Triadboy I have this thing for using nonscholars and Dan Barker is among the worst incompetants to ever walk the face of the earth.
I decided to simply cut and past an argument from a earlier debate rebutal I had wrote.
Your views on the apostles coming to a belief in a spiritual resurrection are flawed for two major reasons.
a.) There was no belief among the Jews about the idea of a spiritual resurrection. For example read the following verses
1.) Daniel 12:2-3 And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.
2.) Ezekiel 37:1-12 The hand of the LORD was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry. And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord GOD, thou knowest Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. Thus saith the Lord GOD unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the LORD. So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them. Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army. Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts. Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.
3.) Is. 26:19 Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise.
These following verses all come from the time of Jesus
4.) 4 Ezra 7:32 The earth shall restore those who sleep in her, and the dust those who rest in it, and the chambers those entrusted to them.
5.) 1 Enoch 51:1 In those days, the earth will also give back what has been entrusted to it, and Sheol will give back what it has received, and hell will give back what it owes.
6.) Sib. Or. IV ...God Himself will refashion the bones and ashes of humans and raise up mortals as they were before.
7.) 2 Baruch 50:2ff For certainly the earth will then restore the dead. It will not change their form, but just as it received them, so it will restore them.
8.) Pseudo-Phocylides 103-4 ...we hope that the remains of the departed will soon come to light again out of the earth. And afterward, they will become gods.
b.) These verses easily demonstrate the Jewish view of resurrection from the dead. It was always a physical occurrence. The Pharisees even debated as to whether the resurected dead would still wear their burial cloths, thus there are no good historical reasons to believe that the apostles or Paul( who was a Pharisee) would have believed in a spiritual resurrection. It was simply an idea that had no meaning to a Jew.
c.) The verses you use to postulate an original spiritual view shall be listed below and properly explained.
1.) 1st Corinthian 15:42- 49 -42 So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. 43It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. 44It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. 45Thus it is written, "The first man, Adam, became a living being"; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the physical, and then the spiritual. 47The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man isj from heaven. 48As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. 49Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we willk also bear the image of the man of heaven
2.) Ist Peter 3:18 –19 18For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, 19in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison
I shall begin with Corinthians. The spiritual body that is being discussed is the resurrected body. The resurrected body is a physical body, but a physical body with spiritual significance. ( an analogy would be the Bible, it is clearly physical, but to many it has spiritual value) Verse 47 discusses Adam, which is clearly a physical creation. Pagans did not believe in a bodily resurrection. To them that idea was simply obscene. That is why the pagans in 1st Cor 15:12 were saying, “there is no resurrection from the dead” because they did not believe in bodily resurections. They already had a belief in a spiritual resurrection so this question simply would not have come up had Paul been preaching a spiritual resurrection. Verse 20 “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.” This verse discusses the idea that Christ had been bodily resurrected from the dead and then others shall be resurrected from the dead. This is clearly referring to the Jewish view of resurrection, a good example of this can be found in John 11:23-24 Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." 4Martha said to him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day." Verse 15:22 of 1st Corinthian –“for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.” It refers to the death of Adam, which was clearly a physical event .
In verse 44 Paul use of the word soma twice, proving that he intended for the Corinthians to understand the resurrected body to be physical. The word simply has no other meaning ( Soma in Biblical Theology by Robert Gundry) A proper exploration of the word soma and its use in Greek will be explored below. (the high lighted word is where soma is used)
MT 6:22-25 "The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; 23but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! 24 "No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.i 25 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink,j or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
MT 27:58-59 He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus; then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. 59So Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth
MK 14:8 She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial.
LK 23:52 This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus
JN 2:20-21 The Jews then said, "This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?" 21But he was speaking of the temple of his body.
And now lets have a little from Paul and Jude
1st Co. 6:13 "Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food,"e and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is meant not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
1st Co 6:16 Do you not know that whoever is united to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For it is said, "The two shall be one flesh
2nd Co 4:10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies
Gal 6:17 From now on, let no one make trouble for me; for I carry the marks of Jesus branded on my body.
Jude 1:9 But when the archangel Michael contended with the devil and disputed about the body of Moses, he did not dare to bring a condemnation of slande against him, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!"
There simply is no compelling reason to accept the notion that Paul believed in a spiritual resurrection. It went against the Jewish world view, the view of the Pharisees, is not the proper reading of the text and lastly his word soma has no meaning besides that of physical. The best view of what Paul is trying to say is this “ The resurrected body will be physical, but have spiritual aspects.”
You can also read this by a
scholar
Triadboy, please tell me where you are getting your scholarly claims? I have never, ever seen anyone say Paul was Gnostic( who was a opponent of the Gnostics) or Mark was a Gnostic( possibly the Secret Gospel of Mark preserved completely and originally on a 18th century copy. And if you believe that...) document. I am going to be so very disappointed with you if is some nonsense like Archyra S.
