James Ware. "Paul's Understanding of the Resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:36–54." Journal of Biblical Literature. Vol. 133, No. 4 (Winter 2014), pp. 809-835.
https://www.academia.edu/39791974/_WE_SHALL_ALL_BE_CHANGED_1_Cor_15_51c_TRANSFORMATION_OF_THE_LIVING_AT_THE_PAROUSIA_OF_CHRIST_An_Exegetico_Rhetorical_Study_of_1_Cor_15_50_57
Jeffrey R. Asher. Polarity and Change in I Corinthians 15: A Study of Metaphysics, Rhetoric, and Resurrection. HUT 42; Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 2000.
B. Schmisek. (2015). "The 'Spiritual Body' as Oxymoron in 1 Corinthians 15:44." Biblical Theology Bulletin, 45(4), 230–238. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146107915608597
Anthony C. Thiselton. The First Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text. New International Greek Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
Koshi Usami. " 'How Are the Dead Raised?' (1 Corinthians 15:35-58)." Biblica 57 (1976): 468-493.
Albert V. Garcilazo. The Corinthian Dissenters and the Stoics. New York: Peter Lang, 2007.
Do any of those authors support the view that the Son was raised with a non-physical body?
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, in my experience, the common view that the Son was raised in the same physical body he had while on earth ends up being self-refuting.
For example, in an effort to help such people see one problem with that view, I'll ask a humorous question: When the royal heavenly Son takes a royal wee, followed by a royal flush, where does the waste go?
A typical response goes something like this: The Son's body was transformed, and is now animated entirely by spirit. He therefore no longer needs food, or oxygen, and doesn't pass waste.
The human body is designed, from the micro to the macro level, to need food, water, oxygen, etc. to live, and if a body is so radically transformed that it no longer needs those things, then it's really not the "same body" anymore. All capillaries, veins, arteries, organs, etc., are superfluous in such a scenario, and they'd either have to now be vestigial or the Son's body has been transformed from the micro to the macro level, and is now thoroughly, utterly, and completely different from what it was.
At that point, what's the point of even arguing that he has the "same body"? It seems to me that, not only would there be no point, but such an argument would simply be false, and necessarily so.
Hi Sean, the answer to your question is complicated and when I produced this bibliography, I was thinking primarily of how the anointed/spirit-begotten are raised rather than Jesus, but to answer your question, the customary view is that Jesus was raised in the same body: that is the "orthodox" position. However, that body was supposed to be glorified.
ReplyDeleteThe RCC's official position is hylomorphism (going back to Aristotle). So they argue for Jesus having the same bodily form and they try to correlate the fact that he/his body did not see corruption with this view. Hylomorphism (aka hylemorphism) teaches that material objects are composed of matter and form (two metaphysical principles). E.g., a tree is composed of matter and treeness, which is its form; a dog has a body but possesses doghood/dogness as well. In fact, all trees and dogs have these respective properties, according to hylomorphism.
The Catholic Encyclopedia discusses this uniquely Catholic view of things. On the other hand, some years ago, NT Wright produced a thick study about Jesus' resurrection. You might recall how he treated the subject of Jesus' body.
I have come across one writer, who seems to take a different approach to this subject: Raymond B. Brown (not to be confused with the late Johannine scholar Raymond E. Brown):
His remarks can be found in the Broadman Bible Commentary on Acts and 1 Corinthians:
"The body that is buried is not the same body that is
raised because a transformation takes place. Paul sets
forth four antitheses to show the difference between
the body that dies and the body that is raised from
the dead" (page 391).
"So there is continuity between what dies and what is
raised because it is the same person who is buried and
raised. But there is discontinuity in the sense that
the same physical body will not be raised. The same
person will be raised in a new spiritual body [which
Brown evidently does not define as a 'soul']. Paul does not
describe the body but lives in faith that God will
give the body its appropriate form for life in his
presence" (page 392).
But consult the entirety of Brown's comments on 1 Cor 15:36ff.
I agree with your reasoning 100% about the apparent untenability of Jesus being raised in the same body.
Hi Sean,
ReplyDeleteSee https://www.logos.com/grow/sown-natural-raised-spiritual-the-nevertheless-physical-resurrection-body/
I will quote part of that article:
Importantly, Christ was raised with an unmistakably physical body. After he is raised from the dead, women “took hold of his feet and worshiped him” (Matt 28:9; emphasis added). His identity is questioned by his startled disciples, who think they must be seeing an immaterial angelic being (Luke 24:37). He reassures them, inviting them, “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (v. 39; emphasis added). In the body with which he was raised, then, Jesus has tangible flesh and bones. He is particularly explicit with doubting Thomas, to whom he says, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side” (John 20:27). Clearly, whatever transformation Jesus’s body had undergone in resurrection, it was nevertheless physical.
Angelic spirits are usually invisible ,thus "seeing a spirit" in the sense of an angelic spirit would seem contradictory. But spirit could also be used in the sense of an illusion or spectre of the sort that might be conjured by an angel or a demon.
ReplyDeleteWe know from scripture that angels can take on a physical form to such a degree that they would be mistaken for humans by those seeing them.
Acts ch.1:10NIV"They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two MEN dressed in white stood beside them."
Similarly, we have Mark 16:2-5 (NASB):
ReplyDeleteVery early on the first day of the week, they *came to the tomb when the sun had risen. 3 They were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?” 4 Looking up, they *saw that the stone had been rolled away, [b]although it was extremely large. 5 Entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting at the right, wearing a white robe; and they were amazed.
This is very interesting, I haven't gone deep into Paul's conception of the body, but I know there are mountains of work on it.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it's an interesting subject and lots of info out there. Caroline Bynum wrote a work about the resurrected body that is good. I love Thiselton's commentary too.
ReplyDelete"Resurrection or Re-Creation? "Materialized Bodies"
ReplyDeleteAlthough Jehovah's Witnesses speak of the "resurrection" of Jesus Christ and the dead, they think of re-creation. They do not recognize the continuity of the person and bodily resurrection. In their understanding, Jesus died entirely as a man. He gave his body and his entire human life as a "ransom." What "rose" and appeared to the disciples was not Jesus as they knew him, but a spirit re-created by Jehovah, the archangel Michael elevated to a higher level. He received from Jehovah the ability to create material bodies in which he could meet the disciples, and he could create the appearance that Jesus had risen from the dead. The Watchtower Society distinguishes a total of three types of resurrection.
The first resurrection involves Christ and the chosen class of 144,000 individuals, who are assigned to rule with Christ during the millennium and have eternal life in heaven. This resurrection occurs through re-creation in an invisible spirit body. The lifestyle of the 144,000 does not differ from Christ's (they too are spiritual creatures, immortal "sons of God"), but only in rank. The re-creation of those who died before 1918 from the 144,000 also took place in 1918. Since then, they have been directing Jehovah's visible organization as "ministers" of Christ's heavenly government.
The second resurrection includes all others who were ordained for the resurrection of life (eternal life in the earthly paradise): the Old Testament saints, who will be theocratic rulers in the millennium and will rise first; Jehovah's additional followers who died before Pentecost; and the "great crowd" or "other sheep" (= Jehovah's Witnesses who died before Armageddon and do not count among the 144,000). All these will be re-created with material bodies and will not have access to heaven.
The third resurrection includes those who did not have the opportunity to hear about Jehovah during their earthly life. They will also be re-created with a material body and will also be put to the test on earth during the millennium. If they fail, they will perish - just like Satan and his demons, and all humans who proved unworthy of theocratic rule in their lives.
Those who do not "rise" (i.e., are not re-created) include those who fell at Armageddon, everyone who consciously and willingly did evil, who sinned against the "holy spirit," and who rejected Christ's sacrifice of redemption. First of all, we must state that according to their opinion, Jesus' body was not resurrected, but God inexplicably removed it from the grave. For Jehovah's Witnesses, however, as we have already pointed out, body and soul are the same, so they do not make this kind of distinction. Consequently, Jesus' soul did not rise either. The spirit for Watchtower followers is nothing more than the life force that Jesus breathed out on the "torture stake". So, the spirit cannot rise either. So, according to Watchtower doctrine, Jesus did not rise, but Jehovah re-created him according to the life traces that he left in Jehovah's memory: "Resurrection involves restoring the life of each individual, taking into account all the character traits that God has preserved in His memory" Thus, it is misleading for the Watchtower Society to speak of "resurrection," as it does not mean resurrection in the traditional biblical sense. Jesus made visible various bodies based on these life traces, which appeared on earth for 40 days. Although these bodies bore the wounds of the cross, according to Jehovah's Witnesses, they were not identical to Jesus' crucified body but were completely new creations.
Actual or Seeming Bodily Existence?
ReplyDeleteI would like to respond to these views in several points:
a) The existence of a person (both Christ's and man's) does not end with death, but there is continuity between the present and the future existence. Jehovah did not re-create Jesus as the glorified Archangel Michael, but he appeared to his disciples as he was: their crucified and resurrected Lord and Master. Thus, he certainly had a new, glorified body, a (beyond earthly imagination) "spiritual body" ("sōma pneumatikos", 1 Cor 15:44 ff.), but he was clearly identifiable. The dead and buried Lord was brought back to life by the action of God (cf. Acts 2:31-34; Eph 5:14), and although in a new, materially not identical, but not just seeming bodily existence (cf. Jn 20 and 21). He appears to the disciples in visible and tangible form (Jn 20,27r; Lk 24; Acts 1,1-6; cf. Jn 1,1-3), even if he does not always allow such contact (Jn 20,17), because from now on they must recognize him as glorified – therefore, independent of his bodily form (2Cor 5,16). Although Jesus is in the light and spirit world of the new era (aión), he practices human fellowship with them by eating and drinking (Lk 24,29k; Jn 21,12-14).
b) If the Watchtower Society claims that Jesus did not really rise bodily, but showed himself with a seeming body "similar to other angels," it dangerously skirts spiritualism and Gnostic docetism (even if only in connection with Jesus' post-death state). Scripture emphatically emphasizes the physicality of the resurrection against any claim of seeming corporality and spiritual manifestation (see the above scriptures). It contradicts the nature of the biblical Jesus, who is "the truth" (Jn 14:6) in his person, to attribute a seeming manifestation in body to him. Specifically, for the purpose of simulating a resurrection for the disciples, which, according to the teachings of the Watchtower Society, is allegedly not possible in this form.
c) The believers never - even after the resurrection - partake in the mode of existence in which Christ is, because Christ is God and we are human. Human resurrection - according to biblical revelation there are no exceptions - follows from the resurrection of Christ, "the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep" (cf. 1Cor 15,20-24). However, this never provides the same divine mode of existence that Christ has had eternally. The Bible also knows several types of resurrection, but not like Jehovah's Witnesses. It speaks much more clearly of resurrection for eternal life or eternal damnation (Mt 25,31-36; Rev 20,11-15), and additionally (or identifying it with the first) speaks of "resurrection" (exanastasis) or "first resurrection" in the case of those who died in faith, which occurs concurrently with the "rapture" of living believers and preceding the general resurrection of the last day (Phil 3,11; 1Thes 4,16k). It mentions nothing about the alleged trial opportunity for those who come to life during the millennium. Rather, it applies: "...it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment..." (Heb 9,27). Finally, the scripture does not know about the class divisions imagined by the Watchtower Society.