Mar 23 2008
Religious Scholars Troubled by Resurrection Delusions
On Easter Sunday, Christians will proclaim the message at the heart of their faith — “He is risen” — and will affirm the hope that God will raise all the dead at the end of time. But this belief is deeply misunderstood, say scholars from varied faith traditions who have been trying to clear up the confusion in several recent books.
“We are troubled by the gap between the views on these things of the general public and the findings of contemporary scholarship,” said Kevin Madigan and Jon Levenson, authors of the upcoming book, “Resurrection, The Power of God for Christians and Jews.”
Debate about Christ’s Resurrection has focused on whether Jesus rose bodily from the dead after the Romans crucified him on Good Friday, or whether Resurrection was something abstract.
Read about it here.
[From me]
I believe in a actual resurrection. The reasons are many. 1st, I wouldn’t follow a God who didn’t have power over death. 2nd, the disciples would not have gone to their death if they had really not seen Jesus. The Muslims claim that Jesus was replaced by Judas on the cross but no credible scholars believe that. Jesus was either a liar, crazy man or who He said He was.
I believe He is God.
Happy Easter.
15 responses so far
I with ya… I believe!
Happy Easter
d
Kevin,
If you read Paul’s epistles as the proto-Christians of his day would have read them (that is, without the benefit of writings that appeared years later), there is fair reason to think that Paul did not necessarily believe in a bodily resurrection. The idea of a bodily resurrection developed later when Gospels began to appear.
I did a project some time back: I read early Christian writings (both canonical and non-canonical) in the order they were written, making note of who the author of the document was so I could understand who thought what and when they thought it. A good tool for this fascinating project for anyone who might be interested is the Early Christian Writings web site. Check it out!
I would. I would think a Creator of the Universe would have power to create and destroy life at will. This would hold true regardless of whether Jesus is a God or whether He was bodily resurrected. I wouldn’t refuse to worship the Creator of the Universe simply because He didn’t meet some arbitrary, personal criteria that I might have.
How do you know that they wouldn’t? There are examples of early Christians that went to their death without ever having seen a bodily-resurrected Jesus. Athanasius went willingly to his execution without ever having claimed to see a resurrected Jesus. There are many other examples. Even though you believe the Gospels when they claim that the disciples saw a resurrected Jesus, you don’t know what you claim to know: that the disciples would not have gone to their death if they had not seen Jesus.
Just because the Muslims are wrong does not automatically mean that Christians are right. It is possible the both Christians and Muslims are wrong. So claiming that Muslims are wrong is not a very good reason to believe that Christians are right.
However, I am pleased to know that you hold what credible scholars believe in high esteem. What do credible scholars believe about the resurrection?
There is another important option. Can you guess what it is or do you give up?
(note: by “give up,” I only mean do you give up guessing what the other option is - I’m not asking if you give up on your position)
Happy Easter, all!
I expect non-believers to doubt the physical resurrection. It is in their job description.
What I have no stomach for is “Christians” who claim it wasn’t physical. Scripture couldn’t be clearer that it was physical, and the NT makes no sense if it wasn’t.
Neil,
What is your understanding of what those particular Christians believe? How do you think they reconcile their belief in salvation through Jesus, and remain skeptical about a physical resurrection?
Big thumbs up to you for a good post, Kevin.
Honestly, I cannot comprehend how a “Christian” can deny a physical resurrection. This is the centerpiece of our beliefs.
You said there is fair reason to believe Paul did not necessarily believe in a bodily resurrection. Why do you say that, I am curious? What in your opinion would be the reason that people who claimed to have actually seen Jesus physically resurrected would chose to die horrible deaths for what they absolutely knew for a fact to be a lie? This is puzzeling because as you pointed out many people died for what they believed, but who chooses to die for what they know to be false?
Unnamed,
Just out of curiosity, Are you the same person as “Uknown”?
I say that I don’t think Paul “necessarily” believed in a bodily resurrection because, though he never denies a physical resurrection, he also never affirms one. If he believed in a physical resurrection, I would expect him to at least mention it to bolster his arguments for the risen Christ. When I look in Paul’s epistles for unequivocal statements that describe a resurrection that is unequivocally physical rather than spiritual, I don’t find any.
Paul’s own description of his encounter with the risen Jesus does not sound like the description of a bodily encounter. Paul portrays himself in his epistles as an apostle on par with the apostles of the physical Jesus. If Paul believed that the other apostles had seen the physical Jesus, he would have cause to argue that his encounter was every bit as genuine as the physical encounter that the other apostles experienced. However, I find no such argument.
That depends - which people are you referring to?
I’ll presume that you agree that belief that a thing is true does not make the thing true. And I agree that it is unlikely that someone would die for something that he knows to be false. Given that context, who specifically are you saying died for their belief and what was the belief they died for?
You said “though he never denies a physical resurrection, he also never affirms one. If he believed in a physical resurrection, I would expect him to at least mention it to bolster his arguments for the risen Christ.” How do you explain 1 Corinthians chapter 15?
“Given that context, who specifically are you saying died for their belief and what was the belief they died for?”
It is understood and to my knowlege not refuted that all the apostles except John were martyred for their belief in the resurrection. Eusubius of Caesarea describes how James the half-brother of Jesus was thrown from the pennicale of the Temple and then stoned. Peter asked to be crucified upside down because he felt unworthy to die in the same manner as his Lord. Steven after testifying before the Sanhedrine to the resurrection of Jesus was stoned to death. These are just three examples.
Why would 12 men choose to lie about something that they knew would cause their death. Not to mention the beatings and imprisonment. Why would they do that if all their accusers needed to do was retrieve Jesus’s corps from the tomb and put an end to this rebellion to their authority?
The Resurrection of Jesus is the linch pin to the Christian faith. Without it we have no faith. Forget evolution, moral arguments, big bang ect… This is really what the whole system rises and falls on. Because if Jesus never rose physically from the dead he did not conquer death, hell and the grave. His death would have been nothing significant, and his claim to diety would have been a lie. 1 Cor 15:14-19 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
Also I am not Unknown.
Unnamed,
There is no question that Paul believes that Jesus has risen from the dead. The question is whether Paul believed that the resurrection was physical rather than spiritual. If you inspect closely the chapter you referenced (1Co 15), you may notice a few indicators that Paul understands the resurrection to be spiritual. Also notice that in any of his writings, Paul never mentions a resurrection which we must understand as physical.
In 1Co 15:4-8 for example, Paul begins by recounting that Jesus was buried, and then He arose from the dead. Then he goes on to say that He was seen by the 12 disciples, and others, and finally by Paul himself. Paul equates his own experience in seeing the risen Christ with that of the 12 disciples. Yet Paul’s own description of his revelation does not indicate that he saw a physical Christ (see Gal 1:11-24). From what Paul says here, we can understand the resurrection to be either physical or spiritual. (We modern readers tend to automatically presume that Paul is writing about a physical resurrection because of our own familiarity with later writings, like the Gospels, that do not exist at the time Paul wrote. However, if we consider only the writings that were extant in Paul’s day, then it becomes more conceivable that Paul means a spiritual resurrection in 1Co 15:4-8)
Looking now at the end of the same chapter (1Co 15:35 through the end of the chapter), Paul defends his claim that the dead will rise. Part of his defense is that what is raised is spiritual rather than physical (see especially 15:42-44, 15:49). Paul says flat out: “There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.” He compares birth and death to the sowing and reaping of grain - where what is sown is the physical body, but what is reaped is spiritual. He also explains that those who will be raised while still living will be “changed”; that is, the body that will be raised is not the living, physical body.
The accounts you referenced are from late, extra-biblical writings and are considered by most scholars to be non-historical. That’s not so say that the stories aren’t based on true events; maybe they are and maybe they aren’t. But the accuracy and details of the stories are questionable. Is there any reason that you know of why we should consider the accounts historical?
To my knowledge, those sources don’t indicate whether the martyrs believed in a physical or a spiritual-only resurrection. But for now, let’s assume that the stories are true and that the 12 believed in a physical resurrection. Further, let’s assume that the reason for their martyrdom was a refusal to renounce this particular belief (vs., say, a belief that Jesus is the Son of God which one may hold regardless of how one understands the resurrection). Are you saying that their strong belief in the physical resurrection is evidence that the physical resurrection really happened? Do you agree that people can have strong beliefs, beliefs that are strong enough to die for, yet those beliefs can be in something that is not true?
Note that the only reason we have for thinking that the 12 believed in a physical resurrection is because of the accounts found in the Gospels. But the Gospels were written long after the time that Paul wrote - Paul would not have had access to them when he penned his epistles. I am proposing that based on what we read in Paul’s writings, Paul believed in a spiritual resurrection.
I’m proposing that Paul said no such thing about a physical resurrection, though he certainly did believe it about the spiritual resurrection. If you read the quotes you offered in the context of the other parts in the same chapter that I offered, you might agree that Paul might not have been speaking of a physical resurrection, but a spiritual one instead.
There is a God and I have joined his true church.
Francoise,
Details please!
Kevin Bussey’s last blog post..I’ve had to change the way I pray…
The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints.
Noooooooooooooo! Say it ain’t so!
If you are going to join a religion at least find one who’s blatant construction is hidden in the mists of time.
Are you serious?
Damian’s last blog post..Infidel - by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Francoise,
Details please!
:))
Francoise,
You are a smarter person than to believe in documents that were plagiarized from the KJV.
Kevin Bussey’s last blog post..Actress Kate Walsh Blames STD Rise on Abstinence Education