Did Jesus physically rise from the dead?

But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.  If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. (1 Corinthians 15:12-19)

The apostle Paul, writing before the gospels were written, called the resurrected form a ‘spiritual body’ and distinguished it from a ‘flesh-and-blood’ body. The idea of a spiritual body is almost oxymoronic, and it is not immediately evident what Paul intended by it. But it is clear that this concept was distinct from the traditional Greek view of the immortality of the soul The early Christians believed that resurrection entailed a raised body, but body that had been transformed in some substantial manner. It was no longer the identical body that belonged to the individual prior to death.

However, we might understand what ‘really’ happened on Easter Sunday, it is significant that Jesus’ followers referred to the event as a ‘resurrection.’ Whether or not there was such a reality as resurrection was a matter of considerable debate during Jesus’ time. The Pharisees and Sadducees argued about it. The issue at stake was whether human beings collectively would be raised from the dead at the end of time. Neither the Pharisees nor the Sadducees seemed to think that ‘resurrection’ was an individual person brought back to life during the normal routine of history. The general resurrection of humanity at Judgment Day would have been the predominant understanding of the concept in Jesus’ time. The fact that the early Christians used the term resurrection suggests that they considered what happened to Jesus as an eschatological event, that is to say, as an occurrence associated with the end of days. The apostle Paul seems to have construed Jesus’ post-­Easter appearances in just this manner. He called the resurrection of Jesus the ‘first fruits of those who have died,’ indicating that god’s raising of Jesus was the inauguration of events that would culminate in the resurrection of all the dead and the final establishment of the kingdom of god. Paul’s view was consistent with the early Christian belief that Jesus would return from heaven shortly and that god’s reign would bring an end to all suffering and want and destroy humanity’s ultimate enemy, death itself. As Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians:

What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die [before the kingdom comes], but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:

Death has been swallowed up in victory.’

Where, O death, is your victory?

Where, O death, is your sting?’

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.[4]

St. Paul believed that Jesus will return, within the life time of the generation that Paul was addressing.  But, this did not happen.

In the alleged spiritual resurrection of Jesus, St. Paul is seeing spiritual resurrection of the whole of humanity, all of us.

Many of the paintings on this subject, suggest a spiritual resurrection and link it to the empty tomb, with a flash of light:

The painting represents that force of spiritual resurrection has not only moved the stone but shattered the stony entrance, but no record of this in the canonical Gospels!

Let me include two additional pictures or paintings below.  The contrast of the first picture in this post with Thomas and other apostles and those of empty tomb, give away the open secret that accounts of resurrection are contradictory!

Picture including Thomas stresses physical resurrection and others highlight spiritual resurrection.  In my mind, only reasonable way to resolve this conflict is to agree that it was not a case of resurrection, but of resuscitation, about which I link a post in additional readings at the end.

Note the shroud and empty tomb — Light represents spiritual resurrection!

The pictures by helping us focus on the issue, make it easy to see the contradiction, which may not be easily apparent to those who have spent a life time obsessing over the person of Jesus, may peace be on him.  Our mind does play strange tricks on us and makes us think that familiar is true and correct.  Even the best minds find it hard to rise above this limitation easily.  But, the hope is that a collection of pictures, videos and other proofs will help my Christian readers to objectively examine the issue.

Again empty tomb with a better bed and light representing, alleged spiritual resurrection!

With a little additional search, I also noted that different theologians are now trying to put all together new meanings on the whole issue, dramatically different from the traditional teachings of Catholic and Protestant Church.  Let me again quote from the above quoted article by Daniel Burke, titled: A Debate for the Millennia: Did Jesus Rise From the Dead?:

High-profile liberals like retired Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong of Newark dispute the idea that Jesus literally rose from the dead. In his book, “Jesus for the Non-Religious,” Spong argues that “to literalize Easter has become the defining heresy of traditional Protestant and Catholic Christianity.”

The Resurrection is profoundly real, Spong said in an interview. But it’s a mistake to read Gospel accounts of a risen Jesus walking and eating literally, he said. “A human can’t explain a God-experience any more than a horse can explain a human experience,” Spong said. So the Gospel writers resorted to what they had in hand — mythological language — to describe the Resurrection, Spong said.

John Dominic Crossan, a Roman Catholic and a former professor at DePaul University, said the Resurrection is best understood as a metaphor, a belief that puts him at odds with his own church.

Saying the Resurrection “is a metaphor doesn’t dismiss it,” Crossan said. “I get the message, I get the challenge from the metaphor.

If Jesus was given a spiritual body then how could Thomas poke it and feel Jesus’ wounds, why did his fingers not go through the phantom of a spiritual body? If it was a spiritual body why did it eat as mentioned in the New Testament?

Additionally, if it was a spiritual body why was Jesus trying to hide and be secretive?

Christianity specializes in contradictory belief systems.  For example, Jesus is God and man at the same time.  In logical terms Jesus cannot be man and God at the same time. Like a man cannot be a rock or an apple, at the same time; men, rocks and apples are different things!