Division between soul and spirit

by M.J. 82 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  M.J.

  Hebrews 4:12
  For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

  The WTS teaches that a soul is the body or "person" and spirit is the "breath" that animates it. But in the above verse the act of dividing soul and spirit is presented as an equivalent act to dividing joints and marrow. So it would follow that since joints and marrow are two similar objects joined together yet separable, that the author would also consider the soul and spirit to be two similar objects joined together yet separable. If this is the case, the WTS definitions don't really fit, since they consider the spirit to be, not an object, but an abstract animating property.

  Inserting WTS definitions renders the verse: "it penetrates even to dividing person and life, joints and marrow." which really doesn't make much logical sense.

  But if we assume the WTS definitions are incorrect, then what are the "right" definitions? What then is the difference between soul and spirit?
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  Hellrider

  For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

  I haven`t read any commentary on this verse, but this is what I think: Often the meaning of a verse is the opposite of what it looks like at first glance. The point of the author is to highlight that the word of God is so powerful, that it can even penetrate/divide the soul from the spirit. So rather than highlighting the distinction between soul and spirit, his verse actually confirms something I have suspected for a while: That what the Bible calls "soul" and "spirit" (in greek, that is psuche and anima, is that correct? - not sure) - are actually so "close toghether" that they are almost inseperable. This shows also in the death of the first martyr:

  Acts 7:59 They continued to stone Stephen while he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!”

  What would be the point for Stephen, as he was dying, to just say "God, take the life force...from me" ? Obviously Stephen means something more than this, as he, at this point, stares into the heavens (atenizo - stronger than just "looking up", more like having his minds eye travelling into the heavens to see God in all his glory) - while saying it. The distinction between soul and spirit is vague thruout the NT, when these words are used in the context of (individual) mans soul and spirit - as opposed to the spirit which connects the christian to Christ (being in the same spirit).
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  M.J.

  Here's a commentary I found:

  Sometimes the New Testament seems to use the terms soul and spirit somewhat synonymously (Luke 1:46-47). At other times, it seems to distinguish them (1 Thess. 5:23; Heb. 4:12). When a distinction is made, soul refers to the whole inner life of the person, whereas spirit refers to the inner life that is most sensitive to God and where we relate to God (New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology [Zondervan], ed. by Colin Brown, 3:682-687, 693-694)
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  Narkissos

  Often the meaning of a verse is the opposite of what it looks like at first glance. The point of the author is to highlight that the word of God is so powerful, that it can even penetrate/divide the soul from the spirit. So rather than highlighting the distinction between soul and spirit, his verse actually confirms something I have suspected for a while: That what the Bible calls "soul" and "spirit" (in greek, that is psuche and anima, is that correct? - not sure) - are actually so "close toghether" that they are almost inseperable.

  HR, I guess you are correct as far as Hebrews is concerned (although "spirit" is pneuma; anima is the Latin for "soul").

  On the other hand, in Paul (who's definitely not the author of Hebrews) and in later Gnosticism there is a strong opposition between psukhè and pneuma, particularly visible in the Pauline use of the related adjectives psukhikos ("animal, natural") and pneumatikos ("spiritual"). Cf. 1 Corinthians 2:14f; 14:44-46 (note the same opposition between the nouns psukhè and pneuma in v. 49). James 3:15 and Jude 19 are quite similar conceptually.

  This does not apply to Hebrews where psukhè is positively connoted as the object of salvation (6:19; 13:28f etc.).
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  Leolaia

  In the NT, the word psukhé "soul" has a quasi-Platonic sense of an immortal soul only in Revelation, where it is twice used to refer to postmortem souls of the righteous martyrs in heaven. Elsewhere, this term is used with overtones of corporeality and thus often has connotations of frailty and the weakness of flesh (cf. 1 Corinthians 2:14, 15:43-46, James 3:15). The "soul" is the embodied person, or spirit. The notion of an Platonic soul that can seperate from the body is indeed found elsewhere in the NT (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:1-5, 12:2, Philippians 1:31-34, 2 Peter 1:13-14), but no technical term for the essence that leaves the body is used (tho technical terms like "tent", drawn from Platonism, is used to refer to the body as the temporary dwelling place of the person, or "naked," referring to the disemodied person). In gnostic works heavily influenced by Platonism, as well as perhpas in some places in the NT, the usual term used for this essence is not psukhé but pneuma. Interestingly, when the Society tries to dismiss the notion of an afterlife, they conveniently only discuss the use of psukhé in the NT (tho omitting the counterexamples in Revelation).
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  Hellrider

  (although "spirit" is pneuma; anima is the Latin for "soul").

  Ok (he says, sligthly embarassed...)

  This does not apply to Hebrews where psukhè is positively connoted as the object of salvation (6:19; 13:28f etc.).

  You mean...as in soul survival? After death? One more question: I am pretty clear on the soul issue in the NT, but I wonder: Sometimes, when the word "ressurection" is used, does it sometimes refer to a "ressurection of the soul"? Or does all references to "ressurection" only refer to the (future) ressurection of the body?

  (may be going off-topic now, but I have a ton of questions)
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  IMustBreakAway

  The spirit is unattached and floats nearby. On nights with a full moon you can see it. (If you squint)
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  sinis

  Why does the book of Enoch allude to dead spirits being "housed" in heaven until the day of judgment where the spirit is judged. Other books I have been reading (letters not included into the NT) also refer to the body being a shell and the spirit being the part that is judged. Finally, why would Jesus give an illustration of the rich man and lazarus that would be heresy in the minds of his jewish listeners. If the common jew did not believe such things they would not have taken the time to listem to him but rather felt his was pushing pagan philosophy.
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  Leolaia

  Sometimes, when the word "ressurection" is used, does it sometimes refer to a "ressurection of the soul"? Or does all references to "ressurection" only refer to the (future) ressurection of the body?

  Hellrider....In the NT and in early Judaism, the resurrection is normally conceived as corporeal, almost always reembodying the spirit or soul in a restored body. The Society's version of the resurrection is not resurrection at all, it is recreation because their view is that nothing survives from the original person (annihilationism). However, the kind of body that the resurrected person will have is open to question in early Judaism and Christianity. Some writers, especially the author of 2 Baruch and Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, conceived of a spiritual body with heavenly glory, i.e. like the bodies of angels. Although the Society treats angels as bodiless, indeed Jews and Christians regarded them as embodied... it is demons who are bodiless (having cast aside their Nephilim bodies in the Flood, according to the Pseudo-Clementines, representing Enochic traditions). It is within docetic and proto-gnostic conceptions of the afterlife (drawing on Platonism more than Judean resurrection eschatologies) that resurrection came to later be viewed as simply Platonic soul survival, as the body as "matter" is the product of evil. But even in early second-century gnosticism (as represented in the Gospel of Thomas), it wasn't resurrection per se that was in view but the "repose of the dead" (anapausis, rather than anastasis).
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  Leolaia

  Why does the book of Enoch allude to dead spirits being "housed" in heaven until the day of judgment where the spirit is judged.

  Because Jews other than the Sadducees commonly believed that the dead exist in an intermediate state between death and resurection. This is what the Pharisees and Essenes believed, and Josephus himself refers to these believes as typical of the Pharisees and Essenes.

  Other books I have been reading (letters not included into the NT) also refer to the body being a shell and the spirit being the part that is judged.

  In addition to the long-standing Jewish belief in the afterlife (held by most Jews except for Sadducees), many Jews and Christians were influenced by Platonic ideas about the soul. This influence can be found in the NT, in many post-NT works (cf. the Gospel of Thomas, the Letter to Diognetus, etc.), and in Jewish writers like Philo of Alexandria and the author of Wisdom.

  Finally, why would Jesus give an illustration of the rich man and lazarus that would be heresy in the minds of his jewish listeners.

  Why would it have been heresy at all? The parable is mocking the rich wealthy Sadducees who don't believe in the afterlife and in a resurrection, all things that the Pharisees and many other Jewish factions believed in. Jesus essentially adopts the eschatological view of the Pharisees in the synoptics.

  If the common jew did not believe such things they would not have taken the time to listem to him but rather felt his was pushing pagan philosophy.

  The Society is totally ignorant of what the average Jew believed in the first century. And having a belief in an afterlife is NOT THE SAME THING as the "pagan philosophy" of Platonism. The Society treats the two as if they were the same thing, when they're not. The belief in an afterlife goes back to the OT....to the notion of the Rephaim shades residing a ghostlike existence in Sheol in the afterlife (the Society obscures this by mistranslating the word for "Rephaim", and not once discusses the Rephaim in their discussions of the afterlife).