What does 1 Corinthians 15:35 mean?

This passage gives instruction about the reality to come for every believer in Christ: a resurrected body after physical death. Some among the church in Corinth claimed there is no resurrection from the dead, perhaps parroting cultural beliefs of the day (1 Corinthians 15:12).

Now Paul imagines one of these objectors asking what sounds at first like reasonable questions, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?" Some believers who had died had by this point been dead for quite a while. Others were killed in gruesome ways that didn't leave the body in very good condition. So, what shape will their bodies be in by the time the resurrection happens? Perhaps the Corinthians were imagining cultural stories of reanimated corpses. Those brought to life by superstition or magical lore often came back in whatever was left of their physical corpse, only moving and self-aware.

The idea that these are sincere questions is made much less likely by Paul's harsh response in the following verse. Most likely, Paul's experience told him these were questions to expect, but not earnest ones. Rather, they were challenges meant to ridicule and reject (Mark 12:18–24).