When Paul wrote of resurrection (1 Corinthians 15) he was unequivocal that resurrection is real, spiritual and God’s gift to us in Jesus Christ. Yet, as James D. Tabor asserts in beginning his chapter on the resurrection as interpreted by Paul: New Testament scholars, historians and even novelists seem incapable of offering a rational explanation as to what most likely happened that first Easter weekend. This seems to be the mystery of the ages when it comes to understanding Christian origins. (Tabor, James D. Paul and Jesus: How the Apostle Transformed Christiainity. Simon & Schuster, 2012.)
Tabor found his solution in Paul’s “rethinking [the] resurrection of the dead.” He believes that if we begin with Paul rather than the gospels everything will be “clear, rational and historical.” But is he successful?
To begin with, Tabor states that there is much confusion about the distinction between the peculiarly Jewish way of thinking about resurrection and the Greek way of thinking about immortality. Both affirm eternal life, but the Greek view is based on a dualism of body and soul as two distinct realities.
Furthermore, the Greek attitude was almost wholly negative toward the body, while emphasizing the inestimable value of the pure soul. At the end of life death releases the soul to an afterlife of judgment, rebirth to another human life of reincarnation, and after a long time the soul could ascend to eternal life. Since the 2nd century CE Christian theologians, learned in Greek philosophy, have been influenced by or generally adopted this view, as Tabor puts it: after death “the body perishes and the immortal soul passes on to the unseen realm of the spirit.”
The Hebrew view did not despise the human body as the Greeks did. They based their attitude to the body on God’s creation of humanity and all living things as stated in Genesis 2:7ff. And God was pleased with what God had made. The King James Version and other more recent versions of the English Bible have translated the Hebrew word “nefesh” as “a living soul,” whereas the correct translation is “a living being.” Hence the confusion for us.
The Hebrews viewed life after death described in scripture as a shadowy disembodied darkness without substance. They called it Sheol often referred to as “the pit” from which no one returns. (Psalms 30:3; 115:17; 6:5; 88:3-12; Job 3:11-19; 14:10-12.)
On the other hand, the Bible also contains instances of resuscitation of the physical body. There are three in the OT, one by Elijah and two by Elijah. (1 Kings 17:17-22; 2 Kings 4:32-37; 2 Kings 13:21.) In the NT three were said to have been performed by Jesus. (Mark 5:41-43; Luke 7:11-17; John 11:38-44.) In each instance, presumably, all the people so resuscitated died and were buried at some later date.
The main NT tradition of life after death is that of Paul’s view of re-embodiment as a spiritual being as set forth in 1 Corinthians 15. As Tabor describes it:
“… a body is a mode of being, whether a physical creation or a new spiritual creation that God would fashion in the future. Paul uses the resurrection of Christ as his illustrative example, viewing Jesus as the prototype of what will in the future for the dead take place in the future for all the dead who will be raised at Jesus’ com
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