- First the seed analogy seems to refer to the numerical identity of the risen body with the deceased body. Carrier denies this, but he seems to be mistaken since another seed analogy in John 12:24, “unless a grain of wheat falls and dies, it remains a single grain.” This analogy clearly teaches the identity of the thing that dies with the thing that grows, which refutes Carrier’s claim that the Jews would simply not interpret a seed analogy that way.
This does seem to refute Carrier’s claim, but I’m not sure I’d make that same claim. I don’t see it as important to my argument whether Jews would have understood a seed analogy like John 12:24 or not. Paul was hardly Jewish when he was writing to his gentile Corinthian church.
- I want to draw your attention to a new point and reason that I think Carrier’s translation is improbable. He makes a lot out of that Greek does not have a word for “it,” and he uses this to fill in “one,” then claiming it refers to two separate bodies. Now, it occurs to me that Greek might not have a word for “it,” but it does have a word for “another” (allos). That way: “one body is sown, another is raised.” It seems that had Paul wished to teach a 2BT theory, it would have made more sense to use the word *allos *to indicate separateness.
-This is very strongly supported by Paul’s use of allos in the preceding verses. “Not every flesh is the same… one is the glory of the sun, another the glory of the moon.” So when Paul wants to draw a distinction between two things he uses “allos” to form parallel constructions (one…another). Yet, in these key verses “it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body,” Paul never uses the Greek allos! This shows that in contrast to the previous lines like when he contrasted the glory of the sun and moon, Paul is not drawing a numerical distinction between the dead body and the risen body.
As Carrier says, when a subject is omitted in a Greek sentence, the verb typically takes the most recent subject. This is “the dead”, it’s the closest subject to the verb. Further, Paul would have had to use a particular construction in Greek if we wanted to talk about “the body” instead of just “a body” that he doesn’t use. These two points make it improbable that Paul has in mind here “the body”.
Given these points, would we further expect Paul to use
allos to indicate 2BT? I don’t see why: if we go with what is typical for Greek sentences that ommit their subject, and the fact that Paul didn’t use a Greek construction he would have had to to indicate 1BT, use of
allos seems superfluous.
- Third, even if we granted Carrier’s controversial translation, a two body view of the Resurrection does not necessarily follow, since as Licona says, Meyer grants Carrier’s translation “a natural body is sown, a spiritual body raised,” but thinks that Paul is still teaching a 1BT of Resurrection and that this translation is consistent with it. Hence, Carrier’s translation is not necessarily evidence that Paul held a 2BT.
As I said in my last response to this argument, it does not follow that you can reasonably hold 1BT and grant Carrier’s translation simply because someone thinks they can. Personally, I think Meyer is just inconsistent on this point.
- Fourth (from the Son Rises, 68), besides anastasis, a greek word for resurrection (used by paul and in NT) is egeirein “to awaken for sleep.” In the Bible, sleep is a euphemism for death, hence the picture is of a dead person awakening to life, which implies the same body.
First, it appears that egeirein is only used twice in the entire NT, and only once by Paul. In the one place that Paul uses this word, (Phil. 1:17), he doesn’t use it in any resurrection sense, that is if his use of it is:
“the former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition rather than from pure motives, thinking
to cause me distress in my imprisonment.” - NASB
Here, the phrase “to cause” is egeirein.
Finally, even if we supposed that Paul used this word numerous times, each of them about the resurrection, why think when the dead person awakens to life, he awakens in the same body he died in?
- Fifth, as a minor consideration, since Paul’s audience probably would have held a 1BT view of Resurrection, if Paul were teaching a 2BT view, shouldn’t we have expected him to be more explicit?
Paul’s Corinthian audience rejected resurrection altogether, they didn’t hold a 1BT. And, given that Paul held a 2BT, since he taught them Christianity, 2BT is probably all they knew to be Christian.
- (from Licona p.334). Allison actually points out that we can turn the argument from silence around. Since the pagan Paul was writing to were skeptical of the Resurrection, had these pagans thought Jesus corpse to be in the grave… they would have brought this forward as a point in their favor and Paul would have had to answer them. This he did not do.
First, neither Paul nor his audience was pagan. Second, his audience would have known that talking about a corpse in a grave was futile. Paul would simply have told them of course there is a body in the grave, he rose to life in a different body.
- You mention Wright, but on page 321 (2003), (cited from Licona 335), Wright says “The fact that the empty tomb is not explicitly mentioned is not significant. The mention here of “buried then raised” no more needs to be amplified than one would need to amplify the statement “I walked down the street” with “on my feet.”
Wright only says this because he chooses to interpret 1 Cor. 15 as teaching 1BT. Fair enough, I think he’s wrong
But, he does say we could interpret 1 Cor. 15 as teaching 2BT, and this is just to concede that he doesn’t think the text is as clear as you do.
