'Seeing' a Body Into Being: Reflections On Scholarly Interpretations of the Nature and Reality of Jesus' Resurrected Body

Opsomming

This study is concerned with the rhetoric of inquiry into the nature and reality of Jesus' resurrected body. The current rationalistic debate is analysed in terms of three components: views on the nature of Jesus' resurrected body, what is meant by 'seeing' and the understanding of reality involved in different proposals. These are contrasted with a cultural sensitive reading which allows the existence of multiple realities, the existence of visionary bodies and visions as a way of seeing. It is argued that what is today taken to be the meaning of the biblical descriptions of the resurrected body (like Paul's 'soma pneumatikon') is the result of 'seeing a body into being'. It is researchers' view on seeing together with their respective world-views which determine what the nature of Jesus' resurrected body is and not so much what the sources say or do not say.