That is a great and difficult question Waterfall,

I believe the Trinity has a good reflection of why , we are also created in Gods image , a trinity, Body, soul & spirit, with the body missing I am not whole as God is Whole, I am a disembodied spirit, nor can i feel without my body.

My personal belief  :

We have a Spirit, God has a Spirit

We Have a soul where our will resides, Jesus referred  to God the Father as His will , its not in scripture but I believe God the Father could be the Soul of God

And we have a Physical Body , Jesus was born in a Body and the physical image of the Invisible God .

There is our trinity

Man:

Body, Soul , Spirit

God:

Body= Jesus

Soul= father

Spirit= Holy Spirit

With out our body we are not whole nor made in Gods Image 

Hi waterfall,

The physical body is a part of God's good creation.  Resurrection is a part of the general purpose of Redemption.

Depends on who you ask.  The more doctrinally rigid will say no because they define a Christian by what an individual believes.  I lean more towards defining a Christian by how an individual acts.

Grace and peace to you.

John

So Blackbelt, not to be a smartass, but does that mean to you that God/Jesus is actually "sitting" in heaven and looks exactly like we humans?

The body does not need to be resurrected. And I don't think it can.

The only "resurrection" I can imagine is the body continuing on as a memory body in the Cosmic Hologram. See you there!

Fair enough, but doesn't that become atheistic if one doesn't believe that there was also a bodily resurrection? Didn't Jesus want us to believe that also? What does the Bible actually mean when it speaks of resurrection? And is it for us also?

This is where I become confused. Did Jesus or the Gospels lie IYO then?

I believe Jesus has a body yes, but its a new body, all i can say is after Jesus Ressurection, scripture says Jesus walked through walls, yet was still in a physical body, He also ate food.

Jesus said fless & blood will not enter the Kingdom, but flesh and bone will

so we see Jesus had a body , yet it was a new body. 

No, not necessarily.

They may have experienced the Cosmic Hologram. But, lacking modern knowledge, they interpreted it as a physical resurrection.

I myself am a mystic, but have no good explanation for mystical phenomena. The best non-supernatural explanation I have come up with so far is the Cosmic Hologram.

No, nobody lied. Arm is just reading the gospels metaphorically rather than literally. I do the same. Resurrection of the body is an ancient and powerful myth (e.g. while the Greeks did not believe all bodies would be resurrected, there are resurrection myths in their mythology) that does not necessarily need to be read literally to be meaningful.

For me, the resurrection is about rebirth. Suffering leads to the tomb, but that tomb is a spiritual one, the black pit of despair when it seems suffering will not, can not, end; the idea of resurrection frees us from that tomb and the suffering, opening us to new life. We can find hope that even in suffering, we can find a way to live again (e.g. if we are oppressed by society, stricken with disease or disability, wrestling with stressful situations, etc.). It is our spring after the darkness and cold of winter (another metaphor).

I would suggest that mine is not a traditional Christian interpretation but that I could consider someone who believed it as being Christian. It is still faith in the myth and life of Jesus Christ, just one that is rooted in metaphor rather than a literal understanding of a resurrection and afterlife. I do not consider myself "Christian" because I understand the key stories of the faith as myth; I do not consider myself "Christian" because those myths are not the only ones in my spiritual canon, though they remain quite integral to it.

Mendalla

What is the new life after the tomb? Metaphors aren't necessary then I suppose?

Hi waterfall,

No.  It doesn't.

The resurrection is not necessary for God to exist.  The Christian position is that resurrection may happen because God exists.  Beyond that, God doesn't cease to exist when resurrection fails to happen.

I believe Jesus offered it to us as a ground for hope and not as a checkmark to prove how Christian we were.  The core of Jesus' teachings are love God and love neighbour.  Belief/unbelief in a resurrection doesn't hinder abiding by those commands.  It will shape, obviously, how love plays out.

That is a matter of debate.  I throw down with bodily resurrection which means that I think it is for us.

Grace and peace to you.

John

The new life would depend on what the tomb was. It would generally be some kind of freedom or detachment from the suffering that preceded the tomb (the Cross, if you like) allowing us to move on with life. It is not a one-time event, but part of the process of living. Today it might be depression, tomorrow it might be a failed relationship, in ten years it might be a battle with cancer. In each case, the resurrection is when come to live anew whatever the source of suffering and "death" might be.

Reading it metaphorically, you replace the "Cross" with suffering, the "Tomb" with the pain and despair that that suffering leads us to (our "death" in a spiritual sense), and the "Resurrection" with opening up to life without, or at least without attachment to, that suffering.

I have not thought these things through in a while, so I'm riffing a bit and it may come out a bit jumbled, but this is basically what I'm thinking and have been for some time.

Mendalla

In the course of my answers, I've kind of skated around the original question, haven't I? I do not think Resurrection of the body is necessary in a literal sense nor do I think belief in a literal Resurrection is necessary for being Christian, but I have a rather loose definition of Christian (though, oddly, not loose enough to include myself ).

Also, for some reason it stopped me from editing the incorrect ending of my first post:

Should read:

Mendalla

Though  one can read the scriptural  resurrection metaphorically , this concept is simply not supported , scripture supports a physical resurrection beginning at the empty tomb. A Spiritua or metaphor  needs no empty tomb .

Unless the empty tomb itself is a metaphor, as I suggested above.

Mendalla

I was wondering more as "after the tomb" meaning death. What life then is after the tomb? What metaphors do we need then?

but the empty tomb is its one example 

Like a prayer rug, in my opinion. But it was the authors who were lying, to further a myth and a religion for which they would naturally be leaders. Think of who is writing scripture more recently - it's the scoundrels and the cult leaders. If you want to control people, starting a religion is much less messy than the tedium of assembling an army and conquering a land.

Do you really think that Jesus was a scoundrel Chansen? What did he do that makes you think this way?

Ask a Mormon about Joseph Smith, and he's a great guy and great leader. We know he was actually an ex-con.

I don't know if Jesus was as great as he is portrayed in the bible. He may have been yet another cult leader whose reputation was whitewashed over the course of decades and centuries - something the Mormons couldn't do because we still have Joseph Smith's police records. Jesus may have been ahead of his time. We don't know. Anyone pointing to the bible to say we do is deluding themselves, given the NT was written so long after the fact.

This is where Christians get themselves in trouble these day, imo. Being so cocksure of your beliefs in an age where there is such ready access to good arguments against your beliefs is going to backfire on you. I think the best thing you can do is say that this is what you believe, and it works for you.

Death is death. There is no life after the tomb, at least for the entombed.The matter and energy that make us up return to the universe and can reappear in new forms. It's reincarnation but not of the person. The person is no longer there.

There is life for those who live on (relatives, friends, etc.) and the notion of resurrection, of some part of the lost loved one living on among them in memories, works that they created, kindnesses that they performed, etc. is, perhaps, what the life after the tomb looks like.

That is why I read the whole thing metaphorically, with death and the tomb as part of the metaphor.

Mendalla

How so? I see the entire story from Cross to empty tomb as a single myth. The empty tomb is part of that myth. At least, that is how I see it. You see it differently, blackbelt, as I know well from our last discussion of the Bible and myth. I respect that and shall leave you to your understanding. I am telling what I believe, not trying to change anyone else's belief.

Mendalla.

I wonder why Jesus chose Passover instead of Yom Kippur to die for our sins?

and that is my point , you see it in your subjective understanding, so does everyone else, I included, but if we let scripture speak objectivelly, the ressurection does not leave room for metaphore .

then the question is asked, Could It be?

probally to reflect the passover in Exodus 

Could it be metaphor? Any work of literature can be metaphorical.

Did the authors expect people to literally believe it? Probably. Remember, people believed lots of ridiculous things back then.

Do Christians have to literally believe it now? Up to them. Just announcing that the scripture doesn't support a metaphor hardly solves anything. A metaphor does not, by law, have to knock on the door and announce itself.

I was reading that Yom Kipper is actually celebrated as the day of atonement, not Passover.  Isn't Passaver celebrating a freedom from slavery?

This must be why women read instruction manuals more than men.

Given that even among Christians the interpretation of scripture has been a bone of contention from the get-go, I would suggest that it would be very hard to argue for any possibility of objectivity there. Like any text, we each read it in our context and experience. My understanding of the text and your understanding of the text can be different and both be valid given only the text. Even the most literal of Christians resort to interpretation and metaphorical language at some points (the constant pointing of fingers at who they think is the "Beast of Revelation" for instance). The only way we could make it objective at this point would be time travel to see what really did happen and what the writers really thought they meant. And that is not unique to the Bible. Pretty much any text prior to the modern era (and even from the modern era) is subject to this, including things like histories and biographies.

Mendalla

The reading I've heard for relating Passover to Christ is that he freed us from the slavery to sin. Take that with a grain of salt. I'm sure there are other interpretations.

Mendalla

I would disagree, most bibical Scholars agree with  a physical resurrection reading of scripture but also  is the best explanation of  a post opt Christian martyrs  in the coliseum and abroad 

Now how can that be a True statement???, one is Physical ressurection , the other is a metphorical one, clearly bouth are contradictive 

but currently we are not talking about a future event that is left up to guess as in revelations but a past one that has already taken place,  the Resurection. 

Some scholars say what was written about in Revelation did take place, near the time it was written and written about for people in that time. Throughout history people have been convinced it was about them and their time. All the stories in the Bible, could be metaphorically understood to be about people experiencing things in their own time. The characters may have been real people, but as stories, are timeless. That's why people attend sermons. To hear something relevant to now.

Are there Christians who believe in past lives? Many other cultures do. Some aboriginal cultures believing that children carry the great grand-parents spirit, etc. (genetically speaking, if there are any behavioural traits because of brain similarities, as well as physical traits that are genetic, that makes sense). Others, that they are a reincarnation of someone not directly related to them (although we are all related at some point). It kind of makes sense to me, in terms of bodily resurrection. Also, the continuance and ressurrection of cultures, languages that humans communicate- animated by the Spirit. By life, living the human story. The continuation of human life on earth. Like, we are one body, humanity itself, that won't be wiped out if we love God (Life itself) and care for one another. A timeless truth. And the idea of resurrection made sense, in cultures and peoples fearing extinction.

I know there are a lot of Christians who believe we are at the end of the line and that means we should stop caring about here and now- that it's only a pitstop. I don't believe that's true any more than it ever was. Revelation is like a warning, something to learn, for people in all times and places. And we could extrapolate some wisdom from aboriginal cultures and other traditions who believe in the continuance of their ancestral inheritance, and as we become more aware of our interdependence- humanity's continuation.

Hi waterfall

I have various beliefs including reincarnation. My daughterès Jewish  ex father-in-law passed away last year here in Toronto. His body was shipped to Israel to be buried there. I am  not sure if it was done to be buried with his family or to be there when the Messiah ( not Jesus) arrives at the end of days. There is a belief among the Chinese if I am  correct that the body must not be cremated because God requires the femur bone for the bodily resurrection to take place. They also believe quite strongly in ghosts I have read immediately  upon the death of a person.

I think I am  crazy but I love to believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus, that it truly happened. I get all excited. I could jump out of my skin and dance round in my bones! Go...Jesus...Go. .... I also like where it says his body ascended into heaven as the disciples looked  on. ( I doubt its true but I like it..lol)  I will be cremated myself.

You asked blackbelt what Jesus looks like now....did he answer. I do not think a body can exist in space so he has to be a spirit. Also, in his belief how can Jesus come back to earth in a body. When will he put on the body.  These are questions which quite blow our minds. I sure can not imagine it. My keyboard has gone French..funny accents so no apostives or questions.

http://www.jewfaq.org/olamhaba.htm

I did answer upthread 

I dont think Jesus lives in our time space continium 

according to the angels, the same way he left 

nither could the Appostles, espically Tommas 

My literal  biblical knowledge is a bit rusty but I understand the Jews sacrificed a lamb or an animal at Passover to obtain forgiveness of sins. Jesus the Christ was sacrificed once and for all to be the last and perfect sacrifice for our sins.  Animal sacrifice was no longer required.

I believe or think various ways about the atonement and about traditional Christian beliefs in general. It may be as Kimmio and others  describe it, lots of allegory and metaphor. 

Blackbelt : Out of curiosity what does Jesus look like now in heaven.  How could he ascend up to heaven as a material body. How can he appear in the sky as a body when he comes back. These are not trick questions, I am curious. If we are talking about  God and miracles then anything is possible, why not. 

Thx. for your replies blackbelt. Sorry,  I need to go back and read the thread again.

do you mean like How dose Jeesus look Physically?, I dont know , I do believe he as a body, not like ours, scripture shows a glimps, thats all I know.

all the hows , geees if i had all the answers I guess well I woudl be God :) 

Could it look more like Jabba the Hutt?

I just think lots of people waiting for 'the event' miss seeing Christlike qualities, and cultivating those, in people now. And pin all their hopes on literalist ideology- waiting for the Second Coming (which they could wait forever if they don't know what they're waiting to see, or expect something magic) but caring less and less about here and now. I'm sad about it.

LOL@blackbelt. You mean you are not God. I often think there is some secret knowledge that others know but I do not know. Do you think Jesus could appear on TV for the whole world to see or is that just being crazy. He will appear in Israel first in the body  I believe the bible says.

The Bible says: "They will know me by my voice." here's my non-literal interpretation: I hear it now. I hear it everywhere. In people in nations all over the world, Christian or not (not Jew, not Gentile, not male or female- all of us) trying to do their part to make the world a better place. It's within us, it's around us. It's saying "Love one another like I loved you. Forgive one another." hear what the Spirit is saying. Amen. (my sermon for the day ;) ) it's not as complicated as we've made it.

Kimmio

I do not know any church people except those here on the net. In the UC church you attend do you think there are many people who believe Jesus is coming back in person and coming soon. The bible does say.....Without a vision the people perish. If you steal their hopes away you might leave them desolate, in a worse place than before.

 I used to drive my poor husband nuts, my bad. I live on the 8th. floor. Very often I would go out on the balcony, look up at the sky, and remark : He is not here yet. My husband would just shake his head.....:)

Many of  the people who  do wait for Jesus return  are still loving their neighbors and doing good works of charity I would hope.  Lots of people the world over do not seem to watch the News or know much in the political arena. For some their nerves just can not tolerate  it because its so very negative day after day.

That's true for people in the developing world, who really have nothing, I think. It gives them hope. But, for those of us who live in priveledged parts of the world and have access to information and education and resources, which equals a lot of power to make a difference- I wonder if it is irresponsible to not use that power to educate in the here and now, and make peace and healing possible. So much tribal war and damage can be caused by believing that "Jesus is coming back for me and my people and he's going to kick my enemies' butts, so we might as well give him a head start." I side with atheists in that regard. I see that kind of collective mentality doing so much damage. If that's where people in the developed world are getting their hope from, and using their priveledged power to affect change- that change isn't so healthy for the world, IMO.

To answer your question stardust: No, I don't think there are many, if any, at mine, who take it literally. Hard to say, individual beliefs actually aren't discussed there in depth like they are here. The ministers usually explain things in context in their sermons. Marcus Borg, Spong and Crossan are mentioned. So, I doubt many are literalists. Took me awhile to figure out what to expect there. I haven't been on a Sunday for a little while because I guess the traditional elements of the service don't comfort me like they do others. That's okay though. I still value the place, and am involved volunteering. Anyway... I did meet one nice girl who loved reading Joyce Meyer. She was really helpful to the church but she moved. I couldn't get on the same page with Joyce Meyer's belief system though. I certainly am not thrilled by it.

Kimmio

O.K. I do not meet the type of people you are talking about, except I see them  on TV.   We have a high percentage of atheists in my neighborhood.  I get along fine with them, mostly family chit chat.    

As a note, I would name myself as Christian, though I also consider most of the stories myth.  I also pull in other stories.  

As i was born and raised in the Christian faith, it is where my primary story lies, and so, I name myself Christian.  (though, haltingly due to the negative connotation often attached through assumption and the pain caused to so many by what I call really really bad interpretation)

Kimmio:

We are off topic, sorry waterfall.

Re Joyce Meyer I grew up in the Presbyterian church as a kid and a  teen back in the 40ès and 50ès. I understand the theology preached by Joyce Meyer and most of the evangelist pastors  althoè there may be variations in their beliefs. I suppose for lack of a better term I would call it ....the  old school. Borg,and Spong ( plus New Age) are fine with me too.

 Contrary to the many unfavorable  opinions expressed here about the TV evanglical preachers ( and regardless of some of them  having their faults or bad theology )  I believe they do a lot of good in the world. Would be suicides and very troubled people  are helped by them late at nights.

 We have free will regarding whether we wish to support them in a monetary fashion or not. Few people will admit to watching them on TV. However, I live in a highrise which has quite a few seniors on my floor. When I am out in the hall I often hear the evanglists raving and blaring away on TV. Its too bad the money and the bodies were not coming into the real life churches like the UC.