rogereolson says:I’ll allow Austin to respond when he wants to and can. As for my opinion…that’s an essential of Christianity (bodily resurrection of our Lord). But I think a lot of people get “bodily” mixed up with “physical” as if there’s no difference. That was one of Paul’s main points in 1 Cor. 15–that there can be different kinds of bodies and Jesus’ resurrected body was a “spiritual body”–something the Greeks had trouble conceiving of. Apparently many still do have that trouble.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2012/04/certainty-not-a-guest-post/comment-page-1/#comment-28055
Wow wow wow.
ReplyDeleteWhat makes him different than James McGrath, again?
A ghost. Nice. Now we have Christian Halloween.
ReplyDeleteOlsen continues:
ReplyDelete"In other words, the tomb was indeed empty, but Jesus’ resurrection was the resuscitation of a corpse (like Lazarus’). It was a transformation to an entirely new mode of existence."
He isn't talking about a "ghost," but a "more real" body, more deeply participating in the being of God.
I am doing my ThM thesis on Augustine right now, and he taught the exact same thing, and as far as I can tell, so did the Cappadocians. In fact, fairly standard resurrection theology.
Olson sets up a double contrast: (i) he contrasts bodily with physical, (ii) then contrasts physical with spiritual, so that the bodily resurrection of Christ is a nonphysical resurrection.
ReplyDeleteThat's not a "more real" body but a less real body.
I realize that he's not a NT scholar, but if he'd bothered to consult some of the standard exegetical literature, like Wright's monograph on the Resurrection, or Rosner/Ciampa's commentary on 1 Cor, he could easily avoid this bungle.
If he's going to shoot his mouth off about something as fundamental as the Resurrection, he could at least do a modicum of research.
Even if we grant, for the sake of argument, that "more deeply participating in the being of God" makes something "more real," that doesn't make it more really corporeal, for the being of God is incorporeal.
I understand a lot of things. I don't understand the difference between "bodily" and "physical" as Olsen and others use it. It sounds like hand-waving sophistry.
ReplyDeleteBut there must be some reason for the obfuscation. Either they want to deny the resurrection on some level and are trying not to sound like they are or they are invested in some other neo-gnostic take on the resurrection and need to get around what the scripture says on the matter in order to propagate their view. so they kludge together some terms that make it sound like they know what they're talking about. I just don't know what truly motivates such rhetoric.