Tom, I meant to write this before (a) you reeled off your zombie definition and (b) Robert responded with the contours of a resurrected body (in exactly the way I would have wanted to, but would have failed to achieve).

Thanks for the nod on Paul as bathroom user. Ha. Across many a thread (and on the main blog) you often have very interesting ideas, that are themselves often at right angles to mine (which probably makes yours right!). I myself would appreciate it if you’d unpack your choice of “zombie“, because there’s something in how you think Bart (and Paul?) describes the concept of resurrected bodies that rubs you the wrong way. I’d be fascinated to understand your misgivings about it better.

Robert said

Just that the credibility of the reality of the resurrection of Jesus, as witnessed to by the great crowd of witnesses (including Paul), could still be tested and found reliable. It is a concession to there being at least some interest in Paul wanting to verify the reliability of the reality of Jesus’ resurrection. But is this enough to expect him to necessarily mention an empty tomb discovery story if he was aware of it? I don’t think this was Paul’s primary emphasis here.   

Ah – I get it now, thank you. Still alive suggests “and you can ask them, too”, which coheres with the point that he’s also bolstering the “fact” of Jesus’s resurrection. Do I have that correct?

I agree that there is definitely, without a doubt, no necessity in a linkage between Paul wanting to undergird the fact of Jesus’s resurrection on the one hand and an empty grave story on the other. But, when the guy goes on at length to hammer home that Jesus’s resurrection was a fact, trots out a creed (that also includes superfluous data if the fact of Jesus’s was not in dispute), appeals to a ton of super-credible people who also saw, includes himself as credible witness, and makes the point that you can still go ask those other people, too – the conjunction of all that is suggestive that he’s trying to make the Corinthians re-underwrite the resurrection as fact. And if he’s doing that, and unloading his canon so vociferously, it seems suggestive that if he had held to an account of an empty grave, it would have been an opportune point to throw it into the mix. Not necessarily so, but it strikes me as reasonably suggestive.

Ha. Not the most persuasive framing…

I had something in mind more like “Died, buried, rose, found empty, appeared”. I get that this would have him mangle the creed, but there’s at least some arguments that he’s not afraid to append things. That the creed doesn’t have it, nor does he append it, that’s kinda interesting – the creed doesn’t say burial place empty. Died / raised – in opposition. Buried / appeared – more oppositional-adjacent?

Curious: Is there any evidence he edited the creed in any way?

Robert said
But is he primarily making a full-throated defense of Jesus’ resurrection? Is that really the whole point of Chapter 15? I don’t think so. It is the foundation of the subsequent argumentation in Chapter 15, not the point and conclusion of the chapter.   

Is that all and only what he’s doing in Chapter 15? No, I would completely agree he is not. But here, limited to 15:1-12, that seems to me to be exactly what he’s doing – in order to springboard to the rest. Perhaps more ink than one might expect for something that’s not needed to be inked. But, I can and do completely see your point here. 

Signing off for tonight – a blast as always. Thanks for the dialogue.

Well and beautifully put.

I would agree (from the outset and even more after your insights) that the minimalist, opposing case based on the evidence is that Paul, if he did know of an empty tomb, decided it wasn’t worth bringing up. I in no way think the case I’m (over)stating is dispositive. And, you’re completely right that chapter 15, taken as a whole, isn’t intended to bolster the fact of Jesus’s resurrection. It starts that way, but then builds. The slipping point is how hard of a case one thinks he was making to re-establish that fact for the Corinthians.

He definitely had his own deep convictions in his experiences. The Corinthians, by suggestion of the need to re-hear the creed and to have a litany of witnessed named at them, didn’t quite share his level of conviction, and least Paul didn’t think they did. How hard was he straining to remind / re-demonstrate of this fact, on his way to the larger argument? It feels to me he strains more than one might expect (and I don’t mean to fit him into an anachronistic apologetic format).

And, broader, I don’t think my string-pushing argument establishes that Paul likely didn’t believe in an empty tomb, only that it is reasonably suggestive. Further, I might want to – but cannot – say it is suggestive he doesn’t know of such an account. The suggestion isn’t that strong – he might know it, he just doesn’t sufficiently believe it, that’s the upper limit of what I’m gesticulating at.

He makes a strong argument to re-establish Jesus as resurrection. That strong argument also has some rough edges, at least if the intent is only to remind. The all for naught, the hard working self-congratulations, the big list, the creed. That is suggestive of someone who’s trying to press his point on the fact of Jesus’s resurrection. Funnily I think we both agree on all the broad and essentially all the narrow points, it’s seemingly more a matter of how much weight and emphasis to give each point.

That said, to your main conclusion, we most definitively cannot establish what he thought of an empty tomb account, because the silence is just that, and the buttressing arguments aren’t dispositive – the max is that they, even if successful, are merely suggestive. But it is fun to try them out.