(March 19, 2019 at 6:31 pm)Vicki Q Wrote:
(March 18, 2019 at 10:39 pm)Jehanne Wrote: To give a brief summary, the earliest traditions of Jesus do not allude to a bodily resurrection; the latter traditions are embellishments.
This is not correct.
The earliest accounts are from Paul, writing in the 50s, and with his use of anastasis and egeiro he makes it clear beyond argument that the resurrection under discussion is physical. These words do not get used of non-physical situations.
The next set of writings are the Gospels. Leaving Mark as a question Mark, the others all make a physical resurrection clear. There are the direct accounts, and the indirect allusions such as Matthew 28, the guards passage of the OP, which only make sense if the debate is over a solid body.
Then Acts. However one views Peter's speech, the use of Psalm 16 can only work in a mindset that says the resurrection was a bodily event in which Jesus body received new, physical life.
And so on. It's a consistent, clear message.
At this point 1 Corinthians 15:42-49 gets trotted out as a counterargument, but even there, Paul's soma psychikon/soma pneumatikon contrast would point to the resurrection body as the physical one!
Indeed, someone who had been killed, and subsequently appears as a non-corporeal entity is simply underlining the point that they're still highly dead. The whole thing the Xians were saying is that Jesus was alive.
Have a look at this link:
Did Paul believe in a spiritual resurrection?
Some posters support your POV, while others do not. Still, it gives a nice synopsis of the different POVs. As I allude to above, I think that Paul, in those letters that are authentic to him, was speaking of phantom bodies, a spiritual resurrection as opposed to a physical one. In particular, Paul in 1st Corinthians 15 alludes to Jesus' burial, but stops after that. Likely, the story of the "empty tomb" had not yet been invented yet, or at least was still in its proto-stages of development. If Paul had known about such an "event," he would have mentioned it.