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  • From: "Jeffrey B. Gibson" <jgibson000 AT mailhost.chi.ameritech.net>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: C-P: Paul and Plato
  • Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 12:09:41 -0500


Liz Fried wrote:

> >
> I've been thinking about this since you wrote your note. If the only two
> categories are spirit and matter, and I guess that is the case, then Paul is
> very clear about this.

Ah but this is an assumption that needs to be proven. For Paul I think the
contrast is
not between Spirit and Matter but between this age and that of the age to
come both
of which transpire within the realm of God's created order.

> Paul says in 1 Cor. 15:50, "flesh and blood cannot
> inherit the kingdom of God." At the time of the resurrection we will all be
> changed, we will put on a *spiritual* body. This is an imperishable,
> immortal body. It is *not* a flesh and blood body. It is sown a physical
> body, but is raised a *spiritual* body. (15:44)
>
> What is this spiritual body? It is the body of Christ after the
> resurrection.
> I don't know how Paul understood this post-resurrection body of Christ, but
> it is 1) not flesh and blood, but spiritual, and 2) I suspect apprehended
> only through the intellect, the spirit, the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:10ff).

Two quick responses on the fly:

I think you would do well to consult the Jewish apocalyptic literature,
instead of
Plato, to gain some idea of what a "spiritual" (really a bad term, I think)
body is as
well as what the real nature of the contrast is that Paul speaks of when he
compares
the present body and the resurrection one.

More importantly, I think you neglect the fact that the emphasis in Paul is
that the
"spiritual" body is still a **body** and therefore still part of the material
order.
Had he been thinking in Platonic terms, he would have spoken of the
immortality of the
soul and abandoned any talk of a body altogether, resurrected or otherwise.

Yours,

Jeffrey
--
Jeffrey B. Gibson
7423 N. Sheridan Road #2A
Chicago, Illinois 60626
e-mail jgibson000 AT ameritech.net






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