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Dear George,

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As I indicated above in my reply to Prebs, I see no justification for blind faith on such an important question as “resurrection”. As far as I know, the closest phenomena observed in nature are holometaboly (complete metamorphosis) and hemimetaboly (partial metamorphosis).

Metamorphosis occurs in the majority of insects (and therefore, the majority of all animals).

It involves the death of tissue through a natural process called apoptosis or “programmed cell death”. The animal is “re-born” and subsequently undergoes a process of metamorphic transformation.

It is through this process that a modest, creeping, crawling caterpillar becomes a beautiful butterfly, fluttering nimbly through the air.

It seems the magnificent butterfly is a wise little insect. It never forgets its humble origins :

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0001736

I have no problem recognizing metamorphosis as a form of “resurrection” but present day state of the art biological engineering, as far as I am aware, is not yet capable of reproducing it in human beings - though, it may be just a question of time.

Perhaps it was this prospect that inspired Ovid’s famous Latin poem, “On Death and Metamorphosis” :

« O genus humanum, quod mortem nimium timet! Cur pericula mortis timetis? Omnia mutantur, omnia fluunt, nihil ad veram mortem venit. Animus errat et in alia corpora miscetur; nec manet, nec easdem formas servat, sed in formas novas mutatur. Vita est flumen; tempora nostra fugiunt et nova sunt semper. Nostra corpora semper mutantur; id quod fumus aut sumus, non eras erimus »

[ O human race, which fears death too much! Why do you fear the danger of death? All is changing, all is flowing. Nothing comes to the truly dead. The mind wanders and is being mixed in other bodies; nothing remains, nothing preserves these forms, but is being changed into new forms. Life is a fluid; our time flees and new is forever. Our bodies are always changing. That which we have been and are now will not be tomorrow ]

Who knows, George? We may be all creeping and crawling or fluttering about one of these days !

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Peter, I would really appreciate your views on the content of the link I posted in my original post I wrote to you.

I find it odd you can respond to others, yet ignore me, are you being deliberately rude or have you simply missed my posts
Cheers
Geoff

Dear Banjo,

I do not see any point in discussing pejorative expressions like “blind faith” that only those who dismiss faith in the religious meaning of the word use. Chinese is incomprehensible to me but I cannot expect a native Chinese speaker to see it the same way. The rest of your post just expands on what Peter and I were saying, namely that whatever Christ’s resurrection means, it is not resuscitation or restoration of the physical body. Thanks for the Ovid quote which seems only marginally relevant to this.

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Dear George,

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You wrote :

« I do not see any point in discussing pejorative expressions like “blind faith” that only those who dismiss faith in the religious meaning of the word use »
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Point well taken, George, though I, personally, do not employ the term in a pejorative sense. In my mind it is simply a particular category of faith (no material evidence, no circumstantial evidence and no credible eye witness).

In future I shall refer to it as “unconditional faith” in order to avoid any possible suggestion of disrespect.

I understand that, for many Christians, the resurrection of the body is the “sine qua non” of their religious faith :

1 Corinthians 15:13-18 New International Version (NIV) :

13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.

I also understand that there is no evidence, either material or circumstantial, of Jesus having resurrected (the story of the empty tomb simply attesting – presuming it to be true - to the disappearance of his corpse). Nor has it ever been claimed by the gospels or by any other source that there was a credible eye witness of the miracle of Jesus resurrecting and coming out of the tomb.

To believe this requires unconditional faith. I can see no way it could possibly meet Peter’s criteria for theology of “behaving in a rational fashion”. Can you?

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Dear George,

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I don’t know if it is of any value to you but I just noticed that an apparently reputable Biblical scholar, Géza Vermes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9za_Vermes), analysed this subject in his book, “The Resurrection”. He concludes that there are eight possible theories to explain the "resurrection of Jesus" :

« I have discounted the two extremes that are not susceptible to rational judgment, the blind faith of the fundamentalist believer and the out-of-hand rejection of the inveterate skeptic. The fundamentalists accept the story, not as written down in the New Testament texts, but as reshaped, transmitted, and interpreted by Church tradition. They smooth down the rough edges and abstain from asking tiresome questions. The unbelievers, in turn, treat the whole Resurrection story as the figment of early Christian imagination. Most inquirers with a smattering of knowledge of the history of religions will find themselves between these two poles ».

From his analysis, Vermes presents the remaining six possibilities to explain the resurrection of Jesus account: (1) "The body was removed by someone unconnected with Jesus", (2) "The body was stolen by his disciples", (3) "The empty tomb was not that of Jesus", (4) Buried alive, Jesus later left the tomb", (5) He recovered from a coma and left Judea, (6) it was a "spiritual, not a bodily, resurrection". Vermes states that none of these possibilities are likely to be historical.

According to N. T. Wright in his book “The Resurrection of the Son of God”: "There can be no question: Paul is a firm believer in bodily resurrection. Gary Habermas adds: "Many other scholars have spoken in support of a bodily notion of Jesus’ resurrection".

Habermas cites other facts in support of Paul's belief in bodily resurrection: Paul was a Pharisee and Pharisees believed in bodily resurrection. In Philippians 3:20–21 he writes: "We look from heaven for Jesus who will change our vile soma (body) to be like unto his soma (body)". If Paul meant a spiritual body, he would have used the Greek “pneuma” instead of “soma” :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrection_of_Jesus#Doubts_of_historicity_and_other_interpretations

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Dear Banjo,

I think we have been through this before: one cannot find this way a justification for one's worldview preferences (although one can call them rational and others irrational if that helps).

I agree with you and Peter that the Resurrection cannot be seen as restoration of physical body (or something to be captured by a TV camera), and I disagree with Peter that the Resurrection narrative should be seen only as a metaphor. I cannot say more than what I wrote in response to Peter’s challenge about the Gospel writers’ (and Paul’s) unawareness of what modern science can and cannot pass judgements about.

The six possibilities listed by Vermes are old stuff but anyhow thanks for the quotes. As I already said, not being a theologian myself I am with the logician Wittgenstein: “whereof one cannot speak (clearly) thereof one must be silent”.