[OBW]

I said the following:

Now the question that bothers me is why you needed this? I have never shifted my definitions.

And you reply with:

Originally Posted by zeek

Right. Up until now, you never gave a definition, so you couldn't have shifted them. What seemed to shift was your usage of the term.

First, until you (or someone) brought up 2 Cor 2:10, and went on about it for a while, I was never talking about that verse. Only 15:45. So I was not doing any of what you are talking about.

I only mentioned 2:10 later on and noted the meaning as provided by another. It was never my point of discussion.

But to say that there had never been a definition until my prior post is to completely ignore the discussion had gone on. Defining "spirit," and "spiritual" in connection to "body" and in the context of the ongoing discussion was the whole point of the discussion. There was much made about the fact that it was not about the person of The Spirit. It was clearly stated as being about the nature of the body that was observed in the resurrected Christ. "Nature of the body." And it was clearly noted that "spirit" and "body" are not words that would typically be found in such a juxtaposition. While I may have never used this precise wording, what I said could be distilled down to the following

"Spiritual" and "spirit" within this particular discussion by Paul seems to indicate something of the nature of the resurrection body that he is trying to describe for the Corinthians. Since there is nothing concrete to point to other than Jesus after the resurrection, that is where he turns. It was a body. It was not merely a "spirit" in the sense a ghost that you can sometimes see but has no solid features. But neither was it a solid body incapable of such things as coming and going without being seen or opening windows or doors. Paul called it a "spiritual body" in verse 44. And then in parallel, in verse 45 he refers to it as "a life-giving spirit."

As I said, I never put all this together quite so succinctly. But it was always there. The discussion defined the term in use. If you missed it, that is OK. It is your insistence on using pejorative terms concerning your lack of understanding of the discussion that raised my ire. I cannot speak for Unto.

If you had given some indication that you just didn't understand what was being said, or that you didn't see it that way (which is how I chose to take it at first anyway) then maybe you could have avoided the unpleasantries of these past few posts.

As for 1 Cor 2:10, it is clearly talking about the inner aspects of he being and nature of God, not of the body that Jesus rose from the dead with. Despite the common word, I cannot fathom how you start with the presumption that they mean the same thing and insist on someone absolutely proving that they are not.

I would issue the challenge in a different way. If you think that they might be the same (other than the fact of the common word that we have not established has at least 13 different definitions with several subdefinitions), then you should provide the reasons to accept that position. A casual perusal of the verses and their contexts screams for a different meaning. I honestly believe that you need to provide something of substance that refutes what I see as the only starting point — and that is that they do not mean the literal same thing.

If you choose to do no more than say they are in the same book written by the same person, then don't bother. And cease your insistence for our definitions (provided over and over) and proof. You have it. You have said nothing about it other than to say we need to do it again. No. It is your turn.

Then, at the end, you quote from me:

So Paul is using the term to overlay the idea of supernatural (non-malevolent, but a ghost) onto the physical flesh. It is not simply either. What does that mean? I don't know.

to which you respond:

Thank you. That's what I suspected all along. I don't know either. Welcome to the club.

While this thread is now too long to go back and find the place I said it, I said quite early along that Paul was dealing with a question for which he did not have an easy explanation. And I'm pretty sure that I thought that the best he could do to define it was to provide the example of the resurrected Jesus (which none of the Corinthians has actually seen) and describe it in words they knew. I never suggested that saying it was a spiritual body was a fully satisfying answer. In fact, I believe that I indicated that Paul was probably hoping to get them to accept something that would be satisfactory, even if not complete (as if he could give a complete definition) and then move on to something else.

And if you think it is interesting that I think that it is unclear exactly what "spritual body" means, then what do you think the Corinthians thought? Probably much the same. But it was presumed to be enough to move on from.

If I assumed that there could be no absolute definition of that "body," then how should anyone assume that I had it figured out or knew what it all meant. In fact, it should have been obvious from reading my posts as posts, and not as independent sentences to be critiqued as isolated fragments of fact, that I thought the question deserved no more serious attempt at precise definition than was provided because it will be what it will be and getting all in a tizzy about it is not worth much. I think I have essentially said the same thing about some of the more trite discussions about things in Revelation that people often get so wrapped up in. Things like "will we be able to fly around?" or "I wonder what it is like to walk on gold."

So if your goal was to get someone to come to saying "I don't know precisely what it means" then you should have read more closely. It was always there.

But if the goal is to go where you seem to want to take it — like "spirit" should mean the exact same thing in all places in one book — then you deserve every bit of ire that is getting thrown in your direction. That position has less support than anything I have provided in all of these posts. Again if that is where you are going, it is your turn to step up and make a point (besides simply stating it).