Category: Resurrection

What’s A Body To Do?

If matter matters, what about my body? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Last time, we talked about the existence of matter itself and how the resurrection makes a difference. Recently, I had Jehovah’s Witnesses at my door as you can read about in a recent post. One statement that they made was that Jesus laid down his body. Why would he pick it up again?

Well why wouldn’t he?

What we are told is that our resurrection will be like that of Jesus’s and if we will rise again bodily, then that means that Jesus rose again bodily. Now I was told “Why couldn’t it not be instead like that of Lazarus?” Why? Because the Scriptures do not say we rise like Lazarus, but that we rise like Jesus. We rise in a body that is immortal and will not die again. Lazarus rose only to die again.

Now some of us might think that 1 Cor. 15 rules against that since it contrasts between the physical body and the spiritual body. It really doesn’t. Even a skeptical NT scholar like Dale Martin says that to think of the translation as physical is really a bad one. The better idea is to think of the force that dominates. Is it going to be the desires of the flesh that dominates or is it going to be the power of the Spirit that dominates?

What about flesh and blood? Quite likely, this is an idiom that refers to perishable sinful nature. This means our bodies as we have them now are unfit for Heaven, but it does not follow from that that all bodies are unfit for Heaven.

So what does this mean for us overall? Let’s suppose that we go on from here and assume that this is a physical body that is rising up. What does this say about our bodies right now?

When Jesus rose again, the idea was that the body was something that you would want to escape. It was a prison. Hence, some Gnostic cults were against sexual activity. After all, why imprison another soul in a body? In a culture that was like this, the resurrection would have been seen as nonsensical. Why on Earth would someone want to live again in their body? The body was meant to be temporal. To be set free from the body was the ultimate healing. At the end of Plato’s “Phaedo”, Socrates orders an offering to be given to Asclepius. Why? Asclepius was a Greek god of healing and Socrates was experiencing death, release from the body, the ultimate healing.

The Christians did not see it that way because Jesus rose in the body. That meant ipso facto that the body was a good thing. God was not going to allow death to have a victory over the human body and He had set about a way to make sure that death would not spell the end. Indeed, someone who is without a body is compared in Scripture to someone who is naked. (2 Cor. 5) We are not angels. We are meant to be bodied. (Yes. When you have a Christian loved one die, God does not get another angel. You will never be an angel, and that is just fine.)

This then means that like the environment, what you do with your body matters. For instance, before my marriage, as an Aspie, I had a very limited diet. Now in a sense, it still is of course, but it has expanded as I’m wanting to be one who leads my family for a long time. In the past before the marriage, it was pizza every night. Some of you might wonder about my being overweight with that. The reality is I eat less overall and tend to be active. I weigh about 120.

We do not treat our body lightly for the same reason we do not neglect the environment. I do realize I still have a way to go, but we are all on the path of sanctification. Not all of us are health guru types. Our body is not just excess baggage for us. It is an important aspect of who we are. It is not an accident that we live in a body. We are meant to experience the world as bodied creatures.

Christians are unique in that we are believers of resurrection to a bodied life. We believe that this body is good and that God will raise it up again, which is one reason we bury our dead. Of course, God is capable of re-creating bodies, so that someone who dies in an animal attack and gets their body ground up, or in an explosion or something of that sort, can be resurrected. That is no problem. It does not mean the matter will have to be identical either. Not all our questions are answered explicitly in Scripture, but we know that it is not beyond the power of God.

Since our bodies matter, does that have any impact on ethics? There are such in the Pauline epistles, but we will discuss that next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Matter Matters

So does it matter what we think about matter? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

We’ve been doing a study on the difference that the resurrection of Christ makes. Note that in this study I am assuming that the resurrection is true. There are other times that I have answered the question of the resurrection, but for now, rather than give an apologetic, it is simply to point out that there is much more that the resurrection means for us than what we take from it. It certainly means we are forgiven and have eternal life, but we are missing far more than we realize with our approach to the resurrection.

In the Greek world, there was already growing a movement against matter that later comes out more in the Gnostic heresy. From a Platonic perspective, this world was the world of change and the good and perfect world was the unchanging world of the forms. For the Gnostics, matter was a creation of an evil god and it was the role of Jesus to free us from the material world and take us to our real dwellings.

Thankfully, we are past this in the church today. We never have any ideas in the church that the world is going to go away and that we’ll all live forever in an immaterial Heaven. Oh? You mean we still have that kind of belief. Of course, most Christians would realize that we are in Heaven bodily after the resurrection, but many times that line is blurred. I think of the time I heard a pastor speaking at a sermon about a friend who had died and how the next day, he knew his friend was walking on those streets of gold.

Now we can quibble about how we will interpret the description in Heaven in Revelation and if it’s literal or not. (I say not) However, the point to make is that his friend was not walking on those streets of gold if they were real. Why? It is because the body of his friend was still in the ground and until the resurrection took place, his body would remain in the ground. I advise pastors doing a funeral to simply say that the Christian who has died is in the presence of Jesus. Don’t talk about the body being up there. It is not and will not be until the final resurrection.

What we need to realize is that in the resurrection, we get the realization coming in that the creation of the world was not an accident. It was not a plan B. It was not that God’s angelic world didn’t hold up since the devil rebelled so he figured he’d just try with another world altogether. No. This world was part of the plan all along. In fact, it would seem odd for God to create a world of even less perfect creatures than the angels and say “Maybe they’ll do better.”

My wife happens to be a great lover of nature and she is right when she tells me that it is a shame that the New Age movement outdoes us it seems in environmentalism. Christians can too often write off proper care for the environment. Now I am not in any way saying to go out and be a tree hugger or join PETA or something of that sort. I happen to think man is to be in charge of the environment and master and use it, but he is also to have a respect for it as the creation of God.

When we do our environmental duty, perhaps we could go out singing the hymn of “This Is My Father’s World.” It is created for us to use, but not to abuse. We are the caretakers of the creation acting on the behalf of God. It is certainly the case that while we do not worship the creation, we should be the ones doing such a job taking care of it that we put the New Age movement to shame. It is not a sin for the Christian to love the world God created. In fact, I would say it is a sin for him to not do so.

When God resurrects Jesus from the dead, we find that He is really saying that the other side is wrong. This is a good world. It is a good world because Christ rose in a material body. Does the fact that He rose in a body say anything about our bodies? We’ll save that for next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Jesus Was Right

Jesus made some strange claims. What to make of them? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

We’re looking at the topic of the resurrection now and what difference it makes. We’ve made the point in our introduction that there is something different about the resurrection of Jesus. If all we had was the resurrection of Lazarus, well that would be nice, but we would not have a new religion. We have one because Jesus rose again. For many Christians, the resurrection is a demonstration of the deity of Christ, but is that all? Even if it is, how does that work?

Throughout the gospels, one finds Jesus making great claims about Himself. There will not be an exhaustive list here, but He claims to have the power to forgive sin, He claims to be Lord of the Sabbath, He claims that your response to Him will be what determines your final destiny, He interprets the Law of Moses by His own authority, and claims to have a unique relationship to YHWH unlike anyone else. Jesus was not explicit with His claims in a modern sense, but His claims were easily understood by His audience.

It was these claims along with actions like the cleansing of the temple that led to the crucifixion of Jesus. Let’s pause to see what the crucifixion in itself would say about Jesus. To the Roman world, it would say that Jesus was someone who was opposed to Caesar and died for it. For the Jewish world, it would mean that Jesus was one who was opposed to YHWH and died as a blasphemer to Him. Thus, Jesus was wrong whichever way He turned. He could not please the Romans and He could not please the Jews.

Did God agree with that decision?

The resurrection is God’s way of saying “No!” It is giving the stamp of approval to the life of Jesus. In resurrecting His Son from the dead, God showed that Jesus was truly who He claimed to be and He has the authority to make those kinds of judgments. Now we will get later on in another post as to the kind of body Jesus rose in and what a difference that makes, but for now, let it just be stressed that the act of resurrecting Jesus was a reversal of the claims of His opponents. In biblical language, God vindicated Jesus.

What this means for us today is that the claims of Jesus are to be taken with an emphatic seriousness. In no other person has God spoken in such a way and to such great claims. He was not, to use the trilemma, someone who was insane or someone who was the devil out of Hell. He really was and is the rightful king of this world.

What has this to do with deity? It means that Jesus’s claim to have that authority in Himself is backed. Now I do believe it is a mistake to go to the gospels thinking that these were only written to show that God walked among us. They do show that, but they also show more than that and we dare not miss out on the whole because we are fixated with a part. We know that God has acted in Jesus by the resurrection as in resurrecting Jesus, God also upholds His own honor. God sees someone speaking with this kind of authority and says “Yes. That one is right. He speaks for me.” This is not something adoptionist by the way for those who are concerned. This is just recognition. Jesus speaks for God perfectly because He only perfectly embodies the nature of God.

We can often spend so much time looking at the deity of Jesus that we can miss the message of Jesus and realize that that message is right. The first lesson we need to learn then is that Jesus was, nay, IS right.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Why The Resurrection Matters

Jesus rose from the dead. So what? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

We Christians do know, supposedly, that the resurrection is the most awesome event ever. It is the event that changed the world. If I ever say Jesus’s resurrection turned the world upside-down, my Mrs. is always quick to remind me of what I really mean to say as I’ve told her before. It did not turn it upside-down. It turned it right-side up. Christians will happily go to church on Easter and you will hear “He is risen! He is risen indeed!”

But then comes the time when you ask why it matters so much. So Jesus came and died and rose again. What does that have to do with anything? We believe that Lazarus was resurrected as well, but yet you do not hear anything about celebrating Lazarus day in the church. We frankly don’t know what day it took place on. Throughout the Bible we can find occasional resurrections taking place, but only Christ’s is celebrated. Why? Is it just because we like Him more?

The most common answer we can get is that because Jesus rose from the dead, we can be forgiven of our sins. Yes. This is true, but again, is that it? Now don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that that is a small part of the matter. Forgiveness of sins is a huge deal and it is something we should all be thankful for and frankly, if that was all that it established, then that would be reason enough to celebrate.

Yet what if we’re throwing a party for the good news when we do not have all of the good news? What if there is even more that we can tell people in our evangelism? What if in fact we can find that the resurrection makes a difference in how we approach our lives entirely? What if it means something not just for us as individual Christians but rather means something on a grander and universal scale?

Keep in mind in all of this writing that I plan to do on the resurrection, I am not going to be giving a defense of the resurrection. That is important to do. I have done it before as well. There are numerous books out there that you can get to get a defense of the resurrection. The problem is most of us get to the point of establishing the resurrection if we are apologists and then it’s “Christianity is true,” and we move on from there. Yes. Christianity is true then, but then what is it that Christianity is saying that is true?

So in all of this, I am going to be for the sake of argument assuming the resurrection to be true. I want to write to the Christian in the pew who believes the resurrection and then say “Now here is what this means to you.” It is my sincere hope that as we look at various topics, we will transcend what we have earlier said about Christianity. We are not going to forsake that, but we are going to past it. The resurrection of Jesus means Christianity is true and that we are forgiven, but it also means more than that, and if we can grasp this, and this includes myself, how much better could our lives be?

Barring nothing else coming up, I hope that the next blog post will really start to dig into some of the ways the resurrection changes reality. I hope you’ll come along for the journey.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

A Response To The Resurrection Hoax

Does Kareem have a case? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

On a Facebook thread I’m in, someone presented the thesis that the resurrection is a hoax with a link by an Abdullah Kareen of Answering Christianity. I will include a link at the bottom of this post for all interested in reading. For now, just how strong is the case?

Well, not too strong.

“The resurrection of Jesus is a hoax because Mark, the earliest gospel, never contained the story.”

This is how it begins, in other words, with a train wreck. Kareem seems unaware that the case for the resurrection today does not rely on the gospels but rather relies on 1 Corinthians and Galatians. Still, does the book of Mark contain no resurrection? Well, not exactly. We agree with Kareem that the ending of Mark is most likely added on. We also see that as irrelevant to our case. Let’s look elsewhere in Mark.

For instance, Mark 9:9 says:

“As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.”

Mark 14:28

“But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.”

Mark has hints throughout the book about what is happening towards the end. The book is very fast-paced as indicated by the use of “immediately” throughout. Mark has identified the book as good news at the beginning and identified Jesus as the Son of God. He would not end the story then having Jesus being dead in the tomb and not even vindicated. Instead, Mark 16 has Jesus being risen. The women leave in awe and this is typical of Mark. Mark is meant to grip awe into you with the wonder about what happened next. Readers have enough information to know. That this gospel is written and ends there is to say that the story of Jesus has not ended.

Even if we did not have the gospel of Mark, it would not show the resurrection is a hoax. In fact, even if we knew the resurrection was false, that would not show it to be a hoax. A hoax is a plot done by someone or some group of people with the intention to deceive. That does not follow from Mark being wrong if he was. For instance, suppose Crossan is right and Jesus’s body was thrown to dogs. There was no intent to deceive. Then the disciples get the idea of vindication and get so excited they delude themselves into thinking resurrection. Now this didn’t happen, but in any case, it would involve no hoax and it would still involve Mark being wrong.

Going back to Kareem.

“The “resurrection” passages were later added to Mark, and his gospel was changed by Matthew and Luke, the Gospel writers are anonymous. It was necessary for Matthew and Luke to change Mark according to their own understanding, they also relied upon the Q source. Regarding the Gospel of John, it’s completely different and draws upon ambiguous sources.”

Scholars today also know Matthew and Luke used other sources even if they did use Mark and even if they did use a Q source. For someone making a deal about there being no manuscript evidence of an ending to Mark at the time, there is ZERO manuscript evidence for Q. There has not been one Q document found. It is a hypothetical source. That does not mean it is false, but it means that Kareem is changing the standards in one paragraph.

Note also he has not shown that Matthew and Luke are false. Matthew and Luke when they do not copy Mark are seen to be independent sources. Kareem needs to deal with them on their own standards.

Furthermore, the point about the gospels being anonymous is a red herring. Many works in the ancient world were anonymous, but usually the deliverer of the work would know who wrote it, notably with something like a seal on the manuscript itself. Scholars who do not believe the gospels are by the people we normally say they are do not dispense of them as quickly as Kareem does and even still recognize much historically valid information. Those interested in a defense of the authorship of the gospels are recommended to check books on the New Testament or individual commentaries on the gospels.

“A central working hypothesis of this book and one of the most widely held findings in modem New Testament study is that Mark was the first canonical Gospel to be composed and that the authors of Matthew and Luke (and possibly John) used Mark’s Gospel as a written source. (Randal Helms, Gospel Fictions, p. 23)”

Randal Helms is not a figure that is taken seriously in scholarship by liberals or conservatives. Helms is an English Professor. He is not a bible scholar. I could find a number of scholars, liberal or conservative, Christian or non, who would give this evidence. Why go with Helms? This tells us much about Kareem’s methodology.

Kareem goes on.

“Mark was the first writer to record the crucifixion, yet he was NOT an eye-witness!

“The author of Mark, the earliest of the narrative gospels, was not an eyewitness: he is reporting information conveyed to him by a third person or persons, who themselves were quite possible not eye-witnesses” (Robert Walter Funk, The Jesus Seminar: The Acts of Jesus, p. 4)”

Yes. Mark was likely not an eyewitness. So what? That means you could only write history on events you had seen? If that is the case, there can be no valid Civil War histories today. We would have to eliminate all of Plutarch’s writings as well. It is interesting to see a Muslim say this since the first biographies of Muhammad came well after he had died. Kareem assumes that if you did not see it, you would have no way of gaining information about it.

This would simply be false. This would be an event everyone would know about and would be part of the oral tradition. This event is recorded by Tacitus as well even referring to Pilate as the one who crucified him. Someone like Crossan even says it is as sure a fact as any in history that Jesus was crucified. I am reading Dale Martin right now, a highly liberal New Testament scholar, who also agrees with this. In fact, on page 186 he says it seems to be historically accurate that he was executed because he said he was the King of the Jews or someone said that he was claiming that.

Also, there is no reason the writers would make up a story about crucifixion. Crucifixion equaled shame in the ancient world. If you could avoid the mention of it, you would. If a story was being made up, it would not be about crucifixion. No one would state that the Messiah had been crucified. He might suffer, but He would not die a shameful death. The Jews and Greeks would not accept that. Not only that, the crucifixion is mentioned in several independent sources and there is no counter-story. We have the crucifixion in all four gospels, in Paul numerous times, and in other NT epistles, as well as sources like Tacitus and others.

Kareem goes on:

“Here is what Christian scholar Mack Burton says:

“There is no reference to Jesus’ death as a crucifixion in the pre-Markan Jesus material” (Who Wrote the New Testament? p. 87)”

There is also no scholar named Mack Burton. There is one named Burton Mack. Such a mistake like this indicates that our reader is not doing much reading. If you are going to cite a source, at least get their name right. Anyway, Mack is correct if talking about Q. There is no resurrection in Q because if Q exists, it is a sayings gospel with no narrative. However, there is a crucifixion in Mark itself and no one I know of says the crucifixion was added into Mark.

We go on:

“This means the Gospel writers fabricated the resurrection story. The legend of Jesus’ “resurrection” developed over a period of time. This explains why Paul, the earliest Christian writer, never records the Gospel version. Paul only says Jesus was “crucified for the sins of mankind” and he “rose from the dead”, which does not explain anything.”

If anything, it would mean they fabricated the crucifixion story, to which there is no basis for thinking that they did so. Paul never records a gospel version of it because first, he is the earliest Christian writer. Second, there was no need to. This was part of the oral tradition that would have already been known and would be useless to share in a high-context society.

The writer has made an assertion and he needs to show it. For the Muslim, the crucifixion did not happen, which leads to the question of “What did?” The earliest Christian creed in 1 Cor. 15 includes the death of Jesus. Was everyone in the world simply wrong that Jesus had died? This stretches incredulity. If he died a non-crucifixion death, there is no motive to turn it into a crucifixion death. It would have only led to shame on the part of the disciples and lowered the gospel movement.

Kareem goes on:

“Paul asserts that Jesus was crucified, yet he fails to mention any details which would later be recorded in the gospels.

We must keep in mind that Paul knew nothing of an event called the ascension that was separate or different from Jesus’ resurrection. Paul’s writings contain no hint of the two-stage process that would develop later, where resurrection brought Jesus from the grave back to life and ascension then took Jesus from earth to heaven. Paul’s proclamation was that God had raised Jesus into God’s very life. That was Easter for Paul. For Paul there were no empty tombs, no disappearance from the grave of the physical body, no physical resurrection, no physical appearances of a Christ who would eat fish, offer his wounds for inspection, or rise physically into the sky after an appropriate length of time. None of these ideas can be found in reading Paul. For Paul the body of Jesus who died was perishable, weak, physical. The Jesus who was raised was clothed by the raising God with a body fit for God’s kingdom. It was imperishable, glorified, and spiritual. (John Shelby Spong, Resurrection: Myth or Reality, p. 241) ”

Reply: This is simply false and again, bad sourcing. Spong is not a biblical scholar either. There are several scholars who would say such things, and Kareem should have checked some of those. At any rate, Paul does have Jesus being dead, buried, and raised. This would to a Jew imply an empty tomb since a resurrection that left a body in the tomb would have been nonsensical. To say Jesus was absorbed into God’s life would not explain the empty tomb nor would it explain the appearances to the disciples. Keep in mind this writer has not dealt with any positive evidence for the resurrection thus far. All we have is an argument from silence.

Still, it gets worse.

“The most striking feature of the early documents is that they do not set Jesus’ life in a specific historical situation. There is no Galilean ministry, and there are no parables, no miracles, no Passion in Jerusalem, no indication of time, place of attendant circumstances at all. The words Calvary, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Galilee never appear in the early epistles, and the word Jerusalem is never used there in connection with Jesus (Doherty, pp. 68, 73). Instead, Jesus figures as a basically supernatural personage who took the “likeness” of man, “emptied” then of his supernatural powers Phil 2:7. (G.A. Wells, Can We Trust the New Testament? p. 3) ”

Wells is a Christ-myther who I understand has now said it might be possible that someone named Jesus existed. The Christ-myth theory is not treated seriously by NT scholars, and this is from all sides of the field. Again, this is simply an argument from silence.

Kareem continues:

“Paul’s account of Jesus’ resurrection contradicts the Gospels:

The first thing we need to force into our minds is that when Paul wrote these words, there were no such things as written Gospels. This means that the accounts of Jesus’ resurrection so familiar to us, as told by these Gospel writers, were by and large unknown to Paul and to Paul’s readers (Resurrection: Myth or Reality?, p. 48)

For Paul there were no empty tombs, no disappearance from the grave of the physical body, no physical resurrection, no physical appearances of a Christ who would eat fish, offer his wounds for inspection, or rise physically into the sky after an appropriate length of time. None of these ideas can be found in reading Paul. For Paul the body of Jesus who died was perishable, weak, physical. The Jesus who was raised was clothed by the raising God with a body fit for God’s kingdom. It was imperishable, glorified, and spiritual. (ibid, p. 241)”

If they contradicted the gospels we would say, so what? We don’t need the gospels to demonstrate the resurrection. Also, inerrancy is not essential for demonstrating the resurrection. Paul does say the body raised is spiritual, but what does that mean? Paul also says the spiritual man judges all things, but that does not mean the immaterial man. This is simply a bad translation here. See Dale Martin on page 219 of “New Testament History and Literature.” He states:

“Paul is not making a distinction of material versus immaterial here, but one between a body that is “merely alive,” that is, in a normal, “natural” state, and a body that has been miraculously transformed into one entirely composed of the material of pneuma.”

My stance would be it gets its power from the pneuma, but the idea of the body being immaterial is not accepted even by Martin.

Kareem goes on:

“If Paul is the first writer, then he must be relaying the earliest tradition, yet the Gospels, written many decades later, record an entirely different story. This certainly proves that the resurrection was fabricated in the oral tradition, because there’s not a single reference to the resurrection by historians like Philo Judaeus, and the testimony of Josephus is wholly agreed to be a forgery.”

Kareem states the gospels are many decades earlier, but does not support them. What does many mean? Is three or four if that many? Also, why would the other writers mention a resurrection? Philo would not mention it since likely he was not in Judea at the time and if at a distance would have regarded it as a myth. Josephus does not mention it because he does not believe it. However, Kareem is simply wrong that Josephus’s passage is wholly agreed to be a forgery. It is wholly agreed that parts of it are forged, but this also means that it is wholly agreed that parts of it are not. You will have to search for a long time to find a scholar who says that it is a total forgery. The only ones who really think that are the Christ-mythers.

He then goes to the 1 Cor. 15:3-9 passage with a number of problems.

First, he says there is no third day prophecy in the Scripture. This however assumes a sort of chapter and verse approach. Paul does not have that. N.T. Wright has written that Paul would have been saying that the message that Christ would rise is that which is taught in the Scripture. It was the idea one would draw out based on an understanding of the Scripture before even if there is no chapter and verse. It is what we would call a systematic doctrine.

The second is that there is no evidence that 500 people saw Jesus.

Actually, there is. It’s this very creed. This was an oral tradition that was shared amongst the first Christians from early on. It is too early for legend to develop and would not have been sent around if this event did not have some backing. Furthermore, Paul even knows some of these as if to say “Go ahead. They will tell you.”

The next is that the account says Jesus first appeared to Peter when the gospels say he first appeared to women.

Actually, it doesn’t say that. It says he appeared to Peter. The word “first” is not in there. The word of women was not acceptable as testimony in the early world. It would have damaged the creed and was non-essential. Note also if the account contradicted the gospels, again, so what?

Next, Peter disbelieved that Jesus was alive. (Resurrected)

We are not told where this is or what difference it makes since until he saw Jesus alive, this is quite likely true. So what? He changed his mind upon evidence.

Next is that we are told that Judas did not hang himself.

No. The reference to the twelve is a placeholder as it were. It was a name used to signify the apostles of the hold. We can speak of the Big Ten conference today in football, but there are no longer ten teams. The twelve just became a generic reference to the apostles.

Finally, Paul is said to describe the body as spiritual when the gospels say it was physical. This has already been dealt with.

Kareem goes on:

“Mark does not have the resurrection:

All things considered, then, Mark does not begin his story of Jesus very satisfactorily. Indeed, within two or three decades of Mark’s completion, there were at least two, and perhaps three, different writers (or Christian groups) who felt the need to produce an expanded and corrected version. Viewed from their perspective, the Gospel of Mark has some major shortcomings: It contains no birth narrative; it implies that Jesus, a repentant sinner, became the Son of God only at his baptism; it recounts no resurrection appearances; and it ends with the very unsatisfactory notion that the women who found the Empty Tomb were too afraid to speak to anyone about it. (Randal Helms, Gospel Fictions, p. 34)”

Obviously, the women were not too afraid since the story spread somehow! In all of this, this is simply a critique of Mark’s style. It does not prove him false. Furthermore, once again, we do not need the gospels to make our case. Once again also, this is Helms speaking, not a Bible scholar.

But if his sourcing was bad before, it’s getting worse.

“Almost all contemporary New Testament textual critics have concluded that neither the longer or shorter endings were originally part of Mark’s Gospel, though the evidence of the early church fathers above shows that the longer ending had become accepted tradition. The United Bible Societies’ 4th edition of the Greek New Testament (1993) rates the omission of verses 9-20 from the original Markan manuscript as “certain.” For this reason, many modern Bibles decline to print the longer ending of Mark together with the rest of the gospel, but, because of its historical importance and prominence, it is often included as a footnote or an appendix alongside the shorter ending.”

His source?

Wikipedia.

I kid you not.

Nevertheless, this is stuff that is irrelevant to our discussion. Kareem seems to like to keep repeating this over and over as if he’s saying something. My response is “I agree. So what?”

We shall ignore other such references from now on.

He goes on:

“The Gospels are clear that no one witnessed Jesus’ resurrection. It was seen by NO ONE.

Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen. (Mark 16:14)

It was Mary Magdalene and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles. And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not. (Luke 24:10-11)”

If he means no one saw the resurrection itself, we agree. However, it is agreed by scholars that the apostles did claim to see the risen Christ. It is difficult to find one who disagrees with this. Now if you see someone die, and then you see them alive again and the tomb being empty and we would add healed from a crucifixion that would rip the skin off of someone, then you can make the inference that a resurrection has taken place.

We are then told about a list of writers who never mentioned the resurrection. After each will be a comment, with my thanks to J.P. Holding of Tektonics who has done much looking at this list. A link will be at the end.

Philo-Judaeus

Philo has already been dealt with.

Martial

He wrote poetry and satire. He was not a historian and would not have a need to mention the resurrection.

Arrian

He was second century. His focus was Alexander the Great. No need to mention Jesus.

Appian

He wrote about Roman armies. Why would he need to mention Jesus?

Theon of Smyrna

He was a mathematician and astronomer. Why should he mention Jesus?

Lucanus

He wrote one poem and some books about the tension between Pompey and Caesar. Why should he mention Jesus?

Aulus Gellius

He wrote on laws and antiquities. No need to mention Jesus.

Seneca

Seneca could have mentioned him, but he was also a Roman who would not have held the Jews in high regard and likely would have dismissed the accounts of a resurrection as superstitious nonsense.

Plutarch

The same applies to Plutarch. The Jews were not looked on highly by him so he would not have wanted to highlight them. He was more interested in Greek and Roman lives.

Apollonius

Apollonius was a supposed second-century miracle worker. He did not write anything.

Epictetus

His sayings were written by another and while he could have mentioned Jesus, there would be no need to. It would not be relevant to Epictetus’s teachings.

Silius Italicus

He wrote a poem about the second Punic war. Why mention Jesus?

Ptolemy

An astronomer. No need to mention Jesus.

Note listing the people who did not talk about something does not deal with those who did.

In all of this, Kareem does not deal with cases put forward by scholars today. You do not see interaction with a Habermas or Licona that presents their case and why they are wrong. There is no dealing with the appearances. There is no dealing with the conversion of James and Paul. In other words, Kareem never even deals with the evidence.

Furthermore, he gives no motive for a hoax. The apostles would have gained shame for their stance. There was no power or wealth to gain for them. In every Messiah movement, when the Messiah died, so did the movement. Somehow, it was different for Jesus. Why?

Kareem has a long way to go to answer such questions. He is free to come here and defend his thesis if he so wants. Of course, he can also go to TheologyWeb.com and debate on the resurrection there in the Deeper Waters section with me.

In Christ,
Nick Peters.

Kareem’s article can be found here.

J.P. Holding’s look at the list can be found here.

Creation and Easter Saturday

What is it like in the in-between time? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

If there’s something that can often frighten us, it’s the future. In fact, everything we fear is in some way future-based. We fear what will happen if X is true. If we have a disease, we fear for our future. If we are going to a job interview, we fear whether we will get the job or not. The future is the big unknown.

The in-between time between what we have anxiety about and where we are can be a difficult time. I, like many young men, was quite nervous the day before my wedding and I am sure I only got one hour of sleep that night. There’s also a picture of my bride before the wedding downing a 5-hour energy drink. I believe she had a similar problem. It was a really big step and we were both nervous. The unknown was looming ahead.

Before we moved to Knoxville, I was quite nervous. I didn’t know what was going to happen and in my mind, I was undergoing all the disaster scenarios. As we’ve got here, I’ve found out that most of those have not happened. Of course, I still have some anxiety, mainly over how are we going to pay all those bills that keep coming in?

We can often think of the unknown from the perspective of the apostles. There their leader had been crucified and who was going to be next in line? They would. They were hiding out away from the danger. There was no desire any more to be identified with Jesus.

That’s a fascinating topic and something to look on and indeed, I have looked on it before. However, let us suppose that we were to personify the creation and look at it the way it is presented in Romans 8:18-27. What would it mean to the creation when it looks at the death of Jesus supposing that somehow it could know what was coming?

Romans 8 tells us that creation does look forward to being set free from bondage. Israel already knew they were in bondage. They had been in slavery in Egypt and here after their captivity, they were still in bondage in that the rule had not been restored to Israel and the pagans were the ones in charge.

Israel’s problem was that for a number of them, they were looking at only themselves. Did God plan to set free Israel? Of course. He was not thinking of doing it however in conquering Rome. There was a greater power that held Israel bondage and that was the power of sin.

This power held the world in bondage. Indeed, it held creation in bondage. The accuser had done his work and Jesus throughout His ministry showed that He was going on a battle against the devil and was going to defeat Him and bring about the Kingdom of God.

Creation watches on Easter Saturday then and sees the Son of God in the tomb but realizes that surely the journey is not coming to an end. Surely at this point in the story there will not be a let-down. The very Son of God has come down. Is that the way it’s going to end?

We today are in a similar position, though afterwards. We have seen the resurrection and as we live, the story is going on, but there is a part of us that says “This story is reaching its conclusion isn’t it?” We do await the return of our Lord and the resurrection when evil will be totally removed from the world. Creation itself waits and while there is rejoicing that Christ rose, we rejoice not just because of what happened in the past, but because of what we know is to come in the future.

When we celebrate Easter tomorrow, let us remember that we are not just celebrating that Christ rose and we shall be with Him. We are celebrating that the Kingdom has come and that Christ is Lord and He has demonstrated that by rising from the dead. We are looking forward to the final fruition of the Kingdom on Earth and living our lives aware that the King is going to return someday. We are seeking to be found to be good servants for when He returns.

Easter is a time to celebrate indeed, but let us not forget we celebrate not just for a past reason, but a future one too.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Good Friday

What does this day really mean? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

My wife and I lately have been watching biblical movies on the Gospel Music Channel. I don’t really care for Gospel Music any more, and frankly I don’t care for much Contemporary Christian Music either, but by and large I find the movies can give an interesting look, though I regularly do state that a lot of liberties are being taken with the text.

The great danger that can happen with the movies is often we will see something like Moses parting the Red Sea and think “Wow! Isn’t that fascinating!” and go on our way. We can think it an act of special effects much like the X-Men or Iron Man performing an action. The film crew makes it look so real that we do in fact often lose sight of the fact that it is real.

If we watch a movie like “The Passion of the Christ” we can often forget that what we are watching is in fact history. This really happened. When we see something on TV, it often does not impress on us the way that it really should. For an example of this, which do you think would be more striking in your mind. Seeing 9-11 happen on television or if you had been in New York City and saw it happen yourself?

Our images we have of the crucifixion cannot do it justice. I recall being in a chat room on AOL when the Passion was about to come out and some one came in who was saying they were upset because they made the crucifixion so graphic. (Apparently, they saw a preview of the film) I replied that in reality, they could not show the crucifixion the way it really was. This person was astounded and in disbelief.

We often see Jesus on the cross and the skin is still well intact on His body. It would not have been so in reality. Chances are you would have very easily seen the internal organs of our Lord. It would have been a sight that would have made the bloodiest horror film of our day receive only a G rating in comparison. This was an action so vile most in society would dare not even mention its name. It was the most shameful act that could be done to someone who opposed the Roman Empire.

And yet, we call today “Good Friday?” One can think of the small child immediately who would ask “Why would you say the day Jesus died is good?”

The child is entirely right to ask the question. The sad reality is that the adult usually doesn’t bother. In our society, we have our holidays mixed up. People start shopping months in advance for Christmas. We have Christmas music and Christmas stores and Christmas vacations and people going back and forth from state to state to celebrate Christmas.

On Easter, we have very little. There is little exchange of gifts and Easter vacations are not common.

Biblically however, Easter is the most important of the holidays. Of course, you could not have Easter without Christmas, but if all we had was the birth of Jesus and no resurrection, we would not even be celebrating the birth of Jesus at all. It would have been a failure. Chances are, no one today would know who Jesus was if He had not risen from the dead.

We must look at who Jesus was in His time. I will not argue for this now as other blogs of mine have done such, but Jesus was the divine incarnation of God Himself living amongst us and bringing about the Kingdom. He was the Messiah sent to redeem the world from what had happened to it and restore it to the Father.

Now when we see Jesus in this way, we can only see the crucifixion in one of two ways which makes Jesus so extraordinary. The first way is that Jesus was a wicked blasphemer and as C.S. Lewis would say, the very devil out of hell. If that was the case, then the crucifixion was the most righteous act of all that put to death the most wicked man who ever lived.

Suppose instead we orthodox Christians are right. Jesus was the second person of the Trinity visiting His people. The people He came to did not receive Him and instead crucified Him. If that is the case, then the crucifixion was the most wicked act of all that put to death the most righteous man who ever lived.

Of course, Christians hold to the latter. Why do we call this Good Friday then? Because we know this is when Christ began dealing the death blow to the powers that be. Paul says this in Colossians 2. The powers did not shame Jesus on the cross and make a spectacle of Him. Instead, He shamed them on the cross and made a spectacle of them.

This good Friday period ends with the resurrection, but right now, we are at the turning point in the story that has been being built for us from the Old Testament. History is going somewhere and right now, it is going upwards because Christ has risen and He is taking creation with Him to reach that fullness. Good Friday is the start and throughout this weekend, we will see how it ends.

Resurrection: Trash Talk

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! Lately, we’ve been looking at the doctrine of the resurrection. I stated that this came after doing the funeral service of my grandmother. We’ve talked a lot about what the doctrine is, but what does the doctrine mean?

Let’s look again at 1 Cor. 15 and go to verse 55.

“Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”

We can say that this is beautiful poetry and it likely is, but there is something else going on here. Paul is doing what your mother told you to not do. (However, it doesn’t stop me from doing it in gaming battles with my friends.) He’s trash-talking death. He’s making fun of it.

Why is he doing this? This is the difference that resurrection makes and again, I return you to my funeral message.

When my grandmother died, the story did not end there if the resurrection is true. The story has for us a little interruption. For her, it is going on now, although that is not going on bodily and that is something we must keep in mind. We cannot say my grandmother is living in a new and glorified body now. That is promised at the final resurrection at the physical return of Christ.

Death does not have the last laugh. Rather than separating us from God forever, death actually brings us closer to God when we are in Christ. Since Christ is the one who conquered death, we by being found in Him take part in that victory as well. For a parallel, when a sporting team wins an event like the World Series or the Super Bowl, the whole town celebrates as if every person in the town played in the game and won it. They consider themselves the winners because those who were their representatives as it were, won.

When death comes, we should indeed mourn that the loved one has passed, just as I mourned the death of my grandmother, but we are not to mourn like those who have no hope, as 1 Thess. 4 says. We do not say we do not ever see them again. We say “Until we meet again.”

Let us celebrate the life of the one who lived as surely they would want us to do such. What we mourn is not that the person has died per se. We mourn in no way for the person. We mourn for the current end to our interaction with that person. After all, what have we to feel sorry for someone who is in the presence of God at this time? What we are saddened for is that this person was so special to us and we can no longer interact with them. (Indeed, I still see my grandmother on my phone number list and sometimes wish I could talk to her about what’s going on in my life.)

Also, the closer you are to the person, the more you will mourn. Our sadness when the loved one dies is that we are grieving what we have lost and as much as we have a relationship with that person, we mourn. Note also that part of this will be based on our own temperament and we do all mourn in different ways.

My grandmother’s life was not a waste, just as the life of your loved one in Christ, but if someone wants to treat it like a waste, do not live your life better in any way. Do not have an appreciation for the good things in life that they would want you to have. Do not seek to live a more holy life as you celebrate the good life that this person lived. Do not change your life in any way. If you do not do that, then while that person’s life was not a waste, you will be treating it as a waste.

Mourn, but also celebrate. Death is conquered. The story is not over. Rejoice in that. Just as I shall see my grandmother again someday, you shall see your loved one again someday, and that meeting will never end.

Rejoice!

Resurrection: Flesh and Blood

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! We’ve been looking lately at the doctrine of the resurrection. We established some historical bedrock upon which we can say the resurrection is true. Now, we’ve been going through the rest of 1 Corinthians 15 to see what else we can learn about the resurrection. Tonight, we’re going to look at the topic of flesh and blood.

When we get to verse 50, we are told that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. What does Paul mean by this?

There are other times this phrase is used. Let’s look at the text.

Matthew 16:17

And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

Ephesians 6:12

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Hebrews 2:14

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil,

The first reference would be to contrasting heavenly revelation from earthly revelation. The source of the truth of what Peter believes is not man but God. Of course, we cannot say “You cannot be man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” It would fit in just fine in contrasting an earthly nature with a heavenly one.

The same could go for the Ephesians passage. Our war is not on Earth per se but with heavenly powers. The evils of the world may be represented by those on Earth, but they are not those on Earth. Again, we can say that flesh and blood refers to something of an earthly nature. Of course, we could contrast that what we fight is not of a heavenly nature, but of a hellish one, which would be a fallen heavenly nature.

In the last one, we find that Jesus took on flesh and blood to be like his brothers. It is implied that in doing so, he destroyed the power of death by taking on death. Only one of an earthly nature could die. Again, the idea that we have seen throughout 1 Corinthians 15 fits in.

Repeatedly, we see two different types playing against each other and this is found in the contrast between Adam and Jesus. Adam was earthly and Jesus is heavenly. It is not talking about their make-up but rather where their source of energy is from. The earthly man is from the Earth and desires the things of the Earth. The heavenly man is from the heavens and desires the things of the Heavens.

Thus, there is a strong case against the Jehovah’s Witnesses and others that this passage teachings that we must be immaterial. In fact, we’ve seen throughout our study that nothing there teaches immateriality and better fits with the idea of physicality, such as was the case with Christ’s own physical body.

So what difference does this make?

We’ll see tomorrow.

Resurrection: A Life-Giving Spirit?

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! Tonight, we’re going to be continuing our look at the doctrine of the resurrection. Our focus has been on the fifteenth chapter of Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians and looking at some historical bedrock. We’ve laid out a historical bedrock from which a case can be made for the resurrection and now we’re looking at what that resurrection means.

When we get to verse 45, we find that Paul says that Adam was made a living soul but Christ was made a life-giving spirit. What’s going on here? Are we to believe then that Christ rose as a spirit as the Jehovah’s Witnesses would have us believe and that the resurrection is not physical then?

Not at all. Let’s point out that already we’ve seen abundant evidence that Christ rose physically and that this was in the epistles. We see in the gospels more evidence of this, such as Luke saying that a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.

Now some skeptic of the NT could say that what is going on is that Luke is trying to contrast his Christology from Paul. A Jehovah’s Witness wouldn’t say that, so the technique will still work on them. An atheist would however and so we’re going to have to deal with Paul from Paul, which is just fine. In fact, it’s always the main place to start. Look at the author’s own works as much as possible and let them define their terms.

No one would read the Genesis account and think that Adam was something non-physical. However, note that Adam is a living soul in that account. Are we to assume then that Adam was an immaterial being since we generally do understand souls as referring to something immaterial? Not at all.

What we are to understand about Adam is his being in contrast to the being of Christ. Adam is natural in his nature. He lives in the flesh. Christ on the other hand was raised the way that we are to be raised as we saw yesterday. We are to be raised in physical bodies that are instead powered by the Spirit. Such is the case with the body of Christ.

N.T. Wright and others believe that what is going on is that Paul is contrasting all throughout this chapter the resurrection with what is going on in Genesis 1 and 2. The resurrection is not just a doctrine about the nature of human beings. It’s a nature about the creation entirely. That’s why there’s the passage culminating in verse 28 about the whole of creation being united to God.

If Adam was not created as immaterial however, there is no reason to think Christ was raised immaterial. That is not to say that we deny that there is an immaterial aspect to man. It is saying that one does not arrive at the conclusion from 1 Corinthians 15:45 that Christ did rise only spiritually.

We shall continue tomorrow.