N.T. Wright in St Andrews
So, as I type, Tom Wright is giving a lecture down in town entitled ‘Can a Scientist believe in the Resurrection?’ This is the first of the Gregory lectures on Science and Religion, an excellent venture which my colleague Prof. Alan Torrance has organised.
Me? I’m ferrying children to and from a primary school Christmas disco. I’ve been trying to think of some pious comment about the importance of children in the Kingdom, (or even some sarcastic Baptist comment about bishops), but actually, I’d much rather be listening to Tom.
Oh well. Ben Witherington is with us for three lectures next month, and I should be able to make at least two of those.
I have already emailed NT Wright with 3 Questions , and not yet received a reply, after 1 month.
The 3 questions were :-
Paul writes ‘The first man Adam became a living being, the last Adam became a life-giving spirit’.
Does the typology mean Paul expected Christians to share in the nature of the two Adams, firstly as what they are now, and secondly as life-giving spirits?
Many converts to Jesus-worship in Corinth scoffed at the idea of God choosing to raise a corpse. What evangelistic methods had been used to convert them to Jesus-worship?
Were these Jesus-worshipping resurrection-scoffers familiar with Old Testament stories of God breathing life into dead matter to create Adam, or with stories of Moses returning from the grave to speak to Jesus?
Here are some further questions, which I am certain the Bishop of Durham will not discuss in his talk on the resurrection of Jesus.
Why did Paul maintain that Jesus had become a life-giving spirit at the resurrection, and implied that all Christians would become life-giving spirits?
Why did early converts to Christianity scoff at the idea that God would choose to raise a corpse?
Why did Paul think it idiotic to even discuss how bodies can come back, go on to remind the Corinthians that what was in the ground was dead, and tell them that resurrected beings were as different to earthly bodies as fish is different to the moon? (Only an idiot wonders how a fish can turn into the moon)
Why did Paul trash the idea that God would raise beings from the dust that corpses dissolve into?
Why was Paul unable to find one detail from anybody’s personal experience as to what a resurrected body was like, instead being forced to work entirely from general principles and theological reflection?
Why did Paul say that God would destroy both stomach and food to people who were allegedly converted by tales of the resurrected Jesus eating fish?
All these questions, and many more, will be ignored by the Bishop of Durham when he trots out the old tired argumemts that have been refuted hundreds of times.
I wanted to ask NTW a question:
Can a scientist believe in the resurrection…?
Do you have dates and times for the Witherington lectures, Steve? Might be possible to do a wee jaunt up to Fife? Thanks.