JW view on the resurrection/existence of a "soul"

by chuckyy 9 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  chuckyy

  It seems to me that one thing JWs have got wrong is their view on Christs resurrection, resurrection of humans,and the whole soul/spirit debate. Consider 1st the resurrection of Christ:

  1. Jesus said he would raise up the temple of his BODY...not spirit, after 3 days

  2. Jesus got Thomas to feel his wounds saying that they were not the wounds of a SPIRIT. Surely they would have to be the actual death wounds of Christ because if not, he would be deceiving/lying to Thomas.

  So then if Christs actual body was resurrected, that poses another big question as he PREACHED TO THE SPIRITS in prison during the 40 days.Physically, he could not have done this. Hence, does this lead us to the conclusion that there is a spirit/soul within a person?

  Consider this:

  3. Why would Jesus speak a parable (THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS) about a supposedly demonic teaching, that is, conscience existence after death if this were not true??

  Also i dont know about you but the jw view on the physical resurrection during 1000yrs just doesnt make sense. If you or i died today, what of US would be resurrected? Not our physical bodies that go back to dust. According to jw theology only our thoughts/memories etc remain with God and they would be put into a new body.In effect then a CLONE OF YOU OR I would now exist....NOTHING OF THE ORIGINAL PERSON .

  In view of all of the above, do you think Jw view is wrong? Perhaps there is something such as soul/spirit after all.Perhaps that part of us sleeps at death and can be awaken. I dont know......what are your views????

  chukky
• 

  greendawn

  There obviously is something like a spiritual body a body made from a mysterious substance unlike the material one we are accustomed to and which is joined with and interacts with the physical body in fact causing it to be living rather than dead.

  Personally I am not sure whether this invisible substance lives the body on death and continues to live on as a kind of angelic body. The Bible doesn't give a clear message on this, some verses suggest it lives on and others that it doesn't ie it dissipates upon death by not being powerful enough to carry on living on its own.

  Also logically why would the dead be resurrected in order to be judged if that has already happened to them in heaven?
• 

  Will Power

  funny, I was just thinking about this.
  
  1st a more accurate word to describe JWs doctrine on life after death, is not resurrection but Re-creation. Another word they have hi-jacked into their "loaded language".
  
  What I was wondering was, what would THE LIST look like?
  How many A) religions/cultures believe there is a soul, and B) how many do not?
  (not that there actually is or is not) but how many BELIEVE that there is something after death, and how did FAITH in that BELIEF come about?
  
  I could think of alot for column A, but only 2 for the B side - JWs & Atheists.
  
  You've just showed more scriptures to point out how the JWs teach a different gospel than that found in the bible.
  
  
  
  
• 

  moomanchu

  I never liked their explanation for Matthew 22:31,32 either,

  As regards the ressurection of the dead,did you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying I am the God of Abraham and the God of Issac and the God of Jacob? He is the God, not of the dead, but of the living.

  I think "christendoms" explanation of this is much easier to swallow.

  JW elder on stage giving talk " brothers and sisters there is no life after death, there is NO life after death.

  It is all double talk and pisses me off.
• 

  journey-on

  This is the first JW doctrine I tossed out the window. I've come to believe that the soul is the man (..."and God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man came to be a living soul.") It dwells within the body temple until which time, the temple ceases to exist, then the soul returns "to the father who gave it." That's my current take on it. I always believed the consciousness goes somewhere else. The only difference is my beliefs as to its nature and substance have changed.

  The JWs say it's the "memory" of YOU that returns to Jehovah. And through his miraculous way, will bring that back at the resurrection...UH??
• 

  ferret

  I fully believe in two parts body and soul. Many scriptures speak of them.
• 

  Leolaia

  I've posted at great length on this subject in the past, but suffice to say that the JW doctrine does not correspond to any real Jewish or Christian belief from the first century AD. I would suppose they are the closest to the Sadducees in denying both the resurrection and the afterlife (see their use of the proto-Sadduccee Ecclesiastes which rejects any thought that the dead will return to life, 9:5-6), but they are stuck with the very non-Sadducee NT which takes a very positive position on both, so they do their best to fit it into the mold of annihilationism. Thus they are still able to deny an actual belief in resurrection while calling something entirely different (a form of re-creation) "resurrection" because that is the word that is used in the NT. All one has to do is read the NT in its entirety and other Second Temple era Jewish and Christian literature (which are quite explicit on the subject, cf. Josephus) to realize that the Society is very off the mark.
• 

  Leolaia

  Check out this post for a detailed discussion:

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/134604/2396862/post.ashx#2396862
• 

  journey-on

  Leolia...I earmarked your thread to study later. Thank you for preparing and sharing.
• 

  smellsgood

  They have to twist and manipulate to make things conform with their teachings.
  
  I've always believed that man had a "spirit." I think it's something that one senses, something that is innate knowledge so to speak. Of course what you innately sense can be dulled and polluted by what you absorb, you can in a sense switch off something that was as clear to you as the taste of milk or the feel of cotton, or the smell of baked bread; before you trained your brain to suppress that sense due to it's conflict with your studied and trained "taking in of knowledge."
  
  Just like a person can intuitively sense that something was "wrong" with that Ted who on paper looked like a normal, white, working male. If you "knew" Ted on paper, you may force yourself to allay your "sense," brush it off as paranoia, or just your imagination. Only when he's captured as a serial killer does the recollection of that "sense" become validated or vindicated. Maybe we ought to trust our senses and not push them away so quickly?