But was the body he raised the same as the one he died in?  This was a body that appeared and disappeared at will. One that went through locked doors. One that was sometimes recognizable and sometimes not.  One in which the nail wounds sometimes showed and sometimes not.  One that was not visible to all but only to those he had preselected.

Perhaps the body in which he rose was closer to Paul's spiritual body.

oh  you are very observant jim!

yes Our Savior Brothers RISEN BODY post his Resurrection as witnessed by the holy artifact called The Shroud of turin IS  His Evolved New Body that from then on exists naturally in a level of being as far above what He was Born as microbes are to us.

in  the same way that we cant see microbes without added tools and nether can we "see" Our Savior Brother NOW with out the sharpen tools that He Left to us to make- our faith and above all our love.

sadly  the bible centered community find it hard to accept anything that is not " spelled out" in there books -

the good news is they can at any time they wish get out from those pages and come to learn " the things humanity COULD NOT understand  then"  but that we  can now.

>p

Mar 23, 2011 -- 10:07AM, JimRigas wrote:

But was the body he raised the same as the one he died in?  This was a body that appeared and disappeared at will. One that went through locked doors. One that was sometimes recognizable and sometimes not.  One in which the nail wounds sometimes showed and sometimes not.  One that was not visible to all but only to those he had preselected.

Perhaps the body in which he rose was closer to Paul's spiritual body.

Mar 23, 2011 -- 11:42AM, smcisaac wrote:

And then there's the math.  The third day after Friday is Monday, not Sunday.  Jesus died just before the start of the Sabbath on Friday afternoon, and the empty tomb was discovered at daybreak on Sunday just after the Sabbath ended -- barely more than a day and a half later, not three days.

Just to be clear:  I am only saying that the cited verse does not match  the events of the Resurrection closely enough to prove that it must have occurred as a tangible, physical phenomenon.  I'm not arguing that the  Resurrection did not occur, or that  it should only be understood as a spiritual phenomenon or a figurative  myth rather than as a physical resuscitation of a dead corpse (although the spiritual rather than physical significance is indeed the way I  personally understand it).

However, given that the whole Gospel of John was written as a figurative, interpretive theological treatise rather than as an accurate chronology, I think the author probably did compose the verse intending to prefigure the Resurrection as Theo supposes, even if Jesus himself may never have actually uttered the words, and even if it tells us nothing about the physical reality of the Resurrection.

Mar 23, 2011 -- 11:42AM, smcisaac wrote:

And then there's the math.  The third day after Friday is Monday, not Sunday.  Jesus died just before the start of the Sabbath on Friday afternoon, and the empty tomb was discovered at daybreak on Sunday just after the Sabbath ended -- barely more than a day and a half later, not three days.

I very rarely disagree with you (except for that Trinity thing) but you are mistaken here.

The ancients had no concept of "Zero", that was an Arabic invention. The day of the crucifixion, Friday, was counted as the "first" day. Saturday was the "second" day, and Sunday was the third.

Further, as you know well, the day begins at sunset. So the first day only lasted from the ninth hour (about 3:00 pm by modern reckoning) until sunset (about 6:30 pm). At sunset the second day began. The third day began the following sunset (6:30 pm Saturday by modern reckoning).

It makes little sense by our way of counting days, but made perfect sense to the people of the First Century.

Mar 23, 2011 -- 4:55AM, Theo wrote:

John 2:18-19  So the Jews answered and said to Him, "What sign do You show to us, since You do these things?" Jesus answered and said to them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."

Jesus said - "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."

Obviously Jesus was speaking somewhat cryptically. Moreover the elite Jews misunderstood His meaning... thinking He was talking about the Temple in which they were standing.  John 2:20-22 > Then the Jews said, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?" But He was speaking of the temple of His body. Therefore, when He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this to them; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said.

So then, given John's explanation of what Jesus said, this is how I construct the meaning of His statement.

1)      Destroy – in this context refers to a killing action.

2)      This – refers specifically to the object of the killing action.

3)      Temple – St. John said that Jesus was referring to the temple of His body > in other words, temple does not equate to “life,” it referred to His body.

4)      And – this conjunction connects their killing action against His body with His response.

5)      I will - Jesus 's promise > Obviously Jesus did not cease to exist when He died, otherwise He could not have done anything, especially raise His body back to life.

6)      In - this introduces the time key to Jesus’ response.

7)      Three days - in other words, three days will pass before Jesus takes action.

8)      I will raise - this is the action Jesus promised He would do. The Jews were going to put Him to death, Jesus was going to come back to life.

9)      It - this pronoun corresponds directly to the noun “temple.” And thus it can only refer to His BODY.

10)  Up - most dead bodies are not up, they are down, and in Jesus’ case, His dead body was laid to rest in a stone tomb. Thus to raise His body up, means to raise it back to life.

Unfortunately some believers have a theological mental block, or a doctrinal imperative that prevents them from seeing the plain meaning of this very important statement. Jesus promised that if the Jews put Him to death, that He would raise His dead body back to life – that was the sign He promised them in response to their demand for a sign.

The disciples of Jesus believed in His resurrection, they saw Him, touched Him, ate and drank with Him. And they saw Him ascend into heaven. Moreover, for 2000 years Christianity has believed that Jesus Christ rose from the dead - bodily, that He appeared to His disciples over a period of 40 days - bodily, and then ascended to heaven - bodily. And yet there are still those who claim to believe in God and Christ, and to even believe in the Bible - but they deny the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.  

I would like to call those of you who deny His bodily resurrection to come out in the open and try to tell us how much you believe in and love Jesus - and why you do not believe in the sign He promised the Jews?

~ Theophilus

First, it is ridiculous to microscopically examine single sentences in scripture.  I campaign against parsing the scriptures because it often leads to error.  Maybe not in this particular case, but it doesn't make any sense and does not change the way we see it. 

Second, you can't judge someone on how much they love Jesus based on their view of his physical ressurrection.  He had to rise in some form and he appeared real and solid and if he hadn't there would be none who would have remembered him.  It was his resurrection that astounded the disciples and made all he had taught true. 

And finally, it is interesting to consider, but since I have seen him myself looking as solid and real as anybody ever has--time, matter and all that we see is an illusion.  It isn't that Jesus didn't rise bodily from the grave . . .