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  • From: "Liz Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: RE: C-P: Paul and Plato
  • Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 13:37:03 -0400


> From: Jeffrey B. Gibson

>
>
> 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.

You referred me before to the Dead Sea Scroll literature. Now to this
literature. Do you not think that these writers are also Platonic? I think
the whole Levantine coast, Egypt, Asia Minor had been thoroughly Hellenized.
Why should the intertestimental literature be immune from Platonic thought?
The differences are understood when you compare post-Hellenic, from say, 330
bce onward, to the literature written before. This is the telling
difference. Probably you don't even need to go back that far. Can you
imagine Daniel speaking of a resurrection of a 'spritual' body? This very
anthropology, this division of man into spirit, soul and body, makes no
sense without the context of Hellenism.
>
> 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.
No. He explicitly denies the material order when he says that flesh and
blood do not inherit.

> 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.
Perhaps, but he has to harmonize his theology with Jewish expectations, and
with his belief in the resurrection of the body of Jesus. Jewish
expectations however were of a *physical* body. This is certainly revealed
in the letter to the Corintheans. They ask him what kind of body. He
answers very plainly, it will not be a physical body, it will not be flesh
and blood, flesh and blood do not inherit. It will be a spiritual body.
Now what is meant by this? According to Aristotle only matter has form and
shape. This spiritual body will not have form or shape, it will not be
apprehended by the senses.
In Phil.2:6 we read that Jesus, prior to becoming human, was in the morphe
of God. I do not know what the morphe of God is. I assume that Paul
conceives of God as not being matter, and therefore not having form, but
this may be only Aristotle, and not Plato, maybe Plato conceives of the
possibility, with his ideal forms, of form being divorced from matter. In
which case, I would suggest that this morphe must have something to do with
what is meant by spiritual body.
But once you admit that it is not flesh and blood you are saying that it is
not a *physical* body. It therefore will be apprehended only by the spirit,
intellect.
But, Jeffrey, where is the phrase "spiritual body" used in the DSS, or in
the intertestimental literature? I would like to take a look at those
passages.

Thanks,

Liz

Lisbeth S. Fried
Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies
New York University
51 Washington Sq. S.
New York, NY 10012
lqf9256 AT is3.nyu.edu
lizfried AT umich.edu






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