In a previous post, I've discussed Marcus Borg's view of the resurrection body according to Paul. I've shown that, by philosophical and theological reasons (scientific naturalism, atheism, secularism, religious pluralism and anti-Christian hostility) a bunch of liberal scholars, specially those in the Jesus Seminar, including Borg, have misrepresented the evidence provided by Paul about the nature of the resurrection body, in order to undermine the traditional concept of Jesus' resurrection. (This procedure is an extension and corollary of their overall strategy of destroying the traditional exclusivistic and divine view of the historical Jesus).In his amazingly erudite book on the resurrection, prominent New Testament scholar Dale Allison comments on the resurrection body according to Paul: "there is no good evidence for belief in a non-physical resurrection in Paul, much less within the primitive Jerusalem community... Even Paul, in 1 Cor 15, when defending the notion of a "spiritual body", teaches -like Bar 51:10- the transformation of corpses, not their abandonment" (Resurrecting Jesus, p. 317)
As I argued in the post on Borg, Paul's view on the continuity of the body which is buried and then resurrected (i.e. in the transformation of the same corpse), becomes evident in 1 Corinthians 15: 42-44 in which Paul says "The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body"
Clearly the notion of continuity of the same body, and its transformation, is stated.
Also, as Allison mentions, no good evidence exists for the view that in the primitive Jerusalem, the resurrection was understood in "non-physical, purely spiritual" way. For Jews, the resurrection meant bodily resurrection.
However, religious pluralist Marcus Borg, without providing any evidence (let alone, sufficient evidence), is forced to misrepresent the disctintion between "resuscitation" and "resurrection" in order to make his case. According to Borg: Resuscitation is "resumption of previous existence" (Will Jesus Please stand up? p.122), which involves necessarily a corpse (Lazarus coming to life again would be an example; people who have comes to life again after clinical death would be another).
And resurrection means "entry into a new kind of existence" (ibid). Borg says that resurrection could involve the transformation of corpse, but it is not necessary, so that as a "Chrisitian" he wouldn't be affected by "the discovery of Jesus' skeletal remains". (Note that Borg's concept of resurrection makes his pseudo-Christian pluralistic position wholly UNFALSIFIABLE, because even solid empirical evidence for Jesus' bones, which would refute his bodily resurrection, would be empirically irrelevant to Borg's personal beliefs).
Borg's unfasifiable pseudo-Christian position is clearly dishonest. Rational Christians have to accept that if Jesus' resurrection didn't happened, Christianity is false. As William Lane Craig comments "If Jesus did not rise in confirmation of his radical claims, Christianity is a fairy tale which no rational person should believe" (p.31)
What Borg bypasses is the fact that for Jews, the resurrection (like resuscitation) involves CORPSES too. In other words, the difference between resuscitation and resurrection is not that the former necessarily involves corpses and the latter doesn't require them. Rather, the difference is in the nature of the body: resuscitation means coming to life again in the same MORTAL body (e.g Lazarus). And the resurrection means coming to life again in a INMORTAL body (e.g. Jesus). This is the whole point of Paul's contrast between a natural body and a spiritual body, mentioned above.
No evidence exists that, for Jews, the resurrection concept included the notion of a non-physical, purely spiritual existence. Calling this "resurrection" is historically irresponsable and highly misleading. As William Lane Craig asks, in his reply to Borg: If Paul's view is as Borg thinks, then "What is the distinction between the resurrection of the body and the inmortality of the soul?" (ibid. p. 173 n25)
Finally, you will remember that for Borg (and Crossan) the resurrection of Jesus primarily means the "experience of Jesus" in the disciples' minds. About this view, Allison comments: "I know of no evidence for this point of view" (p. 325 n497).
I concluded my previous post about Borg saying that the Jesus Seminar (or perhaps, the most vocal members of it) are the CSICOP-equivalent in the New Testament and Jesus studies. Probably, I'll write one post comparing the Seminar and CSICOP, because they are alike in many aspects, for example:
-The pretension of speaking in the name of mainstream science (CSICOP-CSI) or scholarship (Jesus Seminar)
-A debunking agenda (of the paranormal, in CSICOP case; or of the traditional view of Jesus, in the case of the Jesus Seminar).
-Naturalistic-atheistic pressupositions and assumptions (defended in the name of "science").
-Attempts to influence the media and the general public
-Assumptions about their own superior objectivity, scholarly competence, open-mindness and critical thinking, and condescending assumptions about the intellectual inferiority, incompetence, dishonesty, lack of integrity, bias and prejudices of their opponents (in the case of CSICOP, as a rule paranormalists, afterlife researchers and parapsychologists are wishful thinkers, naive and incompetent researchers easily deceived by magicians and fake psychics and mediums. In the case of Jesus Seminar, the early Christians fabricated or invented a bunch of sayings and deeds about Jesus, like the view that Jesus was the Son of God, because they were ideologues and propagandists with so much "irrational faith" that they were not interested in the literal truth about Jesus, or were credulous and lacking in intelligence or rational thinking as to ascertain and communicate the true facts... which only liberal scholars, with its anti-supernaturalistic/naturalistic assumptions, are in good position to discover and recover in the 21th century).
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