@Christy I agree that our resurrection body doesn’t need to be the exact same molecules that went into the ground. Nevertheless, in Scripture resurrection is always the raising of the body, and it is typically described as the body returning to life. Whether that’s a recently dead body which is revived, or the reconstitution (or re-creation), of a body which has long since disintegrated, the description is always the same. It’s extremely difficult to get around all the “out of the earth” passages, not to mention the fact that the only passage which speaks of a heavenly body is the one which talks about what happens after the resurrection. The heavenly body isn’t spoken of as “a resurrection”, and there’s no sense in which our original resurrected body is “transformed” if our original body is never raised in the first place.
If our bodies remain in the ground and our consciousness is simply transferred to a ghostly likeness which “kinda looks like” what we were, then that’s not resurrection. That’s more like reincarnation, or just “being a ghost”. I share your caveats about Revelation, but its description is exactly the same as other passages speaking about resurrection. It’s also completely in line with mainstream Second Temple Period beliefs about the resurrection of the body.
@arr123, Jesus is actually a case in point. What is the key evidence for the resurrection? The empty tomb. Emphasis on “empty”. The body was gone. If resurrection simply means our original physical body stays where it is, and our consciousness is beamed into a ghostly likeness, then what happened to Jesus’ body? The fact that Jesus was not recognized on the road to Emmaus is not described as the result of him being in an unrecognizable body; Mary and others recognized him immediately when they saw him. It is described as the result of his disciples having their eyes “closed”; in some way he prevented them from recognizing him.
Jesus even showed Thomas the wounds in his hands and side, which is indisputably a way of saying “Look it’s really me, this is the body which went into the ground”. Now I certainly don’t believe Jesus was mortal at that time, but the materiality of his body and the fact that it looked like the one which went into the ground indicates that it was in some way a renewed or transformed original, not a copy or fake. Otherwise his presentation to Thomas would have been a complete con.
But how do you insist it is the original resurrected body that needs to be transformed, and not just the mortal body that people are living in before they die. Paul is talking about resurrection with living mortals not dead people. He is talking with people who believed it was fairly certain that Christ would return and the resurrection would happen in their lifetimes. The assurances that the people who had already died wouldn’t be left out were kind of presented as the exception to the paradigm. If someone is alive at the resurrection, their mortal body will be transformed at the resurrection. I don’t see where you get that a formerly dead resurrected mortal body will be transformed after judgment. I’m not saying it’s not in the Bible or wasn’t the Jewish conception, I’m just asking you to point out specifically where you see that.
I feel like you are arguing with me about something I am not even asserting. My one point of contention that I am asking you to show Scriptural support for is your idea that believers are not resurrected immortal, like Jesus, who is specifically called the first fruit of the resurrection. And if we are not resurrected immortal just like Jesus was, why is his resurrection held out to believers as the hope and guarantee of what is to come?
Another problem with the resurrection of original molecules is that the elements may very well may have been recycled into another body over the years, possibly multiple times. Nature is a wonderful recycler. People have been dying for a long time and they’re not always buried in well-marked graveyards. The bodies decompose and the land could one day be used for agriculture. Plants take up the nutrients they need, and don’t worry about where they came from.
As for me I have a dental implant now with a piece of donated bone. Hope the original owner won’t take it back in the sweet bye and bye!
Yet another problem with the resurrection of original molecules is cannibalism. I don’t know if primitive tribes still do this, but there are also the tragic cases of the Donner party and the shipwreck of the whaling vessel “Essex.” Unsavory, but historical. Can you eat somebody, get saved and then in heaven fight over whose cells belong to whom?
So I must now share my favorite restaurant review: “The food was so bad that the Donner party passed it up!”