LL COOL PAC said:
why Paul claims that Jesus was the first physically resurrected being. Clearly many people are familiar with the story of the raising of Lazarus in John, and a couple of other incidents with the widow's son and centurian's daughter...The question is then raised as to whether Paul had access to any of the Gospels in the first place and how much he knew of Jesus' life... Does it not seem odd that he refers so attentively to the Old Testament and yet mentions next to nothing of Jesus' life story in his letters, despite evangelising in the Lords' name?
Paul died in 64 C.E. The first Gospel, Mark's, was written no earlier than 70 C.E. Then Matthew's in 80 C.E. So, no, Paul hadn't read them.
In fact, until the Gospels were produced and circulated, Paul's letters were the only written sources distinctive to Christianity. That's why they rose to prominence in Christian usage despite the controversy surrounding Paul, and formed the nucleus of what the second-century Church called the New Testament. What we read about Jesus today in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John was circulating only in oral form during the 60s C.E.
So the question then becomes, didn't Paul hear these oral stories? For sure, and from some eyewitnesses, no doubt. So does that mean the raising of Lazurus was a later made-up story by one of the Gospel writers? Perhaps. Or does it just mean that Paul is thinking of resurrection as applied to Jesus in a totally different way?
You also have to understand that Paul's letters were just that, letters. Not essays about Jesus or Christianity. They were written to various churches for specific purposes. Written to people who had already heard the oral stories about Jesus, so he didn't have much need to talk about Jesus' life. Also, for Paul, the most important thing was Jesus' death, not his life.
In I Corinthians 15:35-44, we see that Paul clearly thinks of resurrection as being something that happens to the soul. In part: "Sown in decay it is raised in incorruption; sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; sown in weakness, it is raised in power; sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body."
What he says in this letter to Corinth sets out the most exact explanation he ever gave of what he saw on his way to Damascus in 32 C.E. It's also the only firsthand written account in the New Testament of what the risen Jesus looked liked.
When he posed the question of the
kind of body the risen Jesus has, Paul was contemptuous of materialist claims. There have always been ppl who think that for Resurrection to have any meaning, it must involve resuscitating the physical body that died. That assumption lies at the root of a great deal of literalist thought. Paul flatly contradicts any suggestion that the dead are resuscitated when God raises them and impugns the intelligence of anyone who would accept that idea in I Corinthians 15:36-38.
He never compromised with the literalists of his time over the basic principle that being raised from the dead is about a transformation of this world, including our bodies. His attitude produced controversy, contention, hurt feelings, and perplexity. So you're right when you say there are some stark differences between the Theologies expressed by the Jesus presented in the Gospels and those later expounded by Paul. He never showed concern to soften the blow of contempt when he felt like challenging a received opinion. His apocalypse burned away any sense of diplomacy he might have once had.
God did not reanimate a corpse when he raised Jesus from the dead, but gave his Son a glorious body "exactly as he wants." Paul nowhere refers to Jesus' tomb being empty, because he thought only a "fool" would say the body that was raised was equivalent to the body that was buried. Paul's companions on the road to Damascus did not see Jesus when Paul experienced his vision. They only saw Paul react to it. Paul says with unmistakable emphasis that God chose "to uncover his Son in me so that I should announce him triumphant among the Gentiles." His visionary realization of the Son within implied that they could be delivered the same way.
To Paul's mind, as shaped by his experience on the road to Damascus, God had made a new Adam in the case of Jesus. "Adam" in Hebrew means "human being," and Paul saw the risen Jesus as a model for a new humanity. Jesus' flesh had passed away like a seed in the ground, transformed into a "spiritual body" (I Corinthians 15:42-45). The first Adam had been a living "soul," breathing in response to the animating breath of God. This last Adam, however, of a completely different substance from the first human being, had become "life-giving Spirit"--the dynamic, metaphysial wind that had moved over the face of the waters at the moment of creation.
He is a new template for humanity. People can pass beyond being material and beyond their awareness of their own limited lives. They can become spitirual bodies: infused with Spirit, God-conscious, framed in Christ's image instead of Adam's (I Corinthians 15:47-49): "The first person was from earth, dust; the second person from heaven. Such as the dust person is, so are those of dust; such as the heavenly person is, such are those of heaven. And just as we have born the image of the dust person, we shall bear also the image of the heavenly person."
That was why "We shall all be changed" (I Corinthians 15:51): everyone, everywhere, without exception.
That was Paul's message. The literalist Church turned Jesus' and our resurrections into physical events, thus taking all the subletly and profoundness away form it.
