The Resurrection Debate: Crossan and Borg vs. White and Renihan

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The following presentation is a production of Alpha and Omega Ministries, Inc. and is protected by copyright laws of the

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United States and its international treaties. Copying or distribution of this production without the expressed written permission of Alpha and Omega Ministries, Inc.

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is prohibited. When Paul wrote to the

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Corinthian believers in the first half of the sixth decade, around A .D. 54, he included in his letters some of the most primitive

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Christian tradition known to us. Specifically, in 1 Corinthians 15, he presents an early creedal statement summarizing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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These words surely predate Paul, that is, he himself says these words were passed on to him, and so we must push their composition to within a matter of a few short years, barely a decade after the events of the ministry of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. These are not the words of a later generation, reflecting and redacting. They are the words of the most primitive era of Christianity.

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And here we read in 1 Corinthians 15, 3 -8, Now please note what

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Paul here relates. The most primitive message of the faith speaks of the death of Jesus Christ for our sins, a phrase of substitution using the term huper.

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We know the death of Christ was a historical event, and the term death here is being used in its normative sense.

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Next, the faith says he was buried, and once again, there is no reason to think of this term in any other sense than the normative one that would naturally flow from the preceding historical term, died.

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And then, the earliest faith of Christianity says he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures.

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The term used here, agyro, is the third in a chain of terms that we have seen are being used in their normative sense.

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Jesus was raised from the dead in fulfillment of scriptural prophecy. The meaning of the term in this context is unambiguous.

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It flows naturally from what precedes, and of course, flows of necessity into what follows, that being the post -resurrection appearances of the

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Lord. I emphasize these basic facts for the simple reason that our debate today truly turns in whether we will allow the scriptures to define their own teaching through their own language and native meaning, or whether we will choose to reject the testimony of the apostles and instead embrace a foreign meaning to these words that is more amenable to a post -modern world or a foreign theological paradigm.

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For truly, I do not believe that there is any question at all of what the New Testament means when it says to us that Jesus Christ rose from the dead.

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It means that the body of Jesus Christ was buried after his crucifixion, that the body was dead, expired, deceased, and that on the third day that body left the grave, not metaphorically, not allegorically, not mythically, but bodily, physically, in an incorruptible yet truly physical form.

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Indeed, Paul continues from this point to address the question of the nature of the resurrection body simply because he has to do so in light of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

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If the Corinthian believers accepted his message, then they would naturally ask what kind of body believers would receive at their own resurrection.

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As Paul taught earlier in this letter, now God has not only raised the Lord but will also raise us up through his power, 1

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Corinthians 6 .14. The Christian message is that because Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead, we too will be raised from the dead.

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The power of death has been broken, eternal life is ours, only in and through Jesus Christ. And so it is natural for believers to wonder about the nature of that resurrection body.

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Now surely if the Corinthians had missed Paul's point, he would have stopped them immediately and said, no, you are asking the wrong question.

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There is no resurrection body, for resurrection is merely spiritual. The body decays and is gone and is never seen again.

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And you need to realize that when we say Jesus rose from the dead, all we mean is that he was taken up to God and absorbed into him, or that his apostles are continuing his program, his kingdom here on earth, and that is how he is present.

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But this is precisely what Paul does not do. Instead, he uses words and phrases and contexts that communicate with blunt and undeniable force the physicality of the resurrected

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Jesus. And so I would like to first insist that we need to be shown examples of agyro used in similar contexts, i .e.,

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relating the historical death of Christ or someone else in the context of Tanniatic Judaism, which clearly, as we see in the

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Gospels, possessed a belief in a physical resurrection, wherein the term refers either to a mere remembrance of a person and their program, or where it refers not to a physical resurrection, but to an exaltation and absorption into God himself.

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Next, I would assert that the term resurrection points to the same conclusion. Raised from the dead is agyro, but another term appears, that being anastasis, from anistemi, which likewise, clearly and forcibly, in the context of the

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New Testament refers to a physical resurrection, that which died, coming to life again. The lexical sources are united in this matter.

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Listen to the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 15. Now, if Christ is preached that he has been raised from the dead, how does someone among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

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But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain.

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Moreover, we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that he raised

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Christ, whom he did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even

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Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless, you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.

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If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied. But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who are asleep.

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Clearly Paul moves effortlessly back and forth between the term raised and that of resurrection. As my brother

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Dr. Renahan will demonstrate, the natural use of this term in Paul's preaching, found in Acts, likewise proves his meaning as well.

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Paul says, if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised, demonstrating the same truth concerning resurrection as we saw regarding the idea of being raised from the dead.

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There is also no way to avoid the salvific meaning of the death of Christ latent in this passage.

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Indeed, to hope in Christ for Paul is to hope in the risen Christ, not in a Christ concept, not in a memory.

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Surely the testimony to the resurrection contained in the canonical Gospels themselves is fully consistent with this apostolic writing, which we can firmly date as to its writing to AD 54.

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All discussions of Q Gospels or 2nd century Gnostic Gospels simply cannot overthrow the preserved testimony to the belief in substitutionary atonement and physical resurrection so plainly and forcibly found in Paul's Corinthian literature.

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And yet, despite this forceful presentation, there are some who miss Paul's point and focus upon a later phrase he uses so as to, in essence, completely overturn his teaching.

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I refer to 1 Corinthians 15, 42 -44, which reads, So also is the resurrection of the dead.

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It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory.

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It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

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If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Some have focused upon the assertion, it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body, as if this is a denial on Paul's part of the physical nature of the resurrection.

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But this is clearly an error that can be demonstrated both by examination of the context, as well as the actual terms that Paul uses.

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When we follow the context, we see Paul's point in the resurrection of the dead to the likened to four pairs of contrasting terms, perishable -imperishable, dishonorable -glorious, weak -power, and then soma -psychicon and soma -pneumaticon.

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Now I gave the last pair in the original tongue so as to avoid importing concepts not found in the original.

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The contrasting pairs are not, I repeat, not indicating physical, non -physical, so there is no reason at all to assume that the fourth pair all of a sudden breaks out of the context to make this kind of assertion.

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But even more so, the terms Paul uses prove this as well. The contrast is between soulish and spiritual.

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Paul had used the same term, soulish, psychicon, in 1 Corinthians 2 .14, where he says, the natural or soulish man does not discern the things of the

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Spirit of God. So he is not talking about a physical man versus a non -physical man, but a natural unregenerate earthy man versus the regenerated spirit -led man.

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Likewise, the contrast in 1 Corinthians 15 .44 is not between a physical body and a spiritual body, but between a natural earthly body subject to corruption and a spiritual spirit -animated incorruptible body, that of the resurrection.

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If we simply look carefully at the terms and the context, we can discern Paul's meaning. And so I conclude that the testimony of the scriptures is very clear.

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The terms are plain, the lexical sources united, the context compelling. Our hope is in a risen

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Christ, and if we have no risen Christ, then we are, as Paul rightly said, of all men, most to be pitied.

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Thank you very much. Well, good afternoon.

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I gather the microphone is okay. Anybody having any trouble hearing me? This is the first time

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I've ever spoken from a rolling podium, so we'll see how it goes. Let me begin by saying it's very nice to have been invited to be on this cruise with you, partly because of the pleasure of the cruise itself, and also because of the opportunity to talk with you all about something of vital importance.

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And I want to begin by saying that I'm going to reject the debating labels of affirmative and negative, and it's because I don't see my role today as negative.

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I would prefer, if we need to have terms to see my role, and I think Dom would say the same about his, as alternative affirmative, for both

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Dom and I affirm the utter importance of the resurrection of Jesus, the utter importance of Easter.

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Without Easter, we wouldn't even know about Jesus. He would simply have been another crucified

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Jew in a century that saw thousands of Jews crucified for their loyalty to God, forgotten, perhaps having left a bit of a trace somewhere in an ancient source, but basically unknown to us.

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And so what I'm doing is presenting an alternative affirmative.

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And I want to begin very briefly by affirming that I speak to you as a

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Christian who is deeply involved in the life of the Church, and who is committed to the renewal of Christianity in our time.

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And if you want to know how I define the word Christian, if I had to do it in a single sentence, and of course no single sentence is adequate, but some single sentences are more adequate than others,

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I would put it this way. At the center of the Christian life is a relationship with God as known in Jesus.

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A relationship with God as known in Jesus. That's what makes us

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Christian rather than Jewish or Muslim or Buddhist. Now, I suspect that a major disagreement between Dom and me on the one hand, and James and Jim on the other hand, is about the historical factuality of the

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Easter stories. And when I speak of the historical factuality of the

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Easter stories, I mean something very precise. I mean, do you think of the empty tomb and of the appearances of the risen

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Christ as the kinds of events that could have been videotaped or photographed if you had been there with that kind of equipment?

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Or to put it only slightly differently, are we to think of the empty tomb and the appearances of the risen

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Christ as the kinds of events that a disinterested observer would have seen had he or she been there?

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If your answer to that question is yes, then you're affirming the historical factuality in a quite literal sense of the

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Easter stories. If your answer to that question is no, these stories might still be understood to be profoundly meaningful.

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But what I want to stress most strongly as I make this initial point is that feel free to believe whatever you want about whether or not the tomb really was empty, and whether or not you could have videotaped the appearances of the risen

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Christ. Believe whatever you want about that. I don't even want to argue about that. What I want to do is to ask and briefly answer the question, what do these stories mean?

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And as I give a very concise answer to that question in the six minutes remaining to me, there are two primary meanings that I hear in the

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Easter stories. To give you those two meanings in two very short sentences before I expand each, first,

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Jesus lives, and secondly, Jesus is

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Lord. I'm claiming that those are the two primary cumulative meanings of the

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Easter traditions in the New Testament. So to the first one, Jesus lives.

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By that I mean simply that his followers continued to experience him after his death.

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And by the way, I think people throughout the centuries, Christians throughout the centuries have continued to have experiences of Jesus as a figure of the present after his death.

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So I'm not just talking about the 40 days between Easter and Ascension, as Luke in the first chapter of Acts puts it, but I'm talking about Jesus through the centuries being experienced as a living figure of the present.

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When I think of how his early followers experienced him as a living figure, let me mention at least three ways.

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I think they had visions of the risen Christ. Paul's experience on the

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Damascus Road was clearly a vision, and I don't think either Jim or James would deny that.

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And I think it's very possible that some of the other experiences reported in the Gospels were also visions.

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Now I want to underline, visions are not all hallucinations. Some visions are psychotic, but some visions,

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I'm convinced, are disclosures of something that is real. And let me emphasize also that in a vision, you may not only see something, you may also hear a voice.

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Visions can even include a tactile sense, a sense of being touched or embraced.

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And in a vision, you might even see, whatever you're seeing in a vision, eat something. So the fact that the risen

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Christ is reported to have eaten a fish does not count against a vision. You might see that in a vision.

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And to those people who might say, you mean it was only a vision? I would simply say, anybody who has ever had a vision would never say only a vision.

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In addition to visions, I think there were experiences in a non -visionary way of the presence of the

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Spirit of Christ in the community, the same presence that his followers had known in and around him during his lifetime, continuing to be experienced.

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And that's why they said, it's Jesus. And I think there also were experiences of the power that they had known in Jesus during his lifetime, continuing to operate within the community.

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So that's the first affirmation of Easter, as I understand it. Jesus lives.

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He is a figure of the present, not simply a figure of the past. You won't find

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Jesus in the land of the dead. As the angel says in the story of the empty tomb, why do you seek the living amongst the dead?

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He is not here. He is risen. The second meaning of Easter. Jesus is

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Lord. This is probably the simplest and most widespread post -Easter

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Christian affirmation of faith in the New Testament. What does it mean to say that Jesus is

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Lord? Well, it means that God has raised Jesus to God's right hand.

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And notice, that language is manifestly metaphorical. God does not have hands.

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God does not have feet. But we all understand what the metaphor means. God has raised

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Jesus to God's right hand. God has given to Jesus a position of honor, power, and authority, or in very compact, somewhat abstract language,

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God has vindicated Jesus. God has raised Jesus up.

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God has said yes to Jesus. And the context in which that becomes profoundly meaningful is that the powers of this world,

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Roman imperial authority working together with local collaborators from amongst the Jewish people, the temple authorities, the powers of this world by crucifying

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Jesus had said no to Jesus and to what he was passionate about.

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Good Friday is the authority's no to Jesus. Easter is

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God's yes to Jesus. God has vindicated Jesus. And it's crucially important to realize that Lord was one of the titles of the

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Roman Emperor. So was Son of God. So was Savior.

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So was the one who has brought peace on earth. For the early

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Christian movement to say Jesus is Lord is to say the

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Emperor is not, Caesar is not, Empire is not, the powers of this world are not.

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And thus the meaning of Easter as I see it is both deeply personal and political.

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Personal in that the path of death and resurrection is the path of personal liberation and reconnection with God for all of us.

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Political in that the affirmation is Jesus is Lord. The powers of this world are not.

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Some Christians ask the question and probably all of you have been asked the question and may have asked it yourself.

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Do you believe in Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior? It's a crucially important question.

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And our answer to that question determines whether we remain in bondage, in exile, blind and so forth.

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An utterly important question. And I want to suggest to you that Easter as well as the

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Gospels and the New Testament as a whole suggest an equally important parallel question identical in its wording with the exception of one word.

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Do you accept Jesus Christ as your political Lord and Savior? Both meanings are there.

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And both meanings are at the very heart of what Easter means. Thank you.

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Time permitting, I would like to make three points. And they in brief are these.

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Presuppositions are foundational to our discussion. And my points two and three flow from this first one.

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The second point is that the text is of foundational importance to our discussion.

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And the third of them is that theological formulation is foundational to the importance of our discussion.

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Now what I'd like to do in the time allotted to me is open up these points briefly. I seriously doubt that I'll get to the third, but maybe

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I can smuggle it into our question and answer session later on. Just trying to be fair with you there.

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Hope to do that. First, presuppositions are important. Reformation and post -Reformation theology is based on principia.

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Most of the great systems of theology which flowed from this era begin with prolegomena, establishing the nature and the method of theology.

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From this nature and method, they proceeded to discuss the two great principia.

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And so closely were they related that sometimes the principia seemed to be a part of prolegomena itself.

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Now the principia are the fundamental principles or the foundation upon which theological formulation is built.

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Now you ask, what are these two principia? Let me explain them to you. The first is the principium cognoscendi.

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It is the principle of knowing or cognitive foundation. And this term, by the

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Reformers and the post -Reformation Protestants, was a term that was applied to scripture as the noetic or epistemological principium theologiae, the foundational principle of theology.

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And without it, they asserted, and I believe that they were right, that there can be no true knowledge of God and therefore no theological system.

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So we must begin with this principle of knowledge, which is a recognition of the nature of Holy Scripture.

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Now the second principia is the principium ascendi, the principle of being or the essential foundation, and it is applied to God as considered as the objective ground of theology, without whom there could be neither divine revelation nor theology.

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Now these are, James and mine, principia, and they serve as presuppositions for our argument.

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From our perspective, to reject these principia is to undermine all possibility of Christian theology, and it turns the discussion into subjectivity without hope of theological resolution.

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Now these things need to be said at the outset so that we might all understand that our discussion today is, in a sense, being carried on in two distinct theological languages.

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Drs. Borg and Crossan may well say some things that seem outlandish to us. We may seem outlandish to them.

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But if we can acknowledge an awareness of these differences, we can perhaps make progress in hearing one another and not simply talk past each other.

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Now I wish to speak to these two principia and their relevance for this debate. And as I said, my next two points flow out of the reality of these foundational principles.

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So number two, the text is of importance for our discussion.

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Now I would like to focus on the text of the Book of Acts, an historical record of the spread of Christianity, and a demonstration of how

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Christians, writing one generation after the event of the resurrection, actually viewed that event.

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Now by my count, we have referenced to the resurrection of Jesus nearly 30 times in that book.

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These occurrences surround three key terms and their cognates, zoe, anistemi, and agero.

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Now we can only take a furtive glance at these three terms in a couple of texts where they appear, but they are greatly enlightening.

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The first of them is in Acts 1 .3. Luke, in the introduction to this book, when he writes to Theophilus, whoever

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Theophilus may have been, speaks about Jesus in the past and Jesus in the present.

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And he wants to remind Theophilus of the earlier book, which we call the Gospel of Luke. But he says this in his third verse,

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Now we notice that Luke uses the language of presenting himself alive, zonta, after his suffering.

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And in this word, Luke introduces a theme that will be central to his presentation.

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And he does so in such a way that no one is able to mistake his terms. Now you notice he doesn't use either of the words that typically are used to speak of resurrection.

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He speaks about life, and he uses the word that typically refers to living being.

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The use of zonta makes this point, and it is buttressed by citing the reality of witnesses and infallible proofs.

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F .F. Bruce, for example, tells us that Aristotle wrote that the word that we have translated as signs means a compelling sign, something that gave demonstration.

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Now this text cannot be understood in any other way, but in terms of a physical resurrection of Jesus' body after his sufferings.

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Luke says he was alive, and he demonstrated that he was alive, and that sets the tone for all of the rest of the discussion of resurrection in the book of Acts.

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Now the second passage that I would like to turn to very briefly is in Acts 17. I wish that we could work our way through all of the different texts in the book of Acts, but there are two places in Acts 17 that are of interest for our discussion.

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For example, when Paul comes into Athens, having reasoned in the synagogue, he also goes into the marketplace.

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And we are told that there were certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers who encountered him, and they said,

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What does this babbler seem to say? While others said, He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods, because he preached to them

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Jesus and the resurrection. Later on, during the same visit to Athens, Paul stands in the center of Greek philosophy at a place called the

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Areopagus. And there in the Areopagus, he speaks to his audience about who

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Christ is. And when he comes down to the end, he says this, God has appointed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained.

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He has given assurance of this to all by raising him from the dead.

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And when they, that is the Greek philosophers, when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said,

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We will hear you again on this matter. So Paul departed from among them.

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Now notice the reactions that Paul receives when he speaks about the resurrection, explicitly related to the resurrection of Jesus.

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Why did he receive such mocking responses? Well, if the resurrection does not describe a physical resurrection, what would have been the basis for the words and behavior of his opponents?

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Thirdly, we look at Acts chapter 23, where Paul, after being taken prison in the city of Jerusalem, is allowed to speak to the

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Jewish high council, the Sanhedrin. And Paul perceived that there were two different parties present before him, the

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Pharisees and the Sadducees. And so he says, I am a Pharisee, the son of a

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Pharisee, concerning the hope and resurrection of the dead, I am being judged. And Luke tells us, when he had said this, a dissension arose between the

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Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. For Sadducees say that there is no resurrection and no angel or spirit, but the

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Pharisees confess both. Now we're all aware of this division between Sadducees and Pharisees, but Paul exploits it.

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And it could not be more clear how he exploited it and why he did so.

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The Pharisees, who believed in a physical resurrection, at this time, strangely, came to his defense, and the

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Sadducees were offended by the words that he spoke. Very quickly, the fourth text that I want to look at is in Acts chapter 26, where Paul, in the continuing narrative of the events that follow

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Acts 23, is now in Caesarea, standing on trial or in defense of himself before Festus, the

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Roman governor, before Agrippa, the puppet king of Israel, before dignitaries from the city of Caesarea, before Agrippa's court and Festus' officers.

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And he comes and he speaks to them plainly and clearly about the resurrection. Early on in his speech, he asks this poignant question,

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Why should it be thought incredible by you that God raises the dead?

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And I guess I will stop there. At the end of the same text, we find

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Paul speaking once more about the resurrection, and when he does so, Festus interrupts him suddenly in a loud voice, and essentially says,

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Paul, you're insane. Festus understood what the apostle was seeking to teach, that he was talking about something that was unacceptable in pagan philosophy at the time, that Paul was speaking of a bodily resurrection of Jesus.

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Now, there's more that we could say, but my time is up, and I will yield to Dr. Croson. Let me play with my magic machine for a minute.

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My subject is the resurrection, but I'd like to start by talking about myself, which admittedly is from the sublime to the ridiculous, but I do want to raise that issue of presuppositions on a personal level.

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My name is John Dominic Croson. My passport says John Croson. That's my civil name.

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My middle name, Dominic, which is the only name I go by for anyone who knows me, is my religious name.

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It has nothing to do with any civil capacity. It's in Latin, Dominicus, and it was first of all in Latin.

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It means belonging to the Lord. That is a life commitment, not an accidental name. Secondly, I abbreviate it always as Dom, and people think that's nice.

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Dom is short for Dominic. Not quite. The title of Jupiter in the Roman Empire was

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Jupiter Optimus Maximus. Jupiter, the best and the strongest.

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When Christians said D -O -M, they meant Deo, Optimo, Maximo, which is not simply saying that God was the greatest and the strongest, but to God.

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In other words, I dedicate my life to God, the greatest, the best, and the strongest.

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That is a life commitment. I want to insist on that because that is what this is all about. Otherwise, resurrection is simply a battle of concepts.

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Secondly, I got that name, Dominicus, Frater Dominicus, when

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I was 16 in 1950, I entered the Roman Catholic religious order. If you want to know what born again is like, try entering a

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Roman Catholic religious order in Ireland in 1950. It makes being born again, if I may say this without offense, in an evangelical community look rather like a

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Sunday picnic. So I too have been born again, but differently. When I entered the order,

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I was going to say I was a conservative Roman Catholic. That would make you think there might have been liberal Roman Catholics around.

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I was an Irish Roman Catholic, whatever. Whatever everyone said, you took for granted.

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There were no liberal conservatives, radicals. There was just traditional Roman Catholicism. So I started with all the presuppositions, or what

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Jim calls principia. I pronounce it differently. That doesn't mean you're wrong, or I'm right, or whatever.

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That's the way I learned to do it. Presuppositions. I started off with all the presuppositions of classical, traditional

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Roman Catholicism in an Irish context. No problems, no questions. And it took me in the monastic scholasticate almost five years before I ever started studying anything in the

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Bible. I didn't have anything like you might imagine a traditional seminary Bible training.

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We were busy learning Thomas Aquinas deep in the 13th century. And none of that shook any of the foundations or the presuppositions.

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Then I started reading the Bible and teaching the Bible and reading the New Testament and taking seriously, as I said the other night, there are four versions of the same

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Gospel and their relationships. And what started to happen is my presuppositions started to change.

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No, I disagree completely that presuppositions or principia are some sort of a static, almost mechanical, almost non -moving entity.

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They are interactive with data. And in my case they were interactive with the data of the

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New Testament and the Gospel especially. I do agree. I do agree.

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Presuppositions are foundational. But presuppositions are organic. They're vital.

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They're interactive. They interact with your data. Otherwise, you're not part of God's world which is always changing.

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Changing, however, is very difficult. So my point I take from my own experience is presuppositions must in a very dangerously dynamic, interactive way react with the data.

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The data does change the presuppositions. By the time I was finished

38:15

I had troubles with both well, I'm not going to put it that way. I had trouble with papal infallibility which had no trouble with biblical inerrancy.

38:24

I had trouble with both. But it was papal infallibility that was going to cause me trouble not biblical inerrancy.

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So from my experience presuppositions are foundational but no, they are not static.

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They're dynamic. They're vital. They're interactive. They're organic. Now let me turn to speak of resurrection.

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In its context, if you lived as a

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Jew and your faith was that God owned the world and the world belonged to God and your experience as a

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Jew was that the world was unjust and you were getting most of its brutality then your faith announced, proclaimed necessarily that someday

39:09

God would clean up the mess of the world. God had to do it. It belonged to God.

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That's called eschatology. And the first most important initial act that God had to perform comes that great clean up was the bodily resurrection especially of the martyrs.

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Bodily as an affront no doubt to Platonism because martyrs had been tortured in their bodies.

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God had to raise the martyrs above all else. Now nothing as I read this tells me whether they're speaking literally or metaphorically.

39:44

That's of course the heart of our debate. You can insist that's what they're saying and it's literal. I can say that's what they're saying and it's metaphorical.

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At the time of Jesus for many people including John the Baptist the announcement was that the kingdom of God, the great clean up is imminent.

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God's action would happen any day in our generation tomorrow maybe but soon. What Jesus said what

40:12

Paul said using different theologies is no. It has begun and you are called to participate in it.

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What? Nobody has ever said that before. Right. But what if we don't participate in it?

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Will it still have begun? I think the answer from Jesus would have been no. You're waiting for God and God is waiting for you.

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It's a collaborative interactive eschaton and it can be said in three ways in the

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New Testament. The kingdom of God has already begun which is absolutely meaningless unless we are called to cooperate with God in it.

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Not us without God, not God without us. Secondly, and this will take much more time to unwrap the

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Son of Man the Son of Man who opposes the great beastly kingdoms of Daniel 7, the human one is already among us.

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Not coming soon already among us. And thirdly, the general resurrection the first business when

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God cleans up the world has already begun with Jesus. Now when

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I hear all of that and in that context and I don't begin by reading 1 Corinthians 15

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I begin with 1 Corinthians 15 in that matrix. James quoted it first no general resurrection, no

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Jesus resurrection no Jesus resurrection, no general resurrection. They stand or fall together. The general resurrection has begun.

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None of that makes any sense whatsoever in the first century context unless it means you are called to participate in it.

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And that is what I want to insist on in this debate. If you take it literally and take it as literally as you want, and I'm not mocking it take it literally, it still means you are called to participate.

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If you are not leading a resurrected life then you have no right to speak of the resurrection of Jesus.

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You might speak of the exaltation of Jesus but you have no right to speak of the resurrection of Jesus. So what is essential for me what is something

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I would not give for is not, well do you take it literally or do you take it metaphorically and let's debate about that.

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How does your life proclaim in specific detail to the world that the resurrection has begun and you are living an exemplary life that displays it?

42:51

Thank you. What do you believe, and you two may not actually agree perfectly at this point and if there are any differences it would be nice to know what they are what do you believe happened to the physical body of Jesus Christ?

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I do not think they knew, first of all. I think as I read the story proceeding, now again presupposition here, from Mark into Matthew and Luke, into John and I watch the story of the burial increasing towards a more and more proper burial.

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I don't think the earliest followers of Jesus knew exactly what happened to the body. That is their best hope, what is in Mark.

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How do I know that? Because I watch how Matthew and Luke now again a presupposition, read Mark and see the changes they have to make.

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So my judgment is they did not know. Whenever I don't know something like that I fall back on generalities, what would you expect to happen?

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The best hope would be exactly what they said, that a pious Jew like in the book of Tobit, buried

44:08

Jesus out of general respect for the Sabbath but that would mean he would also have to also bury anyone crucified with Jesus.

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And therefore that's what Matthew and Luke saw, that the tomb had to be empty. So that is not important for me.

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If you ask me how I think the earliest Christians said and why they said

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Jesus was raised two things, that from Jesus they had learned experientially, not just theologically, that the kingdom has begun they have already seen its power and the visions that Marcus mentioned.

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I consider them to be real not hallucinations or anything like that. They had visions. Those two things explain for me historically simply as a historian, why they said

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Jesus was raised from the dead. And I can't explain it without those two. I wouldn't have much to add to that.

45:00

Perhaps the single most important point for me would be that for me the truth of Easter is not dependent upon whether or not anything special happened to the corpse of Jesus.

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For me, whether or not the tomb was empty is irrelevant to the truth of Easter as I understand it.

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But then if you pushed me and said, okay, you have to bet now whether it's one dollar or your life so you have to get off the fence whether it's one dollar or my life did the body of Jesus decay as human bodies do or was it transformed into another kind of body by God so that the physical body was gone?

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If I had to bet one way or the other, I'd say I think it probably decayed.

46:00

But again, for me the crucial point is the truth of Easter is not at stake in that. And if it is at stake for you, then

46:07

I want to talk to you about that. You went to Mark. What about Paul and the dating of 1

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Corinthians 80 -54 seems to be pretty solid. That makes it very, very primitive, especially since it's passed on to him.

46:24

It's paradosis. Any comments on the use of agyro -anastasis and the rather compelling fact that even before Mark you have these writers very plainly talking about they seem to know

46:42

Paul seems to feel he knows. I'm not the slightest doubt that they knew and knew experientially.

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The question still is, let me take Paul and was buried and let me presume that that is actual knowledge rather than simply the presumption that anyone who died had to be buried.

47:00

Let's imagine that. There is nothing important for me in saying that my view as a historian is that I don't know

47:09

Jesus was buried because the stories about it don't seem to me to have knowledge. They have hope.

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But there's nothing important there. If the tomb was found empty, even the

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New Testament itself says that an empty tomb can be explained in various different ways. I wouldn't put anything on that.

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What is important for me, I repeat, is the experience with the earthly Jesus that the kingdom has arrived and the visions.

47:34

The empty tomb, I could go either way if you convince me it was found empty.

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But my question really is the antiquity of the statement found in that tradition in 1

47:49

Corinthians even predates what you have in Mark at least as I understand your dating of those things.

47:58

I agree. There's nothing about finding an empty tomb in Mark. There's nothing about finding an empty tomb in 1

48:05

Corinthians 15. That's what I was answering. But the idea of being raised from the dead given the presentation

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I made regarding agyro and its usage, anastasis and its usage, do you agree or disagree with that because it doesn't seem to fit with the concept of a corpse still remaining in whatever kind of grave you want to envision for the

48:30

Lord Jesus? I don't think that's true for me, James. Let me just make it clear. Let's imagine the body was in the tomb and let's even imagine it was allowed sorry for using this language to remain in the tomb as any other body does.

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And I were to say to Paul, we have found a tomb with a body in it then I think

48:52

Paul would say this is a mystery of God. God has given Jesus another body.

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I don't think he'd say it's all over. He would not say that. He'd say Jesus has a soma pneumaticon that does not mean a spiritual whatever that means a body as real as the one he had but totally transformed by the spirit, the capital

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S. So I think if we were to say to Paul this is my understanding of Paul we have found a tomb,

49:17

Paul, and the body is still in it I think Paul might be a little surprised but in the same way that he thought he himself was going to receive a transformed body and maybe very soon

49:28

I don't think that would destroy the resurrection for Paul. If I may interject and press you with a question,

49:36

James. For you, as a Christian, as a historian as an intellectual, whatever mix of things how much is at stake for you in whether or not the tomb was empty?

49:49

I see no other way of reading not only Paul but Peter and John and Luke and Matthew, Mark, and all of them as to understand that if that tomb is still filled or there was no tomb at all or there is a physical resurrection as I said, we are of all men most to be pitied.

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So kind of everything is at stake. The entirety of the gospel and the Christian faith hangs upon the empty tomb on Easter morning, yes.

50:19

And so I truly do believe that Even though Paul underwent this tremendous conversion experience without an empty tomb being part of it

50:29

Did he have a vision of the risen Christ? I would disagree that because he uses simple language in almost creedal format that he was buried and he rose again the third day there's all sorts of details.

50:41

There's nothing about angels there's nothing about visitations to the tomb. That doesn't mean those were not a part of his knowledge. No, no, no. I'm thinking of the

50:47

Damascus Road experience. Well, I think something tells me in his persecution of Christians he may have heard a whole lot more than we know about at that particular point in time but from his own definition of what the gospel is, he makes it very clear our resurrection, our having of eternal life is dependent upon the reality that God raised

51:08

Jesus from the dead and he is going to raise us from the dead as well and he uses that seed analogy, the seed that falls into the ground there is that intimate connection between that which falls into the ground and dies and that which comes forth is from the ground and without that I don't see it as being...

51:24

So, if you, I'm going to press that, if you really go with that metaphor, what goes down into the ground and comes up is in continuity, absolute but it is not in exactly the same.

51:35

There's something left in the ground. I'm getting dangerous ground here because I don't know how far to press this metaphor. But what goes down into the ground changes, transforms and everything else.

51:45

So I don't see the logic of saying Paul says if there's no resurrection, we are to be pitied.

51:52

Meaning, if there's no empty tomb, we are to be pitied. I don't... If I can continue the seed analogy

52:00

I've been really struck by that analogy because it's one that expresses continuity it's the seed that becomes the full grown plant but it's also one that states radical discontinuity.

52:13

Think how different the full grown plant is from the seed which is planted. Whether you want to go acorn, oak tree or if you want to do it with a smaller plant.

52:23

So, I don't see, well better yet, put positively, I see the seed analogy as saying the resurrection body is profoundly different from the body which is sown.

52:36

In the context that Paul defines that because when he defines the differences... But those are real strong opposites.

52:41

But when he defines those... Perishable, incorruptible seed, fully grown plant, physical body spiritual body or natural body, spiritual body, however you want to put that.

52:51

Except they are not opposites that allow the tomb to remain full of a physical body.

52:56

They refer to the kind of existence they do not refer to such a disjunction which we both mentioned.

53:04

In fact, I'm a little confused here because in your 1999 work, The Jesus Controversy, where you wrote one of the three chapters there, you did address this and I thought

53:15

I understood you to be asserting some sort of a contradiction in Paul between his seed analogy and soma pneumaticon even though you just now said soma pneumaticon in a way that I understood there to be controversy between Marcus yourself and Tom Wright at Chautauqua in...

53:34

I forget which year that was a specific time, but there was an exchange that you all had in regards to whether that was a physical body and the lexical issues and things like that.

53:44

So I'm a little confused as to exactly, is there a difference? Let me answer it first, Marcus. Yeah, I think

53:50

Tom's book on the resurrection convinced me that soma pneumaticon, a spiritual body was not what

53:57

I thought before was a kind of a contradiction in terms almost desperate. I think when he said capital

54:03

S is what does a body look like transformed by the big S, the spirit, I think that's right

54:09

I think that makes sense of it. What does a body a real body look like transformed by the spirit?

54:15

That brings us back though to the analogy. It's definitely a spiritual body, but capital

54:21

S not just the standard contradiction like a square circle so yeah, any time I've said square circle, spiritual body

54:27

I withdraw it. I think Tom was right in that one. Now we're still asking then, what would a body transformed by the

54:34

Holy Spirit absolutely look like? And if somebody said, well it can come through walls

54:39

I would have to say, with all due respect big deal. I think it's more important than that.

54:46

Well I'm not sure what you mean by that before we completely move that and make sure that Jim's microphone is actually on now would you agree on that in regards to 1

55:01

Corinthians 15 -44? Because the last I had heard you, at least in that last lecture, you still disagreed on that issue.

55:11

It's something I have not rethought recently by recently

55:17

I mean in the last year or two so I still am inclined to see spiritual body or so much it's always hard to say that,

55:26

Numatikon and Somatsukikon as a pretty sharp contrast and I so my position on that hasn't changed but I have a lot of humility about trying to talk about these matters that transcend time and space so I am very loath to get very specific about what a spiritual body is just as I'm very loath to get very specific about what a glorified body is

55:59

I think people are using language to try to talk about something that transcends time and space and for us to press that language so that, oh, now we know exactly what it means

56:11

I don't go down that road You do acknowledge in your book

56:16

The God We Never Knew that it is possible that Jesus physically rose from the dead it's in a footnote in one of the chapters but you do make that acknowledgement

56:28

It's a way of saying, for me I don't want to die in the ditch of debating about whether or not the tomb was empty

56:35

I really want to say, believe whatever you want about that now can we talk about what

56:41

Easter means because Easter is not primarily about an empty tomb it really isn't

56:48

Did the apostle Paul though again going back to that early period of time do you feel he would have agreed no one up here is saying that all there is to Easter is a discussion of the physicality of the resurrection of Christ we obviously would say there is no

57:07

Easter without that but we would also then say that if you are not living as a transformed believer under the direction of the spirit of God in light of the resurrection of Christ that for you, you are making it empty

57:22

I would disagree with you Don that you can reverse Paul's statement by the way I think that's what you're trying to say and I've heard you say it before that if Christ be not raised then your faith is vain and you say you can reverse that and say if your faith is not doing

57:35

X, Y, or Z then Christ is not raised I do not believe that that follows because all that really means is you aren't living in light of that I would make a distinction at that point between exaltation and resurrection let's imagine for example that nobody ever collaborated with God in the eschatological age announced by the resurrection then

57:59

Jesus could be seated at the right hand of God Jesus could be lord of the universe Jesus could be exalted if you say raised in the context of the first century

58:08

Jewish eschatological expectation it can't be just a special privilege as it were just for Jesus because he's son of God it must begin the general resurrection and nobody has said that before that there's going to be one person raised slightly ahead of everyone else and there's going to be an interim even if you say it's very short so I would insist that the use of the term resurrection as a symptom of exaltation does bear with it intrinsically a corporate continuation that's my point there didn't the

58:37

Jews of that period though have a very strong view of what the nature of that resurrection was

58:45

I don't recall the Jews of that period having the concept of resurrection being either and this is the distinction that I have seen and I would like to hear you all comment on between your two views someone asked a question of you

59:02

Marcus at one point and you wanted to make sure to emphasize that you do not believe the resurrection is merely

59:09

Jesus is with us, we remember Jesus or we live in the light of Jesus or something like that but at the same time you're also saying it doesn't matter what happened to the corpse in the tomb

59:21

I think you've used the term absorption exaltation to vindication is more my term

59:30

God has vindicated Jesus, God has said yes to Jesus that's Jesus' Lord part of it but for you

59:37

Dominic my understanding is the followers of Jesus continue his kingdom program with radical egalitarianism, broken bread together and that that is the presence of Christ is that they are continuing his ministry in that fashion and I see a difference between the two because my understanding is

59:56

Dominic you do not believe in an afterlife and you don't even think it's a relevant question yeah and I'm not interested in arguing about it generally speaking what most

01:00:04

Christians have said about the future so far has been wrong so I'm not interested in that I want to know about the present so what's important for me is that eschatology is the matrix of all we're talking about today and eschatology means that God is going to clean up the world now what's going to happen in the future nobody has yet said anything that's been able to be checked on that so I'm not interested even in arguing

01:00:31

I want to know when the great cleanup has begun as it were there's different ways of expressing that theologically

01:00:36

Jesus expressed by saying the kingdom of God has arrived get with it, Paul's talking about the general resurrection has begun or another way of putting it the son of man is already on earth all of those are different ways of saying the same thing it is already here get with the program now what

01:00:54

I'm arguing is that if nobody got with the program as it were we couldn't talk about the resurrection of Jesus we could talk about the exaltation of Jesus but resurrection is always corporate in the matrix of eschatology of its time nobody would understand for example if somebody said in the first century now

01:01:12

Jesus is risen from the dead special privilege just for Jesus because he's son of God and Lord of the universe they wouldn't use that they would use the word is exalted or something like that he's taken up to God he's seated at the right hand of God resurrection meant the general bodily resurrection but they would have understood the concept of first fruits as well yes of course associated with the resurrection of Jesus right and the first exactly first fruits is the beginning of the harvest now we're stretching that metaphor too when we say it's at least 2 ,000 years and counting before the rest of the harvest but yet the metaphor again is a corporate metaphor right but I mean biblically the phrase in the last days is itself elastic isn't it whether it's used first in the book of Genesis but it moves forward it's always an elastic concept that points us to something that will happen yes

01:02:03

Jim as I would understand it yes but nobody had ever said that I know in any eschatological apocalyptic vision anywhere before Christianity that this is going to be a period you have wars and rumors of wars and all of that but then comes the great moment as it were

01:02:19

I don't know anyone who said okay now it's going to take a week or you know something stupid like that that they'll be the general resurrection that'll take months it was presumed it was something like a blinding flash of light that God would do it and it'd be all over I mean everyone would know about it the general resurrection now we're saying no it has a beginning in time and we're dating it and it's going to go on for a while and we are saying at least most of them and it'll be over soon at that point we have to stretch but they are making a claim it has begun and it's corporate that's the thing that grounds it for me otherwise it's a special privilege for Jesus and there's no application to anything else beyond that Jesus is beyond that Jesus is

01:03:02

Lord of course I was going to ask if I could go in a different direction please

01:03:08

I wanted to get to my third point and that was that theological formulations are really important and as I've read both of you over the last few months it seems to me that Dr.

01:03:23

Borg you're very clear especially in your book The God We Never Knew about how you perceive

01:03:28

God how you image God as a panentheist Dom I haven't really been able to pin down what your theology proper is and it seems that when we find frequently especially in the preaching of the book of Acts this notion that it's

01:03:41

God who raises the dead it seems to me that it's important to flesh out what our theology is theology proper

01:03:48

I mean who is God what is God because that goes a long way to help us to answer the question what is resurrection all about well very briefly my philosophy is that metaphor creates reality so when

01:04:05

I say metaphor don't please ever hear it as oh that's just mere metaphor metaphor is the foundation of reality the only way

01:04:12

I know we can name the holy and as far as I'm concerned everyone has to name the holy because they're all doing it that's simply an argument from the history of religions the founding metaphor for us is

01:04:25

God as person that is a metaphor I prefer to say a mega metaphor it's a metaphor that founds everything else in other religions when they name the holy they may have different founding metaphors and that's going to determine everything create reality that's what

01:04:39

I mean by that so for me God as person is a metaphor now please don't hear that as mere metaphor it's rock bottom basic than which there is no more foundational thing and it's going to create a reality and at certain times for me it breaks down it breaks down for me when

01:04:57

I'm watching somebody appearing on television and saying that the hurricane destroyed their house but not their neighbors and the neighbor says

01:05:05

I'm truly blessed I would prefer not to say that is in the plan of God I prefer to say that's the moment when our metaphor humbles us that it doesn't quite work at that point it might at that point work better to think of God as power sheer power so that's the way

01:05:22

I understand it it's a metaphor that creates reality is the metaphor transcendent and imminent?

01:05:28

it is absolutely the negation of that distinction it is like air if I could use it as an example because that's also grace air is all around us it's totally internal totally transcendent if you shut your mouth you'd be dead eventually so it's totally transcendent in that you're absolutely dependent on it for me but it's totally imminent it's everywhere and it's free it's offered to everyone all you have to do is breathe but if you don't breathe you die so yes totally imminent so it's

01:05:59

I'm not a deist Marcus could you just address that briefly?

01:06:07

well I'm at one with John on that God is both transcendent and imminent I also would agree that all of our language about God is intrinsically metaphorical

01:06:18

God is light but God is not the light God comes to us as food but God is not the food and so forth and so forth so I would say for me the sacred the sacred is profoundly real it's an element of human experience

01:06:37

I don't mean that all people have an awareness of having experienced the sacred but many people do and I think all people have in very early childhood and so forth that's sort of a sub point but I think

01:06:51

God or the sacred is an element of experience I think God or the sacred is all around us as well as within us

01:07:00

I see the universe as being within God and God as being more than the universe and then

01:07:07

I would insist that all of our attempts to speak about the sacred in our stumbling human language is intrinsically metaphorical it's the only language we have when we try to talk about that which transcends time and space as well as being immanent throughout time and space and I hope that's not jargony language it's just a respect for language about God and I think the biblical prohibition of graven images is not just about making images of metal or stone

01:07:40

I think it also extends to the use of our language I think whenever we absolutize our language about God or think that God has given us an absolute language about God I think that we in effect are violating that prohibition against graven images so God for me is mystery with a capital

01:08:01

M, utterly real and God for me as a Christian is disclosed primarily in Jesus not only in Jesus, I take the

01:08:10

Bible as a whole very seriously but I see the Christian affirmation and I think this is behind your saying that the foundational

01:08:20

Christian metaphor for God is person is that we know God most decisively as person and in a person and that person is

01:08:29

Jesus and Jesus is not to be identified with the biblical text about Jesus of course they witness to him and they are our primary access to him but he's not to be identified with the biblical text

01:08:43

If I could Don, you said in the debate against William Lane Craig I believe it was

01:08:51

Moody Church in Chicago you commented on what you you used fairly strong language when you commented on the

01:09:02

Christian tendency and certainly historical tendency to say, to go beyond particularism to exclusivism to go beyond saying

01:09:14

Jesus is the only son of God for me to saying that Jesus is the only son of God, period for anyone

01:09:24

I got that feeling, though you weren't addressing the same issues in some of the Chautauqua lectures that you would both be on the same page in regards to that, would that be true?

01:09:36

Let me take a shot at it I would say that in two levels yes, I spent 26 years teaching history of religions including people in the class who were almost all religions so yes,

01:09:48

I do not say and I will not say, and I think it is bad theology and I think it is possibly an insult to God to say that God is only cosmically revealed in Jesus now, having said that and allowing that for Christians, of course if I am talking to somebody else who is not a

01:10:06

Christian I don't say, well, if you don't accept Christ as your Lord and Savior you're out. I'm going to say this as I understand what

01:10:13

Christ is doing in my faith he's incarnating the justice of God for this earth where are you in your religion on justice for the world?

01:10:23

where are you on violence? where are you on peace? where are you on all of that stuff that you find, say, in Isaiah and Micah where are you in all of that?

01:10:32

because for me, that's incarnating Jesus could we talk about justice? now,

01:10:38

I'm willing to say that as clearly as I can understand how I think the world can be saved that is by establishing first justice and then peace as distinct from the way we're doing it at the moment

01:10:50

I find that incarnate in Jesus and I'm quite willing to put it in that language I do not think there's anything else that can save us in this world at the moment beyond establishing justice and on the other side of justice, we'll have peace now,

01:11:06

I think that's Christian but I don't have to use the Christian language, I can do bilingual I can use the language of justice because it's not a fake language, it's what

01:11:16

Jesus means for me do you feel the apostles or the writers of the

01:11:21

New Testament depending on how you look at your source materials agreed with your conclusions at that point?

01:11:28

or are there some pretty exclusivistic statements in the scriptures that you would see as a degradation from the

01:11:36

Christian ideal? no, there's a fair number of things in scriptures but if I was a Jew in the first century and was looking at most of the

01:11:43

Gentiles around me I would have to admit I'm not impressed by their religion which has mostly been booting us for 500 years so yeah, it's a little bit like the

01:11:53

Irish not being impressed by the English religion and to be honest with you, it has nothing to do with religion it has to do with every time they've run into Gentiles what have they been?

01:12:01

they've been the Assyrians, Babylonians, etc. so I don't think they're impressed by Jupiter and I don't think it would impress them to say in the great cosmic cleanup,

01:12:10

Jupiter will have this section and Yahweh will have the others so I think it has to do with their experience and to add to that myself there are of course a number of passages in the

01:12:22

New Testament that do speak of Jesus or the God of Jesus as the only way of salvation not as many as one might think, by the way,

01:12:30

I want to add but they're there and I would agree with what Dom has said and then I would add to it that what we see in the

01:12:38

New Testament amongst other things is the enthusiasm and devotion of a new religious movement

01:12:46

I mean, we don't really have good statistics but possibly as late as the end of the first century there may be only 7500

01:12:54

Christians in the whole Roman Empire and therefore the whole world and these people had experienced deliverance through Jesus Christ and it's easy for me to imagine that in the enthusiasm and devotion of that experience of Jesus, they would say we have found the way in Jesus and it's a small jump from we have found the way in Jesus to and he's the only way and I don't think it's a diminution of that to think of the kind of language that lover and beloved use for each other you know, when either of you say to your wife you're the most beautiful person in the world

01:13:40

I mean, I would be a wooden -headed literalist if I overheard that and said oh, come on, she's attractive but she's not the most beautiful person in the world

01:13:48

I would understand how that language is functioning it's the language of devotion and adoration and gratitude and all of that and I don't think when the

01:14:00

New Testament writers use language like that that they're imagining that they are spelling out universal, absolute doctrinal truths

01:14:09

I really don't if I comment on that since I've been doing most of the questioning it seems to me as I read the

01:14:16

New Testament that when you take it as a whole the universal proclamation of the gospel and the exclusivity of what

01:14:26

God has done in Christ doesn't require just simply a statement no man comes to the

01:14:31

Father but by me in John 14 but when you have the universal problem is sin and God's solution for that sin is the incarnation, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ in the doctrine of atonement and then people are called to accept

01:14:51

God's testimony to His own Son in the resurrection and what all that means you look at the

01:14:57

Carmen Christi in Philippians 2, 5 -11 all creation bows the knee that's where I see the clearest, strongest biblical exclusivism is in the issue of sin and what

01:15:11

God has done about it let me come back at you with a question about that if I'm understanding you correctly would that imply that only people who have heard that understanding accept that understanding get it sorted out in the right way and believe it with their head and also with their heart that only people who get those ideas right and internalized within their heart as well can be in relationship in right relationship to God?

01:15:46

actually I would there's a major, major element missing that changes everything else that you just said and that is as I I think

01:15:56

I completely shocked Dom in the debate I've never seen a face like that which he made when

01:16:02

I said that he would make a good Calvinist he had never had that happen in his life I can tell that was a new one that was a new one, yes and I am reformed and so what that means is all of everything you just said about sorting out ideas and all the rest of that stuff is the result of the gracious work of the

01:16:21

Holy Spirit within the heart of God's elect people that term clatois is used a lot in the

01:16:29

New Testament and it is God who is the one who brings me into proper relationship with Him by grace through Jesus Christ it is not me sorting through world religions and getting well doing everything that you listed there which sounded very synergistic and very much based upon me just happening to get it right and somebody else doing their best and happening to get it wrong let me come back with a faith statement of my own then because what

01:17:00

I just heard that is a faith statement not as something you could demonstrate well

01:17:05

I was talking about biblically well ok let me come back with a faith statement of my own

01:17:12

I am persuaded that God has made

01:17:19

God's self known in all of the enduring religions of the world now

01:17:24

I stress enduring because I think there are some religious movements that come into existence for a short period of time that are just sort of crackpot but I am persuaded that God has made

01:17:37

God's self known in all of the enduring religions of the world the religions that have stood the test of time and that the various religions of the world are different linguistic systems shaped by the cultures in which they emerge for articulating the mystery and how one is in relationship to God now that doesn't mean

01:17:59

I think all religions are the same but I simply cannot believe I simply cannot believe that the creator of the whole universe whom we claim to know in Jesus has chosen to be known in only one religious tradition which just fortunately happens to be our own now that's a faith statement on my part but I mean

01:18:19

I can argue it too but I'm just saying we're talking in some ways which takes us back

01:18:25

I think to the issue of do you determine that when you say you simply cannot believe that for me the question comes down to is that what

01:18:36

God's word taken as God's word as a whole reveals to us that it is

01:18:41

God by His grace who chooses the means by which He reveals Himself and that the religions of men in point of fact according to Paul are their religious way of engaging in catechantum remember the participle he uses there in Romans 1 suppressing the knowledge of God let me put this back in the first century please in the first century there was a huge empire which declared itself to be the world it didn't talk about the

01:19:11

Mediterranean the Roman Empire the title of Caesar for example just to take one case is son of God when a

01:19:17

Christian in the first century said there's only one son of God they really weren't talking about the

01:19:23

Han Chinese if they knew they existed they weren't talking about the Irish if there was any sons of God in Ireland they were making a very clear statement not that guy but our guy but they say so much more than that when you accept and I know that you don't well look at the language that they do use they use kurios they use theos they use the pre -existent one the one who creates all things we're in heaven and earth with visible and invisible principalities, powers, and ninja authorities all things created by and for him

01:19:50

I mean that is far more than just saying not him, him it's saying him and he created him and he's going to judge him and he created all the rest of us it goes so far beyond just simply setting up a contrast when we allow the entirety of the text to speak but I don't even think you think

01:20:09

Paul wrote that so you would place that at a later whether Paul wrote it or not is not the current question the question is in the matrix the specific matrix of Judaism within the

01:20:19

Roman Empire all of those titles you just used were the titles of the Roman Empire the

01:20:24

Roman Emperor and therefore to negate them it's not just simply negating them it's establishing a totally different world over here you're quite right on that but they're really not talking about you said it

01:20:35

Paul now Paul what about other people they were totally he's never even conceived that except when

01:20:40

Gnosticism comes into Asia Minor except when Proto -Gnosticism comes into Asia Minor in the form that Paul's responding to it in Colossians what does he do?

01:20:50

he responds by presenting the truth about who Jesus Christ is as the creator of all things not one of the eons not one of the lesser deities he even takes their own language the

01:20:59

Pleroma the eons all those things that they like to use turns it around and uses it against him and says that in him all the

01:21:07

Pleroma of Theatetos dwells Somaticos which would be like drawing your fingernails down how else could a small little group of pipsqueak nobodies take on the

01:21:19

Roman Empire except with an ideological language which negates the whole thing except in Colossians he's not taking on the

01:21:26

Roman Empire he's taking on Gnosticism oh yes also and in part that's because Gnosticism denies the importance of the body can

01:21:36

I ask you one question? both of us use the term sin and without simply saying that sin is alienation from God which of course it is when you say sin with a capital

01:21:46

S as it were today what's the biggest thing in your mind and then I'll tell you what's the biggest thing in my mind but you know behind it not in general like alienation from God or rejection of God or anything like that but what specifically if you could get one and get rid of it what would it be?

01:22:02

well sin is lawlessness therefore sin is acting in such a way as to act against God's law

01:22:10

God's revelation of how we are to live and that encompasses all of life that encompasses the mind that encompasses the tongue that encompasses the entirety of life when

01:22:21

Christ was asked you know give me the two commandments I might in a sense asking you to do the same unfair thing that was done to Christ give me the one if there's only one commandment what's it got to be?

01:22:30

well of course you could say be with God I know that well I can't leave just one let me tell you idolatry that's exactly what

01:22:37

I would say as well as idolatry because that's the root of everything else I think idolatry is so we're in total agreement on that the application of idolatry

01:22:45

I saw a little Irish thing going down there he was appreciating the application that's what

01:22:50

I'm doing I want to press you a little bit on the use of language since part of this conversation has been about that either one of you both of you

01:23:00

James in your opening presentation you used the language of to talk about the resurrection body both

01:23:08

Jesus and I think our own of incorruptible but truly physical

01:23:14

I think those are exact words and you also referred later to the physicality of Jesus' resurrection body what

01:23:23

I want to press you on is what does that language mean for example would an incorruptible but truly physical body weigh something would it be a certain size

01:23:43

I'm really interested in the question because I'm wondering what the word physical means in that phrase do we think of the risen

01:23:51

Christ as being a certain size as occupying space and having weight isn't that what the word physical means in ordinary language

01:24:02

I answer in the same way Tom Wright did and he said as I recall he indicated that he did not feel that was even the concern of the apostles either to address issues of weight but don't you think that's a tremendous dodge no

01:24:13

I don't think it is to use that language and say well I don't know what it means no I don't think it is because the fact that again as we have presented the actual use of the terms in the

01:24:23

New Testament the writers are using them in such a way as to assure us that Jesus did rise from the dead

01:24:31

I have not heard anything about how that can be taken in those texts exegetically in a way other than what

01:24:39

I have suggested but even at the same time they emphasize to us that glorious nature of the resurrection body in the same language that Paul uses to say we have not even begun to imagine that which awaits us and so it is it is that glimpse of what is yet to come it's the now and the not yet and to try to say well unless you can transport yourself to the future and provide mass and spectrum analysis of what this is going to be that isn't the point the point is that there is that connection which both of you have said exists between that which died and that which is raised again

01:25:22

Jesus himself said see it is I I am not a phantasma he did those things not to try to fool the disciples into thinking well you see

01:25:31

I can just put on a physical body like you have so often pointed out there were pagan gods who could do that we're talking in Judaism here

01:25:38

Jehovah doesn't do that kind of stuff he's not like one of the pagan gods running around putting on bodies and cavorting with women and all the rest of that stuff there's this vast difference between the two and so within monotheistic

01:25:50

Judaism for the grave to be empty and Jesus to say it is I myself touch me and see that is the reality of the resurrection that matters not whether if he had stood on the scale if they had such a thing at that time whether he would have weighed the same as he did before less or if he could have chosen because it seems to me with the issue of the locked doors and the issue on the

01:26:13

Emmaus road that we're obviously talking about something that does transcend our experience of the corruptible physical body now what does it mean for my body to be uncorruptible we can speculate about time and space and all the rest of that stuff all

01:26:29

I know is within the realm of the revelation and maybe it's because we can't even begin to understand this maybe there's no analogy we can even begin to use that would communicate anything meaningful here maybe it's just God is free to say this far and no farther in my revelation but the fact remains that is what they said

01:26:49

Jesus did and that's what they were indicating Jesus his body was all about and so I don't think it's a dodge to say no we have no revelation as to weight issues on resurrection bodies but we do have revelation on the reality of the empty tomb and the physicality of Christ's resurrection because he says touch me hand in me and see a phantasma has not flesh and bones you see that I have

01:27:12

Jesus would have to have been misleading Thomas at that point which I just don't believe he was doing let me just add

01:27:17

I agree with you completely when you talk about the glorious body and that you know ear has not heard and eye cannot see what we will become and so forth which

01:27:28

I hear as language saying this is something that transcends time and space we see but in a glass darkly our words stumble around given all of that I find the insistence on a physical body to be a real violation of that affirmation that the language of time and space is ultimately inadequate for talking about this

01:27:53

I think that it's just exactly the opposite when I read what seems to be a creedal statement in 1st

01:28:01

Timothy 3 .16 now of course we would argue that that's authentic to Paul I'm fairly certain it's authentic it's in the

01:28:07

New Testament yeah you have a descent ascent motif but it's introduced by the words by common confession greater profound is the mystery of godliness and obviously the mystery of godliness is

01:28:20

Jesus and what has happened to Jesus in that descent and ascent motif I think that the point that Paul is making is that as James has said we don't have information that can allow us to quantify all of the physicality of the resurrection but we accept it and it is a profound mystery to us that this is what god has done in his son

01:28:38

Jesus Christ Don you said I want to or maybe I forget who it was want to press me to the practical let me get practical here for a moment not that we haven't been already but toughest thing

01:28:54

I ever did in 1991 was become a hospital chaplain there are certain things that happen in our lives that really end up impacting us for a long period of time automobile rides in the

01:29:10

Irish countryside and incidents you related in your book that have made you who you are today one of the most tremendous things that ever happened to me was being forced into a situation so far beyond what

01:29:26

I thought I was to be a hospital chaplain was one of the toughest things I ever did in an emergency room being the one who goes between the doctors and the family when

01:29:37

I hear even on ships a sound that sounds like the code bell that we had at the hospital which meant someone had gone into cardiac arrest

01:29:44

I had to drop whatever I was doing get to where that was taking place because my job was to handle the family and very frequently my job the very first night

01:29:51

I was on duty was to break the news to an elderly man that his wife that he had just walked out of the room to go down to the cafeteria to get something to eat had passed away that quickly

01:30:02

I also did law support groups every Sunday afternoon for a wide variety of kinds of people who were struggling with grief and things like that in that context in the context of life and death you mentioned what's happened with Katrina and what's happened in New Orleans and Alabama and places like that it just seems to me that in reading what

01:30:28

Paul said and in thinking about what he said about since God has raised the Lord he's going to raise us also one of the notes that I jotted down as I was listening to both of your presentations about what resurrection is is how would it be consoling encouraging to someone in a pastoral context to say to them concerning their loved one or if they themselves are facing an imminent death you will be resurrected that is people will remember you for a while anyway or you however you want to picture what this is your body will no longer be in a grave but you will be remembered for a while but that's the consolation alright first of all there are certain times in life when physically it's a time for narcosis to stop the pain there's also spiritual narcosis and that's a bit late for raising certain questions spiritual narcosis

01:31:37

I lost you that is if somebody is dying and they ask you is this what's going to happen you say yes oh

01:31:43

I see that's what you say be very clear it is possible okay you were personal

01:31:55

I have said the resurrection is a metaphor I am willing to die for it it doesn't have to be literal for me it does not have to be literal the idea that you could only die if it's literal or you could only die if it's going to be some kind of reward you're getting is not true so the question is what is the truth of this if I was convinced for example that everyone in the first century and I'm getting back from my

01:32:25

Roman Empire analogies if everyone in the New Testament was speaking literally in the sense we use that word then

01:32:30

I would have to say today everyone in the first century takes it literally but I don't but I'm back in the pre -enlightenment world as I said the other night and in the pre -enlightenment world you can tell whether people take it really or unreally but you can't

01:32:43

I don't know how to make that distinction so when I say in the first century I don't know and that's the proper term if they're taking it 50 % literally 50 % metaphorically because I don't know anything in the

01:32:56

Roman Empire either therefore I will not tell Christians that you must take it literally or you're not a Christian I will say whether you take it literally or metaphorically you must be ready to live by it and die for it that's the message for me and if I can make two very brief comments one historical one contemporary and pastoral historical comment is this

01:33:20

Paul as a Pharisee believed in the resurrection not the resurrection of Jesus but believed there would be a resurrection before he became

01:33:31

Christian the point being Paul does not conclude there will be a resurrection for all of us or for the faithful or whatever only after he had an experience of Jesus so the resurrection of Jesus is not foundational for Paul's belief in a resurrection of us by God which is why

01:33:54

I say the meeting of Easter is not primarily about an afterlife for us it's already there within Judaism second comment is more contemporary and pastoral

01:34:03

I had an email this last week from a hospital chaplain who was deeply appreciative of a comment

01:34:13

I had made I don't know if he'd read it in a book or if he'd heard a lecture in the context of somebody asking me about the afterlife and after going through all the things that I was uncertain about regarding an afterlife does personal identity survive will there be family reunions and so forth and so forth

01:34:32

I said what I am confident of is this when we die we do not die into nothingness but we die into God and he said that line has been so helpful he actually works in a

01:34:49

I said hospital chaplain he's actually a chaplain in a retirement center where people are facing the last days, weeks, years of life he said that line has been so comforting and helpful to the people he works with because it doesn't require them to believe things that they find a little bit incredible and yet there's a strong affirmation there when we die we do not die into nothingness but we die into God so I want to very much respect your experience as a hospital chaplain but I'm not so sure that well

01:35:27

I just don't know that those people needed to hear and I will be resurrected in a form similar enough to the one

01:35:35

I'm in now so that I will know that I am me and I'll be with my loved ones I don't know that that's what people need to hear when they're in the extremity of life well

01:35:43

I think what you proclaim the extremity of life is not that what you proclaim is

01:35:50

Jesus Christ died and rose again so as to provide a way of reconciliation and peace with God I think the one element here that I raised briefly but really we didn't continue on at all was and I did have it in my opening statement and that is that for Paul you said the resurrection was not foundational to his belief in a resurrection well in a general resurrection yes but it seems very very clear to me that for that resurrection to be the resurrection of the just so as to enter into the presence of God you have to be and this is purely

01:36:24

Pauline in Christ you have to be in Christ that is the only place where there is eternal life that is the only place where there is no judgment that's the only place where there is no wrath that's the only place where there is justification righteousness and that righteousness is the righteousness of Jesus Christ and so Paul says he was raised to our justification so you see

01:36:44

Paul is setting up a new set of requirements not a set of requirements they are requirements fulfilled by Christ I thought you said you have to be in Christo I thought you said in Christ yes and who puts us in Christ from our perspective you are placed in Christ by the sovereign act of God and not by my somehow doing something to get myself into Christ back to your dying person isn't it enough rather than to batter them with theology at that point to say if you have ever been in Christ you will always be in Christ because that is the truth if you have ever belonged to the people of God you will always belong to the people of God if you have ever belonged to the mystical body you will always and leave it up how that is worked out if the person pokes you and says will

01:37:27

I get this this cancerous hand back whole what you say is yes except the difference

01:37:37

I think we have here is the difference for me here in this discussion regards to what

01:37:42

I raised about being a chaplain was the question is when we tell someone something are we speaking the truth that's my point and when someone comes to me and says how can

01:37:57

I prepare for death if I am going to be faithful to the apostles and I am going to be faithful to scripture there is only one way

01:38:07

I can answer that and without and with a with a with a occupied tomb the sin issue is still there that's what

01:38:16

Paul said he said if Christ be not raised you are still in your sins well

01:38:22

I don't see I don't I'm sorry I don't see any difference between those two statements because I have not heard anyone suggest how it would be if Paul went and he uses the

01:38:32

Greek term to historicize and spoke with Peter in Jerusalem as he confesses that he does in Galatians how he would not be aware of that reality how

01:38:43

I don't know you can't separate that he still said Christ rose from the dead and that would mean he rose from the wherever he was buried and he would have known that that was a tomb and the issue was that that becomes central for Paul that was central to the gospel that didn't happen what does he mean by that let me comment on that if Paul knew something like Mark 16 let's say if he knew the story of the finding of the empty tomb now this is an argument from absence

01:39:11

I do not find 1st Corinthians 15 where he's probably battering some Platonists into the ground

01:39:17

Platonist Christians of course that he would not have used it I know that's an argument from absence but when he's using that metaphor it would be so much stronger to be able to say to them forget my sowing metaphor and all the rest of it the tomb was empty what do you do with that Platonist Christians in Corinth I don't see how he could not use it but he already said that the issue wasn't we went and visited an empty tomb in fact he says we are liars if we have accused

01:39:45

God of raising Jesus Christ from the dead we have falsely witnessed against him I'm trying to hold you on the empty tomb and Paul for a moment but doesn't he say that in 1st

01:39:52

Corinthians 15 in that creedal what James called the creedal statement he says he was buried he was buried he was buried and that could mean either he was really dead he was really really dead and God raised him it could mean he was buried in the ground if he was entombed which is not buried in the ground

01:40:10

I think a different verb would have been used but you know but I really don't want to get into an argument about whether the tomb was empty

01:40:17

I want to say it's irrelevant well and that's what the discussion is about is because from what

01:40:22

I'm saying is if that's irrelevant then when Paul said if Christ be not raised and he has used that term as I said that's the 3rd of 3 terms the 1st was dead that took place historically being used in its normative sense the next is buried that's historical being used in its normative sense and now all of a sudden raised becomes something that's non -historical and non -normative that's what

01:40:42

I'm saying if we're going to consistently read the Apostle Paul as I believe the vast majority of Christians have done for the centuries then that being raised he says if he be not raised then you are yet in your sins why?

01:40:53

why is that? in your understanding you didn't answer me on that last one in your understanding of what resurrection means why would

01:41:01

Paul say if Christ be not raised you are still in your sins what's the significance? because if the general if the great cleanup in my phrase if the beginning of the eschatological cleanup of God has not begun and we are called to participate in it then it's still in the future and we're still in the world that's doomed that's the difference for me is that what sin is for you is being in a world that's doomed?

01:41:23

yeah for openers off the top of my head that's not bad because the world belongs to God as far as I'm concerned

01:41:29

God created it was given into our charge not into our control and we've been messing it up now for about conservatively well we've been messing it up let's not get into we've been messing it up steadily that's what sin is any way to mess up God's world is sin in all the ways that that can be done and the best way we could do it right now would be to blow it up that would be the worst thing we could commit because it would be destroying

01:41:56

God's creation yes that's the big S for me is there sin on a personal level? of course and we're busy all cooperating on it so we can all blow it up together or create the inevitability that somebody will do it first yes it can come all the way down to my relationship with you of course of course it can but it ain't just that it's cosmic but is it also arrogance?

01:42:19

is it idolatry? is it lust? does God have wrath against those things? the seven deadly sins are pretty good descriptions of what

01:42:26

I call the normalcy of civilization and they're not crimes they're mostly sins if you think about it yes the arrogance that we think that we own the world that is the supreme arrogance for me when

01:42:38

Jesus well and I realize you don't believe that Jesus said this but when Jesus said in John 8 24 unless you believe that ego

01:42:46

I am you will die in your sins in your perspective why was that such a grave statement?

01:42:53

ok now by the way whenever you say I know you think John ok then it's parable it's parable of course now here's what that means

01:43:01

I take that all the way through John I think I may have said this the other night to the confrontation between Jesus and Pilate which again is parable but Pilate's Pilate's kingdom of this world is a kingdom of violence and Jesus says very clearly my kingdom is not of this world because if it was my guys would be in here kicking butt to get me out excuse me that's a rough translation of John but it's very clear if my kingdom was of this world it doesn't even sound like violence wouldn't it be right to go in there and try and get them out?

01:43:30

but no Jesus' kingdom is not of this world therefore it is not violent that's what it means to say ego

01:43:36

I am I am the non -violent one Pilate so unless you believe that I am the non -violent one you will die in your sins what does it mean to die in your sins?

01:43:44

why would that be a threat if there is no judgment for those sins? well the judgment is that we're busy destroying the world that is a judgment because it doesn't belong to us but once you die you're no longer under judgment right?

01:43:56

if you think you are but I'm talking about this world I'm not talking about the future James I leave the future to those who know all about it

01:44:03

I'm talking about this world but Jesus even in the parable the parable has to have a meaning right?

01:44:10

so even if we take this and I don't take this parabolically I believe Jesus said these words nobody said there's nothing clearer than that statement which

01:44:25

I think is a parable of course but that's 10 chapters later in John chapter 8 Jesus is saying to them something about their needing to have a right relationship to him right a faith relationship that also seems to have something to do with who he is right and that if they refuse that despite the signs and the testimony of God and Moses and so on and so forth that they will die in their sins but if death is all there is to it and sin is primarily destroying this world then once you die judgment's over and that's it why was that a threat?

01:45:01

why was that why did it have any meaning? you would not find the destruction of this world a threat no

01:45:06

I'm saying because the destruction it is a threat but when Jesus says you will in the future die in your sins once they've died what do their sins have to do with anything it's all over with isn't it?

01:45:18

nothing at that point unless you believe in an afterlife I don't believe in an afterlife I believe in this one and this one belongs to God now if you also believe in an afterlife then you've got a double whammy coming

01:45:31

Mike are we ready for audience questions? we've got 3 minutes and 48 seconds left of the whole time or of of no of your oh okay well maybe we could just take a couple 45 seconds for each person to sort of wrap up our thoughts and then go to the audience questions what do you think?

01:45:51

how about a minute? and since Brother Renaghan has been so reticent to I haven't had a chance would you like to just want to reverse the direction we went before or what?

01:46:10

it's the Swedish part of you that has made you shy not the Irish part why don't we just start from here and go down okay gosh 45 second to one minute concluding statement let me say this

01:46:28

I know this was set up as a debate but and it has had qualities of a debate and I don't want to quibble about language but the bottom line is

01:46:39

I'm not all that interested in debating fellow

01:46:45

Christians because debate implies I don't know winners and losers and so forth

01:46:50

I am however very interested in dialogue I'm aware as all of you are that Christians in North America today are deeply divided they're divided theologically and they're divided politically and I'm dismayed by that division even as I understand historically how it happened and all of that and so one of my real passions and one of my primary reasons for being ready to take part in conversations like this is that I'm much more concerned to see if bridges can be found than in scoring points against other

01:47:36

Christian visions or something like that and my hope would be that Christians could come to agreement about some foundational claims such as being

01:47:51

Christian is about a relationship with God as known in Jesus and if we can agree on that that may give us some space some room to talk about our disagreements if that seems important so debate not very interested in that dialogue very, very much interested

01:48:14

I find myself speaking very often in Christian churches where if they're still

01:48:22

Christian it is because they're if they're falling away from Christianity it is because they've been told a list of unbelievable things that's the way they would put it if I found that all

01:48:37

Christians everywhere take this all literally then I would say great let's get on with what it means that's not what

01:48:43

I find I find that some Christians take it literally and get on with what it means and some Christians seem to be not quite clear what it might mean so what

01:48:52

I'm trying to say is if you take it literally if you take it metaphorically and metaphor does not mean anything you like the metaphor of resurrection means the cleanup has begun it doesn't mean spring is here or there's always hope or Jesus is with us even or even the

01:49:07

Roman Empire's had it it really means God's work has begun in the world so whether you take it literally or you take it metaphorically what does it mean and could we talk about that that's what interests me wow that's good timing well

01:49:26

I think that what I have heard today is not very much different from what

01:49:32

I've read and heard in the past and I appreciate that but I think that essentially what we have is a docetic kind of Christology and a non -docetic kind of Christology here a docetic

01:49:46

Christology that detracts from the goodness of the body and a view of Christology that asserts the goodness of the body and that comes in the resurrection of Jesus that is

01:49:59

God's intention to restore the world and it begins with the body of Christ with that reality of his historical resurrection and while it may not be something that you want to hear

01:50:13

I would have to say that there are boundaries to orthodoxy and a denial of the physicality of the resurrection of Jesus despite all of the pleas to find ways for Christians to work together is nonetheless historically and really outside of the bounds of orthodoxy and while I would agree that dialogue is a very positive thing you have to recognize that there comes a time when you have to say this is right and this is wrong

01:50:37

I wanted to ask you at some point in this dialogue how do you determine what's a wacky religion who's to say that a religion is wacky or a religion isn't and it ultimately comes down to a subjectivistic type of approach to religion so I think that I want to assert that the true

01:50:54

Christian faith is a gospel about the restoration of creation in Jesus Christ it's not just about the warmth of the spirit but the living breathing pulsating reality of human life in all of its fullness it's not merely renovation it is resurrection and all of that means with all of the seemingly insane referent that it had in the book of Acts the dead really are restored to life and are more than they were before Christ is the first fruits of all of his people

01:51:24

I would simply repeat what Paul said and what I believe the

01:51:30

Holy Spirit has made to come alive in my heart and I don't mean that in a subjective way I mean that because that's how the kingdom of God is built the spirit of God is the one who calls the people of God in relationship with Christ and Paul himself said if Christ be not raised and I think what he means by that is established by the context established by the language if Christ be not raised then you are yet in your sins the death, burial and resurrection is the means by which

01:51:55

God brings about the redemption of his people and that's what he's been doing for two thousand years and without that resurrection not only do we have really nothing to distinguish

01:52:07

Christianity from the world's religions but likewise we have no message of redemption for any individual who when the spirit of God brings conviction of sin and they say what must

01:52:17

I do believe in the Lord Jesus Christ you shall be saved why? who is he?

01:52:23

why is belief in him that which is going to bring about my salvation why is it that having had faith in Jesus Christ I have been justified all that teaching of the

01:52:33

New Testament concerning what it means to be in Christ is founded upon that empty tomb that being raised from the dead and that's a vitally important aspect of it thank you

01:52:44

Mike ok would you thank these gentlemen with me ok

01:52:51

I hate to say this but I guess I'm going to be like Phil Donahue I'm just going to take audience questions again please keep them brief tell me please and tell the gentleman here who you're directing the question to and then allow them to answer that and then the panel can comment as well we'll try to keep each question in just under 2 or 3 minutes yes sir first of all let me say thank you this has been wonderful educational appreciate the spirit that all of you have maintained in this

01:53:21

I do have a question for Dr. Borg and Dr. Cross if I understand you're right you understand meaning to be grounded in reality and metaphor to be the foundation ultimate foundation of reality in 1

01:53:36

Corinthians 15 it seems like Paul is arguing there in those early verses historically narratively when he calls upon eyewitnesses that Christ has risen he was seen by Cephas he was seen by the 12 he was seen by 500 at one time last of all he was seen by me and Dr.

01:53:52

Borg I think your reference to historical factuality if there was a video recorder there we could see it

01:53:59

I have 2 questions if there had been a video camera there would those 500 people what they saw would they have been able to record that and if not then what is it that is in Paul's mind when he says the risen

01:54:12

Christ was seen by 500 people at one time briefly

01:54:21

I don't have a clue and I don't mean that as a dodge but you know nothing else in the

01:54:30

New Testament of course refers to Jesus appearing to 500 all at once a few scholars have thought maybe it is a reference to the

01:54:37

Pentecost experience I have no idea if that is what it would be or not if it is that is very interesting because that would suggest that the experience of the spirit and the experience of the risen

01:54:48

Christ are understood to be very similar in the New Testament the question would be do collective experiences like that happen and I am

01:55:04

I could go either way on that one some of you are familiar with the stories of Fatima in Portugal in 1917 where 10 ,000 people allegedly saw the same thing at the same time now could you videotape that if you had a video camera at Fatima I don't know

01:55:22

I know there are reports from the history of religious experience of collective experiences like that I honestly don't know what to make of them yeah this had the sun spinning right?

01:55:35

yeah and there's no there's no data anywhere else in the world that the sun did any spinning that day which is not to mock it let me focus on your argument from history on all the

01:55:46

Roman coins of the first century there was a meteor which witnessed the fact that Caesar Julius Caesar was seen ascending into heaven not bodily not bodily his body was on the pyre but his spirit ascending into heaven now if you remember the first century you had ample evidence of that it was in the texts it was in the oral tradition it was in all the coins if you were a

01:56:08

Christian you said what? I don't know if you said I don't believe that but I believe Jesus is those were both historical evidence to them now it's an act of faith that says

01:56:20

I'm with the Roman guy going up and somebody else says no I'm not and I don't mean it's a just subjective opinion that's not enough the whole

01:56:28

Roman foundation the whole Roman empire was founded on those stories that's what I mean by metaphor creating reality and the

01:56:35

Roman argument would be look around you if Julius Caesar is not up in heaven how do you explain that we're doing so well?

01:56:43

that's an argument as a Christian I hope if I was in the first century I would say I don't believe that I believe this but neither of them could be proved in the way we're trying to do it by empty tombs or witnesses that saw this or anything else there was lots of witnesses that saw

01:56:58

Julius Caesar's meteor the meteor appeared so that's not an argument it can't confirm your faith

01:57:06

I don't see how that can be done did you want to comment? well it seems to me that that's the purpose of the citation of these witnesses in 1st

01:57:15

Corinthians 15 and Acts chapter 1 is that they in fact could testify you know that Montores means one who testifies to something else and I think that that's the reason for the citation is that they would be able to say we saw him we touched him we handled him so did the

01:57:31

Romans and yet the context of that use in the

01:57:37

New Testament within monotheistic Judaism is so different than what you would have in pagan religions and of course over time you also have the fact that any miracles in regards to the death of Caesar never led anyone to restrain their sinful attitudes and to do anything else that would be pleasing to God in that sense and I would just simply point out that when we talk about these kinds of concepts that are being presented now what impact does it have upon us why would

01:58:14

Paul even be raising these issues if his point wasn't you know a question was asked of Udom in New Orleans and I mentioned this to you once before a fellow with a very strong southern accent and he asked you a question and never really did get an answer and it goes right along with this question and that is basically he said so what you're saying is

01:58:36

Rome might have won out the Gnostics might have won out it's all arbitrary there was no evidence that anybody could offer it was all just a matter of which one of these do you choose and your response was well

01:58:49

I wish I could prove it to you but that's what faith is all about and I hope if anything you've seen that there are a number of us who would say no

01:58:59

Rome could not have won out and Gnosticism could not have won out you would say that and that would be your answer please do not say

01:59:06

I didn't give an answer when I give mine the different answers that's right I'm sorry I said I didn't get an answer in our debate on Saturday night from you on that particular question and that was because I don't see how the teaching in the

01:59:21

New Testament could function if you do not believe if you do not have a theology of God where God is not sovereign over events in time yes yes but for example if the

01:59:31

Roman Empire and thank God it was more merciful than than other empires had decided say in the year 60 that we crucified your leader and you're causing constant trouble you are now a forbidden religion like they did to the

01:59:43

Druids and the Celts it's the only one they did it to if they had forbidden Christianity instead of making martyrs in other words gone for genocide no if Christianity had continued as I understand it as a historian the only hope would be for nasty

01:59:55

Christianity which has gone underground and said the world is rotten look around what's happening to us yeah

02:00:01

I cannot say it must happen because it happened that way the providence of God if you want to say made the

02:00:07

Roman Empire not as brutal as you'd like to think it was more multicultural more tolerant but when you say providence of God though you're not meaning that in the sense of a

02:00:17

I mean the way it happened just the way it happened excuse me alright check check ok this is for Dr.

02:00:35

Crossings or Dom um why can't justice take place in Christ on the cross or in hell why does it have to take place in history in some type of progressive cleanup and why does that cleanup have to be if I've understood things correctly

02:00:58

I apologize ok I'm not totally certain stick with me for a second because I don't understand why because the cleanup is of the violence of the world so if I do not think that violence can be cleaned up by violence that that is not a theological statement that's just watching what happens to violence across our human history it escalates so I understand that what

02:01:23

Jesus is saying is that unless we stop violence it will destroy God's world and that's what

02:01:29

I'm talking about now I don't quite know what your question about hell is come back at me with that because I don't understand ok hell being defined as a place of torment ok that is violent therefore

02:01:41

I see what you mean gotcha it is retributive gotcha for the violence committed in this earth gotcha so that injustice is occurring in hell for those that are not in Christ I've got you exactly there is actually a first century contemporary with Jesus it's a sibling oracles actually which raises that issue itself it's a full service apocalypse when they are left in hell and then up in heaven as it were the just who can't tolerate that this should be asked

02:02:11

God will you let them out will you forgive them and God because of the just who ask him forgives them and it's rather amusing because they are given sort of a separate heaven so they don't kind of contaminate the other one and there is a

02:02:25

Christian Jewish text was passed down by a Christian who said absolutely absurd everyone knows hell is eternal yes if you raise the issue of God's even if you use the military language of God's victory

02:02:40

I do not know how God is victorious if there is a hell as a place in the future then

02:02:46

God has really lost well it's hard to allow that to pass without saying something everyone is wondering who is going to do so and I'm glad to do so this really gets back to the conclusion of the debate we had on Saturday as well but I think it's very important because at that time

02:03:04

Don had said can we find common ground can we work together toward common goals and at that point

02:03:10

I point out I believe that the only power given to the church to clean up this earth is the gospel of Jesus Christ it is that which changes the hearts of men and women it makes them individuals who are subject to the lordship of Christ and therefore desire us to be obedient to his will obedient to the word of God obedient to the law of God and that means loving your neighbors yourself etc.

02:03:37

etc. all those things are foundational you don't start off going that's the type of person I'm going to become and then you try to clean yourself up that's backwards from the way

02:03:46

I understand the new testament to present it and so if we take out the heart of that message which is what

02:03:53

God has done in Jesus Christ to reconcile anyone who has faith in Christ to himself we're proclaiming two different messages two different paradigms two different approaches and that's where the difficulty obviously is going to come in and when we talk about hell and the victory of God and God couldn't be victorious if there was such a place as hell when you consider what hell is it's not innocent people being trashed by demons it is individuals who love their sin and are described in scripture as God haters where God takes his hand off the

02:04:30

Bible describes God as restraining the evil of man God takes his hand off and men and women are self consumed in their hatred of God picture that picture what that is and then picture the difference between that individual and the individual who bows in worship of God and the fact that there is only one word that describes the difference between those two individuals and it is the word grace not smarter not more intelligent not anything along those lines whatsoever is the difference between those two what do you mean you agree with me on that if you don't believe in an afterlife we can't agree on that because what do we agree about your microphone is not going to work too well there well because when you go into that theological language we could use all that same theological language it still doesn't get to the central issue that I'm asking is this literal or is it metaphorical now

02:05:26

I know what you're going to say but as far as I'm concerned a human being in this world just looking at the way we've been for if you'll accept it for the moment by three million years we're gradually getting worse and worse in this world now the only thing

02:05:42

I can see from a Christian point of view that will help us I would describe as grace that is the gift of God's justice to the world freely given in Jesus but I'm putting a content to it you would put a different content to it

02:05:56

I know that but where do we derive our content from from the

02:06:02

New Testament except when I derive my content in the continuity of the whole Old Testament now we're back again to my eschatology sort of except except and there's some chuckles down there but except I would for example define

02:06:17

Paul's doctrine of grace based upon everything in the New Testament you would say well

02:06:23

Paul didn't write that Paul didn't write Colossians Paul didn't write 1st 2nd Timothy yeah but I'm talking about Paul that's got nothing against Colossians though I have a few things

02:06:32

I think I'm not too keen on when you say I'm not too keen on that then well because Paul for example tells in Philemon that a

02:06:42

Christian cannot have a Christian slave that's in Paul that's in Philemon a whole letter saying a

02:06:47

Christian cannot have a Christian slave that's not what I find in Ephesians or Colossians that's the problem and so maybe he's changed his mind and so again the idea of tationing it is beyond your well oh no

02:07:03

I can tation certain things but I cannot tation his view on for example patriarchy the relation between men and women in the church because I find this in the letters that I consider from Paul I find his relation to slavery for example different in Philemon than I find it in Colossians I can't not see it but it's based upon what you decide is and is not

02:07:27

Pauline right well yes I would have to if it's all Pauline then I would have to say in this letter

02:07:34

Paul says a Christian cannot have a Christian slave in this one I'm not saying he says that slaves should obey their master and therefore he should have told

02:07:40

Philemon or told Onesimus to go back to Philemon I have to say he's either changed his mind or his general principle his principium his general principle doesn't apply to his concrete event or there are a lot of Christians there were a lot of Christian slaves who were owned by non -Christians well that's not what

02:08:01

Paul is talking about he's talking about Christians I presume by the way that Colossians is written to Christians there'll be a little bit of fire on that one but anyway okay alright one thing this is my question is for Dr.

02:08:17

Cross and Dr. Dahm you're literal versus metaphorical you had said in your opening statement

02:08:26

I don't care if you take it literal or if you take it metaphorically what is the meaning there is a lot of subjectivism if you take it metaphorically

02:08:36

I know you just said a few minutes ago that metaphor does not mean it means whatever I want it to mean you said that but it does if I take it metaphorically as we've learned from people like Origen I can make the scriptures mean whatever

02:08:50

I fancy whatever I want to mean so my question is invoking say the law of non -contradiction which is an undeniable law of logic in this universe which one of them has to be correct you can get to the same you might be able to get to the same meaning from the literal and the metaphorical but one of them you have to do it one way or the other one of them is wrong and I guess my question to you is

02:09:13

I want to put you on the spot because I haven't heard you or Dr. Borg say I am right and you are wrong so for me taking it literally regardless of whether I arrive at the same meaning is that wrong as opposed to right as opposed to wrong as opposed wrong to wrong to wrong to wrong to wrong to wrong to wrong to wrong to wrong to wrong to wrong to wrong to wrong to wrong to wrong to wrong to wrong to wrong basis for faith, then it would not be faith.

02:11:06

That's where we disagree, is that in the New Testament, faith is directed toward God's promises and His revelation.

02:11:14

It is directly related to that. But that's commitment. Well, actually, in listening to your discussion of faith, us

02:11:23

Reformed folks believe in the full understanding of faith. It's not just a census, but it's also fidei, and it's all of the elements of faith that are found in the

02:11:34

New Testament, and it has an object, and the object is the promises of God and the revelation of God. And so, to say faith and history are speaking to two different areas in the

02:11:44

New Testament, that's just simply not what the apostles believed. And if I want to follow the apostles, you can pick and choose what of the apostles' teachings you want, but isn't that what we've been talking about since the opening statement

02:11:56

Saturday night, is whether we're going to believe everything that they said and taught, or whether we're going to say, well, you know, that doesn't work in my context anymore, therefore, you know, since I know people who reject miracles, then

02:12:10

I'm going to make that, I'm going to take that out of the Gospel Proclamation. I'm going to say that's not definitional, it's not relevant any longer.

02:12:16

So, that really we keep coming back to the same issue at that point. And this may be a genuine difference.

02:12:23

I don't see faith as meaning believing everything the apostles taught, which

02:12:29

I think is what you just suggested. I don't mean that's all you'd say, but I think you did say that faith includes believing everything that the apostles taught.

02:12:37

God's Word, yeah. I would say faith is it's trust, it's commitment, it's loyalty, it's allegiance to the

02:12:46

God of whom the apostles spoke. How do you know anything about him unless what the apostles said is true?

02:12:54

I see their words as functioning as sacrament. A sacrament both mediates the reality of which it speaks, as well as points to that.

02:13:04

But to think that we're supposed to believe in the sacrament is to put the focus in the wrong place.

02:13:10

I mean, I don't want to get into arguing are there contradictions in the apostolic teaching? It seems clear to me that there are.

02:13:17

And we could argue that rather well, yes. And because it seems clear to me that there are, how can faith mean you know, believing in a comprehensive sense in the teaching of the apostles?

02:13:31

But if scripture is theonistos, if scripture is theonistos, if it is God breathed, then it's

02:13:37

God breathed, but there's a huge leap from there to infallibility or inerrancy. A huge leap.

02:13:44

A huge leap. Would you equate the Word of God capitalized with the words of God?

02:13:51

I mean, there seems to be a confusion. We always talk about the Word of God in the scriptures. And the word, as I understand, capital

02:13:58

W, means the message, the challenge, the vision of God. It comes through human vessels, if you will, or human words, which usually are not totally comfortable with it.

02:14:10

There's a kind of a struggle going on. Well, I certainly everyone confesses the reality of the limitation of human language.

02:14:17

It does not mean that it makes God's revelation fallible, and it does not change the fact since God's the one who created us and our ability to communicate that he is incapable of communicating with us in such a fashion as Jesus said to the

02:14:31

Jews in Matthew 22, have you not read what God spoke to you saying?

02:14:37

Not have you not heard what God spoke to you, or have you not read what God wrote to you, but have you not read what

02:14:43

God spoke to you saying? And it is the scriptures themselves that are described as theanoustos.

02:14:49

It's not merely the concept that is then embodied in them. It is the scriptures themselves, not the apostles, not the process.

02:14:58

The result is what Paul says is theanoustos, and that is why the man of God is thoroughly equipped for all that ministry in the church.

02:15:06

Would you agree that this is a presupposition that divides us? In regards to sufficiency of scripture?

02:15:12

Yeah. I think that was our first statement Exactly. And then I want to raise the question, is it possible, well let me put it differently, yeah, is it possible to raise the question whether one set of presuppositions is better than another set of presuppositions?

02:15:33

Or do we just say we've got different presuppositions? No, no, I think there is a truth in everything. And then

02:15:38

I would go on to say, there are presuppositions that are a priori.

02:15:43

For example, a benevolent, good, gracious God would give us a clear revelation, then you conclude that scripture therefore is the clear revelation of the will of God in infallible human words.

02:15:58

Or you could just start reading scripture and see what you concluded. And my sense is that if one starts reading the

02:16:07

Bible without the presupposition that it's infallible in a literal sense, one would never arrive at that conclusion.

02:16:14

Even though it says it of itself? Oh, yeah. Oh, sure, I mean, you know, the passage in Timothy. The Pope says it's infallible.

02:16:20

Yeah, yeah. I mean, the passage in Timothy. The problem is I've never lost a debate with a

02:16:26

Roman Catholic on whether the Pope was infallible. Let me put it this way, suppose you had two groups of astronomers sitting here, and two of them said our presupposition is that the earth is at the center of the universe.

02:16:40

And the other one said our presupposition is that the sun is at the center of the solar system.

02:16:46

Would you simply say, well, we've got different presuppositions here, or would you say those presuppositions are in fact conclusions, and they can then be tested?

02:16:57

Very easily tested, and that's what we've been trying to do in trying to keep going back to the scriptures and saying, let's test what you're saying by that, and let's examine these presuppositions.

02:17:09

That's why I asked Dom, the first question I asked in cross -examination

02:17:14

Saturday night, is there any evidence that could exist in history that would cause you to believe a miracle, something fantastic, something outside the normal laws of this world took place in the first century?

02:17:28

Because I was attempting to address that very issue. If you have as a presupposition that that simply cannot happen, then...

02:17:33

No, no. That's never been my presupposition. My presupposition is that the first century, unfortunately, is filled with miracles.

02:17:41

That's my problem. Except you don't believe any of them actually took place in history. And you keep paralleling monotheistic

02:17:49

Judaism with polytheistic religions around it, but no, the presupposition is your divine consistency, that God is not going to do anything in the first century, he's not doing now the 21st century, it was late 1990s,

02:18:03

I guess, when you said that. That is the presupposition I'm talking about. You see, because for me,

02:18:08

I will determine what God is going to do based upon what he's revealed about himself. That's one presupposition. The other one, actually, which is much more important for me, actually,

02:18:17

I mean, there's other ones, but the much more important one for me is that in the pre -enlightenment world, I keep coming back to that, there's miracles all over the place in the first century.

02:18:25

Now, what you're going to have to decide is which one do you believe is revelatory of God? But you can't say they can't happen, and you can't say that you've got the only miracle, so my argument is that in the first century, coming out of that matrix, you cannot read it and say, you must, must, must take it literally.

02:18:43

One of the things I point out to you is when you say that, the one thing that I think is missing in that presentation is while there may have been lots of miracles in the first century, when you're talking about Judaism, you keep bringing up Judaism, but in this situation, for some reason, you go to paganism.

02:19:01

No, no. Jesus within Judaism, within the Roman Empire is missing. And the context of the uniqueness of Jesus is within a monotheistic religion, not all those polytheistic saviour gods.

02:19:15

The incarnation becomes unique when you place it within the monotheistic context of Judaism, just as their claim of monotheism was so unique, it made them hated within the

02:19:27

Roman Empire itself. They were hated for that. So they did have a unique claim that they made, and it was very different.

02:19:34

And I hate to do this, maybe we can all wear the same clothes and come back another day. They've got horse racing or some bingo or something going on in here in a few minutes.

02:19:44

Some other advice. But we're going to have to We're going to have to end our debate at that point.