What is resurrection? What did the apostles mean when they spoke of resurrection? Were they simply referring to life after death? Or by using the word resurrection were they referring to something beyond even that?
I raise this question because there still seems to be a lot of confusion out in the blogosphere, and elsewhere, as to what resurrection actually means. Here is what N T Wright had to say about the resurrection of the dead in “What St Paul Really Said”:
“Resurrection is not simply resuscitation; it is transformation, the changing of the present mode of physicality into a new mode, of which Jesus in his risen body is the only prototype, but for which the transformation of a seed into a plant can function as a general analogy. This is the Creator’s plan for the future of his human creation.” (Wright, 1997, 140)
So, not simply resuscitation, but not simply dematerialization either. Resurrection is far more holistic. Whatever else it involves, it involves leaving an empty tomb behind.
As such, resurrection is discernably different from Homeric Paganism with its myths of dying and rising gods who, generally speaking, died again and again in endless cycles. It is also discernably different from Platonic Paganism with its notion of soul survival. For the apostles, disembodiment was at most a transitional state prior to resurrection, it was not resurrection in and of itself. This raises some interesting questions about the importance of the body in ancient Christian teaching in comparison to ancient Pagan teaching, particularly in terms of Platonic and Gnostic style afterlife. Which path valued the body more?
Curious Christian 
Leave a comment