Loading...QUESTION:
You may have gone over this before, but do you think the earliest Christians, Peter, Paul, and Mary etc. believed in the physical bodily resurrection of Jesus, or do you think they believed his “spirit” was raised from the dead? From Paul’s writing it’s hard for me to judge. I ask this because it seems easier for me to attribute the resurrection belief to “hallucinations” if they were only experiencing visions of Jesus’ spirit. Even group “hallucinations” of Jesus’ spirit seems plausible, maybe during a group’s ecstatic experience or something. On the other hand I think there’s difficulty with the idea that several people hallucinated an experiences with a seemingly physical Jesus.
RESPONSE:
This is a great question. My view is that different early Christians had different views. Paul’s view for me is the most interesting. In a forthcoming book I’ve mapped out my understanding of that. Here’s what I say there:
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It is striking, and frequently overlooked by casual observers of the early Christian tradition, that even though it was a universal belief among the first Christians that Jesus had been raised from the dead, there was not a uniformity of belief concerning what, exactly, that meant. In particular, early Christians had long and heated debates about the nature of the resurrection, specifically, the nature of the resurrected body. Here I map out three options for what that resurrected body of Jesus actually was, as evidenced in writings from the early church. I start with our earliest recorded source, the writings of Paul, and once again with his “resurrection chapter” (1 Corinthians 15), so named because it is devoted to the question of Jesus’ resurrection and the future resurrection of believers. Here Paul stresses that Jesus rose from the dead in a “spiritual body.”
The Raising of a Spiritual Body
Both terms are important for understanding Paul’s view of the resurrection of Jesus: Jesus was raised in the body; but it was a body that was spiritual.
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I was watching Gerd Lüdemann debate William Lane Craig on youtube recently, and one of Gerd’s arguments against the ’empty tomb’ narrative was how the pre-gospel source Paul uses the ‘seed’ analogy in 1Cor 15:37. When you couple that with his other passage in 1Cor 15:4, where Paul states directly that Jesus was “buried”, I think it’s quite clear that Paul had no knowledge of an empty tomb, and that when he said “buried”, he really meant it! – Paul literally thought Jesus had been buried in the ground like a seed. I’m sure this is old news to you… but it for me it was one of those ‘Ahhaa!’ moments! I’ve always had my doubts about the empty tomb narrative, but this insight has made it seem increasingly unlikely.
Yes. And just as he believed the shell of the seed to remain in the ground (while the ‘essence’ of the seed was given a NEW body according to its kind by God), it’s reasonable that he assumed the corpse of Jesus to remain buried while Jesus’ soul/spirit was given a NEW, spiritual, perfect, heavenly etc body by God.
The seed doesn’t stay in the ground as a seed. It *becomes* a plant.
It ‘becomes’ the plant after it has ‘died’, at which point!, God GIVES it its actual, new body. The former seed, or actually the shell of the seed, remains dead and destroyed. And Paul which for his current body to be destroyed too so he could be given his new body and be with the Lord.
Yes, I’m afraid we’ve had this disagreement before.
Bart,
How do the accounts in John & Matthew fit into this discussion? Referring to Mary (the other women too) when she (they) first saw him at the tomb entrance, as well as when doubting Thomas and Jesus interacted?
Jesus tells Mary,”Touch Me not” (John 20:17); but then later, speaking to Thomas, He says, “Reach hither thy finger and behold My hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into My side” (verse 27).
Matthew 28:9 also talks to the other women falling down and grabbing his feet/ankles to worship him when they saw him there?
If it was/was not a physical resurrection how do these two situations effect/affect this discussion?
Don’t touch me? Why not? She had many times before? They were the closest of all! Shared secret’s!
Put your finger in my hand (physically)? Put your hand in my side (physically)? Could that have happened with a physical resurrection? Why could he touch Jesus when Mary was told she could/should not?
I find all of this very interesting, could/did he manifest himself in a way to been seen but not in a physical body? The belief of the time was that the spirit had some (material?) presence to it, it wasn’t just a spirit that existed within them, it could?? stand on its own so to speak if it were separated from the body?
Other than the cases of “taken up to heaven and never dying” there are no other resurrections in the Bible or other historical accounts. This seems to be as a lot of things in the Bible, a take off/retelling of old Mesopotamian and Sumerian gods who die and are resurrected in similar ways, but really no talk of the physical vs. the spiritual.
I guess this is just one of many Bible subjects that the conversation could go on forever!!!
Thanks,
Mike
I’ll deal with the other NT accounts in another post — hopefully tomorrow or the next day!
Is the separating of the spirit and body into two things an idea from Greek philosophy? You reference that we have difficulty with this concept today, but the ancients did not struggle. So I guess I would assume that many could maybe see they are different entities but mutually connected. Clarify my ignorance.
Yes, roughly speaking this split between body and spirit can be traced back into Greek philosophy, most notably Plato.
“It is striking, and frequently overlooked by casual observers of the early Christian tradition, that even though it was a universal belief among the first Christians that Jesus had been raised from the dead, there was not a uniformity of belief concerning what, exactly, that meant.”
That there was no uniformity, regarding such a spectacular event, capitalize and italicize the word “spectacular”, is indication enough for me that the event, most likely, never happened. But then, that’s where the oldest text of Mark ends, isn’t it? With no resurrection.
Actually Mark has a resurrection (notice what the young man tells the women at the tomb). What he doesn’t have are appearances of Jesus to his disciples (or anyone else) after the resurrection.
Thanks, Bart. I humbly admit to having, pretty much, dismissed Mark’s account in 16:6 for the far more spectacular John 20:1-18, that comes to us complete with two angels and Jesus himself. Sigh.
could it be possible that mark BELIEVED in a meeting without knowing any of the details?
today christians believe without seeing
is it possible in marks time the story was that there was a meeting but no details were given?
Yup, it’s possible!
His body did indeed come out of the grave. But when it did it was a transformed body, made of spirit, and raised immortal.
I knew you had it in you DR Ehrman. :-))
I’ll agree that the body is a Spiritual Body whose ‘Glory’ is Eternal not mortal. However I don’t think the body is made of Spirit. I think the Spirit is still The Spirit and the Body remains the Body.
Now our Spirit inhabits a mortal body but at the resurrection our spirit will dwell in a immortal body or spiritual body. An incorruptible body not subject to decay.
We are beings composed of Spirit Soul and Body. Paul states this very clearly in the scripture verse below:
1 Thessalonians 5:23-Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Resurrection to an immortal body has two impossible implications:
1) the Earth is immortal. Look at the scenario for the death of our Sun.
2) the New Earth does not come until the present Earth is destroyed with the death of our Sun.
These ideas about the Earth’s destruction and the ‘death of the sun’ is part of the deception of wickedness. God will also deceive the wicked to believe what is not true. You’ll be surprised what God is really going to do. What’s going to end is evil and all who practice it. What’s going to END IS SIN! The earth will survive and thrive. God will destroy the works of satan and ALL wicked people but will renew the earth and recreate it as we look on. In front of our very eyes God will transform deserts into beautiful landscapes filled with springs of water. The topography will be changed in many geographical locations on Earth. God is Love and everything and anything that is good and wholesome will come to pass. No more death! No more wickedness. Etc.
2 Thessalonians 2:8-Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming; 9-that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders,10-and with all THE DECEPTION of wickedness for those who perish, BECAUSE they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.
11-For this reason GOD WILL SEND UPON THEM a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, 12-in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.
2 Thessalonians is not an authentic letter of Paul.
I picked up Craig Evans book, “Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels.”
In it, he says Joseph is the historian’s name before it is Latinized into Josephus.
Joseph takes down from the cross the body of Jesus who survives crucifixion. (New Testament)
Joseph takes down from the cross the body of a man who survives crucifixion. (Autobiography of Flavius Josephus in which Josephus, with tears in his eyes, asks Titus to take down from the cross, the three bandits, rebel freedom fighters, who were crucified.)
(Saul – Paul – Joseph – Flavius Josephus)
Well, it would be a bit difficult for Josephus to be Joseph of Arimathea, since he wasn’t born yet…..
I think Thessalonians is a Letter written by Paul. We’ll have to wait and see who is right or wrong.
The writer of Thessalonians is actually relating the Idea of the antichrist as recorded in Daniel:
Daniel 7:25‘HE WILL SPEAK OUT AGAINST THE MOST HIGH and wear down the saints of the Highest One, and he will intend to make alterations in times and in law; and they will be given into his hand for a time, times, and half a time. 26‘But the court will sit for judgment, and his dominion will be taken away, annihilated and destroyed forever. 27‘Then the sovereignty, the dominion and the greatness of all the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be given to the people of the saints of the Highest One; His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all the dominions will serve and obey Him.’
Daniel 8:23-“In the latter period of their rule,
When the transgressors have run their course,
A king will arise,
Insolent and skilled in intrigue.
24“His power will be mighty, but NOT BY HIS OWN POWER.
And he will destroy to an extraordinary degree
And prosper and perform his will;
He will destroy mighty men and the holy people.
25“And through his shrewdness
He will cause deceit to succeed by his influence;
And he will magnify himself in his heart,
And he will destroy many while they are at ease.
He will even oppose the Prince of princes,
BUT HE WILL BE BROKEN WITHOUT HUMAN AGENCY.
In N.T. Wright’s Resurrection of the Son of God, he states: “Though Moule is no doubt right that Paul can envisage here the possibility of ‘exchange’ (losing one body, getting another one) rather than ‘addition’, as in 1 Corinthians 15, we should not lose sight of the fact that even if such an ‘exchange’ were to take place the new body would be more than the present one. (p. 367)”
Is it possible 1 Cor. 15 (or Paul in general, or some of the first christians) thought of Jesus’ resurrection Body as being a “newly made super spiritual (yet still physical) body” but that his corpse was still in the tomb? Such that, there were in total two bodies: the old dead discarded corruptible one, and the super new resurrected one… in effect thinking an exchange had taken place?
So, had you asked Peter or Paul, “hey, why is Jesus’s body still in the tomb?” They would’ve said, “well, its because he was resurrected into his new body.”… OR, can we be positive they thought of “resurrection” as the actual transformation of the very corpse that was dead?
My view is that Paul definitely did not think the corpse was left in the grave; he sees the future resurrection of Christians as a transformation of their present bodies, at Jesus’ return — not a departure from the present body into a different body — and he bases his view on his understanding of Jesus’ own resurrection (thus 1 Cor. 15 and 1 Thess 4:13-18).
So your saying Paul’s view is that Jesus corpse stayed in the tomb……and his spirit which is made of stuff (a kind of body) was raised?
No, in my view the corpse was reanimated and made immortal.
But where does Paul imply this? Especially since he’s aching for his current body to be destroyed and to be freed from it so he can ‘be with the Lord’?
1 Thess. 4 and 1 Cor. 15.
I’m sorry but where exactly does he mention a reanimated corpse there? And what about Paul’s desire to be away from his body (to have it destroyed actually) so he can be with the Lord?
it seems very vague. i cannot agree with your point for the first time????
to me it seems like he thought that Jesus appeared to other people like to he did to himself.
in a vision. in a spiritual way.
it doesn’t seem like anyone say Jesus in a body after he resurrected in Pauls view.
for me that’s stronger evidence for a spiritual body then these passages you are refering to.
they are not very clear and are debatable.
Was a “spiritual body” of the sort you describe Paul writing about here one that could just kind of fade away whenever it wanted so that believers didn’t have to explain where this resurrected presence was at the moment?
Yes, it had “superhuman” powers.
Prof Ehrman
Where do you think Paul got his conception of the spiritual body? Was he drawing from widespread Jewish views or is he being innovative?
Thanks
I think it was a Jewish apocalyptic idea.
When I first read about the resurrection story in the Gospel of Peter, the appearance of the gigantic Jesus sent my mind back to the glorious transformation being discussed in 1 Corinthians. Are there any scholars who consider the gigantic Jesus found in the Gospel of Peter an evolution of Paul’s theology? I admit that it still doesn’t explain the walking and talking cross, but I found this possibility intriguing.
I’ve never heard anyone make this direct link, but it does make some sense.
Not outrightly dismissed! Wish I could read Greek and was a graduate student. I’d have a potential dissertation topic to research! Speaking of reading Greek, any book/textbook you can recommend to eager amateur?
I’m sure there are “teach-yourself” books available — but I’m not up on any of them! (I haven’t taught beginning Greek for nearly thirty years now! I do work with my graduate students, reading Greek every week; but I’m not sure what beginning books are good now….)
I certainly am not Dr. Ehrman so feel free to dismiss this if you want. However, I have had good success with Mounce’s grammar. There are a lot of self helps for the independent study at home student. You can get lectures on dvd and what not at his website.
Sill confused. Does this mean Paul believed the tomb of Jesus was empty on the third day? He probably talked to other disciples and they confirmed this. Does this mean we actually can say there was a tomb and that it was found empty?
Yes, I think he imagined that the tomb was empty. But I don’t know that there were any traditions of the empty tomb being discovered — there’s no trace of that view until Mark, who was writing about 20 years after Paul.
Paul only imagined this? He had acces to the disciples and they had access to the women at the tomb (eyewitnesses). So Pauls letters contain verified eyewitness accounts.? This means there was a burrial, a tomb, a known location of the tomb and some event that caused the boddy to dissappear.
And you said you don’t think there ever was a tomb, because Romans did not allow bodies to be buried.
I don’t think Paul ever had contact with the women who went to the tomb; he never mentions them. And yes, I think Paul thinks Jesus’ body came back to life, raised immortal; by “tomb” I simply mean the place where Jesus’ remains were eventually placed.
The tomb could have been empty for a couple of different reasons. One of them being that Joseph of Arimathea’s people had transferred the corpse to the final tomb before sunrise (and before the women came to the tomb).
Professor Ehrman,
If this means that Paul was telling his congregation that there indeed was some kind of physical body (a sort of super-human) that could have been touched, would this have made skeptical members seek out verification from the appearance witnesses in your opinion?
I doubt it. People generally believe what they hear….
Eventually, people will come around to know Paul discredits himself and Paul is discredited by others. Journey of the Souls by Michael Newton, Infinite Mind by Valerie V. Hunt, books on reincarnation and the paranormal give no “peer review” nod to Paul’s notions of almost 2,000 years old. Paul got it wrong. So much of what Paul has added to the New Testament needs a long strikethrough. Paul is not reliable on the afterlife. He may be reliable on his personal hopes about the afterlife. Hopefully waves of Post-Christianity will wash away notions of Paul that have little weight of anchor.
It’s one thing for Mark to use the Homeric Epics in the Gospel of Mark. It’s quite an important thing for Luke, in Acts of the Apostles, to use Pyrhhus: The Fool of Hope by Plutarch (first century common era historian) against Paul.
http://www.thenazareneway.com/The%20Gospel%20of%20Paul.htm
So, in addition to biblical scholars and writers needing to read Josephus to get a broad view of what really went on in the first century, common era, the contribution of Jesus’ legacy to Jewish Revolt, we should be aware of what does not hold up for Paul and Paul’s teachings.
Jesus was more masterful than Paul who “popularized” a corrupt version of Jesus’ movement.
Keeping Paul’s pseudo-spirituality in higher standards of Christianity and Post-Christianity that are constantly being raised is like keeping the worse parts of Biblical Creationism in Human Evolution Studies.
That Saul-Paul persecuted followers of Jesus, then set up a rival Gospel and a rival movement against Jesus’ movement proves his conversion did not stop him from working against Jesus’ aims.
It is confusing indeed!
Corinthians 15 seems to imply that what Paul saw of Jesus during his conversion (whatever that was) was similar to what the apostles saw does it not?
Yes, Paul seems to think so.
But Paul did not see the resurrected body though did he. Isn’t there an anomaly here?
If Paul believed that the apostles saw a ‘risen’ body Jesus, straight from the grave (before the ascension) how does that tie up with what he saw on the road.
Or are you saying that he thought he saw the ‘real’ body of Jesus as well?
Yes, he seems to say that he saw the resurrected body of Jesus (presumably coming down from heaven; but that’s what the others thought as well).
hello dr Ehrman. i don’t seem to get this. he saw a bright light that blinded him and he heard a voice.
i don’t see him mentioning or describing anything physical.
can you please explain to me why you think that paul thought that he saw a resurrected body?
You’re thinking of the passages in Acts 9, 22, and 24. I’m not referring to those accounts (which I do not think are reliable: for one thing, if you read them next to each other very carefully, you’ll find they contradict each other). I’m referring to Paul’s arguments in his letters that he actually saw Jesus (not a light) in the same way the other apostles did (1 Cor. 15:3-8) and then uses that “fact” of Jesus’ physical resurrection to argue that the future resurrectino of the dead will be like that, a bodily resurrection just like Jesus’s.
Bart Ehrman:
Well, it would be a bit difficult for Josephus [Joseph, Latinized to Josephus] to be Joseph of Arimathea, since he wasn’t born yet…..
Steefen:
IF no one is tampering with the timeline of History — AND BOY HAVE WE SEEN THAT GOING ON IN THE BIBLE, for example, the book of Daniel definitely has evidence of being written later.
Some say, Jesus’ prophecy of the destruction of the Temple is also an example of moving the timeline of History around.
I believe in Paul’s understanding about the resurrection of Jesus’s body to life. Resurrection in the body is real as the body is actually transformed into an immortal one. The body is the same but immortal, never gets old and never dies. In the part of the world that I grew from, there were stories of people dying and sometimes appearing to their loved ones, and disappear again. Their bodies have been transformed so much so that they could go through walls, roofed ceilings, locked doors and suddenly show themselves to people they knew in this natural world. In most cases, people who die harshly eg. in accidents, murder, and so on usually are reported to have been seen after their tragic deaths. Could it be the same with Jesus’s death after his cruxifiction? It was a harsh death and sudden.
Yes, I’ll be dealing with this a bit in my new book.
Dr. Ehrman:
I’ve been working hard on crafting this, is it correct? Thanks
What Paul conveys in 1 Cor. 15:
1) Paul is saying that our ‘spiritual body’ will be suited for its environment. The mortal body we have now is unfit for eternity. He makes a similar statement; ‘flesh and blood’ cannot inherit the kingdom of God (v. 50). The body that we now inhabit is fashioned after Adam, “man of dust” (v. 48). We are flesh, blood, and bones and we are made to live on this earth.
2) When Paul says that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,” he’s referring to our flesh and blood as they are now: cursed and under sin. But our future bodies—though still bodies in the fullest sense—will be untouched by sin and incorruptible. They will be like Christ’s resurrection body—both physical and indestructible. Paul speaks of the type of resurrection that will leave an empty grave behind. “For this perishable body must put on the imperishable” (vv. 42, 50, 51, 53, 54).
3) “It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory” (v.43a). Whatever imperfections our earthly bodies had will be gone. We will inhabit the bodies that God intended for us before sin entered the world and caused damage. The ‘dishonor’ will be transformed into a ‘glory’. “It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power” (v. 43). The body of feeble flesh will be transformed into a body energized with the power of God. Paul teaches that the resurrection is a transformation of the same bodies we had on earth. For example, Philippians 3:21 says that our earthly body is transformed into conformity with Christ’s body in the resurrection, and not that God creates a new body from scratch.
Yes, these are my views.
I am still part way through reading _How Jesus Became God_, and this section about Paul versus the Corinthians on the subject of resurrection is one of the most difficult. Your presentation of the Corinthian point of view is not at all apparent from a surface level reading of the text, and I get the impression you are summarising the conclusion of an argument that there wasn’t enough space to develop in the book. A necessity sometimes, no doubt, but as a reader I do feel left behind in this case.
I’m not sure how to frame a question about it. If there isn’t space to bring the reader along for the ride of reconstructing the Corinthian perspective in a 400 page book then there certainly won’t be space to do so in a blog comment. Nevertheless, I would like to understand this.
Thanks. Luckily for all of us, the book wasn’t 400 pages! BUt yes, that discussion is a bit dense. If you work through it carefully a couple of times hopefully it will make better sense. ANd yes, it’s based on a lot of scholarship, some of it found in 400 pages that are almost entirely dense!
There are two passages under discussion: the passage surrounding 1 Corinthians 4:8, and most of 1 Corinthians 15. In the former case, it is clear the Corinthians consider themselves enlightened and worthy of special treatment, but the text does not connect this to a notion of spiritual resurrection. In the latter case, the Corinthians (some of them) say the dead are not raised and Paul replies that Christ was raised and therefore stands as a counterexample, but we do not hear what the Corinthians thought about the resurrection of Christ specifically.
My question, therefore, revolves around how we reconstruct the Corinthian point of view and establish that they believed what you tell us they believed — that Jesus was raised in the spirit, not in the body, and that Christians are also spiritually raised in their inner beings so as to be experiencing the full benefits of salvation.
Would you like to choose one aspect of that complex question and tackle it?
Right. It is indeed complicated. When you read 1 Corinthians it is clear that some Corinthian leaders already think they are superior spiritual beings AND that there is no future resurrection of the dead (the latter is the theme of 1 Cor 15). Their objections are to the crass understanding of the resurrection as a bodily revivification, which for almost everyone raised in Greek circles (outside of Jews) would have been utterly repulsive. Since they are followers of Jesus they do believe he was “raised” in some sense; and they do not believe “resurrection” entails an ongoing bodily existence, and so it appears they do not think Jesus, the model and first fruits of the resurretion, was raised bodily, but spiritually, as came to be believed widely by later Xn groups (and still is by some people today).
Dr Ehrman,
Paul preached the resurrection of Christ by claiming to have experienced his resurrected body. However, the Kingdom of God on earth had not yet arrived and Jesus did not live on earth with his resurrected body between one apparition and another. Paul was a Jew who couldn’t be influenced by pagan mythology, so if he didn’t think Jesus ascended to heaven, where did he think his body was after he was resurrected?
Thank you
Michele Fornelli
Jews too believed people could be taken to heavn and made divine (e.g., Elijah; who in later traditions was thought to have become a divine being. ANd Moses.). But Paul certainly could have been influneced by thinking. Even so, his views were almost all derived from certain kinds of Jewish traditions.
Dr Ehrman,
“But Paul certainly could have been influneced by thinking”
so even if Paul could have been influenced by pagan mythology (because he was an Hellenistic Jew) his idea of Jesus in Heaven derives from Jewish thought, did I get it right?
Thank you
Michele Fornelli
Yup.