Division between soul and spirit

by M.J. 82 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  VM44

  Leolaia,

  Charles Russell wrote several times in The Watchtower that the "convolutions" of the brain will be reproduced in the resurrected body, thus giving the re-created being both the memories and the ability to recognize themself as the individual who had lived before.

  Do you think that Charles Russell, who was not unintelligent, realized, at least to himself, that the individual who once lived could have no expectation to experience what the re-created being would experience in the future?

  Did Russell really think about what he was saying? or did he not really care if what he said held up to examination?

  Just because some creature in the future has the same "convolutions" as a being in the past did does not mean that the personal identity of the previous being has been carried forth to the future being. Who cares if some body in the future has the same folds in their brain as I once did? Does that mean that I can truly expect to sense what that body will sense?

  The answer is no.

  These conclusions follow simply from what Russell wrote over a 100 years ago. And the JWs are still using the same reasoning Russell used today. I wonder why the JWs appear to be satisfied with such a superficial and, as you pointed out, non-Biblical view of the nature of the resurrection.

  --VM44
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  LittleToe

  I'm thoroughly enjoying this thread

  Just a quick query regarding VM's point. Russell believed he was going straight to heaven, yes?
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  VM44

  Do the JWs really care about their own doctrines?

  Sometimes it appears that they do not care if what they teach makes sense, they teach it anyway so that they do not have an "empty place" or gap with nothing to day, about some particular subject.

  It then becomes part of the beliefs of the Jehovah's Witnesses that all members have to believe in, at least when they are in public.

  --VM44
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  VM44

  The question of what determines personal identity is important. Look at this article! --VM44 Welcome to the

  Mind Uploading Home Page

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  The Mind Uploading home page is dedicated to the putative future process of copying one's mind from the natural substrate of the brain into an artificial one, manufactured by humans. This technology will radically alter society in many ways, as science fiction authors have begun to illustrate. Through this server, explore the science behind the science fiction!

  http://www.ibiblio.org/jstrout/uploading/MUHomePage.html
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  M.J.

  Thanks for that link! I read through it and I can only come to the conclusion that no matter how perfectly my mind can be duplicated and how perfectly someone else matches "me", once I expire, I don't give a rip. I'm dead. (assuming I don't have an immaterial "self" that survives death!)
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  Narkissos

  Some interesting background for Matthew 10:28 in Hellenistic Jewish literature:

  - Wisdom 16:13-15:

  For you have power over life and death;
  you lead mortals down to the gates of Hades and back again.
  A person in wickedness kills (apoktennei) another,
  but cannot bring back the departed spirit (pneuma),
  or set free the imprisoned soul (psukhè).

  - 4 Maccabees 13:13-15:

  Each of them and all of them together looking at one another, cheerful and undaunted, said, "Let us with all our hearts consecrate ourselves to God, who gave us our lives/souls (psukhas), and let us use our bodies (sômata) as a bulwark for the law. Let us not fear him who thinks he is killing us, for great is the struggle of the soul (psukhès) and the danger of eternal torment lying before those who transgress the commandment of God.

  I agree that the Persian/Pharisaic (it may be interesting to note that some derive the word "Pharisee" from "Persian") doctrine of resurrection also lies in the background of Matthew (whence the idea that both body and soul may be thrown / destroyed / lost into the gehenna). However, the inner logic of Matthew 10:28 is that the man who can kill the body (obviously in this aiôn, prior to the resurrection) cannot simultaneously harm the soul -- and this part is Hellenistic, although not exactly Platonic imo.
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  M.J.

  but cannot bring back the departed spirit (pneuma),
  
  or set free the imprisoned soul (psukhè).

  interesting...by the way, were there commonly accepted theories on ghosts? Souls that got out of the hades prison (I assume that's the sense the soul is imprisoned), perhaps? Funny how the disciples thought Jesus was a phantasma--a ghost!
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  peacefulpete

  deleted because it made no sense
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  peacefulpete

  
  
  An interesting observation in the TDNT IX pg 646 under 'Lukan Saying about the sould after death':
  

  The Most striking feature is the reconstruction of Mat 10:28. Lk. obviously wants to avoid the statement that man cannot kill the soul and he leaves out the more precise reference to the body and soul in punishment in Gehenna. We find confirmation of this in 9:25, where he edits the "lose the soul of him' of mark 8:36, since this might be construed as the punishment of the soul after death. Further confirmation may be seen in Acts 2:31, where in distinction from Ps 15:8-11, which is quoted in Acts 2:25-28, he avoids the ref. to the soul not being in Hades, and says instead the the flesh of Jesus did not see corruption. (Luke interprets soul in the Ps. as person and the stress on the flesh is designed to show that this must be regarded as bodily.)

  It continues about his treatement of other passages that are consistant in teaching the "corporeality of the resurrection as distinct from the Hellenistic survival of the soul..."

  Personally I'm not seeing the Lukan author avoiding the reference to soul in Psalms but I may be missing something.
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  peacefulpete

  
  
  
  
  

  Whwether he is accurately portraying the Essenes may be in question but it does betray the concept as being contemporaneous with the NT.