Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: mark@cambridge.apple.com (Mark Preece) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: The missing body/Empty tomb Message-ID: Date: 2 May 91 08:58:41 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: ... Lines: 54 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In response to one of the postings on this topic you said: >[One could create a religion based on some sort of values coming from >Jesus, without having the resurrection. If you want to do so, that's >up to you. (I think you'll have to ignore certain things Jesus said >in order to do so, by the way.) I guess I'm not interested in >engaging in arguments as to whether such a religion could legimately >call itself Christian or not. It would certainly not be the religion >described in the NT or practiced by the Church. > >The story of the crucifixion and resurrection so dominates the Gospels >that scholars have referred to them as passion stories with extended >prologs. Since I haven't seen anyone else take up this point, I have to object to your use of the term "passion stories" to include "the story of the crucifixion *and* resurrection". Somebody - I thought it was you, but could be wrong - made this distinction here not long ago in discussing why the musical Godspell lacks any explicit resurrection scenes (because it is basically a setting of the passion). One of the interesting things about the passion narratives in the gospels is that they are very similar to each other - much more similar than most of the rest of the material (it's the place where John is most similar to the synoptics, for example). This similarity is usually taken to mean that it was one of the earliest "codified" traditions of the church. The resurrection narratives, on the other hand, are all over the map (as the discussion on this topic demonstrates). This is especially true if you agree with many NT scholars that Mark originally lacked resurrection material altogether (ie, that it ended after 16:8). It happens that I agree with you that the resurrection is at the heart of the faith (and it is certainly at the heart of Mark's gospel, whether or not actually described). It wouldn't bother me, however, to discover that the earliest resurrection experiences were of the Pauline variety, rather than the "touch my wounds, watch me eat this fish" variety. It accords with my understanding of human nature that the stories about these experiences (which a sceptic could easily attack as "subjective") would tend, over time, to be objectified into the form in which we find them in the gospels: in other words, that the gospel accounts represent later traditions. On this model, the apostles' experiences of the risen Christ were not so different from the those available to Christians today. [I was objecting to someone who wanted to take Jesus' "message" without Christian beliefs in his person. Even if you are right that the passion account is more primitive than the appearances (and it's too late at night for me to give that question the attention it deserves, though I'm inclined to think that some of the formula in Paul are probably earlier than the gospels, and they do involve the resurrection), it seems clear that a Christianity for which Christ's death is central is one that believes not just in the golden rule, but that Christ died for us. That is already enough to show that there was never a Christianity that believed in Christ's message as something apart from his person. I also find it hard to believe that the passion would be central to Christians unless they also believed in the resurrection. --clh]