Maccuras Tattoo as scar
Norman Britian Blindness as Criminal
Although early Christians were not alone in anticipating divine eschatological healing, the characterization of God’s saving work in history as a process of healing marks a profound shift in though (996)
two points:
a) the flesh and the spirit perfected together
b) the long narrative of xian views of history
so when christ returns is this a radical break/shift when Christ returns--if xians continue to move towards a perfectable flesh, in order to prepare for the resecuration of christ, when that resueration occurs, the striving must end, so why strive
The continuation of the shade in the under- world preserved all the characteristics of the individual’s body in life. All the various permutations of the physical appearance were repro-
duced in phantasmic form. (997)
Greek ideal as an antecedent of Xian ideals, but xian suggests both a body that avoids the foilbes of the self pre reseurction, an also suggests a kind of communitarian body that must be broken down and restored?
Pindar and Pseudo-Apollodorus recount the story of
Pelops, who was cut up by his father and served as supper to the gods
as part of an attempt to test the omniscience of the gods.28 The gods,
perceiving the trick, place the parts of Pelops’ body back in the caul-
dron and retrieve him complete, only more beautiful, stronger, and
younger than before. (999)
does the view of the reseurction then become a set of arguments, a working thru of a variety of opinons and desires?
These debates, however, have been uninter-
ested in the identity of the resurrected body. (1001)
is that b/c there are really two bodies--a resurrected body and a fleshy body, does the narrative seperation of death suggest a kidn of split identity--and if this is the case, how does it relate to both the views of the maccabbes, and hte continious shade metaphor in the greek. the xian body seems to be more signifcantly teathered to the spirt?
luke 24 and the problem of recognition
Jesus’ corporeality is in question both for the audience and their narrative representatives, the disciples. Both groups are reassured by Luke: Jesus eats (1002)
Jesus' insistence and Thomas’ response indicate that the resurrected
body of Jesus is continuous with his living body. Even in his glorious
resurrected body he remains scarred and bleeding. Moreover, Jesus’
wounds are an integral part of his identity. It is by his wounds that he
is recognized as Jesus himself. (1003)
both of these narratives suggest that that the perfectable body is not the idea, and also suggest that the tether b/w the body of this world and the next are stronger--the question emerges them, where do we get this idea of the perfectable body.
so this problem of the dis/continous body becomes complicated by how paul constructs it, using a matrix of problemtazing metaphors"
. There is an ambiguous relationship between bodies as they are now (the seed) and bodies as they will be in the resurrection (sprouted). They are both continuous and discon-
tinuous (1004) she notes bynum, as we all should.
Pseudo Justin and ideas of what to do with the disruption of the disabled bodies, brings questions of taboo and disgust: Pseudo-Justin’s opponents do not believe in physical resurrection. The argument that disabled bodies will rise as disabled was rhetorically
powerful pprecisely because it utilized ancient distaste for perceived
deformities. Infirmity stands as a cipher for corrupt and weak flesh. (1005)
that ties into the problemso f birth, and the idea of infertitlity:
Pseudo-Justin treats earthly infertility as anticipating the state
of the resurrected body:
The function of the womb is to become pregnant; and of the member
of the male to impregnate. But as, though these members are destined
to discharge such functions, it is not therefore necessary that they from
the beginning discharge them (since we see many women who do not
become pregnant, as those that are barren, even though they have
wombs), so pregnancy is not the immediate and necessary conse-
quence of having a womb; but those even who are not barren abstain
from sexual intercourse, some being virgins from the first, and others
from a certain time. And we see men also keeping themselves virgins,
some from the first, and some from a certain time; so that by their
means, marriage, made lawless through lust, is destroyed.46
do they have babies in heaven ma, is the inablity to be pregerant a mroal problem, if we are waiting for a kingdom of perferctable bodies, do we not want to add more xians, if we cannot hve children does that not extend and reinforce the cult of virginity?
goes into qouting Irrenaous: At his coming “the lame man shall leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall [speak] plainly, and the eyes of the blind shall be
opened, and the ears of the deaf shall hear,”
four thots:
a) the wounded christ would suggest the possiblity of a non-perfectable flesh
b) paul in cor. suggests the possible reading that this non perfectable flesh could be inheirted, (modernist problem w/ identity, and most likely not a strong argument)
c) that using the inferitily problem that some disabilities could be considered virtious.
d) christ healing and rising the dead suggests that he believes in the perfectability of the flesh/?
the question then of how the body shall be perfected is an open one?
Ireanus doesn't think so:
In offering a biblically based justification for the resurrection,
Irenaeus reinforces the New Testament connection between healing and
salvation, able-bodiedness and divine order. (1008)
the perfectable body is a well ordered body, the flesh reflects the general order of the world, a reseructed body then has to be perfect--continues onto augustine's bizarre obsession w/ detail...does not talk about the wounds of christ, or the idea of christ as resecuted is an imperfect body.
In the case of scarred martyrs, whose wounds were received as part
of a divinely sanctified mission, the situation is slightly different.56 The
bodies of the martyrs will, like those of other Christians, be reas-
sembled, yet the marks of these wounds will be preserved in their
immortal flesh. (1010)
the act of violence that corrupts the body, done in an act to service of the lord, sanctifies the disorder of the flesh?
so the problem becomes what disordered the body?
does Catherine's back break for eternity, does agatha have breasts, does anne have eyes?
