Resurrection Of Body Research Articles

The Holy Spirit and the Story of New Creation: How Pneumatology Makes Sense of Cosmology and Eschatology

ABSTRACT The relationship between science and theology is complementary, but some dissonance remains. Cosmology claims that the universe is either moving toward destruction or infinite expansion. However, eschatology claims the universe is destined for renewal. Recent scholarship attempts to resolve this dissonance by basing resolution in the bodily resurrection of Christ, but little work has been done in other areas of theology to resolve the dissonance. Pneumatology offers a possible resolution to the cosmological-eschatological dissonance. By examining the work of the Holy Spirit in creation compared to human redemption, we can provide one possible resolution to the cosmological-eschatological dissonance.

Empty Tomb, Resurrection, Apotheosis

Empty Tomb, Resurrection, Apotheosis

The Glory of the Crucified One: Christology and Theology in the Gospel of John

The Glory of the Crucified One: Christology and Theology in the Gospel of John

The Corinthian Opponents of the Resurrection in 1 Cor 15:12

The paper contributes to the discussion regarding the Corinthian opponents of the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor 15:12). In particular, it attempts to re-examine the thesis of the Epicurean framework of this controversy. The first part focuses on the main lines of interpretation of 1 Cor 15:12 and the presentation of the Epicurean thesis. It is followed by an analysis of Paul’s polemical statements against the thesis of his Corinthian opponents, “there is no resurrection of the dead” (1 Cor 15:12; cf. vv. 19, 29-34, 35). It is assumed that Paul clearly says that his opponents deny a bodily resurrection and future life – there is nothing after death. The third part of the paper reconsiders some hermeneutic factors concerning the identity of the Corinthian opponents of the resurrection. 1 Cor 15 contains terminological and ideological parallels to Epicureanism, especially, by way of opposition. Yet, the valuation of these data remains an open question.

Craig on the Resurrection: A Defense

This article is a rebuttal to Robert G. Cavin and Carlos A. Colombetti’s article, “Assessing the Resurrection Hypothesis: Problems with Craig’s Inference to the Best Explanation,” which argues that the Standard Model of current particle physics entails that non-physical things (like a supernatural God or a supernaturally resurrected body) can have no causal contact with the physical universe. As such, they argue that William Lane Craig’s resurrection hypothesis is not only incompatible with the notion of Jesus physically appearing to the disciples, but the resurrection hypothesis is significantly limited in both its explanatory scope and explanatory power. This article seeks to demonstrate why their use of the Standard Model does not logically entail a rejection of the physical resurrection of Jesus when considering the scope and limitations of science itself.

Purification of the Body and the Reign of God in the Gospel of Mark

Abstract The thesis of this study is that the Markan Jesus’ activities of healing and exorcisms are evocative of resurrection of the body. Through the accumulation of these stories Mark communicates that Jesus has come to address the problem of human mortality in the light of the nearness of God’s reign. These activities anticipate Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, which pioneers the purification of the body at the turn of the ages. I show that Mark’s presentation of Jesus’ healings and exorcisms crucially reflects ideas of (im)purity in Jewish scripture and tradition that are bound up with mortality. In the light of this background, I show that Mark presents Jesus’ healings and exorcisms as anticipations of his bodily resurrection. These resurrection-type stories depict the movement from the mortality incurred by defiling diseases or defiling spirits to the immortality of God’s reign. The repetition of resurrection-type healings that eventually culminate in Jesus’ own resurrection suggests that the announcement of God’s reign is not only about responding to the call for repentance from sin (1:14–15), but also about having one’s body raised. Thus, Mark presents not only a theology of the cross, but also a theology of the resurrection as the purification of God’s people.

Krankheit und Körper in den theologischen Debatten des Hochmittelalters: Guibert von Nogent (ca. 1055–ca. 1125) und sein Reliquientraktat

The impact of religion on medical practices seems to be part of common knowledge on medieval medicine, while the interdependence of both systems, religion and medicine, as academic discourses has received far less attention. This contribution thus turns the focus to the relationship between medicine and religion in the middle ages from the perspective of the importanceof medical knowledge and arguments for the religious discourse. Two phenomena serve as guiding lines: first, the impact of miracles and second, the religious worship of relics. The 12th century treatise on relics by Guibert de Nogent serves as primary source to study the significance of medical wonders in the system of relic worship. A close analysis of the text will reveal what kind of medical and body-related arguments are used to discuss the issue of correct veneration of relics. The body and its integrity turn out to be at the focus of the arguments pointing to the core issue of the bodily resurrection of Christ, topics that are discussed in the heated debate on bodily relics of Christ.

Вавилонское изгнание иудеев и становление доктрины о телесном воскресении из мертвых: от натуралистической аллегории коллективного возрождения евреев по их ожидаемому возвращению в Иудею через персонифицированный образ восстания народа из мертвых до концепции индивидуального эсхатологического воскресения во плоти

The author reveals the following sequence in the formation of the Jewish doctrine of the bodily resurrection of the dead: during the Babylonian captivity of the Judaeans, a naturalistic allegory of their revival upon their expected return to their Motherland arises (Ezek. 37:1–14, Isa. 26:19, 41:14); by the end of the period of exile / at the very beginning of the Persian period, the personified image of the people’s rising from the dead is developing (the allegory of the Servant of the Lord in Isa. 42:1–9, 49: 1–7, 50:4–9, 52:13–53:12; perhaps also the image of Job, cf. especially: Job 19:25–27a and 42:5, 7–17). In the time of another national catastrophe — the persecution of the faithful Jews under Antiochus IV Epiphanes — the concept of an individual eschatological resurrection in the flesh arises; at this receiving of the afterlife requital is assumed to be realized in the body (Dan. 12:1b–3, 13).

Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? Historical and Theological Reflections by Matthew Levering

Reviewed by: Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? Historical and Theological Reflections by Matthew Levering Glenn B. Siniscalchi matthew levering, Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? Historical and Theological Reflections (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019). Pp. ix + 255. $99. Today scholarly publications on the credibility of the resurrection of Jesus are not difficult to find. Many NT historians appeal to three reported facts as evidence for the resurrection: (1) the series of postmortem appearances of Jesus to friend and foe alike, (2) the discovery of the open and empty tomb by a group of his women followers, and (3) the origin of the disciples' faith in the resurrection despite having predispositions to the contrary. Some critics add to or nuance the evidence, but in recent years a consensus has emerged in support of the facts. The hesitancy in affirming Jesus's resurrection as an event of history has more to do with philosophical issues related to defending the historicity of miracles rather than establishing what should count as evidence. One of the best features of Matthew Levering's new book is that he makes several genuine contributions to a field that seems to have been nearly exhausted. For example, after surveying the most recent arguments and positions among prominent NT scholars who write on the subject, he draws from Thomas Aquinas's interpretation of selected OT passages that, "when viewed as an assemblage, instruct us profoundly about the context in which Jesus' resurrection is credible" (p. 13). The OT witnesses go beyond the presupposition of God's existence for ensuring the possibility of miracles (or even the probability of miracles). Thus, L. summarizes other presuppositions for taking the resurrection seriously: "The needed foundations for believing in Christ's Resurrection are here. We must believe that God is creator; that God loves humans in to existence; that God wishes to draw near to his fallen human creatures; that God wills to establish a 'ladder' between his dwelling and ours; that God will restore his fallen creatures through the sacrifice of his beloved son" (p. 105). Another major contribution focuses on the strangeness of the resurrection as evidence. Undoubtedly, there is a sense in which this argument has been utilized in resurrection studies (it is most notably found in N. T. Wright's monumental The Resurrection of the Son of God [Christian Origins and the Question of God 3; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003]), but L. [End Page 323] does not so much focus on the unicity of the resurrection against the Jewish matrix from which Easter faith emerged as appeal to the peculiarity of the NT writers' depiction of the risen body. A spiritual view of the afterlife would have been much easier to promote in dialogue with potential converts in the Greco-Roman world, but the early Christians never compromised about the risen body in their preaching. Though some contemporary exegetes may highlight the spiritual view in order to make the afterlife credible in the modern world, L. reminds us that the ancient world had the same trouble with accepting the bodily resurrection. Yet the early Christians proclaimed that Jesus was raised from the dead, not assumed or immortalized. Third, L.'s chapter on faith, reason, and history outlines the Catholic perspectives of Joseph Fenton, Bernard Lonergan, and Pierre Rousselot. Although L. recognizes the indispensable role of reason in matters of defending the faith, he does not overstate the case for reason in the next chapter, which shows the need for contemplative engagement and love to pinpoint an answer to the truth concerning the risen Jesus. As a case in point, L. shows how Hans Urs von Balthasar's apologetics of love (see his Love Alone Is Credible [trans. D. C. Schindler; San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004]) is congruent with historical approaches: "While I think von Balthasar's position is too quick to dismiss the contemplative work of reason unaided by faith, the strengths of his position should be evident. Lacking appreciation for divine self-surrendering love, we are unlikely to perceive the truth of Christ" (p. 182). Finally, given the assumption that Jesus made himself seen to the disciples, skeptics, individuals, and even large groups of people under radically different circumstances...

Религиозные учения Л. Толстого и Вл. Соловьева и проблема единства русской религиозной философии

В статье рассматривается история творческих отношений Л.Н. Толстого и В.С. Соловьева и доказывается, что религиозные учения мыслителей близки в своих главных принципах. В работах 1890-х гг. Соловьев, как и Толстой, резко критикует историческую церковь за то, что она исказила первоначальное, истинное христианство, главный смысл которого он видит в соединении человечества с Богом и в построении Царства Божьего на земле силами человечества. Точно такое же понимание христианства как пути к совершенной жизни на земле составляет основу религиозного учения Толстого. Показано, что два важнейших мотива учения Толстого: отрицание телесного воскресения человеческих личностей и принцип непротивления злу насилием, вполне логично вытекают из этого учения. Точка зрения Соловьева в этих вопросах, наоборот, свидетельствует о его непоследовательности в развитии принципов истинного христианства. Сделан вывод о том, что Толстой, вопреки распространенному мнению, не является маргинальной фигурой в русской религиозной философии, напротив, он наиболее полно выражает ее главную тенденцию критики церковной религии и поисков истинного христианства, объединяющую подавляющее большинство известных мыслителей. The article deals with the history of the creative relationship of L.N. Tolstoy and V.S. Solovyov and it is proved that religious teachings of thinkers are close to one another in their main principles. In the works of the 1890s Solovev, like Tolstoy, sharply criticizes the historical church for the fact that it distorted original, true Christianity, the main meaning of which he sees in the union of humanity with God and in building the Kingdom of God on earth by the forces of humanity. Exactly the same understanding of Christianity as the path to a perfect life on earth is the basis of Tolstoys religious teaching. It is shown that the two most important motives of Tolstoys teaching: the denial of the bodily resurrection of human personalities and the principle of non-resistance to evil by violence flow quite logically from this teaching. The point of view of Solovev in these questions, on the contrary, testifies to his inconsistency in the development of the principles of true Christianity. It is concluded that Tolstoy, contrary to popular belief, is not a marginal figure in Russian religious philosophy, on the contrary, he most fully expresses its main trend of criticism of church religion and the search for true Christianity, which unites the overwhelming majority of famous thinkers.

The Reader and the Resurrection in Prudentius

AbstractIn Prudentius, the bodily resurrection becomes a figure for poetic immortality. Just as the author believes that his God will one day raise him from the dead, he expects and invokes a Christian reader to authenticate and authorise the fragile verbal records of a poetry that is insistently human and fallen. In other words, Prudentius’ metapoetics are perfectly in sync with his theology. After (I) presenting Prudentius’ transformation at the end of hisPraefatioand setting out the terms and scope of the argument, this article (II) shows how the author puts himself at the mercy of his readers and patrons in thePeristefanonpoems and then (III) considers the body and the resurrection in theLiber Cathemerinon. A short section (IV) on fictionality and belief opens up the argument, and a conclusion (V) advances it through a reading of the end ofDe opusculis suis. This metapoetic reading of Prudentius reveals that the author's hopes for an afterlife are expressed in and through the creative imagining of poetic and fictional scenes.

Hvad er opstandelseslegemets karakter ud fra Første Korintherbrev 15?

The article examines the character of the resurrection body in 1 Corinthians 15,36-58 focusing on exegesis and vocabulary. The examination pays special attention to the two most dominating views of the resurrection body in recent scholarly debate, the resurrection of re-newed flesh and the resurrection in pneumatic material. The article has three parts. Since both views attend to much of the same terminology, a clarification of their terminology is first given. Next, the exegetical dif-ferences between them are lined up against one another. Finally, an ex-egesis is given which argues that Paul is not talking about a resurrection body composed of ethereal material spirit, but about a body composed of flesh whose state and quality have changed so that it becomes both incorruptible and immortal. This is because the reason for the corrup-tion of the flesh is Adam’s fall and sin, not the flesh itself.

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Discussing the scenario of future resurrection in 1 Cor. 15, Paul touches on the visual aspects of the bodily transformation which he claims will take place as a part of eschatological fulfilment. The con-cept of image plays a crucial role in this transformation as he believes the resurrected body will be shaped according to a “heavenly” exemplar, which he refers to as an image. Using examples drawn from Roman visual culture, both visual and textual, the article describes what type of image Paul’s Corinthian readers would have been inclined to think of in connection with a discussion of bodily transformation such as the one imagined by Paul.

«Сила Моя совершается в немощи»: болезнь и кончина Ю.Ф. Самарина

This article is devoted to the insufficiently known topic of the disease and death of Y. F. Samarin, a great Russian philosopher, ascetic and warrior, politician and scientist. On the basis of the extensive archival materials the author of the article presents the events panorama that allows to reconstruct certain fragments of Samarin’s life. According to the author, the strongest aspects of Samarin’s personality, supported by his belief in bodily resurrection, were revealed in the face of bodily affliction and death. His love for congenial people, relatives, and Russia dominated all the other feelings of the philosopher both during his life and at the time of his departure. The article shows that something mysterious and undisclosed still remains in Samarin s death.

Raised Imperishable

Christians live in light of eternity: we anticipate a future glory yet to be unveiled, but we also have some level of participation in that glory in the present. What shape should that anticipation and participation take? In other words, how does the resurrection influence ethical choices in the present? This paper draws on the work of historical and modern theologians to consider what effects the resurrection of the body has on Christian life in the present. It argues that the nature of embodied life in the resurrection affects our view of and our behavior towards our own bodies, the body of the church, and the bodies of other people in the world. While the paper sketches the outlines of an ethic based on the bodily resurrection in each of these areas, its main concern is with the spiritual attitude that informs and results from these ethical choices. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer observes, Christian ethics that focuses on the resurrection tends to fall into one of the two traps of otherworldliness or secularism. However, when attention is given to the spiritual effects of a resurrection-oriented ethic, both of these pitfalls can be avoided. Living in light of the resurrection sharpens our anticipation of heavenly glory, but it also proves our inability to attain that glory by our own power, forcing us to rely ever more on God as the source of our salvation. Thus, although living with reference to the resurrection of the body has positive influence on our ethical choices, the primary impact of such a life is to drive the Christian back to the Gospel.

Jakie ciało nie osiągnie królestwa Bożego?

Celem artykułu jest porównanie egzegezy wersetu 1 Kor 15, 50 we wczesnej literaturze patrystycznej na przykładzie pism trzech autorów: Ireneusza z Lyonu – przedstawiciela tradycji azjatyckiej; Tertu­liana z Kartaginy – związanego z tradycją północnoafrykańską, zbliżoną w wielu punktach do azjatyckiej; oraz Orygenesa – wywodzącego się z tradycji aleksan­dryjskiej. Wszyscy wspomniani pisarze stosowali interpretację moral­ną zwrotu „ciało i krew” jako grzesznych uczynków, które należy porzucić, aby wejść do królestwa niebieskiego. Każdy z nich dopuszczał jednak także wyjaśnienie dosłowne tego wersetu, próbując pogodzić je z prawdą wiary o cielesnym zmartwychwstaniu. Ireneusz podkreślał, że ciało nie może zmartwychwstać i osiągnąć królestwa Bożego o własnych siłach, ale jedynie z pomocą Ducha Świętego. Tertulian uważał, że ciało w ziemskiej pos­taci zmartwychwstanie, ale nie będzie mogło wejść do królestwa niebieskiego bez przyjęcia cech dostosowanych do nowej rzeczywistości. Najdalej posunął się Orygenes, podważając możliwość powrotu do życia ciał w ziemskim kształcie. Analiza wczesnochrześcijańskich komentarzy do Paw­łowego wersetu dowodzi, że egzegeza patrystyczna była ukierunkowana teolo­gicznie i zależała od ówczesnych sporów doktrynalnych. Daje się też zauważyć pewien pa­radoks: niekiedy w celu uzasadnienia konkretnego stanowiska filozoficzno-teolo­gicznego zwolennik literalizmu lub umiarkowanej alegorezy mógł przywiązywać większą wagę do przenośnego znaczenia tekstu natchnionego niż zdeklarowany alegorysta, który z kolei odwoływał się do daleko idącej interpretacji dosłownej.

Joseph Ratzinger's Debates with Gisbert Greshake: An Argument for the Resurrection of Matter

AbstractDebates in eschatology have been unresolved regarding the place of earthly matter in the resurrection. I analyze the positions of Joseph Ratzinger and Gisbert Greshake and argue in favor of Ratzinger's position. He defends a transphysical bodily resurrection that involves the matter of this world over against Greshake's resurrection in death eschatology and anthropology that entails the resurrection of a phenomenological but not a physical body. What is at stake in this debate is nothing less than the meaning of creation in God's salvific economy.

Strange Histories: The Trial of the Pig, the Walking Dead, and Other Matters of Fact from the Medieval and Renaissance Worlds

Strange Histories: The Trial of the Pig, the Walking Dead, and Other Matters of Fact from the Medieval and Renaissance Worlds

The Mind of the Spirit in the Resurrected Human

The Scriptures suggest that Christians are to grow up into the “mind of Christ” or, as Craig Keener calls it, the “mind of the Spirit.” While there have been a few recent works that discuss how mental sharing between the human person and the divine person(s) might contribute to sanctification (for example, Alston), there are not any that discuss a mereological account of how the mental union works with reference to the bodily resurrection. Since I understand the human’s eschatological union with the divine to be the occasion of theosis, I offer in this paper a metaphysical model of at least one aspect of theosis: a part/whole relationship between the mind of a human and the mind of the Spirit, with reference to the eschatological bodily resurrection. I call the union “mental saturation.”

The Wedding Feast of the Lamb: Eros, The Body, and the Eucharist by Emmanuel Falque

Reviewed by: The Wedding Feast of the Lamb: Eros, The Body, and the Eucharist by Emmanuel Falque Reed Frey C.O. Emmanuel Falque The Wedding Feast of the Lamb: Eros, The Body, and the Eucharist Translated by George Hughes New York: Fordham University Press, 2016 xxv + 300 pages. Hardbound, $125. Paperback, $36. Since 2012, the French phenomenologist Emmanuel Falque’s work has become available to an English-speaking audience through Fordham UP’s Perspectives in Continental Philosophy series. His “philosophical triduum,” completed in French in 2011, is now available entirely in English. Le passeur de Gethsémani. Angoisse, souffrance et mort (1999, available in English as The Guide to Gethsemane: Anxiety, Suffering, Death, 2019) is a study of Christ’s Passion that gives careful attention to the corporality of his suffering and relates this to the universal human experience of anxiety and death. Métamorphose de la finitude. Essai philosophique sur la naissance et la resurrection (2004, available in English as The Metamorphosis of Finitude: An Essay on Birth and Resurrection, 2012) tries to understand the nature of a bodily resurrection and its import for humans living out a corporal existence. The text under review here, The Wedding Feast of the Lamb: Eros, the Body, and the Eucharist, is the final volume in the triduum (originally in French as Les noces de l’Agneau. Essai philosophique sur le corps et l’eucharistie, 2011). Whereas Gethsemane understands Christ’s past taking on of the limitation of finitude, which is is then transformed in the future in Metamorphosis, human embodiment in the present time is the concern of The Wedding Feast. Falque’s 2013 Passer le Rubicon. Philosophie et théologie: Essai sur les les frontières (available in English as Crossing the Rubicon: The Borderlands of Philosophy and Theology, 2017) which argues for a harmonious interaction between philosophy and theology that enables a mutual fruitfulness, serves as a Discourse on Method to his entire project, although it was composed after the triduum was complete. [End Page 88] In each work, Falque, Honorary Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy at the Catholic University of Paris, speaks comfortably and competently about both philosophy and theology, seemingly never self-conscious of his movement between the two disciplines. Falque elegantly carries out the task Augustine encourages in De doctrina Christiana: claim for our use whatever thoughts are true, regardless of their origin, just as the Hebrews plundered gold from the Egyptians. Indeed, The Wedding Feast of the Lamb quickly slips between discussions of Tertullian, Irenaeus, and the Gospel of John to inquiries into Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, harvesting from these thinkers many of their fruitful insights. He thus employs a wide variety of sources in what he identifies as a “philosophical study of the body and the eucharist” (xxv), successfully responding to John XXIII’s injunction at the beginning of Vatican II to present the Christian mysteries through the “literary forms of modern thought.” After an insightful analysis of the Van Eyck brothers’ well-known altarpiece at Ghent, Falque begins his “descent into the abyss,” an attempt to probe the mystery of Freud’s unconscious or Kant’s “mass of sensations”—what Falque calls chaos or tohu-bohu— a Hebrew term used in Genesis 1 to describe “formless and void.” He identifies this tohu-bohu as a characteristic feature of the “animality” that was taken on by Christ in the Incarnation. The Lord takes on our animality without taking on “bestiality,” as there is no trace of sin. But in forgetting the bodily nature of the Incarnation, one runs the further risk of angelizing or over-spiritualizing the Eucharist, missing the corporal nature of the Sacred Species. Falque then studies the relationship of eros to agape. He rejects both a univocal treatment of the two (which reduces charity in such a way that it leaves nothing specific to God) or an equivocal treatment (which risks a dangerously distant separation of divine charity and human love). Rather, he puts forth the transforming power of agape for eros, especially in the context of marriage. Along with Benedict XVI, Falque believes there is no fulfillment of marital eros without the guiding hand of God’s agape. So too...