Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!princeton!njin!paul.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: tblake@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Thomas Blake) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: The missing body/Empty tomb Message-ID: Date: 11 May 91 03:33:39 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: State University of New York at Binghamton Lines: 67 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article John_Graves@cellbio.duke.edu (John Graves) writes: >If Jesus was dead when taken from the cross and prepared for burial, then >was the body of Jesus God incarnate or had God left the body, which >strikes of modalism and certainly Aristotlian thought, or was the Christ >still present in the dead body. For those who believe in the Shoud of >Turin as being the burial wrap of Christ, was the image caused by a >coronal event which may have been the return of God to the body? Or did >the body accompany Jesus's spirit to Hell and back (as it apparantly did >to Heaven according to the accounts in Acts and especially the Luke quoted >above)? If the body was Christless during the post crucifixion period >could it also have been Christless at conception? Well, I've always looked upon Jesus as being like me, only where I have a soul in my body, Jesus has something else. (God with skin on.) In my understanding, when we die our bodies become lifeless. (Our souls leave our bodies.) So, by my understanding, yes, when the Body of Jesus died, it was Christless. Now, as for whether the body was Christless at conception... Herein lies much of the quandry over abortion. At what point does a fetus/baby gain a sole? (At what point is it human?) Some equate soul with breath. So, when the baby's first breath enters it, the soul does as well. Assuming this is true, then I would say that Jesus' body became "Christful" at it's first breath. If this is true, (and the soul enters the body at first breath), then souls enter the bodies of babies all the time with no coronal event, (Although the soul of Christ might act differently obviously.) Still others believe that the moment of conception represents the start of life, and from that moment on the baby has a soul. Assuming this is true then I would say that Christ was within Jesus from the start. (This would be helpful in explaining the baby John leaping for joy within Elizabeth. Luke 1:39-45). Of course, both souls may have entered their respective bodies prenatal, but postconception. However, assuming that the soul enters at conception, I haven't heard any reports of doctors observing coronal events in petri dishes during invitro fertilization. (Of course perhaps in the unusual event of a soul re-entering a dead body there is a coronal event.) Here's yet another possibility. Jesus' body wasn't in all that good shape. If the Christ were once again to inhabit it, there was a lot of repair work to be done. (Blood to replace, wounds to heal etc.) Perhaps at this time there was a coronal event. (If all of the wounds were quickly cauterized or something of the like for instance.) I don't know, I'm not all that big on "The Shroud". Tom Blake SUNY-Binghamton [I hope you realize that your concept is one of the classical Christological heresies (Apollonarianism, I believe). The orthodox position is that all of Jesus' parts, including his soul, are human. In the Incarnation, God took an entire human being to himself. As Irenaeus (I think -- my theological library is at home) said: "what was not assumed could not be saved". I.e. if God only took on a human body, what relevance does the incarnation have to us? Our sinfulness is not primarily a problem of the body, but the soul. The classical position is that there are two things going on in Christ: Looked at as a human being, he is a complete, normal human being. Looked at from God's side, God in his fullness is present in him. (This is a paraphrase of the symbol of Chalcedon.) --clh]