Bones Matter
As I was re-reading Borg and Wright and trying to get my mind around their divergent arguments, I realized for me, the bones of Jesus' really matter.
A week or so ago James Cameron (of Titanic fame) released a documentary called "The Lost Tomb of Jesus." The documentary claims the bones of Jesus have been found in a tomb in Jerusalem (along with the bones of his mother, Mary and his wife, Mary Magdelene). Many archaeologists have since questioned just about every claim made in this documentary (see this CNN.org report).
My reason for raising the issue of this documentary, though, isn't to refute what it claims, but to acknowledge how central the bodily resurrection is to my faith. I don't really want to get into an archaeological argument with James Cameron or anybody else - at least not today. Instead of archaeology, I want to focus on theology. Bodily resurrection means human bodies matter to God, so much so that when God raised Jesus from the dead, he raised him in bodily form. This is an argument Wright makes in our book and in several of his other books. Frankly, I think he's really got Borg in a corner here.
I understand how Borg's theological method, which will accept only what seems "fact based," won't allow him to say "yes" or "no" to the reality of bodily resurrection. He never really comes out and says, "hey, there really was no bodily resurrection!" What bothers me is the way he dismisses the issue as "irrelevant."
Bodies aren't irrelevant. The biblical understanding of what makes a person a person is an embodied soul, not just a soul. Borg sound too much like a Greek thinker, imagining the soul's escape from the "dead weight" of the body as heaven. Some have used such thinking to justify mistreating the body because, in the end, the body isn't all that important. Torture, slavery, and prostitution have all been justified with such thinking.
I know Borg is too passionate about social justice to hold such a view, but his theology of the body (or lack there of) seems a weak defence against such thinking. I mean, if God didn't care enough about the body to raise Jesus with one, why should we care?
A week or so ago James Cameron (of Titanic fame) released a documentary called "The Lost Tomb of Jesus." The documentary claims the bones of Jesus have been found in a tomb in Jerusalem (along with the bones of his mother, Mary and his wife, Mary Magdelene). Many archaeologists have since questioned just about every claim made in this documentary (see this CNN.org report).
My reason for raising the issue of this documentary, though, isn't to refute what it claims, but to acknowledge how central the bodily resurrection is to my faith. I don't really want to get into an archaeological argument with James Cameron or anybody else - at least not today. Instead of archaeology, I want to focus on theology. Bodily resurrection means human bodies matter to God, so much so that when God raised Jesus from the dead, he raised him in bodily form. This is an argument Wright makes in our book and in several of his other books. Frankly, I think he's really got Borg in a corner here.
I understand how Borg's theological method, which will accept only what seems "fact based," won't allow him to say "yes" or "no" to the reality of bodily resurrection. He never really comes out and says, "hey, there really was no bodily resurrection!" What bothers me is the way he dismisses the issue as "irrelevant."
Bodies aren't irrelevant. The biblical understanding of what makes a person a person is an embodied soul, not just a soul. Borg sound too much like a Greek thinker, imagining the soul's escape from the "dead weight" of the body as heaven. Some have used such thinking to justify mistreating the body because, in the end, the body isn't all that important. Torture, slavery, and prostitution have all been justified with such thinking.
I know Borg is too passionate about social justice to hold such a view, but his theology of the body (or lack there of) seems a weak defence against such thinking. I mean, if God didn't care enough about the body to raise Jesus with one, why should we care?
posted by Pastor Bill | 8:00 PM
1 Comments:
Hi Bill! Glad to see another NCNY blogger, even if yours is more for your church than the world!
Peace,
Beth
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