| Lecture 5 | The New Testament as History |
| Lecture 6 | The Gospel of Mark |
| Lecture 7 | The Gospel of Matthew |
| Lecture 8 | The Gospel of Thomas |
| Lecture 9 | The Gospel of Luke |
| Lecture 10 | The Acts of the Apostles |
| Lecture 11 | Johannine Christianity: the Gospel |
| Lecture 12 | Johannine Christianity: the Letters |
| Lecture 13 | The Historical Jesus |
| Lecture 14 | Paul as Missionary |
| Lecture 15 | Paul as Pastor |
| Lecture 16 | Paul as Jewish Theologian |
| Lecture 17 | Paul’s Disciples |
| Lecture 18 | Arguing with Paul? |
| Lecture 19 | The Household Paul: the Pastorals |
| Lecture 20 | The Anti-household Paul: Thecla |
| Lecture 21 | Interpreting Scripture: Hebrews |
| Lecture 22 | Interpreting Scripture: Medieval Interpretations |
| Lecture 23 | Apocalyptic and Resistance |
| Lecture 24 | Apocalyptic and Accommodation |
| Lecture 25 | Ecclesiastical Institutions: Unity, Martyrs, and Bishops |
| Lecture 26 | The Afterlife of the New Testament and Postmodern Interpretation |
I have a pdf of The Corinthian Body if you can’t find it through your library. Might be more critical than some Christians are used to but the open course was good and I am interested in his work: “Biblical truths: the meaning of Scripture in the twenty-first century.” Here is a quote from it:
Dale B. Martin "Thus, like every other proposition or confession, theological or otherwise, the claim that “scripture is infallible” is both true and false. It is false if taken to mean that the Bible, read just like an instruction manual, a history book, a biology textbook, or even a book of dogma and doctrine, will provide straightforward answers in propositions that correspond to reality. It is false if it is taken to mean that the narratives of Genesis provide a correct “history” of the beginnings of the universe and human beings. It is false if it is taken to mean that the accounts of Jesus’s words and actions can be accepted as “what really happened” according to modern historiographical methods. It is false if it is taken to mean that Paul’s statements about behavior should be followed by modern Christians the way we would follow Robert’s Rules of Order or some “owner’s manual” for our bodies and lives. In other words, the statement “scripture is infallible” is false if it is taken the way it has been by the great majority of modern Christians in the past two hundred years.
But like almost all the theological propositions or confessions addressed in this book, it is true if it is interpreted correctly. It is true if it means that Christians may justly trust that scripture, as long as it is read in faith by the leading of the holy spirit, will not lead us to fatal error. We may trust scripture to provide what we need for our salvation. We may trust that we can read scripture in prayerful hope that God will speak to us through our reading that text. But ultimately this belief—or, perhaps better put, this stance, attitude, or habitus—is actually an expression of our faith not in a text but in God and the holy spirit. We “leave it up to the holy spirit” to protect us from damnable error in our readings of scripture. We depend on God to keep us with God in our readings of scripture. Properly understood, the doctrine of the infallibility of scripture is a statement less about a text and more about God."
That quote has me 100% sold. Buy everything he has ever written!
Vinnie
2 Tim 2:23 But refuse foolish and ignorant speculations, knowing that they produce quarrels. Although study is important, we get caught up in the minute, less important details of things like this. The new testament teaches through and through of Christ’s literal resurrection. You could cite hundreds of passages that point to a resurrected Christ. It’s been said above, but 1 Cor 15:12-14 puts it very clearly, that Christ did in fact raise from the dead in a literal sense. This is the exact reason why Paul was writing, to refute this very argument the thread is about! If we deny this, we believe in a dead God who lied in John 2:19-21
Thanks Klax …I actually was noting someone’s musings on the fate of Jesus’ resurrected human self once He ascended to His place. I think it is an interesting musing but somewhat unanswerable. I just figured He handled it, and that is that.
Trying to be brief with these posts…
When Jesus said “I and the Father are one,” I “think” He was mentioning it–that is, His divinity as well as considerable knowledge about a dramatic future event …And the leaders of the Sanhedrin at least “got it” when they declared Him guilty of blasphemy – for telling them that “in the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Matthew 16:64).
He would . along with more specific aspects of Who He saw Himself to be, and which followers of Jesus generally believe. As for Marcan – well yes, Matthew and Luke both utilize Mark a good deal, while adding to it. (Brown said Matthew was written in Syria … while Attridge specified Antioch…and Bond says others put Mt closer to Palestine …and so on…). But what about these even earlier Q sources upon which Matthew drew? (and probably also Luke)? Earlier still than those 30 years later?! I have read variously that disciples of rabbis of that era were encouraged to memorize their rabbi’s words…and also that it was customary for some disciples to take notes…You have to figure that the accountant (Matthew) and a couple of the business owners in that crowd (Peter) plus maybe John whose family seemed to have connections in Jerusalem – knew how to put pen to paper (or papyrus, or other)…“Millard has shown that there would have been a people with the ability to write readily available in ancient Palestine at the time of Jesus” maybe using wax tablets, per Crossley in The Date of Mark’s Gospel, p. 208…He proposes an extremely early date to Mark— parts of it to the mid to late thirties A.D./C.E. — though I have no idea how accepted that it.
.As Boyarin, a rather conservative or orthodox Jewish scholar, said: “Jews at the time of Jesus had been waiting for a Messiah who was both human and divine and who was the Son of Man, an idea they derived from the passage from Daniel 7” — read The Jewish Gospels, p. 72
Thanks Frederick,…and you are exactly right! Much of this is pointed out above and below by various other contributors. But as you can see, there are multiple points of view. “Various strange and outlandish theories have been put forward to try to explain away the empty tomb, but they are all based on nonsense…there is no historical explanation for the empty tomb, other than if we adopt a theological one, i.e.,the resurrection…” per the British-Israeli writer Shimon Gibson in his The Final Days of Jesus, p. 165
His ‘place’ between His first and final ascensions and since is metaphoric. As well as possibly transcendently literal. In our corner of Heaven.
As was His saying “I and the Father are one". It means united in nature, disposition, purpose. What else could He have meant?
It does not, can not, mean that Jesus was coterminous with the Second Person of the Undivided Trinity, the Godhead substance, that the latter Person completely collapsed, once in all infinite eternity of nature, to a Spirit spermatozoon.
I’m happy with Quelle, the Source, and I’m happy with the synoptics and all starting in the 60s, before the fall of Jerusalem and ending after. Unless Jesus’ Olivet prophecy, unknown to Paul and the earliest Church, actually was real. It may have been true and they didn’t write about it until after its fulfilment of course. But the rational explanation is it is what it looks like. Someone made it up after 70 AD. Because it would be extremely odd that someone only remembered in 60-65 that He said it in 31 and it all happened almost immediately in historical terms after they just remembered in time for it to be prophetic. It’s more likely they remembered after it happened. And even more that someone made it up. In good will. With the very best of cognitively biased conspired intentions.
The fact of the Church up and running in the 30s is the most significant.
That’s a good thing.
You are welcome, KateKnut…You might also enjoy–along the same lines --The Sage from Galilee by David Flusser…and even more The Jewish Gospels by Daniel Boyarin. The latter is a conservative or orthodox rabbi/professor in the Berkeley , CA area (the former book was published in Jerusalem)…also maybe The Misunderstood Jew by Amy-Jill Levine. She is a Jewish New Testament professor at a university in Tennessee —great background, interesting speaker as well as writer.
None of these three is Messianic --althought Boyarin goes out of his way to be complementary (“I am sure he was a remarkable person”)…and all have great insights! I could name more, but all for now. Happy reading!