Where Do We Stand?

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Those who maintain that a revulsion for the physical body was typical of the Hellenistic environment where Christianity was introduced usually argue that the Christian ideas on physical resurrection originated in Jewish beliefs only. Swedish scholar on religious studies Helmer Ringgren, for instance, argues that “the New Testament seems to have taken over the general idea of resurrection from contemporary Judaism,” whereas “Greek influence” led to that “the early church developed the idea of an immortal soul.”1 Swiss Biblical scholar Oscar Cullmann similarly operates with a comprehensive “Greek thought that the material, the bodily, the corporeal is bad and must be destroyed” in absolute opposition to “Christian (and Jewish) thinking.”2 According to theologian Kallistos Ware, it is “noteworthy that the viewpoint which finally prevails” with respect to the Greek Christian belief about the resurrection “is Biblical rather than Platonic.”3 Even Caroline Walker Bynum, who has played a pivotal role in bringing the early Christian preoccupation with the physical body to the fore, contrasts “the Jewish notion of the resurrection of the person” with the “Greek notion of immortality of soul,” leaving no room for any other Greek ideas.4KeywordsTraditional BeliefGreek PhilosophyGreek CultureChurch HistorianHellenistic CultureThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.