The Possibility of Immortal Flesh

Abstract

Having established to what degree the attraction of the flesh was present in traditional Greek religion, we are still left in the dark as to how the Greeks could accept the Christian idea of the resurrection. To dream an impossible dream is a far cry from believing that dream to come true. What was it with what they already believed that made the Greeks accept the idea of a physical resurrection as something plausible? How was it that, when first encountered by the Christians, they showed little surprise at how Christ had been raised from the dead and made physically immortal? This is where we have to examine somewhat more closely whether traditional Greek religion had no other possible fate in store after this life than that as a dead and disembodied soul. Was there anyone at all before Jesus Christ who, like him, had been physically raised from the dead and attained immortality in the process? What did the Greeks really consider the ultimate possibility of the flesh?