Loading...One of the most important issues for the apostle Paul is the future resurrection of the dead. It is also one of the must misunderstood topics among readers of Paul today, who often claim that Paul had just the *opposite* view to the one he had. And that’s because they completely misconstrue his understanding of Jesus’ own resurrection. If I’ve heard it once I’ve heard it 834,000 times: “Paul thought Jesus was raised spiritually, not bodily.” Wrong, wrong, wrong.
It will take a while to explain. I deal with the matter in my book Heaven and Hell (Simon & Schuster, 2020). Here is the first bit of what I say there.
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The Glorious Transformation of the Resurrected Body
Undoubtedly the most important passage for Paul’s view of the future resurrection is 1 Corinthians 15. The chapter, in fact, is often called “the resurrection chapter.” It is also one of the most misread passages in all of the New Testament. Many casual readers have thought Paul wrote it in order to prove that Jesus was raised from the dead. That was not why. The chapter assumes Jesus was raised, as both Paul and his Corinthian readers know. It uses this assumption in order to build the case Paul wants to make for the naysayers among his readers: there will be a future resurrection for Jesus’ followers, a resurrection like Jesus’ own. Dead bodies will come back to life. But not in the state in which they were buried. They will be completely transformed and made into immortal, spiritual bodies. They will still be bodies. But they will be glorified, just as Jesus’ body was.
To make sense of the passage we need
This is an unusually important passage in Paul’s writings. Want to keep reading? Join the blog! Click here for membership options
I understand the difference between body and soul in normal, usual situations. But when we start talking about immortal, spiritual bodies, I am not sure I understand what a body is anymore, or what the difference is between a body and a soul. Does the spiritual body eat spiritual food? Is a spiritual body made of atoms, or of spiritual atoms? Is a spiritual body subject to the laws of physics, or to a new spiritual laws of a new spiritual physics?
Paul didn’t think in these terms. For him it was the difference between a body that could get sick, hurt, and die and one that could not. A spiritula body is still made of “stuff” but the stuff is spirit (PNEUMA) not the course stuff our current bodies are made up of. So PNEUMA is a kind of material substance, but a very refined kind.
I was one of those 834,000 claiming “Paul thought Jesus was raised spiritually, not bodily.” 1 Cor 15:44 (“it is sown a natural body, it is raised a
spiritual body) drove me to think that way, but then I asked about it here in the blog and I changed my mind , I read carefully the entire passage (1 Cor 15) and I get convinced , particularly with the “seed metaphor ”, that Paul was talking about a new “kind of flesh”, he clearly states “The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable”, so it is a body,”imperishable”, but still a body.
What I still can’t fully grasp is why Paul in 1 Cor 15:3-8 mention Jeus’s appearance to him alongside the appearances to Cephas,James and the others , it was the same “raised” Christ? With the new imperishable body? Even many years after the crucifixion?
Yup. Apparently Christ came down from heaven for the occasion.
Hi, Dr. Ehrman. I’m going to stop bothering you because I know you can’t help me over the internet. I started getting into Calvinism and reformed theology. It’s just so hard trying to figure out what is true because Christians always have a response. I know suffering is the main reason you’re not a Christian, but it’s like with Calvinism, they believe that God isn’t going to grant us a comfortable life. So, maybe that’s why they accept suffering. I honestly don’t know.
There are so many different arguments honestly.
If the problem were simly that we were sometimes uncomfortable I would probably still be a Christian. The problem is the massive suffering in extremis — people in excruciating agony their entire lives, children starving to death, birth defects, horrible diseases, and so on. If it were simply hangnails and headaches, I would have no real reason to doubt that God exists.
I understand completely. What do you say to Christians who say this is because of the fall? That everything changed once sin came into the picture? Unless you have a resource. When I talk to Christians, they always bring that up.
I’d say that’s a Christain theological belief that I do not hold as tenable. It’s Adam’s fault that my child has been born deformed? And that my neighbor’s child wasn’t? And God had nothing to do with it? If God had nothing to do with it, why do I thank him for my food?
“But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.”
(1 Cor 15:12-13)
I have the same sense as jon1, those “some of you” did not believe in resurrection at all, like the athenians that “sneered when they heard about the resurrection of the dead” in Acts 17:32.
It could sound weird that members of the christian community did not believe in resurrection but is precisely that contradiction what Paul was trying to show them and as jon1 put it clearly “Paul’s listing of the appearances would seem to make the most sense if some at Corinth were doubting both Jesus’ resurrection *and* the general resurrection” . We don’t know for sure what those “christians” in Corinth really believed, perhaps some of them joined the cult even distrusting most of Paul’s gospel …
Acts 17 is directed to those who did not accept Christ; 1 Corinthians is written to Christians in the church community. These people DO believe in Jesus’ resurrection — that’s Paul’s point. They don’t believe in their own future physical resurrection. And Paul’s trying to show that since the believe in the first they need to believe int he second. We don’t know of any Christians in antiquity who did not believe in teh resurrection. That is a thoroughly modern (post-Enlightenment) development.
Well, this time I do not get convinced, I don’t think that “Acts 17 is directed to those who did not accept Christ” but to people that never heard about Christ before (Acts 17:19 “”May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? ”) like the Corinthians that heard Paul’s first preaching . The problem here is that we are not talking about “Christians in antiquity”, we are dealing with a group (“some of you”) inside one of the first churches founded by Paul, to think that this group believed just as other “Christians in antiquity” is too much for me. If “These people DO believe in Jesus’ resurrection” why Paul’s introduction with “ I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you …” and then jumps to name the witness of Jesus’ resurrection? Even the “more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time” sounds like an exaggeration , probably to stress that Jesus DID resurrect.The fact that this group joined Paul’s cult not necessarily means that we could name them “christians” and assume that they believed just as any other group of “Christians in antiquity”.
Acts 17 is a speech given by Paul to philosohers who had earlier heard him preach about Jesus and his resurrection and were not convinced, no?
Acts 17 is a speech given by Paul because philosophers who had earlier heard him preach about Jesus and his resurrection were not convinced.
He started “People of Athens! ” he is not addressing only the “group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers” but the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there and spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.
What language did Paul write the letters to his churches in? I assume Greek, but he must have also been fluent in Aramaic to function with Jesus’ Jewish followers, right?
When will your webinar on homosexuality be available for viewing? I’m looking forward to it.
He was a Greek speaker and does not appear to have known Aramaic. If they communicated it must have been with translators. And yes, the webinar is coming out on the blog soon.
Does it appear that Paul mainly used a scribe and dictated his letters?
Yup.
Paul heavily influenced at least some of the gospel writers but some of his messages didn’t seem to get through. For instance, a description of Jesus resurrected but eating fish and showing off wounds does not square at all with a gloriously transformed resurrected body. If one believes Paul, some of the gospel accounts have to be rejected, because they simply don’t fit what Paul taught. Seems like the tension would be obvious but most people, including clergy, don’t see it or practice some kind of double-think.
Life functions throughout the body, whether physical, mental or spiritual, as ancient Democritus formulated as “spiritus insertus atomis”.
With such a view, I do not think it is strange that in our own “trinity” but they are one, but still three that make it difficult to separate soul, body resurrection and its argument for this.
But based on such an awareness and this offspring called “Ego” has obviously acquired an animal type of mind, it is no wonder to me that has driven us under control and along instinctive lines, a beastly man. Psychological researchers and theorists will probably argue that it is only a part of this divided mind, the spiritual-mental and the physical-mental, but is the major part that the materialists perceive as the essence.
A human self-transcendence, which in my mind is patterned in the Book of Revelation, (may be) based on the spiritual ascension to a process, a “way” rather a magical spiritual momentary transcendence based on expressing a belief in some selected dogmatic sentences.
So I have no problem understanding the resurrection of “spirit/spiritual body” which was “insertus” in the “atomis”, since “atomis” may not be the essence of our being
I’ve often wondered why the Platonic idea of a disembodied existence is desirable. How can we even imagine that an existence where we have no body, no senses, would be a satisfying way to exist? We might enjoy a brief time in meditation where we become largely unconscious of our senses, but even if we sit that way for hours, we look forward to the dinner bell. In other words, the prospect of an eternal existence where we are just “souls” without bodies seems like a paralytic nightmare. On the other hand, to be resurrected in a perfect physical world with a perfect 17 yr old body would really be a consumation devoutly to be wished.
Acts 9:22:23 says “22 Yet Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Messiah. 23 After many days had gone by, there was a conspiracy among the Jews to kill him.”
An online apologist says that this can be reconciled with Galatians 1:17-20 by noting that Acts says that Paul stayed there “many days” and in another biblical passage 1 Kings 2:38-39 , many days could be 3 years, giving Paul plenty of time to hang out in Arabia, etc.
I would think the the many days Paul spends in Damascus are what incites the Jews to kill him. The author notes that Paul “grew more powerful” which underscores the continuity of his stay there. Also, Acts 9:19 introduces this passage by saying that Paul stayed in Damascus “several days”. Given that, the context implies that Paul stayed long enough to stir up trouble for himself and this incitement wouldn’t require three years (it only took a week for Jesus to get in trouble in Jerusalem).
Would you have a stronger justification why these two passages can’t both be correct?
I’m not sure I understand what the apologist is trying to say. Paul indicates he did not go see the disciples right after he converted bu went Arabia and then to Damascus; he did NOT go to Jerusalem to see the apostles for three years. Acts says that as soon as he converted he went to Damascus and the first place he went afterward was to see the apostles in Jersualem.
Regarding Acts 9 vs Galatians:
The apologist is saying that the two passages aren’t necessarily in conflict because in Acts, it says Saul was there “for many days” and that many days could mean 3 years (ref. 1 Kings 2:38-39). Using time compression, the author of Luke omits the events describe in Galatians that involve spending time in Arabia.
I don’t buy that many days = 3 years in Acts, especially since Act 9:19 says several days. I was wondering if you had a counter for the apologist’s use of time compression that negates this harmonization?
I”d say that “many days” does not mean that in the New Testament
How much real difference do Paul and Jesus see between between a resurrected spiritualized, immortal body and an immortal soul separated from the body? Luke 20:36 says the resurrected are like angels. Were angels supposed to have bodies similar to those of resurrected humans? Was the Greek understanding that the soul was a completely non-material entity or was it actually made of highly refined “stuff”—perhaps somewhat like an angel or a resurrected body? Paul contrasted the “flesh” (the human body in ordinary earthly life) with the resurrected body. In the gospel resurrection appearances, Jesus was often not recognized—perhaps suggesting that the resurrected body was not simply a resuscitated (though enhanced) body but a new spiritualized body. I don’t know whether, in his encounter with Jesus, Paul “recognized” Jesus (whom he’d never met) or Jesus had to tell Paul who he was. Finally, Paul’s ability to assert some sort of continued existence for himself after his own death but before Jesus’s return could have been informed by the Greek idea of an immortal soul.
It just seems that the differences between an immortal soul and a spiritualized body tend to vanish the more one thinks about them.
The important point for Jewish apocalypticists like Jesus and Paul is that the body that a person has weill be returned to life; for Paul, it would be made immortal, unable to be hurt or die. This view is rooted in understanding God as creator — the material world will be redeemed, not surpassed. Different Greek thinkers had different views of the nature of the soul; hard-core platonists probably d nt think that it was made up of a substance; most others appear to have thought this it was a kidn of refined “stuff.”
Bart,
If Paul and the Corinthians all *assume* Jesus was raised in 1 Cor 15, then why does Paul bother to list all of the appearances by Jesus, including adding his own comment that some of the 500 are still alive to be asked about their experience? Paul’s listing of the appearances would seem to make the most sense if some at Corinth were doubting both Jesus’ resurrection *and* the general resurrection. Note too that Paul’s argument in verses 12-19 is not: Since *you* believe that Christ was raised, you must also agree that believers will arise. Rather, Paul argues that since Christ is *preached* as raised from the dead, they ought to believe that all Christians will be raised. It seems like it is this *preaching* about Jesus’ resurrection that Paul fears some at Corinth are no longer clinging, which seems consistent with Paul’s comment in v. 2: “if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you – unless you have come to believe in vain.”
It’s important to notice: he’s *reminding* them that this is what they originally believed. The fact that this is the basis of their faith is what provides him the leverage he needs: they admit that Jesus was raised bodily. The conclusion must be, then, that they too will be raised bodily.
Bart,
Yes, I agree that Paul is reminding the Corinthians of what they *originally* believed, but if Paul did not think some at Corinth were *now* doubting Jesus’ resurrection (in addition to the gen rez), then 1] why on your view does Paul bother to list all of the appearances by Jesus, and especially why does Paul add his own comment that some of the 500 are still alive, implying that they could be asked about their experience, and 2] why on your view does Paul include the statement “if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you – unless you have come to believe in vain” if Paul does not here think some of the Corinthians might not be holding firmly to their belief in Jesus’ resurrection, and 3] why on your view does Paul say in vs 12 “Now if Christ is *proclaimed* as raised from the dead…” instead of “Now if *you* believe Christ is raised from the dead…”?
He’s *reminding* them (as he indicates) what they already agreed to and originally believed: Jesus was *seen* at the resurrection, so it was a physical event. If his resurrection was physical, as they originally thought, their ownn will be as well, as they need to think now!
Bart,
I agree with virtually all of your comments. My only quibble is your contention that Paul *assumes* everyone at Corinth is solid in their belief that Jesus was resurrected up to heaven. I think some of the Corinthians doubted Jesus’ resurrection (in addition to the gen rez); you seem to be saying that none of the Corinthians doubted Jesus’ resurrection. Maybe if you could just answer just one of my previous three questions it would help. On your view that none of the Corinthians doubted Jesus’ resurrection, why does Paul include the appearance to the 500 and also add his comment that some of the 500 are still alive and could be asked about their experience?
Yes I know that’s your view. That was my view when I first started studying 1 Corinthians until I read it carefully and realized what he is arguing. I’ve already answered those questions. Let’s move on.
Ok Bart, thanks for your viewpoint. It just seems to me that Paul is doing something more than just “reminding” the Corinthians what he taught them about Jesus’ resurrection, especially when he says that some of the 500 are still alive for questioning. Looks like an active apologetic intent to me. A few of the commentaries seem to understand Paul as defending both Jesus’ and the gen rez, but of course some take your position as well.
Let read carefully 1 Cor 15:12-13
Paul asks “how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? “
What option better defines the “resurrection of the dead” a group inside the corinthian church (“some of you”) denied?
a) A “resurrection of the dead” in general, including that of Jesus
b) A “resurrection of the dead” about any other resurrection than that of Jesus
The answer is in the next sentence : “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. ” So it’s clear that for Paul the answer is a), otherwise the sentence would have no sense. If the skeptic group was talking only about “other resurrections than that of Christ” Paul’s observation would be useless.
As weird as it may seem, Jesus’s resurrection was not something taken for granted in the Corinthian community , perhaps this is not what we can expect from “ancient christians” but we are dealing with the big bang of christianity , the very first converted “from the idols” trying to understand totally alien concepts , so Paul had to write 58 verses to show that “Christ has INDEED been raised from the dead”
I’ll add to charrua’s comments that even if the Corinthians all firmly believed in Jesus’ resurrection and some were only doubting the future general resurrection, some of these doubters would soon have their doubts about Jesus’ resurrection because Paul tells them that Jesus’ rez and the gen are unavoidably linked: “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised” (1 Cor 15:13, cf. vs. 16). If Paul was going to write this, then I don’t see how Paul could not think he needed to defend Jesus’ resurrection in case this statement caused some of the Corinthians to backtrack on their belief in Jesus’ resurrection instead of moving forward and believing in the gen rez. In any case, there seems to me too much apologetic interest in Jesus’ resurrection in the first part of 1 Cor 15 to say that Paul was not trying to defend Jesus’ resurrection (to provide a basis for his later argument for the gen rez). It would sure be nice to have an expert in this area more explicitly explain why this conclusion is wrong.
In 1 Cor 15 Paul had to stress twice (1 Cor 15:14 and 1 Cor 15:17) the consequences of not believing in Jesus resurrection (“IF CHRIST HAS NOT BEEN RAISED“ – εἰ δὲ χριστὸς οὐκ ἐγήγερται), why use twice the conditional if ”The chapter assumes Jesus was raised, as both Paul and his Corinthian readers know” ? Who says that CHRIST HAS NOT BEEN RAISED?
There were some corinthians that did not believe in any kind of resurrection , even that of Jesus, not acknowledging the consequences . That CHRIST HAS NOT BEEN RAISED was what the group believed and Paul had to explain that YOUR FAITH (and salvation) relied upon the fact that “Christ has INDEED been raised from the dead” (1 Cor 15:20).
Paul’s logic is impeccable:
No resurrection of the dead -> No Jesus resurrection -> Useless preaching -> No Faith -> No Salvation
but this line of argumentation only makes sense if there were some in Corinth who denied all resurrections of the dead, including that of Jesus.
Why Bart thinks differently ? I don’t know.
Bart,
Is there any chance you could do a post explaining why you at one time thought Paul in 1 Cor 15 was trying to defend both Jesus’ resurrection and the gen rez and why you changed your mind to conclude now that Paul is only trying to defend the gen rez?
There’s actually not much to say. I never thought that as a scholar. That’s what I wsa told the passae meant when I was sixteen so I just assumed it was right.
Bart,
So do most scholars agree with you that Paul is in 1 Cor 15 only trying to defend the gen rez and not Jesus’ resurrection as well? Do you know of any scholars who think Paul is trying to defend both?
I’ve never done a survey, but every scholar I’ve talked with about it thinks so.
Sorry jon1 , but I think there is no chance.
He was clear, “Let’s move on.”
And I understand , he can’t get stuck in every article with every blogger with different ideas . “Engaging Discussions about Early Christianity” could not mean that.
I think the problem with 1 Cor 15 is how implausible it is that a group of “christians” could deny even Jesus rez.
Paul thought the group was MISLED from what they originally believed by outsiders
(Do not be MISLED: Bad company corrupts good character…COME BACK to your senses 1 Cor 15:33-34); to bring them BACK he did not just REMIND them his gospel, he listed all the witnesses of Jesus rez, including himself.
But we are not dealing with an heretic group nor a branch of christianity , these were just a small group inside the Corinthian community that could not even understand that Jesus rez was “of first importance” (1 Cor 15:3) to Paul’s gospel.
I think this group of Greek “first converters ” could perfectly deny Jesus rez AND at the same time join Paul’s cult and even have hopes for being saved in the upcoming end of times.
Raymond Collins: “That Paul devotes as much attention as he does to the appearances of the risen Christ – he cites six witnesses in all – can be taken as an indication that the reality of the resurrection of Christ might have been doubted and/or contested in some Corinthian quarters” (1999: 526).
John Kloppenborg: “It is more probable that Paul himself extended the list of witnesses for the sake of his argument (which did not concern the expiatory death of Christ, but rather the proof of the resurrection)” (1978: 359).
Wolfhart Pannenberg: “The intention of this enumeration [of appearances in 1 Cor 15:5-8] is clearly to give proof by means of witnesses for the facticity of Jesus’ resurrection” (1977: 89).
Ronald Sider: “It would seem probable, however, that Paul had some basis for suspecting that the widespread skepticism at Corinth about ‘the resurrection of the dead’ had led to doubt about Jesus’ resurrection. All the hints in the text would appear to be compatible with this view” (1977: 131-132).
Walter Schmithals: “Paul intends to prove that Jesus himself…has arisen. Thus he is interested in the fullest possible list of witnesses” (1969: 73).
Yes, most of these others do take your side. I’m not sure that Kloppenborg does.
Let’s stop this back and forth. I get your view.
Yes, I’m aware there are other opinions about everything. I don’t take opinions one way or the other as evidence though.
Apart from that, I’m not sure you are reading Goulder and Hays correctly. I don’t think they are saying what you appear to think. They do not say that the Corinthians denied the Jesus himself was resurrected but that they denying teh fundamental teaching of “resurrection” not realizing that in doing so they have contradicted their own faith claims. If you disagree with my reading of Hays — write him and ask! (Goulder is no longer alive, but you could ask his student Mark Goodacre. I don’t know Verbrugge.
No problem Bart. I greatly respect your work even though I don’t understand some of your positions. I’ll end with three more that somehow did not get posted yesterday (in case charrua or others are interested):
Verlyn Verbrugge:“[Paul] gave an extended discourse in ch. 15 to prove the resurrection of Christ and to set a timetable for the final return of Jesus and the resurrection of the dead”(2008:247).
Michael Goulder:“What did the deniers think about Jesus himself? If they said baldly, ‘There is no resurrection of the dead’, and asked derisively ‘With what kind of body do [the dead] come [back to life]?’ (15.35), it sounds as if these words applied to Jesus as much as to his followers. As Paul himself argues from the precise parallel, it is difficult to think that they would have missed it”(2005:190).
Richard Hays:“The many moral failings of the Corinthians may in fact all be surface symptoms of their underlying misapprehension of the very heart of the gospel: the death and resurrection of Jesus. Paul fears that the Corinthians who deny the resurrection of the dead have abandoned the most fundamental conviction of the Christian faith and that their believing is therefore ‘in vain’ (v. 2)”(1997:252).
charrua,
Do you by any chance know of any peer reviewed publications that try to make a *comprehensive* case that some at Corinth doubted, and Paul is trying to defend, Jesus’ bodily resurrection up to heaven (in addition to the future bodily rez of believers)? All of the sources I cited in my two posts (second post with three more references should be posted today) are only stated opinions of the respective scholar and not really comprehensive arguments that try to rebut the view that Bart and others hold. If you could pass on what those publications are (if you know of any) I would appreciate it.
Sorry jon1 , I’m just a total beginner and do not have access to as many sources as you.
But I think it is time to move on as Bart said.
I have my opinion about the issue and I think it is different from what Bart says.
But we have to realize that the time he dedicated to answering us was more , more than enough.
If the Corinthians did believe in Jesus rez or not is not so important to me as the work of trying to understand the issue, I mean to read carefully the passage , to trying to figure out how this early christians thought , to read other arguments and so on , for me is more important this process than the conclusions.
Thanks for replying charrua and best of luck trying to understand this issue.
The Jews always believed that God (Spirit or what ever it is) dwelled within a vessel of some sort. God is always appearing as “something”, or in a cloud, or residing in the tabernacle. They separated that the vessel was not God but just some sore of vessel. So I believe that Paul carried this belief. The human biological vessel of Jesus died, yet Jesus raised within a new different vessel. The Jesus within the vessel was recognized but the new vessel was not readily recognized as Jesus. This is how I view the depliction within the Gospels.
Paul seems to preaches this understanding in 1Cor 15. He teaches that the Person residing in the perishable (physical) body is imperishable and that the “person” changes its residence into an imperishable body (clothes).
It is my understanding that the Greeks viewed the “Memory of a person” as the spiritual afterlife of the person, and Paul was dispelling such Greek view of immortality. I believe that a persons soul would die as his memory would die. This view of memory of person as the soul was held by Egyptians as well. Why the Pharoahs built monuments to themselves to preserver their memory.
Is an afterlife in heaven referred to in the Creeds—Nicene or Apostle’s? Likewise hell is not mentioned as a possible afterlife destination. On the other hand, resurrection is mentioned in both.
Not everything could be mentioned in the creeds but these seem like really odd omissions—given the importance of heaven and hell in Christian practice.
Perhaps the Communion of Saints refers to life in heaven but it’s not clear and the Communion is not mentioned in Nicene.
Or maybe judgment of the living and dead refers to an afterlife in heaven or hell? Does judgment of the dead imply an afterlife prior to the general judgment and resurrection?
Anyway, heaven and hell as possible afterlife destinations could be a lot more clear.
Yes, heaven and hell may be implied, but they are never stated explicitly.
Professor,
Can you clear up whether there is any translation confusion with respect to whatever Greek translated as “spiritual ”?
well, people don’t seem to understand what Paul meant, if that’s what you mean. The problem is that most ancient Greek speaking people thought that “spirit” was a kind of substance not a kind of non-substance (as people today tend to think). So the problem isn’t the translation per se, but on what hte translated word is meant to mean.
What did the ancient Jew understand his or her existence in Sheol to be prior to the future resurrection? Was it akin to the Greek concept of the soul? Or was it some other version of the life force that lies dormant and reunites with the body at the resurrection?
Different Jews thought different things; but the majority view was that the person did not exist between their death and their resurrectdion. In my book Heaven and Hell I argue that Sheol was not understood as a “place” where souls gathered together, comparable to the Greek Hades, but was normally just a synonym for the place where the corpse was placed, e.g., a pit or a grave.
I think Bart’s last point here is right: for educated Greeks in particular, the idea that a blessed afterlife included the salvation of a physical body would have seemed nonsensical. The whole point of Greek philosophy since Plato was to underscore the ultimate ephemerality of the material world, including our bodies. But Paul likens salvation not merely to a kind of blissful spiritual existence beyond death, but to a literal re-creation of the world in which believers will be raised up into an exalted physical state with Christ in their bodies as though there had never been a fall, or sin, or any corruption of humanity. That had to strike many contemporary Greeks as deeply weird, which no doubt drew many over time to doctrines like Docetism and Gnosticism.
Paul seems to interpret death in terms of bodily metamorphosis: seeds “die” to be followed by God-created plants, flesh and blood body is metamorphosized into an imperishable body that can enter kingdom of heaven (which is here, on Earth).
Dr. Bart,
Where there any early Church Fathers that clearly opposed having icons, like the Eastern Orthodox do, in the Church?
I’m also curious what is your view on icons as instruments of worship.
Thank you.
There weren’t church buildings in the early churches; the first we have record of is around 250 CE. Images did start to appear in the early fourth century and there was some opposition to them by those who thought they violated the biblical prohibitions. I don’t have an opinion about them when it comes to worship.
Why I can’t see the whole text please?
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Dr. Ehrman,
What is your opinion about the last 12 verses of Mark? They are not in the oldest manuscripts, but are, none the less, early Christians writings. It looks like they seem to make use of Luke’s Acts. Any thoughts on that?
There is a very wide consensus that they are not original to Mark, for a wide range of reasons. The only major dispute is over wehther the Gospel originally ended at 16:8 or if the final page was lost. The latter seems like a more mysterious and intriguing solution, but I’m pretty sure 16:8 was the original ending.
Dr. Ehrman,
In your understanding of the Gospels, do you believe the consensus in Jesus was raised up to heaven on the day of his resurrection or after 40 days?
Three of the Gospels don’t say anything about the ascension; it is only in Luke, and there it happens on the day of the resurrection. The odd thing is that in Luke’s second volume, Acts, it happens forty days later. The issue is how to deal with the discrepancy, in the *same* author!
I wonder how Christian apologists would reconcile the two accounts?
There’s a textual variant in Luke that omits the ascension. I used to argue that the text without the ascension was the original text (in my book Orthodox Corruption). That would solve the problem then and there. Otherwise they have to argue either that Jesus was going up and down to heaven (he came down again for Paul, so why not for the apostles). Or, well, something else.
The Chronology of the Ascension Stories in
Luke and Acts by HENK JAN DE JONGE makes the case that what Acts 1 actually says, is that Jesus was lifted to Heaven, and the 40 days of during which he at various times presents himself to the disciples are after the ascension.
Any thoughts on that?
Makes sense. That’s what I used to think. And it may be right. It’s not clear why the final ascension is narrated as so decisive though, if he was soimply coming and going.
This is excellent clarification. Some of Paul’s opposition were Sadducees preaching against resurrection. This is why Paul had to address these issues.
While Paul thought Jesus had been bodily resurrected, do you think he was claiming to have personally witnessed Jesus’ physical resurrected form, or was his experience of seeing Christ in 1 Corinthians 15:8 more like a vision? Some other quotes from Paul about his experience are given at https://jamestabor.com/what-did-paul-claim-to-have-seen-last-of-all-he-appeared-also-to-me/ though I don’t know how accurate the translations are. And in Donald Akenson’s book “Saint Saul” (which uses “Saul” and “Yacov” for the names rendered “Paul” and “James” in the King James Bible, along with “Yeshua” for “Jesus”), Akenson writes on p. 168 (kindle edition): “In First Corinthians, Saul recounts his own experiences with the Risen Christ. Crucially, Saul never suggests that he had seen Yeshua in the flesh before the crucifixion and he does not now claim to have seen a physically resurrected Yeshua, but instead a glorified Christ. … Without strain, one can see Saul’s experience of the Risen Christ as being presented as parallel to that of Yacov – a supernatural vision that occurred after the crucifixion”. Is this plausible, and if so would be plausible that when he claimed 500 witnesses to the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:6, he was including others who had visions?
He believed he saw Jesus himself, bodily. That does not preclude it being a vision though. Visions are not necessarily hallucinations of thigs that are not there. How Paul knew it was Jesus he saw is a very good but probably unanswerable question.
“He believed he saw Jesus himself, bodily”
Since Paul obviously “saw” Jesus many years after his crucifixion how do you think Paul conceptualized the interregnum? In Rom 8:34 he says that “ Christ Jesus..is at the right hand of God ”so he obviously believed in Jesus’ ascension to the heavens , did he also believe that Jesus came down to be seen by him?
In 2 Corinthians 12:2-6 Paul talks about a man he knows that “ was caught to the third heaven ..(and) up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell”, I think that man is himself and of course there have to be tons of scholarship about this passage, does anybody linked this to his “visions” of Jesus?
I”m not sure. I think he must be imaginigng that Jesus could come down on occasion when needed, just as he did in the OT for Paul when he appeared to the Patriarchs and Moses.
Dr Bart,
I’m going to be a bit blunt here. In the acknowledgement of you being more or less neutral towards Christians view, I tend to lean more on the Protestant side, but I’m always countered by my Eastern-Orthodox friends that, in essence, Protestantism *must*, by definition, be false, because it started in the 16th century, while the Orthodox Church, being the “one true church”, is historical.
I’m not sure if *all* Eastern-Orthodox position are historical, since the Protestant motto, besides the solas, is “back to the sources”, like with illuminists, right?
So my question to is, are there any positions that we can say are not historical, or have changed, in Eastern-Ortohdoxy?
I was thinking about the dogma of “Perpetual Virginity”, where Helvidius (from St. Jerome’s work against him) was in essence a proto-Protestant, denying the dogma.
Protestants think just the opposite. They think that Orthodoxy was a later development centuries after the origin of Christianity and Protestantism skips over all those developments to get back to the original documents. There are TONS of things that are not “ancient views” in Eastern Orthodoxy.
Well, sure, but usually Orthodox argument goes along: “The Church Fathers are with us”, in citing Ignatius of Antioch towards his support for episcopacy, or Cyprian of Carthage in relationship to the sacerdotal priesthood. I’m curious if you could point to an example where Protestants are right, that is we can show their vision/theology was the earlier one, and it was the Orthodox that changed things.
For example, one thing I’ve gained more confidence in, is the lack of distinction between the office of bishop and presbyter in the early Church, where Paul seems to use them interchangeably.
Not just the Orthodox. That’s a major element in the Catholic – Protestant debate as well, and in the 17th c. a major element of the Church of England vs. Puritanism debate — hotly pursued by the young John Milton before he made his fame in other ways.
Sure, but just as you said, that’s a topic of debate, of division. However, what would be topics where the general consensus seems to give right of cause to the Protestant side, rather than to the Orthodox?
I’d say a lot of the CAtholic teachings about the church, sacraments, Mary, saints, and so on are later developments, not connected with the earliest Christians. But so too with many of the Protestant teachings, about the Bible, church organization, creeds, etc.
Some scholars have pointed out that resurrection back in the day meant only the physical body or a *part* of it. Or at least Dale Allison says.
Does this mean that some Christian’s believed in the resurrection and transformation of Jesus, but were fine with his bones (or other body parts) being left behind? Just long as his physical body was raised and transformed. I would assume some people in Paul’s church went along these lines.
It typically means that the entire body (bones and all) was raised and made immortal. I don’t know of any parts of the body every being left behind. Is that what Dale actually says?
It looks like Paul potentially had to defend his beliefs concerning the universal resurrection of the dead because Samaritan followers of Jesus (like Dositheus) denied the Books of the Prophet and by extension the prophecies concerning the resurrection of the dead found within them (Ezekiel 37). The Samaritan Christians likely believed Jesus was the Christ based purely on Deuteronomy 18:15 and saw Jesus as the Prophet prophesized by Moses. The Messianic expectation for Samaritans was quite different from that of the Jews and Gentiles. The Samaritans didn’t care about reviving the kingship of the line of David (tabernacle stealer!), they didn’t give a hoot about Jerusalem (Mt. Gerizim!) or re-establishing an independent Jewish state. They also wouldn’t have believed in the resurrection of the dead as they used only the Pentateuch.
The author of the gospel of Matthew was adamant when he has his Jesus declare “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the (Books of the) Prophets” (Matthew 5:17), arguably because he was trying to protect the religion from incoming attacks from both the Pauline Christians (who didn’t abide by the Mosaic Law) and Samaritan Christians (who didn’t use the Books of the Prophets).