[Dialogue] Spong on raising the dead

[Charles or Doris Hahn]

Hi Dick,
Thanks agin for sharing the wonderful work and
insights of Spong with all of us.  Keep it up!
Charles Hahn
--- KroegerD at aol.com wrote:

>  
> January 17, 2006 
> Did Jesus Really Raise the  Dead? Part II
> The Widow's Son in the Village of Nain  
> 
> Last week we began a series on the gospel narratives
> that purport to show  
> that Jesus had the power to raise the dead. There
> are only three accounts in the 
>  Bible that appear to make that claim. We opened
> this series by examining the 
>  first of these three episodes, the story of Jesus
> raising the daughter of  
> Jairus, a ruler in the synagogue. This narrative we
> observed was the only one  
> included in three different places in the New
> Testament. Though they differ  
> slightly in the details, there is a recognizable
> version of this story in Mark, 
>  Matthew and Luke. This week, I want to look at the
> second of these accounts. 
> It  is a narrative found in Luke alone and it
> involves the raising from the 
> dead by  Jesus of the only son of a widow in the
> village of Nain.  
> First, let me examine the details of the story
> itself. Jesus comes upon a  
> funeral procession. The body of a young man, quite
> literally on his funeral bed  
> called a bier, is being removed to his place of
> burial. He is identified as 
> the  only son of a widow. In first century Jewish
> society this was a story of 
> great  sorrow and pathos, focused not just on the
> premature death of the young 
> man, but  also on the plight of his mother, who
> would be forced into dire 
> circumstances by  this tragedy. In a patriarchal
> society, a woman's only security 
> was to be in the  care of a man: a father before
> marriage and a husband after 
> marriage. A woman  who was a widow had no husband to
> be her male protector. A 
> woman with a grown  son would be thought of as too
> old to return to the 
> protective care of her  father who, in all
> probability, given the life expectancy in 
> that era, was no  longer alive. This woman's sole
> sense of security and 
> protection would be her  grown son. Now, we are
> told, this only son has died. 
> Poverty, begging or  prostitution were the only
> viable options open to this widow. 
> It is a story that  has a strong sense of pain
> within it.  
> Jesus, we are told, affected by the tragedy, was
> moved to pity. Halting the  
> funeral procession, he ordered the bearers of the
> body to unbind this man from 
>  his grave clothes. He then overcomes the power of
> death, revives the victim 
> and  restores him to his mother. Luke's description
> of this action was quite  
> dramatic. But was it real? Can the dead actually be
> raised or is the death  
> process irreversible? If this episode is not history
> then what does it mean?  
> Would an event like this, conducted in public with
> mourners all around, not  
> become a cause for startling wonder that would be
> the talk of the area for a  
> long period of time? Why then was there no mention
> of this story until Luke  
> wrote some 60 years after the death of Jesus? Why
> would this story not appear in  
> any other source? These are the questions that
> literalists either try to dodge 
>  completely or to which they give the weakest,
> flimsiest of answers. However, 
>  these questions represent the first hint that we
> need to embrace to begin to 
>  understand that, like so many of the gospels'
> miraculous tales, this story 
> is  something other than an account of a miracle
> story.  
> The second place to which we turn to provide
> additional material that might  
> cast light on this story is found by looking once
> more at the two cycles of  
> miracle stories that we identified as part of the
> Hebrew Scriptures. They are  
> found first in the Moses-Joshua stories, which
> portray nature miracles, many 
> of  which clearly show up in the nature miracles
> attributed to Jesus. It is 
> not,  however, until one reaches the Elijah-Elisha
> cycle of stories (II Samuel 
> and I  Kings) that miraculous healings are
> introduced into the developing 
> tradition.  This healing tradition is next added to
> the messianic hopes of the 
> Jewish  people. These messianic expectations first
> appear in the writings of I 
> Isaiah  (8th century BCE), where healings are said
> to be the signs that will 
> accompany  the dawning of the Kingdom of God. Time
> after time themes from these Old 
>  Testament antecedents also show up in the healing
> miracles attributed to 
> Jesus.  The final type of miracle story that is
> attributed to Jesus is that of 
> his  raising the dead back to life. This idea is
> also first found in the  
> Elijah-Elisha cycle. Last week, we noted sufficient
> similarities between the  gospel 
> accounts of the young daughter of Jairus being
> raised from the dead with  the 
> story of Elisha raising a child from the dead to
> establish a significant  
> connection. So the first thing we do when examining
> Luke's story of the raising  
> of the widow's son in Nain is to look once again at
> similar narratives in the  
> Elijah-Elisha cycle. That look strikes pay dirt
> almost immediately.  
> In I Kings 17:8-24 we have the story of Elijah, who
> raises from the dead a  
> widow's son. The connections between the two stories
> are once again more than  
> coincidental. In both stories the victim is the only
> son of a widow. In both  
> stories the young man is stretched out on his
> funeral bed. In both stories the 
>  healers, Elijah and Jesus, speak commanding God to
> act. In both stories the 
> son  is restored to his mother alive. In both
> stories this act elicits the 
> prophetic  claim. In Elijah's case, it was said
> about him "he speaks the words of 
> God." In  the Jesus story, it was said that "a great
> prophet has arisen and 
> that God has  visited God's people." These
> connections make it obvious that 
> this narrative  found in Luke alone is not a miracle
> episode designed to elicit 
> awe and wonder,  but is rather a part of the claim
> Luke makes in a number of 
> places that in Jesus  a new Elijah is present. If
> that conclusion is accurate, 
> as I believe it is,  then the expositor's task is
> not to defend the literalness 
> of the supernatural  miracle, but to examine the
> role that Elijah played as 
> the interpretive clue to  Jesus in the writing of
> Luke's gospel.  
> Why would Luke choose to borrow an Elijah story to
> be used in his gospel? I  
> believe the context in Luke gives us the clue. The
> story in Luke comes right  
> before his story of John the Baptist in prison,
> sending a messenger to Jesus,  
> asking if he is the expected messiah or must John
> look for another. Jesus  
> responds by quoting Isaiah 35 in which the prophet
> describes the signs that will 
>  accompany the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God:
> the blind will see, the 
> deaf  hear, the lame walk, the mute sing. Because
> resurrection lies at the heart 
> of  the gospel story, Jesus adds that the dead are
> raised. However, unlike the 
>  earlier gospels, Luke has not yet related his
> version of the raising of 
> Jairus'  daughter. That will come later in his text.
> If the signs of the kingdom 
> present  in Jesus include the raising of the dead
> then he must have a story in 
> his gospel  that validates that claim. Therefore,
> Luke takes this Elijah story 
> and retells  it about Jesus. It also serves Luke's
> theme of wrapping his 
> Jesus narrative  around the figure of Elijah.  
> Let me now trace that theme ever so briefly. First
> of all Luke does not, as  
> Mark and Matthew do, identify John the Baptist with
> Elijah. In Luke's gospel  
> John the Baptist comes only "in the spirit of
> Elijah." He does not dress in 
> the  Elijah garb, eat the Elijah diet or roam the
> Elijah wilderness as he does 
> in  Mark and Matthew. Luke saves the Elijah
> identification for Jesus. Luke uses 
>  other echoes of the Elijah-Elisha cycle in his
> depiction of Jesus. He alone  
> records Jesus' healing ten lepers of whom only one,
> a Samaritan, returns to 
> give  thanks. Elisha, we need to note, also healed a
> non-Jew, Naaman the 
> Syrian, of  his leprosy in a similar manner.  
> Luke's ultimate identification is of Elijah, not his
> disciple Elisha, with  
> 
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