Gary & Rhinestone's Thread on Burial and Resurrection of Christ

[RhinestoneCowboy]

It really does defy a rational reading of the text. It's overly complicated and requires the reader to eisegete all sorts of strange notions into the text. Sillier still is the implication that this "spiritual body" is not immaterial, but is material of some sort. It's basically Carrier and company's way of having their cake and eating it too by affirming that the New Testament really does refer to something like physicality while still denying bodily resurrection. It's all a big sham to undermine the resurrection's historicity. The evidence for the resurrection is basically an inconvenient truth for a lot of people, and for folks like Carrier who've made it their purpose in life to "publish as much as [he can] to help others like [him] and to defeat [what he considers] nonsense and lies", if applying a non-intuitive reading to the text will do that, then so be it.

You know, it's one thing if someone fundamentally disagrees with the NT message, or even disagrees with a standard interpretation of the text, but I have a hard time believing that's what goes on with things like the two-body theory. I honestly think that for most people who advance it, it's a non-historical, dishonest attempt to muddy the waters.

Hi Adrift, maybe you would like to take a shot at this? Where does Paul indicate that the appearance (vision) to him was different than the appearances to the others? What reason do we have to think he was not equating the appearances? So far no one's successfully taken up this challenge. I'm beginning to think no one actually can and the reason for that is because I may have a legitimate point.

[RhinestoneCowboy]

I dunno if it has been pointed out or not but the resurrection of Lazarus is instructive:

Jesus said to her,
Martha answered,

If Jesus' resurrection were only a spiritual resurrection His resurrection would have been no different than what was expected for everyone.
As such it certainly wouldn't have been considered extraordinary.
To say, "Jesus rose from the dead" and to only mean His spirit would be to say nothing meaningful whatsoever.

So the skeptic has to explain the point of declaring the resurrection of Jesus Christ if it was identical to the resurrection that was expected for everyone.

What source is that story located in? And was that a resuscitation or an immortal resurrection?

[Meh Gerbil]

What source is that story located in? And was that a resuscitation or an immortal resurrection?

The point is that if Christ's resurrection was only a spiritual resurrection then it appears it wouldn't be considered newsworthy.
Evidently everyone got one of those.

[Adrift]

Hi Adrift, maybe you would like to take a shot at this? Where does Paul indicate that the appearance (vision) to him was different than the appearances to the others? What reason do we have to think he was not equating the appearances? So far no one's successfully taken up this challenge. I'm beginning to think no one actually can and the reason for that is because I may have a legitimate point.

[Juice]

"When Paul classifies the Damascus appearance with the others in 1 Cor 15:5 this is not merely because he regards it as equivalent....It is also because he regards this appearance similar in kind. In all the appearances the presence of the risen Lord is a presence in transfigured corporeality, 1 Cor 15:42. It is the presence of the exalted Lord from heaven. This presence is in non-visionary reality; no category of human seeing is wholly adequate for it. On this ground, the appearances are to be described in the sense of revelation rather than making visible." - Theological Dictionary of the New Testament Vol. 5 pg. 359

Reading comprehension fail.

The TDNT is saying all the appearances in 1 Cor 15, including Paul's, were corporeal and non-visionary,against you.

[RhinestoneCowboy]

Reading comprehension fail.

The TDNT is saying all the appearances in 1 Cor 15, including Paul's, were corporeal and non-visionary,against you. Oops.

What about the parts you ignored?

"When Paul classifies the Damascus appearance with the others in 1 Cor 15:5 this is not merely because he regards it as equivalent....It is also because he regards this appearance similar in kind.

And this part?

"It is the presence of the exalted Lord from heaven." - So if the appearance to Paul was "equivalent" or "similar in kind" to the other appearances then they experienced the exalted Lord from heaven as well.

And this?

"On this ground, the appearances are to be described in the sense of revelation rather than making visible." - Theological Dictionary of the New Testament Vol. 5 pg. 359

The TDNT is saying all the appearances in 1 Cor 15, including Paul's, were corporeal and non-visionary,against you. Oops.

No problem there. Paul thought Jesus had a "spiritual body" in heaven. "Non-visionary" means not seeing/perceiving with the eyes - "the appearances are to be described in the sense of revelation rather than making visible". It can't mean "non-visionary" as in the appearances were not "visions" because that's exactly how the appearance to Paul is described. This appearance is what he regards "equivalent" or "similar in kind" to the others.

Don't bother unless you can provide a distinction between the appearances. As it stands, you have no justification for assuming the other appearances were more "physical" than Paul's vision.

[RhinestoneCowboy]

The point is that if Christ's resurrection was only a spiritual resurrection then it appears it wouldn't be considered newsworthy.
Evidently everyone got one of those.

Perhaps that's why the Gospel authors changed the story and presented Jesus in a more physical way. We know the religion became popular with the gentiles, not so much with the Jews though.

[RhinestoneCowboy]

Take a shot at what? There is no challenge here. It's a totally bizarre and strained reading of the text to assume that Paul is saying that the others have seen Jesus in precisely the same fashion that he has.

Oh really? He puts his own vision in parallel to the other appearances without distinction while using a word (ophthe) that was mostly used for "spiritual visions" so it's a "strained reading" of the text? I would argue the exact opposite. Paul gives no reason to think the appearances were any different from his own. I certainly see no reason from anyone here to conclude they were different other than "b-b-but the gospels say..."

"The remark that Jesus appeared "last of all" is not evidence that he distinguished the type of appearance he was granted from those of Peter and the twelve. On the contrary, it marks his experience as the last in a series of the same type of experiences. The remark that Jesus appeared to him "as to one prematurely born" (v. 8) does not imply that the nature of the appearance was any different. It was Paul who was different - he was not even a disciple yet. This interpretation is supported by the remark in the following verse that he was persecuting the church of God (i.e. even at the time that Jesus appeared to him)." - Adela Yarbro Collins, The Beginning of the Gospel, pg. 124. https://books.google.com/books?id=xa...page&q&f=false

- Maurice Casey, Jesus of Nazareth, pg. 458 https://books.google.com/books?id=nO...page&q&f=false

Did you hear that? That's the sound of terrible apologetics getting destroyed.

[RhinestoneCowboy]

As for the possible Sheol reference in Daniel 12, the "land of dust" rendering is a mainstream scholarly view judging by the number of commentators. http://www.google.com/search?q=danie...HT-JBKEQ_AUICg

"Dust" is used as a synonym for Sheol in Job 17:16 and is connected with Sheol in Psalm 7:5; 22:15, 22:29; 30:9; 44:25; 4 Ezra 7:32, Isa 29:4.

Since Sheol was where souls dwelled, the passage would be excluding any type of physical resurrection of the body. Some souls are said to "rise up" out of Sheol -
https://books.google.com/books?id=1F...page&q&f=false

"This then coheres with the reference in 12:3 towards ancient understandings of astral immortality, in which it was believed that on death the soul ascended into the heavens to reside eternally as a star in the night sky. Collins claims that Daniel expresses a "notion of resurrection in terms of astral immortality," not physical immortality in the ordinary sense and Segal agrees, maintaining that this "can only mean to the Jews that they shall become angels, something that did not exclude astral immortality. For stars had been identified as angelic creatures from earliest times. This seems at the same time to rule out any possible future of the flesh, as angels were usually considered fleshless."
https://books.google.com/books?id=1F...page&q&f=false

Moreover, Daniel 12 says "many" will awake, not "all" so this cannot be a reference to the general resurrection.

So just as people here are reading the resurrection stories of Jesus from the gospels into Paul, you're doing the same by reading them into the Old Testament. Yeah, you should stop doing that.

[Sparko]

Read 1 Cor 15:45-47. Paul says Jesus became a "spirit" and contrasts him with the physical Adam. Moreover, you still have to explain why Paul only says Jesus was experienced in "visions" while equating his own vision to the other appearances in 1 Cor 15:5-8. This doesn't make sense if Paul knew about the physical resurrection stories that appear in the later gospels.

Actually all I have to do is sit back and laugh at your antics. That whole chapter is about raising from the dead and living again, eternally. If it were just as a spirit, which happens anyway when you die, the whole chapter makes no sense. The hope Paul was giving them was since Jesus came back to life, so would we, and if he did not come back to life (i.e. remained a spirit) then we had no hope.

NOBODY is buying your argument. It is completely ridiculous. We are all sitting here wondering why someone would be so invested in such a theory that is so easily disproven. Which it has been over and over to you. Yet you merely continue on as if nothing were said. You cherry pick information while ignoring the context, and entire reams of other writings by Paul and other contemporary authors. Why? Why is it so important for you to promote this dumbass theory?

Resurrection means nothing if it doesn't involve coming back to life. Remaining a spirit is just "death" and so there would not be a special word for coming back to life if you just remained dead. Your claims are patently ridiculous. I hope that doesn't make you butthurt or anything, but those are the facts.

So just wait around till everyone is tired of repeating themselves to you, so you can again post your silly victory gif, claiming there are no more challengers.

[Juice]

Not so fast. First of all, you tried to use that weak argument as a distinction in the nature of appearances. I showed how that utterly fails to serve as a reason. So you're still left with nothing in the end that provides a distinction between the appearances.

No, what you did was acknowledge, unwittingly, the intent

Secondly, was the appearance to Paul a "vision/revelation" or not? What reason do you have (from Paul) to conclude that the appearances to the others WERE NOT visions as well? As of now, every bit of evidence supports he was saying they were the same.

But nothing from just Paul forces us to think it was some kind of personal vision either.

1. He puts his vision in the same list of the other appearances without distinction. He says Jesus "appeared to Peter, James, etc" and "he appeared to me also." He does not say "Jesus appeared to me in a vision only, whereas the appearances to the others involved touching his physical corpse that got up and flew to heaven." That distinction is never made.

Because that was never the intention of the creed. How many more times do we have to say this?

2. He uses the same verb for each which was used to indicate spiritual appearances (the appearance to Paul was a vision so we know the way Paul was using the word.)

The source you linked to says the verb was used for supernatural appearances, not spiritualknow the appearance to Paul was a vision? He never calls it a vision in his primary material. Or are you reading Acts into it? Oops.

3. In 1 Cor 9:1 Paul uses his vision to claim apostleship. Evidently, "seeing" Jesus was a requirement for apostleship in the early church - he's basically saying "Am I not an apostle (like you guys)? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord (just like you guys did)?" And we all know, Paul only "sees" Jesus in a vision, nothing more.

4. No physical earthly resurrected Jesus in Paul at all but instead Jesus is raised to heaven to be at God's right hand. Jesus is never depicted in Paul as being experienced in a more "physical" way. Did Peter and James forget to tell Paul how they ate and drank with the Lord then how Thomas poked his fingers in him and watched as he physically ascended to heaven right before their eyes? Or did Paul just not feel like that stuff was very important?

So tell me where are you getting the idea of these physical appearances from?

How about the TDNT? Still laughing about that.

Can you see how that is fallacious to assume? Later accounts by other authors may not necessarily reflect Paul's view. Especially considering the time gaps, obvious inconsistencies, contradictions and legendary growth that's taken place between the accounts.

So what? They were books written by Jews. Therefore, the represent the views of Jews! Just because they didn't make the cut of the Septuagint doesn't make them any less widely read or influential.
Both 2 Enoch 8:1-6 and Paul reference the "third heaven" (2 Cor 12) and the idea of "corruptibility and incorruptibility". 1 Enoch 71 gives a description of astral transformation like in Dan. 12:2-3 and which Paul seems to use in his resurrection language - 1 Cor 15:40-41. So it seems that Paul may have at least been familiar with some of the same ideas expressed in Enoch. https://books.google.com/books?id=4z...page&q&f=false

But where does Paul quote them? You are speculating otherwise. And what about the book of Jubilee?

As for the third heaven in 2 Enoch. You are grasping at straws here. Firstly, even if we grant that Paul was influenced by 2 Enoch 1Enochand hell. Not to mention 2 Enoch actually has 10 heavens

And there are plenty of sources which emphasize the continued existence of souls rather than any resurrection of the physical body. The sources represent diversity. The Essenes believed one thing, the Pharisees believed another, the Sadducees rejected resurrection, etc, etc, etc. Hence, Jesus' resurrection could be interpreted different ways after his death. 2 Baruch was written around the time the gospels were written.

https://books.google.com/books?id=PX...page&q&f=false

"The Hebrew Bible includes passages that have been interpreted as speaking about the resurrection of the dead but that, according to the majority of scholarly opinion, did not originally contain the idea. Footnote: Scholars disagree whether Isa. 26:19 is about literal resurrection or the metaphorical restoration of Israel as in Ezekiel 37." - Outi Lehtipuu, Debates Over the Resurrection of the Dead: Constructing Early Christian Identity, p. 32
https://books.google.com/books?id=0u...page&q&f=false

Paul uses the verb to equate his vision with the other appearances. The overwhelming attestation shows that this particular form of the verb was used for supernatural/spiritual apparitions [appearances]. In fact, 18 out of 19 total times it's used this way in the NT. https://books.google.com/books?id=r1...page&q&f=false

Paul references Jesus' resurrection as "physical" in Acts 13:31 or does he just say Jesus "appeared" like he does in 1 Cor 15:5-8? Does he describe the encounters in any detail there or are you letting Luke's own view color your interpretation of Paul again?

who ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead.

Since spirits or souls are depicted as "having much joy" while their "bones rest in the earth" it can be assumed that the souls continue existing and are "raised" out of the underworld. The idea is that the righteous are "raised" from the dead while the wicked are not. This shows that being "raised from the dead" does not necessarily imply a physical resurrection.

1. "Raised from the dead" meant physical resurrection.
2. Paul says Jesus was "raised from the dead."
3. Therefore, Paul meant Jesus was physically resurrected.

How is that not circular?

Not that that's my argument but how exactly is

Where is the phrase "raised from the dead" used to denote a physical resurrection other than the gospels?

Where does "raised from the dead" mean resurrection of the flesh?

Romans 10:7
or, 'Who will descend into the abyss?' (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead)."

The "abyss" was a euphemism for Sheol, obviously. This proves Paul thought Jesus was in Sheol and resurrected from there.

not say it. And hardly a reference to spirits rising from Sheol.

Except it says nothing at all nothing about the resurrection. The context of the whole chapter has to do with spiritual gifting for crying out loud.

Since Hosea 13:14 explicitly states Sheol, and Paul cites the verse, it is probably a good indicator that Paul was connecting the idea of conquering death and being raised out of Sheol. And the Greek in 1 Cor 15:53 does not say mortal "bodies." The Greek word for "body" is not in the passage. That's a misleading translation.

Death where is your victory? O Death

Where's your evidence for premise 2? The only place I know of that speaks about the specific beliefs of Pharisees and the afterlife is Josephus and we both know what he says.

You're also equivocating "bodily resurrection" with a "wholly physical bodily resurrection that involved the resuscitation of the fleshly corpse." That's an important distinction to be made here because neither Paul or Josephus make that view clear.

https://bible.org/article/synoptic-problem

here and you ignored it entirely. Your next post was just another hollow declaration of wishful victory. You seem to think that an appeal to Markan priority allows you to just wave aside a ton of external evidence. Evidence which is just as good as the evidence for other secular works not questioned. Man up Cowboy.

The legendary growth becomes apparent when you compare the appearance stories side by side in chronological order.

Go back and address my post properly rather than just simply reasserting your debunked arguments.

Well, for one, Paul and the gospel authors were writing in Greek.

"Paul's "body language" follows Hellenistic anthropological thinking and is in debt especially to Stoic ideas that understood both psyche and pneuma as material." - Outi Lehtipuu, Debates Over the Resurrection of the Dead: Constructing Early Christian Identity, pg. 56, citing Engberg-Pedersen, Cosmology and Self pp. 8-38 and Litwa, We are Being Transformed, 127-139.

In 1 Cor 15:38-41 Paul describes the different types of flesh and varieties of terrestrial and celestial bodies. This list corresponds to descriptions found in ancient Greek philosophical sources such as Hesiod's Works and Days 276-278. Similar lists can be found in Sophocles and Virgil. - Seim, Metamorphoses, pg. 31; citing Asher, Polarity and Change, pg. 140.

I've already provided a well supported inference. What Jewish source explains what a raised "spiritual body" is then contrasts it with the "natural body" like Paul does in 1 Cor 15?

Aren't you simply asserting just the opposite? The Hebrew literally translates to "land of dust."

According to who? John J. Collins and friends?

It's literally used as a euphemism for Sheol there.

By the way, Job says resurrection is impossible.

a human being, he dies and dead he remains (Job 14:10)
a human being, once laid to rest will never rise again (Job 14:12)

And evidently, it was also used to refer to Sheol. In your own words, how does the traditional rendering imply a physical corpse involved resurrection?

"...Neither does he (Daniel) say that the resurrection will involve a body of flesh and blood. Daniel 12:2, which is usually taken to refer to "the dust of the earth," can actually be translated as "the land of dust," or Sheol. The idea then is that the wise, at least, are lifted up from Sheol to heaven." - John J. Collins, A Short Introduction to the Hebrew Bible, pg. 347 https://books.google.com/books?id=ZI...page&q&f=false

[Juice]

What about the parts you ignored?

"When Paul classifies the Damascus appearance with the others in 1 Cor 15:5 this is not merely because he regards it as equivalent....It is also because he regards this appearance similar in kind.

And this part?

"It is the presence of the exalted Lord from heaven." - So if the appearance to Paul was "equivalent" or "similar in kind" to the other appearances then they experienced the exalted Lord from heaven as well.

And this?

"On this ground, the appearances are to be described in the sense of revelation rather than making visible." - Theological Dictionary of the New Testament Vol. 5 pg. 359



No problem there. Paul thought Jesus had a "spiritual body" in heaven. "Non-visionary" means not seeing/perceiving with the eyes - "the appearances are to be described in the sense of revelation rather than making visible". It can't mean "non-visionary" as in the appearances were not "visions" because that's exactly how the appearance to Paul is described. This appearance is what he regards "equivalent" or "similar in kind" to the others.



Don't bother unless you can provide a distinction between the appearances. As it stands, you have no justification for assuming the other appearances were more "physical" than Paul's vision.

So when the TDNT say the appearances were corporeal and non-visionary reality where no category of human seeing is wholly adequate you agree, right?

[Juice]

As for the possible Sheol reference in Daniel 12, the "land of dust" rendering is a mainstream scholarly view judging by the number of commentators. http://www.google.com/search?q=danie...HT-JBKEQ_AUICg

You have a strange notion of mainstream. On the first page alone two of the books are written by John J. Collins. One by his wife Adela Yarbro Collins (who have co-written a book together). One by Outi Lehtipuu (we all know about her) who references Nickelsburg and Adela Yarbro Collins. The rest are other writers who references Collins or Nickelsburg. It's quite a small circle actually. I wonder if they all get together for potlucks?

"Dust" is used as a synonym for Sheol in Job 17:16 and is connected with Sheol in Psalm 7:5; 22:15, 22:29; 30:9; 44:25; 4 Ezra 7:32, Isa 29:4.

Since Sheol was where souls dwelled, the passage would be excluding any type of physical resurrection of the body. Some souls are said to "rise up" out of Sheol -
https://books.google.com/books?id=1F...page&q&f=false

"This then coheres with the reference in 12:3 towards ancient understandings of astral immortality, in which it was believed that on death the soul ascended into the heavens to reside eternally as a star in the night sky. Collins claims that Daniel expresses a "notion of resurrection in terms of astral immortality," not physical immortality in the ordinary sense and Segal agrees, maintaining that this "can only mean to the Jews that they shall become angels, something that did not exclude astral immortality. For stars had been identified as angelic creatures from earliest times. This seems at the same time to rule out any possible future of the flesh, as angels were usually considered fleshless."
https://books.google.com/books?id=1F...page&q&f=false

Moreover, Daniel 12 says "many" will awake, not "all" so this cannot be a reference to the general resurrection.

So just as people here are reading the resurrection stories of Jesus from the gospels into Paul, you're doing the same by reading them into the Old Testament. Yeah, you should stop doing that.

You were the one who first introduced Daniel 12 as some kind of evidence for a spiritual resurrection. I just showed you it doesn't say what you want it to say and can actually be interpreted to support a physical resurrection. The whole argument here is a long shot. I mean if that's all you got, yikes.

[Adrift]

They should obviously be judged by their work, but it's probably no great coincidence that most of the scholars Rhinestone has named/linked just so happen to be mentioned by Robert Price and Jeffrey Lowder in their skeptical works like The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave, and elsewhere.

[Sparko]

Rhinestone's posts reek of desperation.