Loading...In my previous post I started answering the question of why there may be contradictions/discrepancies/differences within the works of a single author. Weren’t they careful? Didn’t they see the problem? I mentioned that sometimes it may be that with someone like Paul, since his letters spanned over a decade, maybe he changed his mind about some things. I certainly don’t think all the same things I did ten years ago; and if you contrast what I thought when I was 19 and when I was 29, it was an *extreme* shift. The example I used was Paul’s sense in his early letters that he would be alive when Jesus returned; but in his later letters he seems to have thought that he might well die first.
In that context I mentioned the famous passage in Paul, a favorite in funeral and memorial services, 2 Cor. 5:1: “For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” This is a beautiful thought, that when one abandons this body, another, better body will be provided in heaven. How that can be reconciled with Paul’s teaching that at the end of the age everybody would return to his/her body and be raised immortal (as in 1 Thessalonians 4 and 1 Corinthians 15) is not at all clear to me. Maybe he changed his mind about that too?
In any event, I can’t pass this passage – 2 Cor. 5:1 — by without telling a funny anecdote about it.
When I was in seminary, I heard of a fellow student who was asked to participate in a funeral in the church he was working in, for an elderly person who had died. The pastor wanted this verse in particular to be read, and part of what this student was to do in the service was to read it to the congregation. But when he stood up to read, he made a mistake, and instead of opening his Bible to 2 Corinthians 5:1, he accidentally opened it to 1 Corinthians 5:1, and didn’t realize the mistake until he had started reading.
That verse says this: “It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and of a kind that is not found even among pagans; for a man is living with his father’s wife.”
On the spot this student reflected that most people don’t pay much attention to such things anyway. So he finished reading solemnly, and sat down, pretending that nothing strange had just happened…..
😀 Did anyone glanced down saying: “Ouch !” ?
!!
that is quite funny
I don’t see 2 Cor. 5:1 as being significantly different from the other passages. In 1 Cor. 15 he says several times “we will be changed” and the 1 Thess 4 passage doesn’t give any real detail about our “heavenly” bodies. I think a more interesting problem is 2 Cor. 5:10 where Paul says “each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.” So, are we saved by faith and cleansed by the blood of Christ, or will we be judged by our deeds? Or both? (The same question arises from John 5:29). But hey, it’s hard to make up a theology and then keep all the details straight!
Yup, similar problem with Romans 2.
“So, are we saved by faith and cleansed by the blood of Christ, or will we be judged by our deeds? Or both?”
1 or the other.
Wow! Did the mourners actually seem not to notice?
I remember that I hated the funeral service for my mother. Besides unctuously referring to my mother by her first name (when he’d barely known her), and describing where she was then (after death) in some way I didn’t like, the pastor actually took time out to gush over the presence of a family friend, a devout Catholic who’d moved to another parish. When I got outside in a car with other family members, the first thing I said was, “I’m sorry I forgot to warn you that the pastor is an asshole.”
That’s funny. Not to the family of the deceased of course, but still funny.
Quote Provided by Bart Ehrman:
2 Cor. 5:1: “For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”
Repsonse:
And this is one of the major problems with Paul: he does not know what the human aura is. Like dimensions of existence that are not adjacent volumes but intersecting volumes, when volume 1 (the incarnate body) dies, some part of volume 2 (the human aura survives). Infinite Mind by Dr. Valerie V. Hunt discusses this matter.
Valerie V. Hunt is research scientist, author, lecturer and Professor Emeritus of Physiological Science at UCLA.
She continued her research abroad with analysis of ritualistic healing and mystical beliefs in the Orient, South America, Africa and the Pacific Islands. Dr. Hunt has consulted for NASA, served with the US Department of Health, Education & Welfare, taught courses in 20 medical colleges and universities, held professorates at the University of Iowa, Columbia University and U.C.L.A., and is an honored listee in the Marquis Who’s Who lists for America (American Women) and the World (Education, Medicine and Healthcare, and Science and Engineering).
A popular author and coveted public speaker, she maintains a full calendar of writing, lecturing and interviews in addition to her continued commitment to advancing research as Director of the BioEnergy Fields Foundation.
Apparently, this aura is part of the energy field body in Heaven. It can take on various appearances in the afterlife. If a person is greeting a newly crossed-over person, they may take on an appearance that was from the 1970s instead of how they looked in 2005 when they died at an older age.
Paul’s resurrection body concept has been advanced over the past 2000 years. Paul could not write in his letters about the human aura or about the human BioEnergy Field. So, be careful about old spiritual science that is outdated.
Dr. Ehrman says he cares about the misuse of the Bible. I can see a Holy Bible having humility: do not use me if you have something better. There’s a verse where Jesus said, you will do greater than I. John 14: 12. So, surely we will do greater than Paul. So, I’d be careful about using 2 Cor. 5: 1 thinking there hasn’t been advancements in the study of the human energy field / entity / aura that survives the death of one or more of its incarnation bodies.
I’m not aware of Paul having an Near Death Experience. Paul probably was not put under hypnosis for past life regression. However, there are many case studies and books written about these things. Journey of the Souls speaks of life between lives. Michael Newton has his case studies and his students have their case studies.
While there is textual criticism of the New Testament, there are also other fields that are through with their analyses of the New Testament’s spiritual claims.
Am I correct to suspect that “living with his father’s wife” is a euphemistic softening of the original Greek?
It *is* a euphemism, but it’s what hte Greek literally says. It obviously means “sleeping with his step-mother,” where sleeping, of course, is itself a euphemism!
Dr Ehrman:
YOUR COMMENT:
2 Cor. 5:1: “For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” This is a beautiful thought, that when one abandons this body, another, better body will be provided in heaven. How that can be reconciled with Paul’s teaching that at the end of the age everybody would return to his/her body and be raised immortal (as in 1 Thessalonians 4 and 1 Corinthians 15) is not at all clear to me. Maybe he changed his mind about that too?
MY COMMENT:
I suspect that 2 Corinthians 5:1 has been corrupted. This passage is not at all clear. Typically Paul writings are intelligible. What does the writer mean by a ‘house made without hands?’ Our tent or body is not made with hands.
2 Corinthians 5:2-4-These verses agree with what Paul recorded in 1 Corinthians 15:53,54. (Read below)
2-Corinthians 5:2-For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, 3-inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked. 4-For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life.
In 1 Corinthians 53 and 54 Paul uses the same language. The new nature which is immortal is like a changing of clothes for those who are alive the day the Lord descends from Heaven to Earth. (Read below)
1 Corinthians 15:53-For this perishable (MORTAL) MUST PUT ON the imperishable (IMMORTAL), and this mortal must put on immortality. 54-But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory.
I conclude therefore that 2 Corinthians 5:1 has been probably altered. The *REST* of the verses in
2 Corinthians 5:2-8 agree with Paul’s language in 1 Corinthians 15:53,54 and in Phillipians 3:20,21 that the transformation of our mortal body into conformity with the body that Jesus has will occur at His second coming in glory. It does not happen when you die. Of course God is not limited as to how He deals with those who die. Elijah and Enoch are good examples.