Is the Soul Immortal...Biblically Speaking?

by Vanderhoven7 57 Replies latest jw friends

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  designs

  If you ever have the occasion to attend a Jewish Funeral Service you will recite a Benediction that goes: 'Blessed be the Lord Our God, King of the universe, who created you in justice, Who maintained and supported you in justice, Who caused you to die in justice, and Who is certain to bring you to life again in justice.'. You then place a hand full of dirt on the coffin or place a stone on the grave site.

  When someone take a literalist approach to the Torah many contradictions and oddities become apparent just like in the NT. The Jewish Sages developed a allegorical method to smoothing out the rough spots but still problems exist. So a dualistic approach seemed best, where the Greeks wanted logic and metaphysics to harmonize life and death questions the Jew wanted practical approaches to life. The Torah was about developing moral and religious strength. This naturally spilled over into ideas about the afterlife.

  The Psalms, which contain many of the Benedictions now used in funeral services, have clearly drawn some of their ideas from the cultures surrounding Palestine. There are three distinct 'Golden Ages' of Judaism and each was a leap forward in thinking and culture. So views of the aftelife would naturally change along with these Enlightened periods.
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  Vanderhoven7

  Hi JJ,

  So if someone dies, their soul dies? If I kill someone, have I caused their soul to die?
  
  Matt 10:28 "And do not become fearful of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul..."

  Very true JJ, but finish the verse. Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather be afraid of God, who can destroy both body and soul in Gehenna.

  Vander
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  PSacramento

  You do see a progression in regards to views on death and the state of death, on the afterlife and the "after" afterlife, even in just the OT by itself.

  Not all sects of Judaisim went with this progression, some folowed the belief of a ressurection and others didn't.

  Perhaps the issue was a "confusion" or "mix up" between spirit and soul, or perhpas it was how A word could mean many things.

  One thing we do know is that YES a soul CAN be killed, that is plainly stated.
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  Chalam

  Here are some souls who have been slain.

  Revelation 6:9-10 (New International Version)

  9 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. 10 They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?”

  With love,

  Stephen
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  designs

  Immortality is a basic concept in Judaism. One of the many oddities in the NT is the necessity of a God/Man to give humans something they already had.

  A bit redundant.
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  Vanderhoven7

  Hi Stephen,

  <<Here are some souls who have been slain.

  When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” Rev.6:9-10>>

  Nothing about innate immortality of soul here Stephen. Assuming that the soul/spirit survives the first death, says nothing about the second death where both body and soul are destroyed/perish.

  BTW, any idea why these souls are pictured under an alter rather than having free roaming rights in heaven? And why are they crying out for vengeance when their slayers are allegedly already roasting with Dives in Hades? Unless they want the heat turned up a notch, I believe there is something wrong with the theology.

  Vander

  P.S. The Bible does not teach that people are born immortal. This teaching is merely a repetition of Satan's lie to Eve in the garden. It's introduction into Judiasm during the intertestamental period (between testaments) was of pagan origin. Bible believing Christians who accept this teaching are forced to rely on inadequate and circumstantial evidence that goes against the clear teaching of scripture which informs us that the soul that sinneth, it shall die.
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  Mall Cop

  Hi Vander! As a person who has concluded that "THE BIBLE" cannot be relied on for answers to the searching questions such as you ask, may I ask you this, do you actually believe that the information handed down over the centuries in the bible has God's response to these questions or is man actually recording these words written in the various texts?

  I do agree that in the bible itself there is nothing sola scripture that gives us concrete and absolute words from God or man that we have an immortal soul within this material fleshly body.

  Blueblades, 33 years a WT. slave, now free.
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  Vanderhoven7

  Hi Mall Cop,

  <<I do agree that in the bible itself there is nothing sola scripture that gives us concrete and absolute words from God or man that we have an immortal soul within this material fleshly body. Blueblades, 33 years a WT. slave, now free.>>

  Glad you are finally free. But sad to think of how many homes were broken up and relationships severed during those 33 years.

  <<As a person who has concluded that "THE BIBLE" cannot be relied on for answers to the searching questions such as you ask, may I ask you this, do you actually believe that the information handed down over the centuries in the bible has God's response to these questions or is man actually recording these words written in the various texts?>>

  Yes, I believe the Bible represents the inspired word of God to man and therefore both reliable and authorative in answering questions of faith and practice. May I ask what you rely on for answers to lifes searching questions?

  Vander
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  PSacramento

  According to the Jewish encyclopedia:

  http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=118&letter=I

  The belief that the soul continues its existence after the dissolution of the body is a matter of philosophical or theological speculation rather than of simple faith, and is accordingly nowhere expressly taught in Holy Scripture. As long as the soul was conceived to be merely a breath ("nefesh"; "neshamah"; comp. "anima"), and inseparably connected, if not identified, with the life-blood (Gen. ix. 4, comp. iv. 11; Lev. xvii. 11; see Soul), no real substance could be ascribed to it. As soon as the spirit or breath of God ("nishmat" or "rua? ?ayyim"), which was believed to keep body and soul together, both in man and in beast (Gen. ii. 7, vi. 17, vii. 22; Job xxvii. 3), is taken away (Ps. cxlvi. 4) or returns to God (Eccl. xii. 7; Job xxxiv. 14), the soul goes down to Sheol or Hades, there to lead a shadowy existence without life and consciousness (Job xiv. 21; Ps. vi. 6 [A. V. 5], cxv. 17; Isa. xxxviii. 18; Eccl. ix. 5, 10). The belief in a continuous life of the soul, which underlies primitive Ancestor Worship and the rites of necromancy, practised also in ancient Israel (I Sam. xxviii. 13 et seq.; Isa. viii. 19; see Necromancy), was discouraged and suppressed by prophet and lawgiver as antagonistic to the belief in Yhwh, the God of life, the Ruler of heaven and earth, whose reign was not extended over Sheol until post-exilic times (Ps. xvi. 10, xlix. 16, cxxxix. 8).

  As a matter of fact, eternal life was ascribed exclusively to God and to celestial beings who "eat of the tree of life and live forever" (Gen. iii. 22, Hebr.), whereas man by being driven out of the Garden of Eden was deprived of the opportunity of eating the food of immortality (see Roscher, "Lexikon der Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie," s.v. "Ambrosia"). It is the Psalmist's implicit faith in God's omnipotence and omnipresence that leads him to the hope of immortality (Ps. xvi. 11, xvii. 15, xlix. 16, lxxiii. 24 et seq., cxvi. 6-9); whereas Job (xiv. 13 et seq., xix. 26) betrays only a desire for, not a real faith in, a life after death. Ben Sira (xiv. 12, xvii. 27 et seq., xxi. 10, xxviii. 21) still clings to the belief in Sheol as the destination of man. It was only in connection with the Messianic hope that, under the influence of Persian ideas, the belief in resurrection lent to the disembodied soul a continuous existence (Isa. xxv. 6-8; Dan. xii. 2; see Eschatology; Resurrection).

  Read more: http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=118&letter=I#ixzz15ZRKRrhs Continued on the site...
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  greendawn

  I also concur that there is absolutely nothing in the Bible to support an innately immortal soul, that idea is purely and simply a pagan idea from ancient Greece, Egypt, Mesopotamia etc

  Recently my thinking is moving in the direction that there is a soul in humans in addition to the physical body but it also disintegrates and dies upon death albeit at the invisible level, the JWs believe that there is no soul mortal or immortal but only some kind of energy like electricity that keeps the physical body alive that has no consciousness of its own and returns to God upon death.

  However Tatian who was an early Christian maintained the soul is not innately immortal but conditionally immortal meaning that if a Christian reached a certain level of spiritual excellence his soul can receive immortality and continue living after physical death perhaps referring to those that were martyred that died for the Christian faith and are considered to be alive near God in the book of Revelation?

  So do we have three classes of people? The elite saints that never really taste death just in the way that pagans believed that is their consciousness is never interrupted as they continue to live in the soul that was strong enough to survive the death of the body, the lesser saints that are restored to life in the first resurrection and receive an immortal body probably the same as a soul (body) which is similar to an angelic body and the rest of mankind that are raised in the definitely second class resurrection much later than the first and still with a mortal physical body that will be, horror, restricted from the joys of food and sex and liable to a second death that unlike the first one is final, still having to prove worthy of eternal life.

  This theory may well be wrong and some people here may be able to point out faults in it but there are also the verses: do not fear those that can destroy the body but not the soul, that the devil, his angels and their human instruments known collectively as "the beast 666" probably symbolizing the most criminal and barbarous fraction of mankind are going to suffer eternal torment in the lake of fire.

  The issue is complicated by the fact that those who wrote the new testament lived 2000 years ago and were ignorant people compared to today's standards and besides many spurious verses and perhaps entire letters were introduced in the scriptures and since considered to be genuine so this immortality issue may well not be resolvable through the Bible alone and trying to do so is a total waste of time. There is much truth in the new testament but I believe also a fair amount of spuriousness introduced by people who were trying to promote their own ideas.