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Someone asked "I was listening to Rabbi Tovia Singer taking about the resurrection concept taught by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15. Rabbi Singer stated that Paul’s view was Greek due to the idea of a “spiritual body” being resurrected from a physical body.
My question is, from a Jewish perspective, at the resurrection of the dead, does the physical body resurrect in the exact same form as it was in when it died? And if so, does this mean that the resurrected body dies again after the resurrection? Was Paul’s idea wrong of a resurrected body that doesn’t not die again?" Paul taught that people have to “accept” Jesus or be damned forever. You have to believe in not only his death and his resurrection to be “saved” you must believe that he died for your sins (even though he undied pretty fast!). By contrast the Hebrew Bible tells us time and time and time again that no one can die for your sins. You alone must atone and repent of your wrongdoings. By either name the concept is totally foreign to the T'nach (Jewish bible). It is more than foreign. It is forbidden. See Sh'mot / Exodus 32:33 "Whoever has sinned against Me, him I will erase from My book!" The Jewish position is that repentance is the key component in the atonement process. When man repents, G-d forgives. G-d clearly tells Moses that each of us is responsible for our own sins. The idea that no one can atone for the sins of another is repeated over and over again in the T'nach: "So you shall not pollute the land in which you are; for blood pollutes the land and no expiation can be made for the land for the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of him who has shed it!" (Bamidbar / Numbers 35:33). "Fathers shall not be put to death for their sons, nor shall sons be put to death for their fathers; everyone shall be put to death for his own sin." (D'varim / Deuteronomy 24:16; M'lachim Beit / 2 Kings 14:6). There are many more such verses -- no one can die for the wrongdoings of another, and human sacrifice is disgusting to G-d. Besides saying you have to believe in Jesus to be resurrected Paul also said that the Torah could not "save" you. Only belief in Jesus could "save you." Paul ignored D'varim / Deuteronomy 33:29 where Moses said we are “a nation that has been saved by HaShem” and Y'shayahu / Isaiah 45:17 says the Jewish nation “has been saved by HaShem” adding that “this is an eternal salvation”). Note that, in both verses, the words used were “has been saved” or "continually being saved." So we don't NEED Jesus to save us -- G-d has saved / is saving us continually, B"H! Salvation in the Hebrew Bible has nothing to do with the immortal soul – that lie comes from Paul. It always means our physical lives being rescued from danger – our immortal souls do not need saving. Tchiyat Hameitim / תחיית המתים is belief in a reuniting of the soul and body. The Rambam (Maimonides) explains that the body in T'chiyat Hameitim is unchanged from the physical body as we know it today. The Ramban (Nachmanides) disagrees and sees the body existing forever but becoming less material over time. The Rambam listed resurrection of the righteous (mentioned in both Y’shayahu / Isaiah and Daniel) as one of his 13 principles of Judaism. He taught that for several hundreds of years people would be resurrected, live and die again. Prior to being resurrected their immortal souls have been in olam haba – the world to come (think heaven), they live reunited body and soul a natural life and die again – to return again to olam haba. Where does the Rambam conclude that the resurrected will die again? See Y’chezkel / Ezekiel 46:16: “So says the L-rd G-d: If the prince (messiah) gives a gift to any of his sons, it is his inheritance and remains in his sons' possession; it is their property by inheritance.” This tells us that the messiah will eventually die and his children will inherit his possessions. The Ramban (Nachmanides) disagreed that the resurrected will die again. He opined that tradition in Judaism saw the resurrection as the beginning of immortality body and soul. He bases this on Y’shayahu / Isaiah 25:8: “He has concealed death forever.” The Ramban disagreed with the Rambam that body and soul would die again. The Ramban pointed both to Y’shayahu / Isaiah 25:8 and to Sanhedrin 92a: “The school of Eliyahu taught: The righteous whom the Holy One, Blessed be He, is destined to resurrect do not return to their dust, as it is stated: “And it shall come to pass, that he who remains in Zion and he who remains in Jerusalem shall be called holy, anyone who is written unto life in Jerusalem” (Isaiah 4:3). Just as the Holy One exists forever, so too will they exist forever.” Notice that the concept is that the righteous will be resurrected – not that the messiah alone will be resurrected. Notice that it has nothing to do with anyone dying for the sins of another person. Notice that Paul’s god is only the god of the living: Paul says G-d is “not god of the dead, but of the living" (Mark 12:27). So the dead have no god according to Paul? All those who died are “gone” because Paul’s god is not the god of the dead as well as of the living??? Not much of a god! The Christian religion teaches that Jesus had to die and be resurrected to “save” the souls of other people. This is totally non-biblical – but it is very pagan. Consider the story of Hercules in mythology who goes to “save” Queen Alcestis (who had sacrificed her life for her husband) from hades. Euripides, Alcestis (a play circa 438 BCE). So the queen in this ancient play was able to die for someone else in Greek paganism – just as Jesus was able to die for the sins of others in the Christian religion. Totally non-Jewish and non-biblical. In Judaism the souls of the righteous who died are resurrected – it has nothing to do with vicarious (substitutionary) atonement of sins. The idea that Jesus had to die to remove the sins of humans is based on the concept of original sin – which again has to do with vicarious atonement and the mistaken thought that because of the sin of Adam all of men are damned without Jesus’ sacrifice. Again – pagan – not Jewish. There is no concept of original sin in Judaism. Indeed, G-d tells Cain that while sin “crouches at the door” he himself can overcome it (B’reshit / Genesis 4:7). If Cain can overcome his own wrongdoings so can you! Yet Paul says that Jesus became a god AFTER his resurrection. The Hebrew Bible has a few resurrections – and not one of those people were worshiped as a god after they came back to life. Indeed, none of them were mourned either (after all they were NOT DEAD!). The prophet Eliyahu (Elijah) prays and G-d raises a young boy from death (1 Kings 17:17-24); The prophet Elisha raises a boy whose birth he had prophesied (2 Kings 4:8-16 and 32-37); A dead man's body thrown into Elisha's tomb is resurrected when the body touches Elisha's bones (2 Kings 13:21). In other words, what many Christians see as the very reason for believing in Christianity (the resurrection of Jesus) is not unique to Jesus. Neither it is a messianic requirement for the messiah to be resurrected. The messiah IS required to resurrect the righteous dead (all of them) -- and this is something Jesus did not do. As shown above there are examples of Elijah and Elisha raising the dead in the T’nach – and we know that all the righteous will be resurrected in the messianic age. So for Paul’s resurrection you must be saved by Jesus – and when he comes back (second coming, also non-biblical) you will be given a new and improved body. Per Judaism the righteous are resurrected into their previous bodies. The Rambam believed that this body would eventually die again and the soul then lives eternally whereas the Ramban believed that the body and immortal soul were together eternally – but that over time the body becomes more and more refined since sin no longer exists. Whether the body becomes immortal or not the person is immortal -- with or without a physical body.
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