Most critiques of Wright’s resurrection theology get bogged down in Greek word studies — what pneumatikos really means, the semantic range of soma. These debates let Wright do what he does best: bury you in erudition until you forget the simple problem staring you in the face.
So let’s skip the Greek and talk about seeds.
Paul’s Own Analogy Betrays Wright
Wright claims Paul teaches a physically continuous resurrection body — same body that goes into the ground, transformed but materially continuous. One of his key proof texts is Paul’s seed analogy in 1 Corinthians 15:35–44: seed becomes plant, therefore buried body becomes resurrection body. Same stuff, new form.
But that’s not how seeds work. When a seed germinates, the shell — the husk, the casing — cracks open and is left behind in the dirt. It rots in the soil. The plant emerges from the genetic information within, but the physical container is discarded. And Paul says it explicitly: “What you sow is not the body that will be” (1 Cor. 15:37). The whole point of the analogy is discontinuity. The original form is left behind so something qualitatively different can emerge.
Wright has built his case for physical continuity on an analogy whose most visible feature is physical discontinuity.
The Tent That Gets Demolished
Paul’s other major metaphor confirms this. In 2 Corinthians 5:1–5, the present body is an “earthly tent” that is demolished — not renovated, but torn down — and replaced by “a building from God, not built by human hands.”
Wright points to Paul’s language about wanting to be “further clothed” rather than found “naked.” But the “further clothed” scenario — the new body thrown on over the old like an overcoat — applies to those still alive at the General Resurrection. For those who die, the tent is demolished. And Paul’s dread of “nakedness” reveals a three-stage picture: you die (corpse left behind), then there is a you persisting in a stripped, disembodied intermediate state, then that you receives the new heavenly body. If the physical body were simply transformed in place, there’d be no nakedness to fear.
The person survives death. The body does not. Wright collapses this distinction, applying language Paul reserves for the living to the dead, making it sound as though the physical body is always preserved. But Paul says the opposite: the tent is destroyed. The shell is left in the dirt. Again.
The Simplest Objection Is the Strongest
You don’t need to out-Greek N.T. Wright. His own key analogy — Paul’s own chosen picture — has a most prominent feature that directly contradicts his conclusion. Wright must argue either that Paul didn’t understand how seeds work, or that he chose an analogy whose most obvious feature undermines his own point.
I’m not familiar with N T Wright’s views. The best description of Paul’s view of the Resurrection body I’ve found is in Dale Martin’s book ** you do not have permission to see this link **. Martin points out how similar Paul’s view of the body is to what in fact was the contemporary view of intellectuals of his day, what has come to be known as Middle Platonism and certain forms of Stoicism.
In this view the soma consists of three components, each composed of ever finer stuff. There is the sarx, “flesh”, the nous, “mind/soul” and pneuma, “spirit”. The problem for us as interpreters is that none of these terms meant for Paul exactly what they mean for us. For Paul even the “flesh” has a metaphysical aspect.
Since only the pneuma can be transformed into the Resurrection Body, what happens to the sarx and the nous? Paul is clear as mud, alas. Martin seems to believe that in the resurrection the sarx and the nous drop away. In that case the disposition of Jesus’ sarx would be secondary to Paul. No tomb required. Prof Ehrman, on the other hand, thinks (I asked him) both the sarx and the nous are transformed into pneuma. I’m content to observe the argument and not have an opinion.
furthermore:
Paul’s view — God destroys the old tent and re-clothes the person in a new spiritual body — elegantly sidesteps all of the problems connected to ‘resurrection of the old body’:
- The cripple is not resurrected as a cripple because the new body is not the old body reassembled
- The baby is not resurrected as a baby for the same reason
- Cremation is irrelevant because God is creating something new
- The food chain problem dissolves entirely
Paul’s view is not only more faithful to his own text — it is more theologically coherent and more philosophically defensible than the crude physicalism Wright insists on reading into him.
Wright’s insistence on physical corpse resurrection as the only authentic Jewish and Pauline view actually creates more problems than it solves — philosophically, theologically, and exegetically.
Paul’s actual view, read honestly, is:
- Still genuinely bodily — not a Greek escape into pure spirit
- Still compatible with Jewish resurrection hope
- Free from the absurdities of literal corpse reassembly
- Internally coherent with his own analogies and language
And it took no 700 pages to get there. Just an honest reading of what Paul actually wrote.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
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