The Preterist Blog ~ 100% Hyperpreterist Free|we can haz rezurekshun?

Below is another classic example of hyperpreterist logic.  Don Preston begging the question assuming that the traditional teaching of resurrection that exists today, in this, some would say post Christian world of the USA, would be the same viewpoint held in  Asia Minor during the 1st Century.

Don Preston writes, “If the resurrection is when the physical body of every person who has ever died is instantaneously reconstructed and raised out of the ground, how in the name of reason could anyone convince anyone that this had already occurred?” (How is This Possible?, Pg. 31).  The primary reason people bury their dead loved ones in caskets today is because of the traditional teaching that the dead body or corpse will someday be raised up out of the grave and transformed into some new, glorified state or form.  Is this a likely scenario for the resurrection? http://preterism.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-hymenaeun-heresy-of

The above quote comes from a paper a hyperpreterist is writing attempting to argue the nature of the resurrection wasn’t the issue with Hymenaeus, but rather the timing.  The author of the paper chose to include Don Preston’s begged question in support of his theory. 

Don Preston, do you understand what an anachronism is? 

Here is Webster’s definition, 1 : an error in chronology; especially : a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other

The anachronism Mr. Preston employed in his argument is assuming today’s “tradition” was the tradition in Ephesus, Asia Minor in the 1st Century.  But was the traditional worldview in the Pagan Hellenistic world of the 1st Century an expectation that the resurrection entailed dead corpses coming back to life?  If this was the “traditional” view of the Pagan Hellenistic world why did the Athenian’s mock the concept with Paul proclaimed it at the Aeropagus, Acts 17:31,32.  If dead corpses coming back to life were a “tradition” in the Pagan Hellenistic world why did the Apostle Paul have to write extensively about the view informing the Corinthians that yes the dead would rise and explaining to the Thessalonians that until the dead came back to life which would proceed them then they didn’t have to worry about missing the 2nd Advent.

What is even more interesting in Mr. Preston’s quote is his failure to recognize the work of one of the scholars he recommends, N.T. Wright who covers the meaning of the resurrection in depth.  Indeed on pg 316 of Wright’s book The Resurrection and the Son of God he points out regarding the denies of the resurrection in Corinth,

This must mean that they were denying a future bodily resurrection, and the strong possibility is that they were doing so on the standard pagan grounds,…that everybody knew dead people didn’t and couldn’t come back to bodily life.  Even if they believed, like the two teachers mentioned in 2 Timothy 2.17018, that ‘the resurrection’ as a whole had already occurred, in other words, that ‘the resurrection’ referred to some kind of spiritual experience or event, they would still be denying that there would be a future bodily resurrection. (The proto-gnostic belief is thus shown up already as what it really was and is, namely, a form of paganism rather than of Judaism) Resurrection and the Son of God, N. T. Wright Fortress Press, pg 316)

The footnote that comes with the end of his last statement states,

The deniers were denying ‘resurrection’.  Had they held something like the view of the Letter to Rheginos (see below, ch. 11), they would have use the word ‘resurrection’ to refer to a present spiritual experience; but they did not deny that experience, but rather affirmed it…..if what the deniers were wanting to affirm was an ultimate non-physical ‘spiritual’ bliss, that still makes it clear that they were denying a future bodily resurrection. 

In chapter 11 N.T. Wright documents the evidence for Gnostic views bleeding into the church shortly after the close of the post-Apostolic era.  The letter to Reheginos illustrates the Gnostic view from a Gnostic letter, a view that is very similar to what Don Preston is advocating.  Mr. Preston, you really ought to get Wright’s book, he will explain in detail the anachronism you are employing in your question as well as your reading of Scripture.