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Trouble in Paradise? Helmut Koester was a Liberal!
Helmut Koester 1926-2016
Much of the arguments that I make on this blog revolve around the basic concept that I call "PMPN" (pre Mark Passion Narrative). It is a particular document but it is also a hypothetical constrict like Q. The important thing about this notion is that it includes the empty tomb. Helmut Koester and John D. Crosson say it ends with the empty tomb: Koester writes, "John Dominic Crosson has gone further [than Denker]...he argues that "this activity results in the composition of a literary document at a very early date i.e. in the middle of the First century CE."[1]Said another way, the interpretation of Scripture as the formation of the passion narrative became an independent document, a ur-Gospel, as early as the middle of the first century!Both scholars dated the document about AD 50. This is a powerful testimony to the truth of the resurrection because it means the empty tomb was not invented byMark, it existed well before mark was writte…
Much of the arguments that I make on this blog revolve around the basic concept that I call "PMPN" (pre Mark Passion Narrative). It is a particular document but it is also a hypothetical constrict like Q. The important thing about this notion is that it includes the empty tomb. Helmut Koester and John D. Crosson say it ends with the empty tomb: Koester writes, "John Dominic Crosson has gone further [than Denker]...he argues that "this activity results in the composition of a literary document at a very early date i.e. in the middle of the First century CE."[1]Said another way, the interpretation of Scripture as the formation of the passion narrative became an independent document, a ur-Gospel, as early as the middle of the first century!Both scholars dated the document about AD 50. This is a powerful testimony to the truth of the resurrection because it means the empty tomb was not invented byMark, it existed well before mark was writte…
Refuting the "No Body" Theory of The Resurrection
Resurrection of Christ by Noël Coypel, 1700,
using a hovering depiction of Jesus
Corinthians 15: 50 Now this is what I am saying, brothers and sisters: Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen,29 I will tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—52 in a moment, in the blinking of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.54 Now when this perishable puts on the imperishable, and this mortal puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will happen, “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” 55 “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”
The "no Body" theory comes in two versions: 1) that Jesus was an historical figure, but his resurrection was non-bodily; he didn't leav…
using a hovering depiction of Jesus
Corinthians 15: 50 Now this is what I am saying, brothers and sisters: Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen,29 I will tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—52 in a moment, in the blinking of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.54 Now when this perishable puts on the imperishable, and this mortal puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will happen, “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” 55 “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”
The "no Body" theory comes in two versions: 1) that Jesus was an historical figure, but his resurrection was non-bodily; he didn't leav…