Second, as to what the passage means, that remains much debated in the field.

Personally, I suspect a scribal error has occurred, and the transitional particle de has been dropped, such that it originally read “BUT do not…” As in: after explaining the procedure for not judging but helping others with their sins (which is: sort yourself out first, then you can sort others out), he then says, “But” don’t waste this time on people not ready to receive it, lest they just attack you or waste your time.

The phrase is an obvious riff on Exodus 22:31, “And you shall be holy men to Me, therefore you shall not eat any flesh torn to pieces in the field; you shall throw it to the dogs.”

The holy thing is the gospel or any of your efforts to spread God’s wisdom (helping your neighbor with moral advice), hence not literal meat but figurative meat (note meat is in Paul and at Qumran also a code word for the mysteries, the secrets taught to the initiated, in contrast to milk).

And the comparand for pigs and dogs is a certain kind of person, namely people who figuratively comport themselves like dogs or pigs; basically anyone who will: merely attack you for trying to help, or just run roughshod over any wisdom you offer. In other words, “don’t waste this effort on toxic people.”

Ironically, this rescues the statement from censure far more than the Christian apologetic does.

First, that apologetic of course is illogical. It’s like saying when someone calls a woman a “bitch” that they aren’t “really” calling them a female dog. Yeah. Everyone agrees they aren’t “literally” calling them that. But they are figuratively calling them that. The comparison is the whole point of the insult. So saying “they just meant to figuratively compare some people to pigs and dogs” is not actually responding to your point; it is, rather, just restating your point.

6 “Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under foot and turn and maul you.

Who are the dogs and the pigs? in the world of the author, is unholiness synonymous with dogs and pigs? christian apologists will say, “jesus is not identifying humans as pigs and dogs, he is making an illustration to make the point clear”

but isn’t the illustration meant to say that non-believers are unholy who trample and maul and therefore one should keep away from ?

QUOTING APOLOGIST:

He’s not calling anyone dogs or pigs. Jesus is using symbolical language to describe those who reject and are hostile to the gospel.

The point is “don’t waste what is holy on people who ridicule, trample on and blaspheme it”

my question :

but the question remains, who are these people in the authors world view? unholy? And what does unholy stand for in the authors world view?

Using your wording of “hidden” or “witnessed” — that is exactly the kind of distinction I was trying to make. Precisely that.

And in that context, it’s important to note Paul consistently only ever says this was witnessed in private revelations. Which really means “hidden.” Whether the resurrection was believed to have occurred out of an Earthly tomb or not. So Christians can’t get any epistemic leverage here anyway. See Resurrection: Faith or Fact?

And, there was, evidently, a perceived difference between the two, else, there would not have been the two differing schools of thought, that one should “win out” over the other. If they were both viewed as equal expressions of “resurrection”, then both views should have equally been supported by.. well… whomever.

Not sure what you mean here. As I’ve been explaining, which one you chose had consequences all the way down to political and social and moral order. Thus the two views had to battle it out for dominance of the church. They could not coexist. And that’s why it would not be easy for Christians today to “go back” to any original view about this. They have staked too much on denying that by now. It’s not impossible (sectarianism proves Christians can change course); but it won’t likely be common or popular.

YOU say that, but evidently, THEY (meaning, others outside of whatever group you propose to have believed in an Outer Space Jesus and a “hidden” resurrection), back then, did not agree with you. THEY (others outside that group) most obviously saw a difference.

You must have misunderstood me. I never said they didn’t perceive a difference between those two positions entirely. I said they perceived no difference only in respect to whether the resurrection was physical and real. The difference was not “we say it’s physical, you say it’s spiritual,” but “we say the physicality was one way, you say the physicality was another way.” Both said it was spiritual. Both said it was physical. Those aren’t the distinctions they were battling over.

The two sides were warring over whether the body was a separate, new entity, or whether it was the same old body restored. That’s the case regardless of “where” they thought it happened. That’s why the “where” makes no difference to this particular argument. The chain of inescapable reasoning was: revelation entailed the new not old body model; but one sect’s public moral programme required that it be the old body; ergo, the story had to be changed from revelation to bodily encounters (touching Jesus, eating dinner with Jesus). And that’s why it was changed.

Modern Christianity has likewise shackled its entire public moral programme to the “old body” model, and thus “cannot” allow the original story to have been of revelations. That is the political motive for denying that today—and why they can’t just “switch back” now to the original model. It really doesn’t matter “where” the resurrection took place. The problem is how it took place.

Of course, now in the modern scientific era, admitting it took place not on Earth would reduce the epistemic credibility of the religion because we now know the ancient cosmological model of the solar system was bollocks, and rewriting Christianity into being nothing but secret telepathic communications from orbiting space aliens would make Christianity look as stupid as it actually is. But my point is, there is no barrier to Christians adopting that view; one stupid idea is as dumb as another. The barrier comes from the metaphysical consequences of admitting this, not the epistemic consequences.

Thank you for your very quick response!

re: “But if we are talking about what they believed and were saying, then either resurrection is equally physical, equally historical, equally real, and equally demonstrative of what was supposed to be awaiting the rest of us (if we “join” the right resurrection club, of course).”

Using your wording of “hidden” or “witnessed” — that is exactly the kind of distinction I was trying to make. Precisely that.

And, there was, evidently, a perceived difference between the two, else, there would not have been the two differing schools of thought, that one should “win out” over the other. If they were both viewed as equal expressions of “resurrection”, then both views should have equally been supported by.. well… whomever.

I’m NOT trying to take issue with whether they are “equal”, as you say: “equally demonstrative of what was supposed to be awaiting…”

YOU say that, but evidently, THEY (meaning, others outside of whatever group you propose to have believed in an Outer Space Jesus and a “hidden” resurrection), back then, did not agree with you. THEY (others outside that group) most obviously saw a difference. But, then, I’m not saying anything that you don’t say in your writings: it was that bunch that saw a difference between an Outer Space Jesus and an earthly Jesus, and between a “hidden” resurrection and a “witnessed” one, that finally “won out”.

So, to YOU, the two ideas of resurrection might be synonymous, but obviously, to THEM, back then, they didn’t see it that way.

vs a “spiritual” resurrection – meaning, something that happens somewhere “in the heavens” or the Cosmos, or the “spirit realm” (or where-ever).

Possibly you are operating from an anachronistic framing. There was no such thing in antiquity. Heaven was literally up in space. It wasn’t another dimension, but an actual place you could theoretically get to in a rocket or see with a telescope. And it was just as physical as everything else. A “spiritual” resurrection in your sense was thus just as physical and real as any other.

So the term “spiritual” here doesn’t do any work; unless all you mean is “hidden.” But that’s an epistemic issue, not a metaphysical one. Of course I don’t think there is any evidence of either kind of resurrection, a witnessed or a hidden one. But if we are talking about what they believed and were saying, then either resurrection is equally physical, equally historical, equally real, and equally demonstrative of what was supposed to be awaiting the rest of us (if we “join” the right resurrection club, of course).

Nowadays, however, that is a problem only because modern ideologies are tied to the Earthly-corpse resurrection; but Christianity wasn’t originally like that, and could return to its original belief scheme and go on that way. It would just mean Christians would then more resemble the Heaven’s Gate cult, who believed they would be teleported from their Earthly bodies up into new superior bodies already waiting for them in a vessel in outer space. This is actually closer to what Paul and the original Christians believed.

My point had to do with Jesus’ resurrection body, and whether his was an “historical” resurrection (meaning, the resurrection process affected his corpse) vs a “spiritual” resurrection – meaning, something that happens somewhere “in the heavens” or the Cosmos, or the “spirit realm” (or where-ever).

The initial comment to which I was responding was “I fail to see why a celestial Jesus makes the slightest difference to one being a Christian or not.”

Now, I’m not making any case (at all) about Jesus’ resurrection (or anyone else’s). I’m merely pointing out the difference between something that supposedly happens “in the realm of the afterlife”, as opposed to something that happens in a this-world, here-and-now event: “spiritual resurrection” – ie, getting a “spiritual body” – is just a speculated “envisionment” of what the afterlife will be like, no different in it’s speculative quality than someone saying “I believe that when we die, we’ll become one with the Universe”. It’s just “religious blather”. An “historical resurrection” of Jesus (such that there was no longer a corpse in a tomb someplace) is a statement of this-world, here-and-now fact – an “objective reality” – something that’s true whether one believes it or not.

i’m just saying the “historical resurrection” (of Jesus) is the kind that (obviously) had “staying power”. Just as it’s obvious the “speculative” view of spiritual resurrection had none. If it did have “staying power”, then, in your paradigm (at any rate), the “historical resurrection” idea would have never “won out”. But, it did.

Very obviously, it DOES make a difference whether Jesus was raised “historically” or “spiritually”. (And, no, I’m not saying that makes one or the other view as necessarily true).

…then it begs the question “exchanged for what???” – and yet, this is never specified.

Note that this depends on what you expect by way of “specified.”

Paul actually does specify. Over numerous verses he elaborately explains what he means: a body of superior material will replace the body made of corrupt material.

He never says it changes into that (despite translators trying to force that out in their interpretation, due to sectarian needs and assumptions). As Josephus records for the Essenes, this was believed impossible: the corrupt stuff of decay fundamentally transfers its properties of corruption and decay; that’s why “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom.” You simply have to get rid of the stuff and replace it with something lacking those properties. Paul goes on and on about this and why it’s necessary.

The only thing he doesn’t do is give us a Dungeons & Dragons stat block for the replacement bodies or a technical report on where the discarded stuff goes or how it leaves us. He doesn’t give us a technical manual on God’s body tech. He’s just briefly explaining the gist of the matter, because he doesn’t want the Corinthians to get bogged down in the weeds of technical details. He conveys only what he needs to do to assuage their fears and concerns about “how we are raised.”

But, if it’s “WE” that are going to be “exchanged”, then goodness sakes, what are we getting traded in for?

That’s a good question to ask. Again, it’s the grammar. The Greek word operates as a term for undergoing an exchange. This doesn’t exist in the valence of any English words, so it’s understandable that it would seem odd. But it is clear enough in the Greek. Thus, its actual valence is “we will undergo an exchange.” Meaning, the exchange of bodies he just explained in some detail. Because he elaborates specifically what he means before that, the context establishes the connotation of the word intended.

I think this came up in the O’Connell debate. But if not, I cover it, with examples from other Greek sentences, in TET.

The celestial Jesus (the Doherty thesis) and the Pauline conception of resurrection (even granting historicity) are fundamentally the same in one respect here: they both distinguish between merely “going to heaven” (as a disembodied soul; which wasn’t really as much of an idea back then, it’s more of a medieval development) and getting a new super-body to live inside and go about in.

It was important that one have a body. So the distinction that existed was over which body it would be: an entirely new one (think: Cylons; or recently, the Heavens Gate cult) or the same old one refurbished (the assumption that prevailed among later “orthodoxists,” i.e. the winners of the sectarian culture wars). Jews debated this at the time (see The Empty Tomb again for data on that). So did Christians by the later first century (much of the Gospel fictions are propaganda for one side of that debate; ditto).

Notably (per the work of Caroline Bynum) one of the reasons the sarcicist (flesh-restorative) sect prevailed was that it was more usable to maintain conservative social mores, especially keeping women subordinate, a concern of the framers of the NT, who interpolated and forged material to that end.

If we get new bodies, gender distinctions vanish (as Paul even outright said), which women were taking as a feminist call for egalitarianism and equality with men. A lot of elite Christian men took issue with that and denounced it as heresy (e.g. Tertullian). They thus started pushing flesh-restoration because then distinctions of sex and the superiority of men could be maintained in heaven (and thus also here on Earth).

This is how sects become so inexorably linked to a metaphysics that abandoning the underlying metaphysical claims threatens the social morality and politics they really care about and are actually fighting for. And hence trying to change the metaphysics gets pushback. All sectarianism results from this mechanism. Metaphysics is always just a proxy for morality and politics.

I would suggest that both a “celestial Jesus” (who had a “celestial resurrection”) and the more-or-less “standard” belief in Liberal Theology of a “spiritual resurrection” are each no more meaningful or significant than a belief that “Grandma died and went to heaven”.

If we’re talking about a Jesus who died, and was buried, and then whose “spirit” was “raised up” and “exalted” – and calling that “resurrection” – then all we’re saying is “Jesus died and went to heaven – and then got a great job once he got there”.

Same thing (in a different way) with the celestial Jesus: it’s just something that happens off in the “spiritual realm” – and – anything like that is nothing but purely “theological speculations” (or, maybe not even “theological” – maybe just “speculations”).

So, whether it’s TRUE or not, a “bodily resurrection” (ie, of a dead Jesus whose corpse rose from the dead) is a radically different thing. It’s not an abstract “belief” for which there can be no verification or falsification. It’s something that (at least, in principle) can be known – that is, a “justified, true belief” in something that was objectively real.

I’m one of those guys that has no use whatsoever for “random spirituality”, I guess. I don’t have any particular “need” to believe “there’s something else out there”, I don’t have a real need to believe I’ll be going anywhere at all when I die, and I certainly have no need, nor time or interest in sitting around talking about “spiritual stuff”, if it’s all just speculative ruminations.

But, if Jesus was bodily raised from the dead, in an event that affected his corpse such that it was no longer confined to some burial spot – then that is radically different than “Grandma died and went to heaven”. It takes the “speculative” out of the picture, and says “there really IS a God who does miracles, and who works in human history”.

So, without saying whether Jesus’ bodily resurrection really happened or not, I would say that the difference between that particular belief, and a belief of a “celestial Jesus” who is somehow resurrected in the spiritual realm, is a staggering difference.

One must remember: it wasn’t a message of a “celestial Jesus”, nor of a “spiritually resurrected Jesus” that changed world history. It was that story of a bodily resurrected Jesus – whether it’s true or not – that changed human history.

A celestial Jesus or a Jesus that died and went to be with Grandma are just irrelevant. And, if either of those ideas was the “original message” of the earliest Christians, it’s no surprise at all that the original message died out.