How does the WTS deal with the fact that Christ preached the gospel to the dead in 1 Peter 3:19 and 4:6? They claim the dead cannot be conscious of anything.
Preaching the gospel to the dead
by jstalin 7 Replies latest jw friends
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Leolaia
I believe they explain the "spirits in prison" of 1 Peter 3:18-20 as referring to the fallen angels, not to disobedient humans, whereas they might explain the "dead" of 4:6 as those who have died since the gospel was preached (i.e. those "fallen asleep" in 1 Thessalonians). I'll take a look at what they say in the publications....
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forsharry
Now i'm going to hunt for it, and i might be way off base...but the faction of Judaism (Nazareans) that Joseph and Mary belonged to adhered to shunning tactics very similar to JWs today. If you were excommunicated or 'cast-out' you were considered dead. Some scholars use this explain Jesus' 'resurrection' of Lazarus...in essence that he couldn't HAVE POSSIBLY reanimated a dead person, but brought him back into the religious fold.
Probably wrong...but the Nazareans felt that if you weren't in their fold, that you were Dead.
1 Peter 4:6 (King James Version)
6 For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.
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Leolaia
Forsharry....I have read a lot of stuff on early Judaism and Christianity, but have not encountered such an interpretation of the Lazarus story in John. Even if we would pursue a more spiritual interpretation of Lazarus' death and resurrection (which is quite possible in the context of the Fourth Gospel), it should be situated in the gospel's dualist and proto-gnostic theology (i.e. a person lacking eternal life is for all intents and purposes "dead" tho he may still live) rather than any community praxis of shunning.
jstalin....Okay, I just looked up what the Society says about 1 Peter 4:6, and it looks like they construe it as "spiritual death" in the following way:
***it-2 p. 789 Resurrection ***
In considering Jesus’ words, we note that when Jesus spoke, some of "the dead" were hearing his voice. Peter used similar language when he said: "In fact, for this purpose the good news was declared also to the dead, that they might be judged as to the flesh from the standpoint of men but might live as to the spirit from the standpoint of God." (1Pe 4:6) This is so because those hearing Christ were ‘dead in trespasses and sins’ before hearing but would begin to ‘live’ spiritually because of faith in the good news.—Eph 2:1; compare Mt 8:22; 1Ti 5:6.
This interpretation falters on the kai "also" in the verse, which implies that the good news was preached not only to the dead but ALSO to the living. If "faith in the good news" is what made people live "spiritually," then how were there people already LIVING when the good news was preached to them?
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belbab
Leolaia, I enjoy all your posts and always look forward to reading them and I appreciate immensely all the research you do.
I would like to throw in another scripture into this discussion. One which I have thought long about over the years. I do not have much time at the moment, to write all my thoughts but I will make brief comments.
The text is Luke 2:34 which tells about the prophecy of Simeon, that Jesus would be the cause of the rising and fall of many in Israel. The word in Greek for rising is anastasis which every where else I believe is translated as resurrection.
Jesus did not resurrect "many" during his three and a half years, two or three at the most.
To understand the texts in this discussion about the dead I believe that you have to understand what is translated by John and Paul as everlasting life. Everlasting life was considered by these writers as existing in the present, and was not some lengthy life in the future, but was a certain quality of life in the present.
One more comment. Shakespeare wrote somewhere, a couple of times, ( paraphrasing:) As long as my words exist, I shall exist.
These thoughts may seem to be all disjointed, but for me they are not, I just can't explain them in a brief few words.
I would appreciate any comments on the text at Luke 2:34.
belbab
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jstalin
Leolaia - what are you saying about the "also." Is it incorrectly translated?
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Leolaia
jstalin....No, it is correctly translated, I mean that the presence of this word problematizes the Society's interpretation of the sentence because it implies that "the living" were also brought the good news (i.e. it was not just those "dead in their trespasses" who were brought the good news as the Society claimed in the Insight book, but also those already "living").
belbab....The verbal form means "to rise up" which only sometimes (31.5% of the time, 35 out of 111 instances of the verb) has the sense of "resurrect" as the following examples show (cf. Matthew 9:9, 26:62, Mark 1:35, 2:14, 7:24, 10:1, 14:57, 14:60, Luke 1:39, 4:16, 29, 38-39, 5:28, 10:25, 11:8, 17:12, 22:45, 23:1, 24:12, John 11:31, etc.), while the nominal form does seem to usually mean "resurrection" (in all other 41 instances of anastasis in the NT). However, anastasis in the LXX to the extent that it occurs does not have this technical sense, such as "the day of my rising up (anastaseós mou)" in Zephaniah 3:8 or "their sitting down, their rising up (anastasin autón)" in Lamentations 3:63. So the usage of anastasin in Luke 2:34 may or may not have connotations of a "resurrection". The verse itself compares the "rising" to the "fall" (ptósin) of many in Israel, and describes the child as the one "set" (keitei) to divide the "many" into the rising and the falling. This language is very close to the oracle of John the Baptist in Luke 3:7-9, which refers to the axe (= Jesus) that is "set" (keitei) at the root of the trees (= the "many" in Israel, cf. v. 8 "children of Abraham"), ready to cut down (= fall) the trees that do not bear good fruit. Compare the oracle of Simeon in Luke 2:35 on the revealing of "thoughts out of many hearts" (= good fruits) by the "sword" that pierces through people's souls. There could still be a connotation of resurrection, however, in the use of anastasis.
The idea of Christ descending to the underworld and redeeming the dead (likely derived from the proto-gnostic mythological concept of the Redeemer's descent to the earth to save humankind) appears in several early Christian sources:
"Sheol saw me [Christ] and was shattered, and Death ejected me and many with me. I have been vinegar and bitterness to it, and I went down with it as far as the depth. Then the feet and the head it released, because it was not able to endure my face. And I made a congregation of living among his dead; and I spoke with them by living lips; in order that my word many not fail. And those who had died ran towards me, and they cried out and said, 'Son of God, have pity on us. And deal with us according to your kindness, and bring us out from the chains of darkness. And open for us the door by which we may go forth to you, for we perceive that our death does not approach you. May we also be saved with you, because you are our Savior.' Then I heard their voice and placed their faith in my heart, and I placed my name upon their head, because they are free and they are mine" (Odes of Solomon 42:11-20).
"The Lord will indeed descend into the world in the last days [i.e. descent from heaven], he who is to be called the Christ after he has descended and become like you in form, and they will think that he is flesh and a man. And the god of that world will stretch out his hand against the Son, and they will lay their hands upon him and hang him upon a tree, not knowing who he is. And thus his descent as you will see, will be concealed even from the heavens so that it will not be known who he is. And when he has plundered the angel of death, he will rise on the third day and will remain in that world for five hundred and forty-five days. And then many of the righteous will ascend with him, whose spirits do not receive their robes until the Lord Christ ascends and they ascend with him" (Ascension of Isaiah 9:13-17).
"The Scriptures has thus sufficiently reproved him, as the presbyter remarked, in order that no flesh may glory in the sight of the Lord. It was for this reason, too, that the Lord descended into the regions beneath the earth, preaching his advent there also, and declaring the remission of sins received by those who believe in him. Now all those believed in him who had hope towards him ... the righteous men, the prophets, and the patriarchs" (Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 4.27.1-2).
"But he shall come to Hades, announcing hope to all the saints, the end of ages and the final day, and shall fulfill death's destiny when he has slept the third day; and then returning from the dead he shall come to the light, the first to show them that are called the beginning of resurrection, having washed away the former iniquities in the waters of an immortal spring, that born from above they may no more be in thrall to the lawless customs of the world" (Sibylline Oracles 8:310-17).
Note also that Justin Martyr quotes an apocryphon of Jeremiah, accusing the Jews of excising the following prophecy of Christ's preaching to the dead: "From the sayings of the same Jeremiah these have been cut out: 'The Lord God remembered his dead people of Israel who lay in the graves, and he descended to preach to them his own salvation" (Dialogue, 72.4). This same noncanonical saying was also quoted by Irenaeus in support of the decent to hell claim as well (cf. Adversus Haereses 3.20.4, 4.22.1, 4.33.12, 5.31.1, Demonstration, 78). The application made in Adversus Haereses 5.31.1 is quite striking: "For three days he dwelt in the place where the dead were, as the prophet says concerning him: 'And as the Lord remembered his dead saints who slept formerly in the land of sepulture; and he descended to them, to rescue and save them' ". JD Crossan finds other allusions to the descent legend and the communal resurrection myth in the Shepherd of Hermas (Similtude, 9), the Epistula Apostolorum, and the Gospel of Peter (the "speaking cross" that accompanies Jesus out of the tomb). The resurrection of the saints in Jerusalem in Matthew 27:52-54 is also likely part of the communal resurrection tradition.
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hamsterbait
According to Dante in the Divine Comedy, the scripture about the dead being conscious of nothing means that they are unable to be aware of contemporary events. The scripture says they have no part with anything taking place under the sun. They can however remember the past, and in a limited way foretell the future, as did Samuel when he was invoked by the witch of Endor.At this time of night I cannot be bothered scrabbling through a book!! Find your own Canto. Christ descended into Hell to declare the triumph of Gods judgement, and to take to heaven the jewish faithful, Abraham, Ruth, etc.
OH!! For a Roman Catholic Blondie...
HB