by John Doe 14 Replies latest jw friends
Witnesses believe that the soul and the body are the same thing, right? Well, I had one of the old songs running through my head today, and it hit me what it was saying:
"Fear not those who kill they body, but cannot destroy the soul."
Interesting, eh?
LOL!
Yeah, forgot about that. They explain it away, saying that the body is just the body, but the "soul" is the whole person, the life of the individual. Of course, by their definition a soul is the combination of the body and the "force of life", so once your body is dead your soul is "destroyed".
Thank you for this, good topic. I hope the Leo's and Nark's of the world will chime in with all the ru-ach'/ne-phesh goodies.
Dave
Well if you listened to that advice you would run as fast as you can from the Borg.
I can't believe you had that experience- I had the same song going thru my head a few days ago! (no lie)
When you really examine the Bible you see that with the exception of 1 verse in Ecc. the idea that the soul lives on pervades it.
The scripture quoted in that song appears (at least to me) to be a very strong indication of the writer's belief in an immortal soul. It is the most logical reading.
Ugh thanks for the memory guys! I can't get that tune out of my heead now - well at least its replaced the awful from house to house dirge!
Hey, I'm on a roll with the quotes:
it-1 pp. 616-617 DestructionThe possibility of eternal destruction for some is also indicated by Jesus’ words at Matthew 10:28: "Do not become fearful of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; but rather be in fear of him that can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna." Regarding this text, The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (edited by C. Brown, 1978, Vol. 3, p. 304) states: "Matt. 10:28 teaches not the potential immortality of the soul but the irreversibility of divine judgment on the unrepentant." Also, Bauer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (revised by F. W. Gingrich and F. Danker, 1979, p. 95) gives the meaning "eternal death" with reference to the Greek phrase in Matthew 10:28 translated "destroy both soul and body in Gehenna." Thus, being consigned to Gehenna refers to utter destruction from which no resurrection is possible.
The scripture is Matthew 10:28:
"Do not be afraid of those who kill the body (soma) but cannot kill the soul (psukhén); fear him rather who can destroy both body and soul in Gehenna".
The passage could easily be read in a Platonic way (that the "soul" is the part of the person that cannot be "killed" and is contained in the body), but I don't think this is what the author intends. In the NT, the word psukhé is used in a Semitic manner similar to that of npsh in the OT (and psukhé in the LXX), namely, referring to the life of a person and the person as a living being (the Society's claim that the word means "body + spirit" is an oversimplification and wrong in many cases). Matthew 10:28 is perfectly consistent with this common usage of the term because people who KILL others succeed in killing the body but they cannot kill the person's life as it can be restored by God in the resurrection. The reference to Gehenna shows that the author's resurrection-judgment eschatology is here in view. The common Jewish eschatology is that in the end times, God would resurrect all the dead and judge them for their deeds and reward the righteous and punish the dead. Gehenna was one of the names in Jewish literature of the abode of the resurrected dead when they undergo eternal punishment. The reference to "both body and soul" confirms that it is the resurrected person that is being discussed (since resurrection is usually about embodiment). The idea then is: "Don't fear people who can kill you because it is a temporary killing of the body, as God will restore your soul in the resurrection. Instead, fear God since he can destroy in Gehenna both your resurrected body and your very life". People can only have mastery of one's body, God has mastery over life itself.
Sometimes the word psukhé was used in Jewish literature to refer to an immaterial soul that survives death (cf. Josephus, and some of the pseudepigrapha, and in Christian writings like Diognetus), but in the NT it only has this usage in Revelation. Paul never uses psukhé in this sense, tho he does hold an antithesis between pneuma "spirit" and soma or sarx "flesh", and he clearly does have an implicit body-soul dualism in 2 Corinthians 5:1-10, 12:2 and Philippians 1:20-24 (cf. also 2 Peter 1:13-14), and even uses certain technical terms like "naked" and "tent" which also occur in Platonic writings to refer to the immortal soul.
I don't think the JW view of the soul is that it is simply the body, although it certainly is considered an embodied existence.
In Volume V of Studies in the Scriptures, under the heading "What is a Soul?," Russell stated: "Examining this question from the Bible standpoint we will find that man has a body and has a spirit, but is a soul. . . . The word 'soul,' as found in the Scriptures, signifies sentient being; that is, a being possessed of powers of sense, sense-perception." (p. 322) Not that this definition is current - the precise definition of "soul" seems to be something the Society has varied over the years (as with so many other teachings). And I believe in the Appendix to the NWT, examples of a dead nephesh are given - that, of course, being a dead body. But in the case of a living soul, the soul is not simply the body.
Leolaia - I see you have referred to the destruction of soul and body in Gehenna. The simplest understanding of this would be annihilation, but I believe in other threads you have supported the orthodox idea that Gehenna involves eternal suffering or torment. Can you supply any references from ancient sources that the destruction of the wicked was not simply their annihilation? By this I mean, sources in which this term is actually redefined in an orthodox way?
Just wanted to say thanks for getting that crazy song into my head. Grrrr...
:) tall penguin
