My problem was from...
Thomas- Not reincarnated, resurrected into the same same body
Wil - Why didn't they recognize him?
T- Long quote saying he was in control of his appearance...
W- So a shape shifter?
T- No
And here we sit.
If we're using fantasy analogies, I'd say it's more like Obi Wan in Star Wars ('these are not the droids you're looking for'), or perhaps, if you know spy fiction, it's like
George Smiley's capacity to vanish into the crowd.
But the shape-shifter? Basically you're saying He put on a disguise?
But we're not talking circus tricks or Darren Brown here, we're talking Scripture.
Where Scripture seems to suggest an enigma, a contradiction, an error, then the odds are it's something like a koan, it's a key. That what the parables are really, just extended or narrative koans. 'Let those with eyes to see'.
Have you ever been in a position where a 'celebrity' enters the room (I was when Simon Callow into a packed hall). Certain people, they are larger-than-life, they steal the show, as it were, they become the centre of attention. They have worked on and created an aura, if you will, it's neither chance, nor does it happen naturally. It's a process.
It's neither inconceivable nor impossible therefore that the opposite of 'celebrity' could be the case, that someone can become anonymous if they so choose, without resorting to a magician's tricks.
Furthermore, there's a difference between 'seeing' and 'recognising', for instance. We see far, far more than we grock.
Think of the old mafia maxim: One witness, you're in trouble, three or more, you're home free, they'll all have seen something different.
Add to that people do not always recognise what they do see, nor is what they think they've seen necessarily what they're looking at ... so seeing, perceiving, recognising ... it's all rather nebulous.
And over and above all that, Borella is making a profound point. We are not in possession of our presence in the world. It's not ours, it belongs to the world. We cannot avoid being seen. As a famous philosopher said: "you cannot not communicate".
After the Resurrection, Christ
IS just that, He is in complete possession of Himself in the world, so much so that He's not bound by the Laws of Physics, He transcends the Laws — He does not break them, BTW, He transcends them.
