The Christian doctrine of salvation claims that God will save each true follower of Jesus body and soul. As the promise and evidence that this would happen, Jesus supposedly overcame death and now lives forever in a real but super-powered body.
Romans 16:25-26 stresses that the Jesus thing is a mystery now being revealed by those who are inspired by God to find it in the writings of the prophets. This is taken as saying the original believers did not know of a gospel style Jesus but only one who appears in visions saying he died and rose again. It is doubtlessly true that Paul did not stress the visions so much as finding Jesus declared in the Jewish Bible. That was the “vision” that really counted.
The Risen Jesus in the gospels emphasises that his rising was predicted in the Old Testament - as if all the appearances of him and all the touching of him matters not if the Old Testament is unclear on his comeback. On the way to Emmaus he is in disguise and cares only that his two companions see that the resurrection of Jesus was forecast in the Old Testament.
This does not mean that visions don't have any use. They help us to see the Bible "vision".
The New Testament is shamelessly foolish while recounting vision after vision of him while failing to give any evidence that this entity really had a body.
Mary Magdalene supposedly touched Jesus after he rose. But she was highly upset at the time and probably only touched him a few seconds. But the account never quotes her so that is hearsay. Plus how reliable was she when she was sure he was the gardener when she first caught side of him? It does not even say where the story came from.
Thomas is not said to have taken Jesus' invitation to touch his hands and side.
To say that anybody touched Jesus, violates the law validated by Moses, Jesus himself and the apostle Paul that nothing is to be lent any credence unless supported by three reliable witnesses. One person touching Jesus is no good. We don't even have one eyewitness saying she said she touched him. Matthew says others rose as well so what if she touched somebody other than Jesus who was pretending to be him? Who says that only the risen Jesus was there? If so, did she forget who she touched?
It's overlooked how the New Testament never says the risen Jesus was touched. The bodily resurrection is hearsay and guesswork not faith. We don't need to assume it was something ghostly and foggy that became a better story, one of a man with a glorious body that people touched, in time.
A story that reads like mere visions and ghosts from the start is one thing. One that talks of spiritual meetings with a godlike being and in time becomes exaggerated so that now we have people meeting an embodied entity is another. If the latter is bad the former is worse.
Even without that, it is unbecoming how Christianity when trawling for credibility dwells so much on the return of Jesus to his friends after he died.
Yet the New Testament itself says that Jesus when raised emphasised the spiritual vision of himself that the Old Testament reportedly gives. I mean seeing Jesus risen pictured and predicted by the Old Testament, seeing his presence and work in that "history", is the seeing that counts. Actual visions are secondary. The visions keep saying Jesus had to rise as the scriptures foretold.
Catholicism argues that through encountering the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus in the Eucharist means the communicant today is as well off as the actual witnesses of the risen Jesus. In fact even more so, for the Church says this meeting with Jesus matters more than any apparition. Please make it all agree for it doesn't! Catholicism like all ideologies does not agree with itself.
Yet there is a rise in Masses or Eucharists that do nothing in the eyes of the Church. Here is a letter saying the wrong wine is used in communion meaning there is no communion at all. Yet the communicants in those fake Masses see no difference.
We will say this. If Jesus is really alive despite failing to verify this properly to anybody, he should compensate by talking to us today. All we have is people claiming to have him talk to them in their hearts. And it is all mayhem for nobody agrees with anybody else.
There is zero reason to believe that the entity that reportedly appeared at the start of Christianity was embodied. We know that even if witnesses touched something and documented that, that a spirit might be able to seem to be solid. So even then we would have nothing conclusive. But it would be something. But we don't even see an effort, we just see an insult to our intelligence.
