Texts in Conversation
In 2 Maccabees, a martyr holds out his hands and says he hopes to get them back from God. The Gospel of Thomas speaks of new eyes, hands and feet, and the Treatise on the Resurrection says the living limbs within will rise, not the dead visible ones.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
2 Maccabees 7:11
Deuterocanon
10 After him, the third was the victim of their sport. When it was demanded, he quickly put out his tongue and courageously stretched forth his hands, 11 and said nobly, "I got these from Heaven, and because of his laws I disdain them, and from him I hope to get them back again." 12 As a result the king himself and those with him were astonished at the young man's spirit, for he regarded his sufferings as nothing.
Gospel of Thomas 1:22
Nag Hammadi
21 Mary said to Jesus, “Whom are your disciples like?” He said, “They are like little children living in a field that is not theirs. When the owners of the field come, they will say, ‘Give our field back to us.’ They take off their clothes in front of them to give it back and return their field to them. For this reason I say, if the owner of a house knows that a thief is coming, he will keep watch before he comes and will not let him break into the house of his kingdom and steal his goods. So you should keep watch against the world; gird your loins with great strength so that the robbers do not find a way to come to you, for the difficulties you expect will arise. Let there be among you a man of understanding. When the crop ripened, he came quickly with his sickle in hand and reaped it. Whoever has ears to hear should hear.” 22 Jesus saw infants being suckled. He said to his disciples, “These little ones being suckled are like those who enter the kingdom.” They said to him, “Then shall we enter the kingdom as little ones?” Jesus said to them, “When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same—so that the male will not be male and the female not be female—when you fashion eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom].” 23 Jesus said, “I shall choose you, one from a thousand and two from ten thousand, and they will stand as a single one.”
Treatise on the Resurrection 8:3
Letter to Rheginos
Nag Hammadi
Let none doubt concerning this. [...] in fact, the visible limbs that are dead shall not be saved, for (in that case) the living [limbs] that exist in them would rise. Then, what is the resurrection? It is the continuing revelation of those who have risen.
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Notes and References
“... The references to eyes, hands and feet are resurrection imagery, though with reference to a new spiritual nature rather than to physical resurrection. [...] (3) Finally, the imagery here is also that of resurrection: in 2 Macc. 7.11, for example, the third brother declares that he will receive back his limbs from God. Closer is the theology of Odes of Solomon, where the saved individual has ‘members in which there is no sickness or affliction or suffering’ (21.4), and of the Treatise on the Resurrection, where there are ‘living members which are within’ in contrast to the dead external limbs (48.1–3). This thought comes to the fore in the next reference, to the ‘images’. ...”
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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