Some resurrection thoughts by CS Lewis

by bebu 38 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  bebu

  Today's entry from "The Business of Heaven", a book of daily readings of CS Lewis, regards the resurrection account of Christ, and how the account of Christ eating fish with the disciples after he resurrected raise problems. How could a ghost eat? The disciples did not expect Jesus to come visit, and their worldview did not hold to ghosts with working stomachs. Lewis goes on...

  "We expect them (the apostles) to tell of a risen life which is purely 'spiritual' in the negative sense of that word: that is, we use the word 'spiritual' to mean not what it is but what it is not. We mean a life without space, without history, without environment, with no sensuous elements in it. We also, in our heart of hearts, tend to slur over the risen manhood of Jesus, to conceive of him after death, simply returning into Deity, so that the Resurrection would be no more than the reversal or undoing of the Incarnation. That being so, all references to the risen body make us uneasy: they raise awkward questions.

  ...If the truth is that after death there comes a negatively spiritual life, an eternity of mystical experience, what more misleading way of communicating it could possibly be found than the appearance of a human form which eats boiled fish? Again, on such a view, the body would really be a hallucination. And any theory of hallucination breaks down on the fact (and if it is invention it is the oddest invention that ever entered the mind of man) that on three separate occasions this hallucination was not immediately recognized as Jesus (Luke 24:13-31; John 20:15, 21:4). Even granting that God sent a holy hallucination to teach truths already widely believed without it {that is, the survival of the soul in some form} and far more easily taught by other methods, and certain to be completely obscured by this, might we not at least hope that He would get the face of the hallucination right? Is He who made all faces such a bungler that He cannot even work up a recognizable likeness of the Man who was Himself?" (From Miracles, chapt 16)

  This particular subject gets tossed around here on the board a lot, as JWs are invested more-or-less in the kind of interpretation Lewis critiques. What do you think of his comments?

  bebu
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  Leolaia

  bebu....My personal opinion is that he is partly on track. Resurrection in early Judaism and in Christianity usually assumed some form of embodiment; those existing in an intermediate state between life and death as spirits would return to life in some bodily form. This is what is described in the gospel stories cited by Lewis. These stories, like the one cited by Ignatius of Antioch, were told to refute the docetic idea that Christ was raised as a "disembodied" (asomatos) spirit; in docetism, Christ either never had a body of his own in the first place (having only the semblence of one) or had used the human Jesus as his chosen vessel and departed from him before Jesus died. This made Christ similar to ghosts or demons which are bodiless. But resurrection stories do not necessarily assume that the risen of Jesus had a fleshly body. Angels had bodies as well, and so they could similarly eat (cf. Genesis 19:1-3; LXX) like the risen Jesus and even have intercourse (cf. Genesis 6:2-4; LXX). The Society claims that angels "materialize bodies" but no such concept occurs in the Bible. Paul distinguished between the physical body of the flesh and the spiritual body that one gains in the resurrection and is similar to other heavenly bodies (1 Corinthians 15); elsewhere in Paul and in extrabiblical literature (as well as in Revelation) the glorified body that one receives in heaven is referred to as a "robe" or "garment" that is put on. For instance, in Ascension of Isaiah 8:14-15, the prophet Isaiah has ascended out of the body to heaven and he is told that once he "receives the robe which you see, then you will be equal to the angels in seventh heaven". Those who are resurrected are also described as "like the angels in heaven" in Matthew 22:30. This new angelic body is variously described as something separate given to the resurrected dead, or having continuity with the old fleshly body like a glorious plant growing from a buried seed (1 Corinthians 15:37, 42), with bodies being "transformed" into incorruption (v. 51), or being "clothed" with the imperishable. The Empty Tomb stories in the gospels presume that Jesus' glorified body was continuous with his earthly body -- hence the significance of the tomb being empty as a chief sign that Jesus was raised.
  
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  mnb77

  I think this resurection thing has to do with some sort of embodiment, but it is the "glorified body" kinda thing. the bible talks about how doubting thomas was able to touch his hands and his pierced side and how Chirst did eat and stuff like that but the bible also talks about how he was here and there with no notice (ghost like quality). I think resurection will have something to do with body/spirit combo.

  mnb77
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  bebu

  Thanks Leolaia! It's interesting to see how angels could eat... And the "materialized body" idea of the WT always amazes me. What depths of desperate theology did that come from?? ...

  Here's another quote, which doesn't really clarify what the body was like, except that it was new and unique...

  "..the Resurrection was not regarded simply or chiefly as evidence for the immortality of the soul. It is, of course, often so regarded today: I have heard a man maintain that "the importance" of the Resurrection is that it proves survival. Such a view cannot at any point be reconciled with the language of the New Testament. On such a view Christ would simply have done what all men do when they die: the only novelty would have been that in His case we were allowed to see it happening. But there is not in Scripture the faintest suggestion that the Resurrection was new evidence for something that had in fact been always happening. The New Testament writers speak as if Christ's achievement in rising from the dead was the first event of its kind in the whole history of the universe. He is the "first fruits", the "pioneer of life"... Everything is different because he has done so. This is the beginning of the New Creation: a new chapter incosmic history has opened."

  I think resurection will have something to do with body/spirit combo.

  mnb77 Yeah, that's about as specific as I can make it after all this time!!! LOL

  bebu
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  Narkissos

  Perhaps a bit bluntly, I feel that C.S. Lewis' comments, just as Paul's, unwittingly show how meaningless the very concept of "resurrection" is outside its original Jewish apocalyptic setting. It just makes no sense, but believers feel obliged to pay lip service to it because it is written.

  It could make a nice metaphor though, provided it is not held as a fact. Too bad.
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  Leolaia

  Narkissos....I think Paul believed he was living in that eschatological moment of an imminent future coming and judgment accompanied with the resurrection of the dead (1 Thessalonians 1:10, 3:13, 4:15-17; cf. Romans 2:5, 14:10, 1 Corinthians 4:5; 2 Corinthians 5:1-10) and died without his hopes being fulfilled, but now the facts of history show that this did not happen, and the reported resurrection of Jesus stands as an anomaly in the distant past rather than being followed in short order by the resurrection of the rest of the dead. Two thousand years now separate Jesus from that eschatological moment, and even in Paul's day the passage of time was troubling to some (e.g. the concern addressed in 1 Thessalonians seems to be the fact that some Christians have already died before the Lord's coming).

  bebu....The Platonic concept of immortality of the soul views death as the release of an immaterial soul (psukhé) from the body; the related Gnostic belief construes real "life" as experienced by the "spirit" (pneuma) liberated from flesh. There is no expectation at all of a future embodied life in either. This is probably why the Corinthian Christians had such a hard time believing in an embodied resurrection, as this Jewish concept was quite foreign in this Greek city. However, the distinctly Jewish notion of a future resurrection was often cast into Platonic terms. The Hellenistic body-soul antithesis often used a "tent" metaphor to refer to the body, which occurs in 2 Corinthians 5:4 and 2 Peter 1:13-14, and the word psukhé "soul" occurs in various Jewish sources to refer to dead individuals in an intermediate state between death and the resurrection/judgment (cf. Revelation 6:9; Josephus, Jewish War 2.163, 3.374f; Apocryphon of Ezekiel, fr. 1, Apocalypse of Moses 43:2f; and possibly in the original Greek of Pseudo-Philo, LAB 23.13, 2 Baruch 30:1f, 50:2-4; 4 Ezra 7:28-32), or simply to refer to the afterlife of the dead (cf. Testament of Abraham 6:5f). It could also be used by Hellenized Jews who adopted the Platonic doctrine and expected a blessed afterlife or eternal punishment without there necessarily being a resurrection (Wisdom 3:1-4; Philo, Quaes. Gen. 3.11, Heres 68-70; Pseudo-Phocylides 105-115; 4 Maccabees 13:13-17, 18:23; Josephus, Jewish War 7.343-348).
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  Terry

  There appear to be (for me) two problems.

  One is that we have an excessive familiarity with how certain words are used today and a wide range of inferences branch out in our consciousness from the usage. Like touching an exposed nerve in a decayed tooth we get a strong and immediate sensation. The familiar use of these "bible" words drowns out all else. However, those words are only what we think they are now because we have had to step over them (like sleeping dogs) over and over and over. The original use of those words in ancient times wouldn't begin to mean what we have embraced as meaning.

  Secondly, we are giving these words and descriptions of Scripture the benefit of the (credibility) doubt. We ASSUME there is one mind behind a meaning and intention. This might well be a faulty premise of mammoth proportions.

  It seems more than likely (to me) that phoney reports about Jesus sightings would have been about as credible as Elvis sightings in our time (or Bigfoot, for that matter.) Close questioning would cause these pious frauds to embellish (as liars are prone to do) silly details that add up to nothing more than red herrings.

  Thousands of years later the naive among us do our best to push the puzzle parts around to make a perfect fit. Somehow or other (it may take trimming with scissors) we'll get a picture together and call it gospel.

  Words like SPIRIT and SPIRITUAL are made of elastic. They can stretch to fit any size conjecture you can invent. And they do.

  We all, as I said at the outset, have many resonant inferences which tingle our "meaning" and give vague assent to any story that uses these words.

  But, we don't know what we are talking about. We have to pretend we do.

  T.
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  bebu

  C.S. Lewis' comments, just as Paul's, unwittingly show how meaningless the very concept of "resurrection" is outside its original Jewish apocalyptic setting

  I may be mixed up (no comments please! ), but I think... wasn't its being outside its original setting part of the point...? That is, that the resurrection didn't match Jewish expectation? ...Were the original original Jewish concepts of death ever adjusted? I understand they had been. Paul looked to be adjusting them again, as a one-person committee. The NT writers apparently weren't giving an account along what they expected theologically, but along what had been reported--anomalies and all.

  Terry, I personally read the NT as reportage of real characters with particular actions, decisions, and words. It is your choice to consider it as myth or legend, but I wonder at which point you believe reality intersected the myth ? What I mean is, do you see only Jesus as a myth but the disciples as real? Was Jesus real--but the resurrection a hoax? Was Jesus real but the whole crucifixion story a hoax? Were Jesus and disciples myths but Paul real? Or were all of them simply legends? What was the true part (if any), and what was the myth? I'm curious how you decided it, because I've seen people cut it up differently. Or, cut it up one way one week and another way on another week.

  bebu
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  Narkissos

  Bebu,

  wasn't its being outside its original setting part of the point...? That is, that the resurrection didn't match Jewish expectation? ...Were the original original Jewish concepts of death ever adjusted? I understand they had been. Paul looked to be adjusting them again, as a one-person committee. The NT writers apparently weren't giving an account along what they expected theologically, but along what had been reported--anomalies and all.

  I don't think so. If you read the NT texts related to Jesus' resurrection in a probable chronological order, you get roughly the following picture:

  (1) Pauline texts: Jesus' resurrection is a spiritual and salvific event, in which Christians share in a symbolical or mystical way (through liturgy and "sacraments," namely baptism and eucharist). The list of "apparitions" at the beginning of 1 Corinthians 15 may (or may not) be a later addition, still they do not strictly imply a bodily resurrection (not even an empty tomb story).

  (2) Mark (down to 16:8): an empty tomb, no apparition described, although a future apparition in Galilee is foretold (and perhaps was described in an original, but lost, ending).

  (3) Matthew: one apparition to the women and another to the disciples in Galilee, in very general terms.

  (4) Luke & John: a number of detailed apparition stories, including (especially in Luke) insistence on bodily resurrection -- together with instances when Jesus is not recognised at first.

  It seems to me that this progression does not reflect the treatment of original facts which first happened, were reported and known by all, and then had to be related to different theological frames; rather the gradual development of popular or literary stories along the line of divergent theologies (e.g. docetic or antidocetic).

  To put it more simply: if the many apparition stories told in Luke and John were common Christian knowledge from the very beginning, why would Mark omit them?

  I wonder at which point you believe reality intersected the myth ? What I mean is, do you see only Jesus as a myth but the disciples as real? Was Jesus real--but the resurrection a hoax? Was Jesus real but the whole crucifixion story a hoax? Were Jesus and disciples myths but Paul real? Or were all of them simply legends? What was the true part (if any), and what was the myth? I'm curious how you decided it, because I've seen people cut it up differently. Or, cut it up one way one week and another way on another week.

  I know this second question was addressed to Terry, but it raises a question in my mind: why should one decide on indecidable issues? There may or may not have been a historical Jesus, he may or may not have been crucified, the apparition stories may reflect a spiritual experience by some early followers or be later fiction... The fact is nobody can tell for sure, and in that case any consistent stance is bound to be somewhat self-delusive.

  It somewhat reminds me of our "scholar" poorly arguing that there is no consistent alternative to the consistently flawed WTBTS Biblical chronology. When the data are contradictory, to harmonise them into artificial consistency might just not be the thing to do.
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  LittleToe

  Didier:
  Bebu does raise an interesting point, however. For those of a sceptical bent, who no longer subscribe to any kind of biblical legitimacy, have they dismissed it all as fiction? If they have, then upon what grounds?
  I suspect you'll agree that it's highly unlikely that it's all fiction, hence such excessive scepticism is not only unwarranted but is also intellectually dishonest (or at very least "intellectually lazy")?