Re: Physical Resurrection

At 06:38 PM 4/10/2006, Michael Roberts wrote:

>The two are totally and utterly different.
>Physical resurrection is resuscitation i.e what
>happened to Lazarus. Bodily resurrection as with
>Jesus is being raised leaving behind an empty
>tomb and having a transformed immortal body.
>This fits in with all the biblical passages .
>It is exactly what Tom Wright argues for in his
>excellent book "Resurrection". Others have argued for it for centuries.
>
>I hope I have highlighted some of the poor and
>crude thinking about the resurrection
>
>Have a wonderful Holy Week and Easter ~ Michael

@ That fact was noted in the link to the
vision/hallucination hypothesis I posted earlier::

Another problem with the subjective
vision/hallucination hypothesis is that it cannot
account for how the early believers concluded
that Jesus had been resurrected as opposed to
having undergone an ascension to heaven or
exaltation. The data we have from the period
regarding Jewish belief in resurrection indicates
that resurrection was something that would occur
at the end of time and to everybody (or at least
all of the righteous-see e.g. Daniel 12:1-3, John
11:21-24 [17]). Thus, the resurrection of an
isolated individual apart from the general
resurrection at the end of the age ran counter to
Jewish beliefs at the time. While it is true that
there are reports of numerous other people raised
from the dead contained in the Bible (such as
Lazarus), these were of a different category than
that of what happened to Jesus. When Jesus was
raised, he was, according to the early
Christians, given an immortal, imperishable body
(as is described in I Cor. 15) as opposed to the
other cases where the individuals such as Lazarus
were resuscitated, to eventually die again.

Found here: V. Lack of Explanatory Scope of the
Subjective Visions Hypothesis http://www.tektonics.org/guest/wildvis.html

The next problem that is important to consider
regarding the subjective vision/hallucination
hypothesis is that its explanatory scope is too
narrow to explain all of the data we have for the
resurrection. Even if it can be shown
satisfactorily that collective hallucinations are
possible, several data points are left
unexplained. For one, there is, of course, the
empty tomb. While the historicity of the empty
tomb is disputed by a minority of scholars, the
data favoring its historicity is nonetheless
compelling. Some of the more common arguments in
favor of historicity of the empty tomb include the following:

1. The term "resurrection" was understood as a
physical phenomenon, so each time the word was
used in application to Jesus by the earliest
evangelists an unoccupied grave would clearly have been implied.

2. The empty tomb is implied in the very early
creedal material of I Cor. 15, where Jesus was
said to have "….died,…was buried,…was
raised,…appeared". Since all of these items refer
to what happened to Jesus' body, which is made
particularly clear by the allusion to his burial,
the empty tomb is implied. Furthermore, this must
have been the way that Paul understood
"resurrection", being a Pharasaic Jew who
understood resurrection in physical terms.

3. The empty tomb is clearly implied in a couple
of the speeches in Acts (Acts 2:25-36; 13:28-31),
again quite possibly very early material (see above section IVa).

4. The speeches in Acts as well as the four
gospels follow the same pattern of
"….died,....was buried,….was raised,….appeared"
as that found in I Cor. 15:3-5, giving us
multiple attestation, while also suggesting that
this reflected the earliest kerygma of the church.

5. The discovery of the empty tomb by women was
very unlikely to be fabricated (see above section IIIf).

6. The subsequent checking of the empty tomb by
Peter and the Beloved Disciple, being attested in
both Luke and John, is probably historical,
particularly since a good case can be made for
direct eyewitness testimony in the case of John (see above).

7. It is highly improbable that the church could
have been started, much less flourished, if
Jesus' grave sight had not been empty,
particularly since the earliest preaching took place in Jerusalem.

8. The story of the discovery of the empty tomb,
especially in Mark, is relatively simple and
unadorned by the miraculous, in contrast to later
accounts such as the Gospel of Peter.

9. The earliest polemic against the empty tomb in
Matthew 28:11-15 presupposes the empty tomb.

See the following links where these issues and
more regarding the empty tomb are discussed and defended at length:

<http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/tomb2.html>http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/tomb2.html

http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/fales.html

<http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/tomb1.html>http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/tomb1.html

http://tektonics.org/lp/physrez.html

<http://www.tektonics.org/lp/pricer06.html>http://www.tektonics.org/lp/pricer06.html

http://www.tektonics.org/tomb/kirby01.html

<http://www.tektonics.org/tomb/carrier11.html>http://www.tektonics.org/tomb/carrier11.html

http://www.tektonics.org/tomb/carrier12.html

<http://www.tektonics.org/gk/graverob.html>http://www.tektonics.org/gk/graverob.html

http://www.tektonics.org/tomb/carrier10.html

[snip]

You all have a wonderful Holy Week and Easter also.

~ Janice
Received on Mon Apr 10 19:42:33 2006