I might add to what Andy said that in 1Sa 28, Samuel definitely did not see Saul coming back from the grave… Most biblical interpretations cite correctly that this was not Saul that Samuel was seeing but Satan or one of the fallen angels persecuting him and his horrible fate. Satan owned him because he abandoned God, and relished in his victory.
I believe that the concept of resurrection was not disclosed by God until Jesus came to show the way to eternal life. The parable of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16 revealed for the first time by Jesus as to what was in the afterlife before Jesus resurrection. I think it was just a matter of God not revealing clearly the concept of afterlife until mankind was ready for it.
Jon, any chance to dig into the meaning of Human Beings in Hebrew as compared to Mankind - from my last correspondence.
@arr123 the point I was making with the Elisha and Elijah resurrections is that the Hebrews clearly believed there was only one way to live after death, and that was resurrection. Of course these are not decisive evidence for an eschatological resurrection, but they are decisive evidence that for the Hebrews people who were dead were really dead and gone, and resurrection was the only way back (not raising a ghost or spirit through necromancy). As I said explicitly, “To pre-exilic Hebrews, resurrection was the only way out of the grave (see the miracles of Elijah and Elisha, as well as the texts in Isaiah and Jeremiah)”. This is why we find resurrection expressed as the future hope of the righteous, in the other books I cited, and that is evidence for an eschatological resurrection.
@gbrooks9 keeps trying to tell me that “resurrection was not generally available to commoners”, but hasn’t provided any evidence for this yet.
LoL … I’m not sure there is anything that will convince you. If resurrection or an afterlife was believed to be generally available in the Old Testament, we would have more than 3 or 4 people who NEVER die (but even now dwell with Yahweh) … plus another group of 2 or 3 who die and are then resurrected to a new MORTAL life on the earth (presumably to die yet again). This is hardly the kind of resurrection we find characterized (and expected) in the New Testament.
Any student of what some have called Enochian Judaism knows there was a shift in Judaism in the 2nd Temple period, where the afterlife and messianic expectations rise up to influence the entire world, triggered by texts that are generally not considered a part of the Old Testament.
George is this idea you have about commoners not being resurrected which confuses me, since the only people resurrected in the Old Testament are actually commoners. And yes we do find the New Testament resurrection in the Old Testament; I’ve cited the passages.
Yes there was a shift in the Second Temple Period; more like a splintering actually. But that doesn’t change the fact that resurrection in the Old Testament is pre-exilic, and also pre-dates Enochic Judaism.
We have ALREADY covered this ground. I use the term “commoner” to mean HOW MANY PEOPLE are resurrected (just “the elite” vs. “the vast majority”).
Despite your quibbling and equivocation, the Old Testament does NOT describe a general hope of an afterlife, or of dwelling with God… as in the MAJORITY or even sizable MINORITY of believers. The cases you point to are clearly exceptions…
The question remains why you think these exceptions have anything to do with my earlier assertions.
Your credibility continues to dwindle as you attempt to abuse one point into another point that you prefer.
I have already explained this. As I said explicitly, “To pre-exilic Hebrews, resurrection was the only way out of the grave (see the miracles of Elijah and Elisha, as well as the texts in Isaiah and Jeremiah)”. This is why we find resurrection expressed as the future hope of the righteous, in the other books I cited, and that is evidence for an eschatological resurrection.
You keep trying to represent this as something I have made up, but I have already pointed out you can find it in mainstream scholarly literature. There is evidence for a belief in pre-exilic general resurrection as early as the seventh century at the latest.
Again, you misunderstand me. I do not think you are making these things up.
What you are MAKING UP is the idea that these exceptional and RARE events in the Old Testament world view refutes my assertions.
My assertion is that the Old Testament presents resurrection as an EXTREMELY RARE event… even if you are a devoted believer
I don’t see how you can disagree with that.
The idea that resurrection and/or an afterlife was generally available for the MAJORITY of sincere believers does not appear until well into the 2nd Temple period.
I believe that the OT resurrection stories, e.g. that of Lazarus, are more similar to the resuscitation of a corpse than to the Christian idea of resurrection. Lazarus would have to die again, and there was nothing remarkable about his body when his life returned.
That’s what Andy said above too. In John 11:21-44, it seems that in Martha’s mind, the resurrection on the last day was a separate concept from raising someone from the dead in the present. When Jesus said, “your brother will rise again,” she thought of the final resurrection, not the stories of the OT prophets. And when Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life” it’s not like some light bulb went off and and she made a connection between the final resurrection she had in mind and the possibility that her brother would be raised to life right then. Resurrection was something she associated with Jesus being the Messiah.
Yes they are, as I’ve already said, but that’s exactly the same as the Jewish concept of the eschatological resurrection; mortal people who had died, being raised mortal. They would subsequently be judged, and then either rewarded with immortality or punished with eternal death. The Christian idea of resurrection is the same; mortal people who had died, being raised mortal, and subsequently judged and rewarded with immortality or punished with eternal death.
That may very well be the Jewish idea, but it doesn’t seem to be the idea presented by Paul in 1 Cor. 15:
[quote] "It is the same way with the resurrection of the dead. Our earthly bodies are planted in the ground when we die, but they will be raised to live forever. Our bodies are buried in brokenness, but they will be raised in glory. They are buried in weakness, but they will be raised in strength.They are buried as natural human bodies, but they will be raised as spiritual bodies. For just as there are natural bodies, there are also spiritual bodies.
The Scriptures tell us, “The first man, Adam, became a living person.”h But the last Adam—that is, Christ—is a life-giving Spirit. What comes first is the natural body, then the spiritual body comes later. Adam, the first man, was made from the dust of the earth, while Christ, the second man, came from heaven. Earthly people are like the earthly man, and heavenly people are like the heavenly man. Just as we are now like the earthly man, we will someday be like the heavenly man.
What I am saying, dear brothers and sisters, is that our physical bodies cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. These dying bodies cannot inherit what will last forever.
But let me reveal to you a wonderful secret. We will not all die, but we will all be transformed! It will happen in a moment, in the blink of an eye, when the last trumpet is blown. For when the trumpet sounds, those who have died will be raised to live forever. And we who are living will also be transformed. For our dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die; our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies.
Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.
O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”[/quote]
It is the Christian idea. In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul says exactly what I’ve said; “dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die; our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies”. He’s speaking of bodies being raised first, then transformed. The “spiritual body” is the result of that transformation. He is not saying that our dead bodies enter the ground and never rise again, but are just replaced with spirit bodies which come out of nowhere. If our mortal bodies are never raised, then there would be no such thing as resurrection in the first place.
In Philippians he makes it clear that the dead will be raised and then their bodies will be changed (“who will transform these humble bodies of ours into the likeness of his glorious body”, Philippians 3:21). Likewise, in other passages such as the judgment passages in Matthew and Revelation, the dead are first raised and then judged and then receiving immortality or death.
I still don’t see how you get that from “they will be raised spiritual bodies.” Obviously, most dead people’s mortal bodies have long since returned to dust and there is no mortal body to raise. Why does the transformation into immortal have to take place after judgment? What passage says that?
Also it seems that in the NT context, the believers felt the return of Christ was imminent and were more concerned about what would happen to those who were still living, like in the Phillippians passage you quoted. I don’t think Paul was talking about dead people there.
What about Hebrews 9:27 where is says people are destined to die once and after that face judgment. It doesn’t say the damned die twice.
And in 2 Cor. 5, you have Paul talking about the putting on of heavenly bodies before he mentions judgment.
[quote] For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing. For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spirits without bodies. While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life. God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit.
So we are always confident, even though we know that as long as we live in these bodies we are not at home with the Lord. For we live by believing and not by seeing. Yes, we are fully confident, and we would rather be away from these earthly bodies, for then we will be at home with the Lord. So whether we are here in this body or away from this body, our goal is to please him. For we must all stand before Christ to be judged. We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in this earthly body. [/quote]
I don’t. I get it from “dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die; our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies”. You don’t transform something by leaving it in the ground exactly as it was. If our mortal bodies are never raised then there is no such thing as resurrection. Resurrection doesn’t mean “leaving your mortal body in the ground and just replacing it with something completely different”.
Regardless of how you interpret Philippians, in 1 Corinthians Paul says that both those who have died and those who remain alive at Christ’s return, must be transformed. The faithful dead will be resurrected; that is, their dead bodies will be raised, and they will then be transformed. Are you saying you believe that the dead will never be raised? There’s no such thing as the resurrection of the body?
It means exactly that; people are destined to die once, and after that they will face judgment. That judgment will be at Christ’s return. Not before. The death they suffer at the judgment is called “the second death” in Revelation. Again, in Revelation we find the dead being raised, then judged, then made immortal or condemned to death.
But he’s not giving an order of events there. He’s not saying “Everyone will be given a heavenly body before they are judged”. How would that work? Why would the wicked be rewarded with a heavenly body before they are even judged?
2 or 3 sentences, especially in texts that are quite close to the time of the Exile … seems more a VERIFICATION that the pre-Exilic Hebrew weren’t uniformly optimistic about an afterlife… rather than evidence that the Hebrew were keeping a worldview of resurrection SECRET from the world…
I’m saying I can’t conceive of this event being anything other than a re-creation. I don’t think the actual molecules that once constituted a person’s physical body will be reconstituted into their original mortal body so they can be raised mortal to be transformed to immortal. Bodies decompose and cease to exist as bodies. For most of humanity, there literally is nothing in the ground. People have been vaporized in bombs and fires. That’s the whole point of being “raised imperishable,” we aren’t raised the same as when we died.
I do believe in a physical, embodied resurrection of believers. But I think we have the metaphor of taking off the old body and putting on a new one for a reason. Death is taking off the old body. We don’t put the old body on again at the resurrection, we put on the new body, the glorious, imperishable one. The one we get because we are sealed with the Holy Spirit as a deposit and guarantee. Maybe it works differently for those who do not die ‘in Christ.’
I agree you can’t get an air-tight order of events out of it, but in all the passages I’ve looked at the raising to life is the granting of the new heavenly body. I don’t see how you separate those two things. I think it is possible that believers are judged for their works in the sense of accountability or reward, not in the sense of condemnation. I think our good works matter, not for our salvation, but because they have some eternal value.
I freely admit to avoiding trying to get much theology out of Revelation.
I agree. Besides, our bodies constantly shed cells. We lose our baby teeth and have wisdom teeth removed. Some people get organ transplants. Some people give blood for transfusions. A resurrection of original cells would be a bloody mess!
I concur with your interpretation of the resurrected body. The post Easter Gospel accounts of Jesus are fascinating. There were times they did not recognize him at first (road to Emmaus) and times where seemed to come through doors. Yet he made a point to eat and drink with them. He was clearly a physical being. The reference to “raised in spiritual bodies” in 1 Corinthian 15 is not the best Greek translation as it implies a ghost hovering 6 inches off the ground. That translation is a controversial one, as it has been used to “spiritualize” Christ’s bodily resurrection by critics who claim it was a subjective experience of the disciples. The Gospel writers seem to go to painstaking lengths to demonstrate what they experienced was completely different then the relatively common experience at the time of being “visited” by loved ones after they died. Bottomline: he was raised physically, but his body was not the same. He was truly the first resurrected body of mankind, and yes, the first immortal man. Hence the reference to death losing it’s sting by Paul. His resurrection was an astounding affirmation to early Christians of the hope for resurrection Jews had had for a long time.