Interpreting Interpreter: Handled by Hands

The Takeaway

Bowen outlines how various New Testament passages appear designed to combat philosophical trends in early Christianity against belief in the literal resurrection of Christ.

The Summary

In this article, Matthew L. Bowen looks at writings of Luke and John in the New Testament, highlighting how these passages work to reaffirm the doctrine of Christ’s bodily resurrection in the face of the corruption of that doctrine by those holding to Greek philosophy. That philosophy, which saw body and matter as lower, less-refined orders of reality, appears to have been warned against in Paul’s Letters, and slowly led to attacks on that doctrine in the centuries following Christ, particularly by groups such as the Nicolaitans (Interestingly, these groups often paired doctrinal corruption with sexual licentiousness.) Ironically, the gnostic aspirations of these groups, who sought hidden knowledge and mysteries, led them to deny the plain knowledge of the physical resurrection provided to the apostles. Bowen outlines how this corruption was countered within New Testament scripture, including in the following passages:

• Luke 24, where Christ breaks bread and eats with them, and invites them to handle him, showing them hands and feet of flesh and bone.
  
• Acts 1-5, which has Peter boldly testifying of the risen Christ.
  
• Acts 10, where Peter again testifies that Christ was raised up, noting that Christ ate and drank with them after the resurrection.
  
• John 20, where Christ’s words to marry “touch me not” may be better rendered “don’t hold onto me”, implying that Mary physically clung onto Jesus after the resurrection. John also portrays Christ showing the apostles his hands and side, and tells Thomas “reach hither thy finger”, allowing him to touch as well as see.
  
• John 21, which again has Christ dining with his apostles.
  
• 1 John, where John provides further testimony of having seen and handled the risen Christ.
  

As Bowen concludes:

“Middle Platonism’s intellectual pervasiveness in the first-century CE Roman world made acceptance of Jesus’s resurrection difficult for many… This helps explain the tendency of late first-century writers (e.g., John, Luke) to assert the reality of Jesus’s resurrection in increasingly concrete terms… As Latter-day Saints, living in a post-Enlightenment world, similarly influenced by Greek philosophy, we must take care not to be seduced away from the resurrected Christ and the apostolic witness of that doctrine.”

The Reflection

There is no shortage of modern-day gnostics spending their time and treasure on shaping the doctrines of the Church to their liking. It’s worthwhile noting the solution applied by Luke and John to those corrupting influences: bearing simple testimony of what they and the other apostles knew, had seen, and experienced first-hand. Arguing about the logic or metaphysics underlying the resurrection would have done no good, or at least very little good in comparison with bold, direct statements of witnessed fact.

Another thing to note: Luke and John’s persuasive efforts appear to have been ineffective. That rhetorical battle was at least partially lost over the ensuing centuries. It would take the Restoration and renewed witnesses to the reality of the bodily resurrection to return that doctrine to its former purity. I spend a fair bit of time watching similar rhetorical battles play out online, some of which appear lost. But I don’t think we need to be discouraged by those occasional losses—we can have a bit of faith that God will eventually win the war. Whatever that war looks like, we know how it’ll end, and we can focus on playing our part—not to actually wound our ideological enemies, but to state clearly the truths we’ve come know.