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All of them, in varying degrees. I feel quite confident the sun has never stopped, but I think, in the time of Jesus and the apostles, as today there have been many spiritual healings with literal, objective somatic manifestations. I'm sure lots of people who met Jesus felt spiritual power change them in spirit, soul and yes, body. So, while the healing stories might be dubious in details, I think they have a basis in physical healings that "really happened!" But for the physical healing stories to survive as meaningful, they have to have a broader symbolic resonance: they need to become object lessons for truths such as the grace of divine forgiveness or the mystery of going beyond seeing to recognition, or the power of faith to "move mountains." Some of the stories go to great lengths to illustrate deeper truths, and do so marvelously, but in the process, they stretch credulity to the breaking point as literal accounts. The raising of Lazarus, for example, makes a great teaching story with many meanings, even while we know that when a corpse starts to decay, it is to late to try to resuscitate it. That is just good common sense. You can't literally live in the belly of a whale, but we sure can receive God's life-preserving love, even while you are running away from your callings. The story of Peter walking on the water makes a great metaphor of faith, even while it is utterly unconvincing as emperical fact. | ||||
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Common sense comes into play most strongly when we are trying to decide what parts of the call to discipleship to focus on. Imitateing the rising of Lazarus is doomed to failure. But some people who have taken the story literally have also tried to imitate it. All have failed, and as a result there are simply not many faith healers focusing on the raising the post-decay-onset dead. Here is a modest proposal for a faith-healing ministry: The sisters of Lazarus. Their mission, to pray for the resuscitation of the dead, even as decay sets in. They go to morgues and protest premature attempts at embalming, claiming that to do so is killing hope, because even when decay sets in, there is still bible-based hope for a turn-around. Why isn't isn't there a successful Sisters of Lazarus type ministry today? Because in the school of experience, even the most enthusiastic faith healers have learned some respect for a "common sense" understanding of life and death in the material world. | ||||
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Ryan, I think you make a good point about their being different kinds of stories in the Bible to be taken literally in varying degrees. You're mixing oil and water in some of your examples, however. E.g. - Jonah and the big fish: most exigetes view this as a parable rather than a recounting of events - Healing stories: you're on weak ground, as healings still happen. - Raising of Lazarus: dead people being raised has been reported in other religions as well. Besides, we're talking about Jesus performing this miracle, the point of which was to prefigure his resurrection. - Sun standing still: a different cosmology at work, there, and dubious as an event. - Sisters of Lazarus ministry - you're kidding, right?  Ryan, I don't see Christianity ever getting off the ground with a merely symbolic resurrection of Jesus. There's really nothing drastically new in his message -- nothing that people would have died for. While there surely symbolic, ethical and mystical dimensions to Jesus' resurrection, there's an historical dimension to it as well. It seems that's the part you struggle to believe. | ||||
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Concerning what got Christianity off the ground, I think physical healings of believers were more important than the reported physicality of Jesus' resurrection body, together with Christian hope for physical resurrection bodies. Experiences of healing in this life may be viewed as down-payments on the life to come, but however partial these experiences are, I don't see Christianity ever getting off the ground without them. Without a grounding in present physically impactful deeds of power, talk of the resurrection would have quickly started sounding like fantastic memories and wishful promises -- not something to die for. "Bodily resurrection," IS symbolic until the day it is experienced. | ||||
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Ryan, can you point us to a Scripture or writings of the early Fathers to substantiate your point above about healing? I'm not aware of anything that puts the matter quite so strongly. More to the point was the inner change in the minds and hearts of those who believed in Christ and opened themselves to the Spirit. Maybe so, but I don't think anyone would have been thinking along these lines without Jesus' resurrection. It's the cornerstone of Christian faith. Don't you believe this? | ||||
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The thesis about healing being central to the early growth of the Church before Constantine is argued by a church historian named, as I recall, McCullah. I once owned the book but could not find it yesterday. And I have not been able to google it. Anyway, he has lots of historical source material to support his thesis. That God raised Jesus from the dead is the cornerstone of Christian faith. I believe it is so: Yes, God raised Jesus from the dead! Literal resurrection of the flesh quickly became a popular belief in the spread of the faith. But the fleshy part is an accommodation to the masses, to carnal oriented minds. It isn't supported by the best exegesis of the earliest biblical witnesses and it is not what really happened. | ||||
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The Church has never taught of a "literal resurrection of the flesh" in the sense of recussitation. Resurrection entailed a spiritual transformation of Christ's body, whereafter he was able to manifest in all the levels of existence, including the physical, as he so chose. The scriptures about Jesus eating with the Apostles after the resurrection wasn't an "accommodation to the masses," but testimony to the reality of his risen body. Besides, what "masses" would those have been in 80 A.D.? I'm not sure what you mean by he best exegesis of the earliest biblical witnesses and not what really happened, but I don't suppose there are many better exegetes than Raymond Brown, who writes: I'd be happy to scan a couple of relevant pages from this book, if you'd like. | ||||
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I like the way Brown explains it: he is among the best of exegetes (I think that he, as a critical historian, understands and agrees with the substance of my point of view) and, equally importantly, (unlike me) he is committed to the creeds of the church. Oh how carefully he chooses his words to pay his respects to both sides of the chasm he straddles. Yes, Phil, please scan some more of what Brown has said. | ||||
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Response continued Sounds like an imaginary character, that is, like a character in a someone's very active and vivid imagination. In waking/non-imaginary reality, I don't buy the notion that a manifestation of apparent physicality out of the ether is really physical, not in the sense that flesh born of flesh is physical and corruptible, though there my be a resemblance in character between the manifested and the corruptible , and as such, a recognizable continuity. | ||||
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I'd be happy to scan a couple of relevant pages from this book, if you'd like. [/QUOTE] The boys at Google books have already done a lot of it. I am thrilled with what I've read so far, but pages 73-130 are missing. I'm off to the library. http://tinyurl.com/3xnbje | ||||
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Phil, with your "..." you severed an important part of Brown's viewpoint: "It is best to follow Paul's description of risen bodies as spiritual and not natural or physical (psychikos); he can even imply that these bodies are no longer flesh and blood (15:50)." I agree with Brown on this point. But I think this is where your view diverges from Brown's and maybe from Paul's. You wrote: "...he was able to manifest in all the levels of existence, including the physical..." You? | ||||
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I only posted sentences from his conclusion that indicated his views on the bodily resurrection. I did include the quote, "However, and this is equally important, Jesus' risen body was no longer a body as we know bodies, bound by the dimensions of space and time." Glad to hear you're off to get the book. Brown's not the only modern exegete to affirm the traditional belief, however. Everyone I've read acknowledges that the passages in the resurrection narratives whereby Jesus eats with the Apostles is intended to say he was no mere ghost nor spiritual apparition. The invitation for Thomas to come and view his hands and side are similar (Jn 20: 27). Then there are the writings of the Fathers of the Church; no doubt they believed in the bodily resurrection. Ryan, I think a number of postmodern exegetes are more interested in making the Gospel palatable to "modern man" than they are to responsibly reporting what the Scriptures give witness to. In the end, I place my trust in the teaching of the Church on this and similar points that pertain to the substance of the faith. | ||||
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Yes, and Brown writes: "Certainly, from Paul's description one would never suspect that a risen body could eat, as Luke reports." p.87 "We should note too that Luke has a special tendency to objectivize the supernatural. All the Gospels tell of the divine spirit descending as a dove upon Jesus at the time of his baptism, bu only Luke 3:22 reports that this was "in a bodily form." p. 89 I think your and Arraj's argument for a particular type of "bodily resurection" tends, like Luke, to objectivize the supernatural. And I don't share your tendency to objectivize the supernatural. That, I think, gets to the crux of our disagreement. | ||||
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Certainly, from Paul's description one would never suspect that a risen body could eat, as Luke reports. But what do we really know about risen bodies anyway, Ryan? Paul met the ascended, glorified Christ. The evangelists are describing appearances to eye witnesses that took place prior to the ascension. The only type of bodily resurrection Arraj and I are arguing for is one that takes up even the corpse of Jesus, leaving the tomb empty on Easter morning as a "silent witness" to corroborate the experiences people were having of the risen Jesus. I don't see how that's "objectifying the supernatural" as I have no idea how that works. If we're resurrected in similar manner one day, we'll be able to have a more satisfying conversation on this topic.  | ||||
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Here's another thought: if the Easter proclamation is not about thebodily resurrection of Jesus, then what is being affirmed is merely life after death. That's not such a novel idea, nor were spiritualist-like encounters with the dead (e.g. what they called necromancy). Again and again, the resurrection narratives debunk this notion of a merely spiritual encounter by insisting that Jesus was not a ghost . . . that he had a kind of body, etc. This is all consistent with the Jewish notion of a human being as an embodied soul. I.e., to be human is to live in a body, and resurrection of the human must mean resurrection of the body. The dead (disembodied souls) lived in Sheol, which was a state of metaphysical deficiency. So, for the Jew, resurrection meant bodily resurrection or nothing at all. That's why the corpse of Jesus would have constituted irrefutable evidence against the Easter proclamation. As we know, no such corpse was produced, the enemies of the Church claiming that the Apostles had come and stolen it in the night. | ||||
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One thing that Brown argues strongly and that I have no problem with is that Jesus' corpse disappered from the tomb. Upon finding the empty tomb, the followers of Jesus, probably at first thought that their opponents had taken it, argues Brown. That makes sense to me. To steal the body is like the crucifiction, a kind of desecration. Maybe the thieves burned it. We also have a historical record of some group of Jews saying they did not take it, and that the disiples did. Regardless of who done it, somehow, the body got out of the tomb. And I am among those modern believers who assume the corpse must have returned to dust somewhere in Palestine. Nevertheless, I do believe with the early evangelists that God raised Jesus from the dead. Reading Browns careful analysis of the text helps me affirm that early faith, without sacrificing my assumption that Jesus corpse, like all other human corpses, must have returned to the dust. I can understand why the synchronicity of empty tomb and resurrection appearances could lead to an excited belief that in the process of raising Jesus to glory, God had been the direct agent of removing the body of Jesus from the tomb, snatching it up and transfoming it. It is an easy to understand objectification of the supernatural. Such an overbelief finds confiration in Jewish apocalyptic predictions of general reserection; thus this one raising (or in the case of Matthew, one among many raisings) marks the usering in of the end times. And in the Jewish thinking about resurection, body and soul are rejoined on the day of the reward. Soon, the question of what happened to the corpse of Jesus objectively becomes secondary to preaching that he has been raised to life, real "bodily" and truly glorified life. And for for those baptised in the Holy Spirit, Jesus' death and resurection is a prototype of death to the old self and being raised to newness of life. THAT is the confirmation the Jesus death and resurection are real! for me as for the early evangleists. And, that is where talk about what kind of body that constitutes the resurrection body becomes delicate: with our choice of words, we are bridging past transformation of Jesus, the present transformation of believers in baptism and the future believers can look forward to. Paul shows the way for affirming bodily resurrection without it being a physical body: we, like Jesus, are planted in the flesh and raised in the spiritual bodies. | ||||
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And I am among those modern believers who assume the corpse must have returned to dust somewhere in Palestine. Yes, I can see that now. It's an a priori constraint that you place on explanation. And that's why you're left to fabricate a wide variety of scenarios to explain: a. how it was that the tomb was empty; b. how it was that the disciples believed they encountered the risen Lord even though his body wasn't raised; c. how, without a bodily resurrection, this encounter would have been substantively different than an encounter with a ghost/disembodied spirit. Good luck! - - - I don't think Paul provides a definitive explanation for how things will go. What is raised is a spiritual body, which is precisely what we believe happened to Jesus' body. It was "spiritualized." But we don't know what will happen, and how our resurrection body will relate to the corpse/matter we leave behind. Stay tuned! | ||||
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If and when there are contemporary compelling testimonies of dead bodies disappearing as such and reappearing in glorified form, then you and Arraj will finally have a convincing clincher for your argument, and I'll seriously reconsider the "a priori" (aka common sense!) constraint I bring to the text. | ||||
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Ryan, the only one we know of is Jesus'. It is his resurrection that makes it possible to believe the same will happen to others, not vice versa. | ||||
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Point well taken, Phil. Thanks for giving me this opportunity for serious dialog. | ||||
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Thanks for presenting a thoughtful progressive viewpoint, Ryan. I'm not meaning to sound like I doubt that you have faith that Jesus is alive and acting among us. It's the bodily resurrection issue that's been the focus of this exchange. Peace. Phil | ||||
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Just another thought on this topic, While the Bible speaks of many resuscitations, Jesus resurrection is spoken of as the first of its kind, which means it was notable different from any other form of "bodily resurrection/resuscitation", so it does not really help to compare the resurrection of Jesus with other resuscitations. I believe that Jesus was raised bodily, but like Phil the emphasis is on a resurrection body, not simply a body like before. | ||||
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Just another thought on this topic, While the Bible speaks of many resuscitations, Jesus resurrection is spoken of as the first of its kind, which means it was notable different from any other form of "bodily resurrection/resuscitation", so it does not really help to compare the resurrection of Jesus with other resuscitations. I believe that Jesus was raised bodily, but like Phil the emphasis is on a resurrection body, not simply a body like before. | ||||
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Also, I think your earlier point about the incorruptible nature of some saints is Good evidence for the way the Spirit can effect our Natural bodies, if a measure of the Spirit can preserve like that, then I have no problem believing that the full power of God in my body will transform it into a resurrected body. Otherwise what is the point of these incorruptible bodies? What is God trying to indicate through the effect of His Spirit on these people, that their bodies though meaningless after death will stay preserved, it just doesn't make sense otherwise (imo of course) | ||||
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I've been re-reading this exchange and have spotted a number of fallacious arguments that I'd missed first time around. Given the continuance of the discussion on the "physics" thread, and the insinuation that those who accept the orthodox teaching on bodily resurrection are somehow "midieval" in their perspective (actually it would be "ancient" -- 1st C. -- as medieval is much later), I'm adding more to this discussion, more by way of developing this as a resource area. - - - E.g. Paul not mentioning an empty tomb. There are at least two reasons why this is a poorly qualified point: 1. The empty tomb was never considered "proof" of Christ's resurrection. 2. Paul sees no need to explain what everyone already knows. I.e., in preaching resurrection, it goes without saying, for him, that this message would be nonsensical if the corpse of Jesus were still around somewhere. Note that Paul never mentions the name of Mary, Jesus' mother. Might we infer from this that Jesus had no mother named Mary? Or could it be that everyone knew this, or that mentioning it was irrelevant in his writings? It's characteristic of poor exegesis to overlook wider contexts and nuances. Instead, a point like "Paul never mentions the empty tomb" is taken to mean something Paul didn't necessarily mean to imply. That's poor scholarship, at best, and lack of critical thinking, at worst. ----- Ryan gives the impression that modern exegetes are overwhelmingly skeptical of bodily resurrection. I've shared from Raymond Brown's book on this topic a contrary view. Here, now, is Karl Rahner, consider by some the most important Catholic theologian in the 20th C., writing on this topic in his Dictionary of Theology. (bold added for emphasis) In the next Dictionary entry on "Resurrection of the Flesh," Rahner writes: Are there exegetes who see things differently. Yes, of course, as Ryan has noted. But: a.) they are a small minority group, with lots of press (see The Real Jesus by Luke Timothy Johnson for more on this); b.) their teaching is unorthodox -- clearly at odds with the proclamation of the Church (orthodoxy doesn't depend on the musings of exegetes); c.) they seem more interested in making the Gospel palatable to "modern man" (or themselves) than they are to being faithful to the testimony of the texts; d.) they employ numerous logical fallacies in their reasoning (e.g., the example of Paul and the empty tomb noted above; also, ad hominem sneers at those who disagree with their "enlightened" viewpoints); e.) they ignore facts and contexts that do not support their theses (e.g., the fact that the early Christians actually did believe in bodily resurrection). | ||||
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