Fifth Friday after Pentecost
Fridays are the days I respond to your comments. Today it will be primarily on Jerry's comments and her questions on the resurrection of the body. I won't quote all of what Jerry said. You can read it in the comments section of the blogs. Her comments might be summed up in the question that began the last one, "Where did Paul come up with that?" The question may be rhetorical, but I think I can answer it.
Belief in the resurrection of the body was prevalent in Judaism during Paul's time. Not all Jews believed it. The Sadducees did not. The Pharisees did. The idea occurs twice in the latter parts of the Old Testament, in Isaiah 26:19 and Daniel 12:1-2. The book of Daniel begins to talk about the end of time at Dan. 11:40. Then at the beginning of chapter 12 we find, "But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book. Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt." Between the time Daniel was written (164 BC) and the time of Paul's writings (50-62 AD), about 40 Jewish apocalypses were written. We have most of them. Several refer to the resurrection of the body on the last day. Both Jesus and Paul knew the concept well.
Paul's genius was to make one big interpretive move. He plugged the resurrection of Jesus into a larger understanding of what we could label as resurrection history. Christ was the "first-fruits" of the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:20). His resurrection had already happened. The final resurrection of all the dead lay in the future. Paul (and we) are in between. In his earlier writings (1 Thessalonians, 1 Cor.), Paul thinks that Christ's return and the resurrection of all the dead will occur soon, in his own lifetime. In his later writings, Paul seems to realize that it may not occur in his lifetime. Paul lays out his schema of resurrection history in 1 Cor. 15:20-28. Here's a brief resurrection diagram:
Christ--the first fruits (already happened)
Coming again of Christ (future)
Resurrection of the dead (future)
Reign of Christ on earth (future)
Subjection of all things to God (future)
God becomes "all in all" (future)
Although Paul had a wealth of Jewish literature to draw his concepts from, the one thing he didn't have that we do have is the gospels. All the gospels were written after Paul's death. Paul did know the stories of Christ's resurrection from the apostles and from other eye-witnesses. When Paul describes what the resurrection body will be like (1 Cor. 15:35-56), the resurrected body of Christ is his exemplar. This too, to my mind, is a brilliant interpretive move.
Whether you believe in the resurrection of the body or not, I hope you can see the brilliance of Paul in combining these elements into a single coherent schema in 1 Cor. 15. Paul did not invent any of this. What he did was to put it all together.
Faithfully,
Christian
Belief in the resurrection of the body was prevalent in Judaism during Paul's time. Not all Jews believed it. The Sadducees did not. The Pharisees did. The idea occurs twice in the latter parts of the Old Testament, in Isaiah 26:19 and Daniel 12:1-2. The book of Daniel begins to talk about the end of time at Dan. 11:40. Then at the beginning of chapter 12 we find, "But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book. Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt." Between the time Daniel was written (164 BC) and the time of Paul's writings (50-62 AD), about 40 Jewish apocalypses were written. We have most of them. Several refer to the resurrection of the body on the last day. Both Jesus and Paul knew the concept well.
Paul's genius was to make one big interpretive move. He plugged the resurrection of Jesus into a larger understanding of what we could label as resurrection history. Christ was the "first-fruits" of the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:20). His resurrection had already happened. The final resurrection of all the dead lay in the future. Paul (and we) are in between. In his earlier writings (1 Thessalonians, 1 Cor.), Paul thinks that Christ's return and the resurrection of all the dead will occur soon, in his own lifetime. In his later writings, Paul seems to realize that it may not occur in his lifetime. Paul lays out his schema of resurrection history in 1 Cor. 15:20-28. Here's a brief resurrection diagram:
Christ--the first fruits (already happened)
Coming again of Christ (future)
Resurrection of the dead (future)
Reign of Christ on earth (future)
Subjection of all things to God (future)
God becomes "all in all" (future)
Although Paul had a wealth of Jewish literature to draw his concepts from, the one thing he didn't have that we do have is the gospels. All the gospels were written after Paul's death. Paul did know the stories of Christ's resurrection from the apostles and from other eye-witnesses. When Paul describes what the resurrection body will be like (1 Cor. 15:35-56), the resurrected body of Christ is his exemplar. This too, to my mind, is a brilliant interpretive move.
Whether you believe in the resurrection of the body or not, I hope you can see the brilliance of Paul in combining these elements into a single coherent schema in 1 Cor. 15. Paul did not invent any of this. What he did was to put it all together.
Faithfully,
Christian
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