The Meaning of Bodily Resurrection

[Lapell]

Don’t forget that the parable of the rich man and his labourers is a parable of the NT! When he gives them their salary, that’s at the Last Judgment! Why does the Rich Man (God) give them the same salary even though some worked all day and some among the others only worked an hour? Some tried to be righteous all their lives (those who worked all day); some of the others had a sinful life most of their time, but they repented and changed in the very last portion of their life. So they too receive their salary(eternal life)!

 

[Lapell]

Now, Ben, if God does want to give YOU eternal life, are you going to refuse it?

 

[John7]

Howdee :tiphat:

Nobody is born to live forever

Jesus lives forever עד עולם
Christians go to live in Jesus’s Father’s house…FOREVER…yeah!!

John 14:2 In my Father’s house there is much room: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you…6 Jesus saith unto him…no man cometh unto the Father (which certainly includes His house) but by Me.

 

[Ben_Masada]

Howdee :tiphat:

Jesus lives forever עד עולם
Christians go to live in Jesus’s Father’s house…FOREVER…yeah!!

John 14:2 In my Father’s house there is much room: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you…6 Jesus saith unto him…no man cometh unto the Father (which certainly includes His house) but by Me.

To live forever is an attribute which was NOT granted to man. Only God has it. But as you say, Jesus lives forever and I wonder where. Perhaps you have only faith as an evidence. The world has been listening to this for 2,000 years. I guess another 2,000 years won’t make much of a difference.

 

[Ben_Masada]

Don’t forget that the parable of the rich man and his labourers is a parable of the NT! When he gives them their salary, that’s at the Last Judgment! Why does the Rich Man (God) give them the same salary even though some worked all day and some among the others only worked an hour? Some tried to be righteous all their lives (those who worked all day); some of the others had a sinful life most of their time, but they repented and changed in the very last portion of their life. So they too receive their salary(eternal life)!

That’s not the reason for the parable in my opinion. The point is the fallacy to over estimate ourselves in spite of others, and playing the Judge when we don’t have anything to do with the case.

 

[Ben_Masada]

Now, Ben, if God does want to give YOU eternal life, are you going to refuse it?

That’s an empty hypothetical question.

 

[Lapell]

That’s an empty hypothetical question.

I should have added that you are free not to answer it publicly.I don’t have to know what it would be, as long as you do…

 

[Lapell]

That’s not the reason for the parable in my opinion. The point is the fallacy to over estimate ourselves in spite of others, and playing the Judge when we don’t have anything to do with the case.

What does playing the Judge have to do with this parable?

 

[Lapell]

That’s not the reason for the parable in my opinion. The point is the fallacy to over estimate ourselves in spite of others, and playing the Judge when we don’t have anything to do with the case.

Very good! You are applying the idea of several layers of interpretation for a same story. You don’t accept the layer of interpretation I mentioned, and you always can reject it, but the possibility of it being as proper an interpretation remains, like it or not. You can still say “No it can’t”, but objectively it remains possible.

 

[Ben_Masada]

What does playing the Judge have to do with this parable?

**A lot. If the contractor hires you in the first hour of the morning for a certain amount of money for a salary; then hires others after 4 hours of labour, and at the end of the day pays equally to all, you will be playing the Judge and over estimating yourself if you get upset that he either paid the late workers the same or didn’t pay more to the earlier workers. **

 

[KyivAndrew]

Who says so, the NT? But of course! What did you expect?
The resurrection Jews believe, including the Pharisees, is the one described by Ezekiel 37:12.

Ezekiel 37:12. with Rashi’s commentary underneath it:
Therefore, prophesy and say to them, So says the Lord God: Lo! I open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves as My people, and bring you home to the land of Israel.
Rashi: “Therefore, prophesy: that I am destined to resurrect you a second time.”

I have quoted what the learned Rashi says of your quote from Ezekiel. He, who knew the Tanakh inside out, sees it as God promising the resurrection. Something entirely different to what you are arguing. If you cannot even come to a common agreement as to what constitutes the Core Principles of Judaism, what makes you think you personally will be even more qualified to teach Catholics on our religion’s mistakes? I’ll go with Rashi, Maimonides, Nahmanides on Judaism’s belief in the resurrection over yours.

God Bless.

 

[KyivAndrew]

That’s clear. There is no return from death.

That’s clear. There is no awake from the sleep of death.

Rashi disagrees with you. Here is Daniel 12:2 with Rashi’s commentary:
2. And many who sleep in the dust of the earth will awaken-these for eternal life, and those for disgrace, for eternal abhorrence.

Rashi’s commentary: “And many who sleep in the dust of the earth will awaken: The dead will come to life.”

 

[KyivAndrew]

** Judaism does not preach about afterlife, because Jews don’t believe in afterlife, except for some superstitious Jews from the unlearnt masses.**

Unbelievable! Religious Jews who spent their entire lives studying the ins and outs of Jewish Scripture, stellar names in Jewish and world history: Philo of Alexandria, Maimonides, Nahmanides, Rashi – all must have just been “superstitious” or from the “unlearnt masses” because they wrote of “eternal bliss in the afterlife” (Philo), or wrote and thought on the passages in scriptures pointing to resurrection. You Ben Masada have just insulted your own religion’s greatest thinkers; I don’t even know if any Christian poster has done this.

I again will take all those highly-esteemed scholars lifelong arguments on the reality of the resurrection in Judaism over your personal non-rabinnical but Biblical (as you understand it from your keyboard somewhere) interpretations. Why then not convince your fellow Jews then, those who seem to be lost in seeking an afterlife (this must be selfish, as you say) instead of coming on to a Catholic Forum and insulting Catholic’s knowledge of our New Testament? On top of being a personal doctor to Saladin’s vizier, Maimonides was even to become Richard the Lion-Hearted’s doctor. Huh, some “unlearnt” “superstitious” Jew, eh? Boy.

 

[Ben_Masada]

Ezekiel 37:12. with Rashi’s commentary underneath it:
Therefore, prophesy and say to them, So says the Lord God: Lo! I open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves as My people, and bring you home to the land of Israel.
Rashi: “Therefore, prophesy: that I am destined to resurrect you a second time.”

I have quoted what the learned Rashi says of your quote from Ezekiel. He, who knew the Tanakh inside out, sees it as God promising the resurrection. Something entirely different to what you are arguing. If you cannot even come to a common agreement as to what constitutes the Core Principles of Judaism, what makes you think you personally will be even more qualified to teach Catholics on our religion’s mistakes? I’ll go with Rashi, Maimonides, Nahmanides on Judaism’s belief in the resurrection over yours.

God Bless.

Yes, I am destined to resurrect you a second time. The first was from the graves of Babylon; the second time was now after this almost two thousand years of exile. Besides, even if I chose to believe this to be from Rashi, there are two things very important you have missed: Rashi is not mentioning anything about physical resurrection. And second, resurrection a second time could never be from a Christian context, because according to the NT, one gets resurrected once either to eternal life in Heaven or to Hell.

 

[Ben_Masada]

Rashi disagrees with you. Here is Daniel 12:2 with Rashi’s commentary:
2. And many who sleep in the dust of the earth will awaken-these for eternal life, and those for disgrace, for eternal abhorrence.

Rashi’s commentary: “And many who sleep in the dust of the earth will awaken: The dead will come to life.”

Sorry, but you do not understand the meaning of Rashi’s words. He does not disagree with me at all. According to Isaiah 53:8,9 exiles for the Jews is to be cut off from the Land of the Living, which is Israel, and to be assigned graves among the Gentiles. Therefore, in the Diaspora, Jews are dead, sleeping in the dust of the earth. When the exile is over, those who return to Israel are compared to a return to the Land of the Living or eternal life. The majority who will choose to stay in exile, their decision is compared to a disgrace and eternal abhorrence. Like a slave who after being granted freedom chooses to stay in disgrace and shame.

 

[Ben_Masada]

Unbelievable! Religious Jews who spent their entire lives studying the ins and outs of Jewish Scripture, stellar names in Jewish and world history: Philo of Alexandria, Maimonides, Nahmanides, Rashi – all must have just been “superstitious” or from the “unlearnt masses” because they wrote of “eternal bliss in the afterlife” (Philo), or wrote and thought on the passages in scriptures pointing to resurrection. You Ben Masada have just insulted your own religion’s greatest thinkers; I don’t even know if any Christian poster has done this.

I again will take all those highly-esteemed scholars lifelong arguments on the reality of the resurrection in Judaism over your personal non-rabinnical but Biblical (as you understand it from your keyboard somewhere) interpretations. Why then not convince your fellow Jews then, those who seem to be lost in seeking an afterlife (this must be selfish, as you say) instead of coming on to a Catholic Forum and insulting Catholic’s knowledge of our New Testament? On top of being a personal doctor to Saladin’s vizier, Maimonides was even to become Richard the Lion-Hearted’s doctor. Huh, some “unlearnt” “superstitious” Jew, eh? Boy.

**I recommend you to read Maimonides opus prima, “The Guide for the Perplexed.” Go and read it. Then, you can return and tell me what he says about physical resurrection or any activities in the afterlife.

What is this fever for some kind of reward after death? You didn’t have any before you were born. Just because you lived your span of life, now God is under obligation to grant you something after you die? Why? Would you please give me an answer to that one? Honestly, I don’t understand why demand a change in the nature of things. If we came from nothing, it’s only logic that we return to nothing. I really beg for an answer that makes sense. Thank you.**

 

[KyivAndrew]

If we came from nothing, it’s only logic that we return to nothing. I really beg for an answer that makes sense. Thank you.

O.K. Ben. I will answer your question with a “Jewish” answer and not a Catholic one because the latter you would surely dismiss.

The late Rabbi Menachem Schneerson probably studied the Holy Scriptures and Talmud as much if not more than you. Why do his religiously Jewish followers then proclaim: “The belief in a bodily resurrection appears, at first sight, to be incredible to the contemporary mind. But when approached from the God’s-eye view, why is rebirth more miraculous than birth?”

And also they proclaim on the veracity of resurrection: “Judaism has always stressed that the body, as the soul, is a gift of God–indeed, that it belongs to God. Ha’neshamah lach ve’haguf pa’alach, the Jew declared, “The soul is yours, and the body is your handiwork.” To care for the body is a religious command of the Bible. The practice of asceticism for religious purposes was tolerated, but the ascetic had to bring a sacrifice of atonement for his action. Resurrection affirms that the body is of value because it came from God, and it will be revived by God. Resurrection affirms that man’s empirical existence is valuable in God’s eyes. His activities in this world are significant in the scheme of eternity. His strivings are not to be deprecated as vain and useless, but are to be brought to fulfillment at the end of days.”

Here is the link to the full article: chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/281644/jewish/The-Resurrection-of-the-Dead.htm

Why is your understanding of no resurrection superior to Chabad’s Jewish belief IN the resurrection? Are they simply deluded and their Judaism inferior to yours?

God Bless.

 

[Ben_Masada]

O.K. Ben. I will answer your question with a “Jewish” answer and not a Catholic one because the latter you would surely dismiss.

Don’t bet on that! You might get disappointed.

The late Rabbi Menachem Schneerson probably studied the Holy Scriptures and Talmud as much if not more than you. Why do his religiously Jewish followers then proclaim: “The belief in a bodily resurrection appears, at first sight, to be incredible to the contemporary mind. But when approached from the God’s-eye view, why is rebirth more miraculous than birth?”

**This saying is completely nonsense. They pay lip service without understanding of the Scriptures. Many religious Jews read the Scriptures mechanically as an amulet to bring them luck. **

And also they proclaim on the veracity of resurrection: "Judaism has always stressed that the body, as the soul, is a gift of God–indeed, that it belongs to God.

Wrong! A gift once given, no longer belongs to the giver but to the receiver. Life was given to us to live and let live. Why should we now keep God hostage to an obligation to have to compensate us with some kind of afterlife, because He probably made the mistake to let us live? Makes no sense. If we have no demands to have come from a pre-life, why should we demand afterlife? We have control only on our span of life to live. Before birth and after death should be kept out of speculations.

Resurrection affirms that the body is of value because it came from God, and it will be revived by God. Resurrection affirms that man’s empirical existence is valuable in God’s eyes. His activities in this world are significant in the scheme of eternity. His strivings are not to be deprecated as vain and useless, but are to be brought to fulfillment at the end of days."

**Wrong! God did not promise resurrection to anyone because it would not make sense if eternity only God has it. **

Why is your understanding of no resurrection superior to Chabad’s Jewish belief IN the resurrection? Are they simply deluded and their Judaism inferior to yours?

**Every Jew has a mind of his own. We have no strings attached to either Church or Synagogue. Our mind is free. **