Discussion
Here's a question open to our readers. What do you think will be the most fruitful part of this dialogue between Joel Marcus and Gary Habermas?
posted by Tom Arthur at 2:16 PM
posted by Tom Arthur at 2:16 PM
3 Comments:
It would be interesting to see them discuss why early converts to Jesus-worship scoffed at the idea that God would choose to raise a corpse from the grave (although they appeared to accept the story of Adam being created from dead matter)
I wonder why Paul never pointed out all the corpses raised from the dead , as recorded in Matthew 27.
He could have rubbed the Corinthians noses in the evidence that God can raise a corpse from the dead.
Instead , he seems to contrast Adam being created from dead matter , with what happened to Jesus.
He tells them 'the last Adam became a life-giving spirit', which use of typology clearly indicates that Paul thought dead Christians would also become 'life-giving spirits' (and incidentally be rescued from their body of death - see Romans 7.
I wonder how anybody persuaded people to become Jesus-worshippers and they still scoffed at the idea of a corpse rising.
What had led them to conversion?
How could that be 'central' to the Christian faith when so many Christians disbelieved it?
Perhaps Habermas will discuss this...
Perhaps the behavior you bring up (i.e. the doubtfulness regarding the Resurrection) is similar to the "spirituality" we see today - that is, people saying "I like what Jesus was teaching, I agree that we should be good and kind to one another, but I don't think he was really God."
Paul goes off on quite a rant earlier in 1 Cor. 15 (your 5th paragraph is from 1 Cor. 15:45) directed to some who claimed to be believers yet didn't believe in the Resurrection.
Do you know many recent converts to Christianity today who deny a bodily resurrection?
Acts 17 supposedly makes clear that people were not converted by accounts of the teaching of Jesus.
What could have persuade people to become Jesus-worshippers and deny that God would choose to raise a corpse from the dead?
Was such a teaching optional for early Christians?
Paul's rant makes clear that he thinks that , although the Corinthians believed Jesus was still alive, their doubts that other people would live after death would lead to the conclusion that their belief in Jesus still being alive was wrong.
Paul says 'If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised'.
So the Corinthians were not starting from the premise that Christ was still dead.
And Paul later goes on to explain that the Corinthians are fools to wonder how a corpse can rise.
They will be resurrected just like Jesus was resurrected, and become life-giving spirits.
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