It is commonly supposed that the disciples had the same concept for resurrection as Paul.
Paul’s belief, as stated in his epistles and the gospels, was that resurrection involved the transformation of the physical body into a spiritual one. The physical body then ceased to exist whereas the spiritual one could appear on earth as well as in heaven.
The gospels were written by Paul’s followers so there is no direct evidence of what the disciples believed but modern knowledge of differences between death, coma, unconsciousness and sleep were not understood at that time. Jesus is reported to have brought several dead people back to life, and even Peter did it (Acts 9:31-43). These people then resumed their lives as if they had never died (which of course was actually the case). The disciples claimed to have seen Jesus alive after crucifixion so it is reasonable to suppose that they believed that he had been resurrected in the same way that he had resurrected others. He had the same body as always and would return to them as soon as he had recovered from his crucifixion ordeal, when the anticipated apocalypse would begin.
This concept of resurrection is different from Paul’s version. There were conflicts between the disciples and Paul and it is difficult to imagine someone like James accepting Paul’s belief that his very own brother was the Son of God! The disciples believed that Jesus was a Messiah but not divine so they did not necessarily adopt Paul’s concept about resurrection.
The earliest form of resurrection belief seems to have been as a form of apotheosis. Jesus was adopted as God’s Son and made divine after his death. Consequently he appeared to his disciples through visions (and probably dreams). Presumably Jesus’ original disciples would have had that view. Paul had the view of the body shared by most intellectuals of his day, a view similar to the Stoics. The aspect of the body known as the pneuma, the “spirit”, survived death and was transformed into the Resurrection Body. Paul seems to have thought that would happen to all the righteous at the Parousia. Jesus was the first, not the last, or the only. The view of the gospel writers of the resurrection as a kind of resuscitation seems to go hand in hand with their separation in time of Jesus’ divinity from his death.
Why presume that Jesus’s original disciples ever had the view that Jesus was adopted as God’s Son and made divine after his death?
This idea comes from Paul and his followers who wanted to show that the disciples shared their beliefs.
The disciples left no direct evidence of their own beliefs but, like James who had lived with Jesus all his life, it would be natural for them to consider Jesus as a human who had been resurrected in the same way as others.
Ehrman’s How Jesus Became God discusses these issues in more depth than I can offer in a post. These matters are difficult but there are clues from the texts available. There are multiple Christologies present in our sources, sometimes multiple Christologies present in the same sources. Paul is familiar with the Adoptionist view although many scholars think his own Incarnationist view is expressed in Philippians 2. The gospel of mark has an Adoptionist view. There seems to have been an earlier version of Luke that expressed Adoptionist views but was redacted to include Incarnational views (with the nativity story).
Paul did not believe in a fleshly resuscitation because of his views of the Resurrection Body expressed in I Cor 15. Paul had the common view of his day that the human body existed on a continuum of being. Lowest was the sarx, the “flesh” (although for Paul even this had a metaphysical aspect). Then came the psyche, the “soul”. Greatest of all was the pneuma, the “spirit”. Unfortunately none of these terms means quite what we mean by them. The scholastic view, informed by Neoplatonism, of a shell of flesh containing an immaterial spirit, was centuries away.
What happened at the resurrection, for Paul, is that the sarx and the psyche withered away and the pneuma was transformed into the Resurrection Body. This is what happened to Jesus and would happen to all believers at the Parousia. Because of this view it’s possible that Paul would have had little interest in the disposition of Jesus’ fleshly corpus. The view in the gospels of the Resurrection as a fleshly resuscitation seems to at least partly reflect later controversies as to whether Jesus was really human or not. But as I said, it’s complicated. If you haven’t already, read Ehrman’s book. He spends whole chapters on each viewpoint.
Paul claims to have had a vision of the Resurrected Jesus. Interestingly he equates his own experience with that of the original disciples, clearly implying that their experience of the resurrection was visionary as well.
“Paul had the view of the body shared by most intellectuals of his day, a view similar to the Stoics. The aspect of the body known as the pneuma, the “spirit”, survived death and was transformed into the Resurrection Body.“
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I don’t see why the pneuma cannot be considered as a sort of charge of energy. I just read a passage in Alter’s translation in the Genesis Noah and Ark commentary translation at 7:22, concerning the breath of God, that it could be fire as in the burning bush where the bush was not consumed, or, life’s breath imparted to man. Think of a fire in the belly.
A charge in energy is certainly possible.
and on further research…
Here is a quote taken from Scientific American ** you do not have permission to see this link **:
The law of conservation of energy, also known as the first law of thermodynamics, states that the energy of a closed system must remain constant—it can neither increase nor decrease without interference from outside. The universe itself is a closed system, so the total amount of energy in existence has always been the same. The forms that energy takes, however, are constantly changing.
Stephen,
“Ehrman’s How Jesus Became God discusses these issues in more depth than I can offer in a post. These matters are difficult but there are clues from the texts available.”
This comment entirely misses the point that there no texts available which directly express the disciple’s beliefs.
Epistles by Paul and gospels by his followers are biased because Paul wanted to minimize his differences with the disciples.
It would be extraordinary for someone like James to believe that his very own brother was the Son of God.
There is simply no direct evidence that he ever did so.
On the other hand, this could be one reason for disputes between Paul and the disciples and why Paul felt it was necessary to return to Jerusalem after 14 years to “make sure that the race I had run, and was running, should not be run in vain” (Galatians 2:2), in other words, to persuade the disciples to accept his belief that Jesus was the Son of God.
there no texts available which directly express the disciple’s beliefs…
Well if your point is that the original disciples left no literary remains that is certainly true. But as I pointed out in my response, we have descriptions of differing Christologies and it appears the earliest attested viewpoint was a form of Adoptionism. If you want to know why that is then I suggest you read Ehrman’s book.
Epistles by Paul and gospels by his followers are biased because Paul wanted to minimize his differences with the disciples.
You’re going to have to demonstrate that the gospel writers were followers of Paul. Matthew has a viewpoint that Paul repeatedly attacks, that gentiles have to follow the Law. Paul is attempting to establish his own authority as an apostle. He is quite vigorous in some of his attacks on James and the original disciples.
It would be extraordinary for someone like James to believe that his very own brother was the Son of God.
That would depend on what you mean by Son of God. Certainly James would not have believed his brother was part of the Trinity, co-equal to God the Father, but adopted by God at his death and made divine? The ancients didn’t think like we do.
@Stephen
“The scholastic view, informed by Neoplatonism, of a shell of flesh containing an immaterial spirit, was centuries away.”
Matthew “Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he let go his spirit.”
John “With that, he bowed his head and gave up the spirit.”
The shell of flesh which has been left on the cross is then taken down and laid in a tomb.
“Certainly James would not have believed his brother was part of the Trinity, co-equal to God the Father, but adopted by God at his death and made divine? The ancients didn’t think like we do.”
The writers of the Nicene creed were themselves “the ancients”. They’re understanding of the cosmos was far closer to those of the first century than either is to us today.
@Robert **”The crux of this thread seems to be whether the earliest disciples believed Jesus was simply resuscitated or exalted to a heavenly existence, which would have entailed some degree of divinity in the ancient world. Degrees of divinity is a crucial aspect of Bart’s view. The resurrection of Jesus as the resuscitation of his corpse is a view seen in the later gospels of Matthew, Luke & John,* but it is always accompanied by some magical elements. Is it an earlier view, akin to the stories of Jesus resuscitating the corpse of someone believed to be dead recounted in the gospels? Do these gospel stories of Jesus resuscitating a corpse actually predate whatever resurrection experiences the earliest disciples of Jesus had? Do they predate the conversion and letters of Paul?”**
The only writings relevant to the earliest form of christianity are the NT.
All four gospels and Paul agree that Jesus was bodily resurrected on earth, and will return from heaven to gather his faithful followers.
There are no degrees of divinity in the gospels or Paul – all agree that there is one God and that Jesus is the son of god in a divine sense.
All four gospel accounts would be consistent with Paul’s view of a resurrected body which has been transformed from a perishable earthy one to a non-perishable heavenly one.
The only non-biased conclusion is therefore that this view was most likely the earliest one.
**”here does Paul say that? Are you thinking of 1 Cor 15,7? Or perhaps you’re surmising this from Galatians 1-2 or you believed it is (also) implied elsewhere in Paul’s letters?”**
In Galatians 1
“But when God … was pleased to reveal his Son to me … I did not confer with any human being nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me but I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus. Then after three years I did go up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and stayed with him for fifteen days but I did not see any other apostle except James the Lord’s brother.”
So Cephas and James were apostles of the faith before Paul was, that faith being belief in Jesus as the son of god.
**”I’m not sure how exactly your view is different from Stephen’s, who already said “Paul had the view of the body shared by most intellectuals of his day, a view similar to the Stoics. The aspect of the body known as the pneuma, the “spirit”, survived death …”**
But Stephen is contrasting this belief with a supposedly later belief of “of a shell of flesh containing an immaterial spirit” which was centuries away.
He claims that “What happened at the resurrection, for Paul, is that the sarx and the psyche withered away and the pneuma was transformed into the Resurrection Body.” This is a fantasy reading of Paul. What Paul believed is that the body of Jesus was transformed into an imperishable one. Capable of walking around and meeting people.
brnmcg:
“it is difficult to imagine someone like James accepting Paul’s belief that his very own brother was the Son of God!”
Paul says James believed it so it doesn’t really matter that its difficult for us to imagine.
Why does it matter what Paul says? He wanted his followers to believe that the disciples agreed with him, so his words should be given the same degree of skepticism as for anyone else.
Stephen:
We have descriptions of differing Christologies and it appears the earliest attested viewpoint was a form of Adoptionism.
There is no direct evidence that the disciples shared this viewpoint. Why not presume that it originated from Paul?
Paul’s experience of Jesus was that he saw a bright light, not a body, which is consistent with the view that he believed that Jesus’s physical body had been transformed into a spiritual one.
Accounts of Jesus’s resurrected appearance to the disciples suggest that they believed that they had met a physical body which could be touched. This is consistent with the descriptions of people that Jesus had resurrected. Why suppose that the disciples accepted Paul’s belief?
There is no direct evidence that the disciples believed that Jesus was divine. Why not suppose that they believed he was the Messiah, a human whose resurrection signaled that the anticipated apocalypse was about to begin?
@Blackwell
**”Why does it matter what Paul says?”**
Because Paul met and discussed his theology with James. Because Paul joined the church that James is one of the Pillars of.
**”He wanted his followers to believe that the disciples agreed with him, so his words should be given the same degree of skepticism as for anyone else.”**
The purpose of the letter to the Galatians was to show that Paul was not taking orders from Cephas, James and John.
“Paul an apostle sent not from men nor by a man”
” Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”
If James did not believe Jesus to be the son of god this would serve Paul’s case. He would tell the galatians how only he Paul had been given the knowledge and the disciples didn’t understand.
Also Galatians is written in response to a group preaching a separate gospel to them and convincing them to be circumcised. Paul has no control over the information the galatians are receiving. He would have no ability to hide that fact that the pillars of the church do not believe Jesus to be the son of god.
And lastly in Galatians Paul does not inform them that James believes he simply refers to the fact. It is something he expects them to already know. “I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother.”
Here the Apostle meets the Brother of the Lord and His disciples.
For the Apostle, Jesus is the basis of life, death and rebirth of people in general. He died and rose again for all believers and for each individual, equalizing everyone regardless of gender, race or social status.
I would like to see the faces of these poor simple people from Galilee as soon as they heard “this one gospel” from Paul. Such promotion of their much-lamented, deceased buddy-champion probably didn’t even occur to them. Much later evangelists did not make as much effort to exalt Jesus as the Apostle.
Two traditions, both invented and poorly put together, serve as a historical source.
brenmcg:
Your comment “If James did not believe Jesus to be the son of god this would serve Paul’s case. He would tell the galatians how only he Paul had been given the knowledge and the disciples didn’t understand.”
This is exactly what Paul says over and over again, that when Jesus appeared to him, he received a secret and a task.
The secret was that Jesus was not just an ordinary human but was actually the Son of God, and the disciples did not understand this.
The task was to inform everyone else about this secret since only those who believed it would be saved at the coming apocalypse.
He claims that “What happened at the resurrection, for Paul, is that the sarx and the psyche withered away and the pneuma was transformed into the Resurrection Body.” This is a fantasy reading of Paul. What Paul believed is that the body of Jesus was transformed into an imperishable one. Capable of walking around and meeting people.
I suggest you secure a critical commentary on 1 Cor and read a bit more closely. I can’t advise on the commentary but these scholarly tomes might be of help.
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