by I_love_Jeff 39 Replies latest watchtower bible
jd- To say it is a fact are you communicating with these souls in some fashion or can you offer some proof you have documented.
The documentation is the Bible, which is sufficient. Any claim by someone that they have communicated with them is never proof to anyone else.
I_love_Jeff....There are different kinds of parables. Some are similitude parables that use simile or metaphor, such as the "The Kingdom is like...." or "The coming of the Son of Man is like..." parables, or the sower parable which allegorizes the situation in the early Christian church. Often, though not always, an interpretation is given (such as in the sower parable where the sower = preacher, seed = word, birds = Satan, thorns = entanglements of the world, etc.). Other parables, especially some of the narrative parables, are not allegorical. They rather tell a story to drive home a didactic point. The author of Luke was fond of these; they occur in special material found only in Luke. The parable of the Good Samaritan in ch. 10 is one example. It isn't found in any other gospel. It tells a story that dramatizes what it means to love one's neighbor. The situation in the story, a robbery of a man walking on a road from Jerusalem to Jericho, is the backdrop for the story; it is presupposed and doesn't allegorize anything (e.g. the road isn't symbolic of anything, Jericho isn't symbolic of anything). In ch. 12 we find another narrative parable: the parable of the rich fool. This is another story that dramatizes a didactic point, namely, what it means to be rich towards God. It also isn't found in any other gospel. The barns, grain, and riches mentioned in the story don't symbolize anything. Rather the point of the story is how a man who is rich and has many material goods owns nothing when he dies. In ch. 15, we encounter another narrative parable that isn't found in any other gospel: The parable of the Prodigal Son. This tells a story about what it means to truly find someone whom you believed had been lost. The narrative is quite detailed and involved; when the prodigal's father shows appreciation to him by giving him a ring, shoes, and slaughters a calf to make a feast to celebrate his son's return, these objects don't symbolize anything. They are just part of the story. Nor do they invent a scenario that couldn't exist; the situation is one that someone could imagine happening, that is what gives the story its didactic power. Then in ch. 16 we have the parable of Rich Man and Lazarus. It's a narrative parable just like the other ones, and it is found only in Luke. The references to dogs licking Lazarus' sores, the rich man in torment in Hades, and Lazarus being in the bosom of Abraham aren't allegorical, no more than a journey from Jerusalem to Jericho is symbolic, or the putting up of barns is symbolic in the Rich Fool parable, or the bestowal of shoes and jewelry to the prodigal son is allegorical of anything. The situation in the Lazarus story is simply presupposed as the backdrop of the story; it isn't the point of the parable. The point of the parable is that all the earthly luxuries one has in life do nothing to give one luxury in the afterlife; the lesson is very similar as that in the Rich Fool story. The parable has its didactic power because it is already understood that there is such a thing as postmortem punishment for wicked deeds, just as the story of the Good Samaritan has its power because people did indeed get robbed on the road to Jericho and that Samaritans really were looked down upon by many Jews, just as the story of the Prodigal Son has its power because sometimes people who act irresponsibly do need to return home if they have nowhere else to go. To allegorize away the references to the afterlife and claim that the whole parable is figurative of one's spiritual condition, or however the Society interprets it, is to miss the point of the parable and misconstrue the literary genre of the parable.
Jonathan Dough said:
Words other than nephesh in the Old Testament are used when referring to departed souls, such as rephaim, often translated in the English as 'shades' or 'healers.' Rephaim are ghosts according to Vine's Complete Expository Dictionary of the Old and New Testament Words (Vine's) and very much in existence according to the Old Testament as seen by Isaiah 14:9-10 (ESV), which completely disproves the Jehovah's Witnesses' theory that only extinction follows man at death. In speaking of the king of Babylon, Isaiah wrote:
9 Sheol beneath is stirred up
to meet you when you come;
it rouses the shades to greet you,
all who were leaders of the earth;
it raises from their thrones
all who were kings of the nations.
10 All of them will answer
and say to you:
‘ You too have become as weak as we!
You have become like us!’
You really need to study RB Onian's classic work, "The Origins of European Thought", a review of ancient literature (including the Bible) to confirm how ancient men viewed concepts of the soul, shadows, their own bodies, death, etc. eg ancient men (Egyptians, but also everyone who was influenced by them, incl Greeks, Romans, Hebrews) didn't even understand what their shadow was (you mentioned "shades"), and considered the shadow to be closely related to their soul (depending on the language, nephesh, animus, genius, etc).
From Origins:
4 Od. x, 495. Gf. xi, 207. In later Greece he who entered the precinct of Lykaian Zeus was believed to lose his shadow and die within a year (see Paus. vra, 38, 6; Polyb. xvi, 12, 7; Plut. Q.G. 39). For instances of belief in modern Greece that a man's shadow is his soul, see Frazer, Golden Bough, Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, p. 89. How the shadow-soul has been conceived by other races may be instanced from China by the custom of coffin-bearers and grave-diggers who, being endangered by proximity to the dead, attach their shadows firmly to their persons by tying a cord tightly round their waists, and by the belief that a man's shadow ought to be deep so that he will attain to greatness (ibid. pp. 79 f.).
Among the Jews, for whom the spirit life-soul was particularly identified with the head, we may compare the similar significance attached to the disappearances of the shadow of the head, 'one's head casts no shadow if one is to die within the year' (p. 103, n. 2; cf. heads and knees hid before death, pp. 181 f.).
Egyptian beliefs in the soul permeated the ancient World, and are reflected in Hebraic beliefs, a fact which explains YHWH's woeful ignorance of the role of the heart (in Gen 3:15), amongst other anatomical errors that would make a kindergardener blush:
Here's a basic outline of Egyptian beliefs of the soul, and you can find the reflections of all of it in the OT (eg the importance of one's 'name', shadow, the spark of life (ruah in Hebrew), the weighing of the heart/kidneys after death, etc). The overwhelming evidence to make the connections is compelling....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_concept_of_the_soul
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghosts_in_ancient_Egyptian_culture
If you want to believe in old 4,000 yr old Egyptian (probably older) myths in 2012, do so at your own peril....
If you want to believe in old 4,000 yr old Egyptian (probably older) myths in 2012, do so at your own peril....
I don't regard Scripture as myth, and it is apparent you haven't bothered to read the information here:
http://www.soul.host-ed.me/index.html
Had you done so you would have seen that these two verses I cited were just the tip fo the ice berg and many other verses substantiate the existence of the soul (spirit) in both the OT and the NT. The evidence is overwhelming. Here are a few more proof texts:
The psalmist at Psalm 88:11 “seeks to persuade God to act out of concern for divine honor: the shades (rephaim) give you no worship, so keep me alive to offer you praise” (NAB notes 8, 11-13). “Do you work wonders for the dead? Do the shades (rephaim) arise and praise you?” Had the shades (rephaim) not existed in Sheol this question could not have been asked. Far from non-existent, the departed dead, the wicked unredeemed shades, are impotent with respect to gratitude, praise and hope toward God, “For Sheol does not thank you, death does not praise you; those that go down to the pit do not hope for your faithfulness” (Isaiah 38:18, ESV).
For the wicked, their weakened condition is likened to “forgetfulness,” where God works no wonders for the shades (rephaim) who are unwilling and unable to express their love for God. “Is your love proclaimed in the grave, your fidelity in the tomb? Are faithfulness in Abaddon? Are your wonders known in the darkness, or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?” (Psalm 88:10-12, ESV). The resurrection of the dead (as figuratively applied to the restoration of Israel in messianic times (NAB notes) envisions conscious and singing shades in the land of the departed (the netherworld) which gives birth to newly resurrected bodies, shades that are reunited with risen corpses: “But your dead shall shall live, their corpses shall rise; awake and sing, you who lie in the dust. For your dew is a dew of light, and the land of shades (rephaim) gives birth” (Isaiah 26;19, NAB).
Even Job, a blameless and upright man, acknowledged the existence of the departed dead, the shades, in Sheol, where, in his reply to Boldad's third speech he said, “The shades (rephaim) beneath writhe in terror, the waters and their inhabitants. Naked before him is the nether world (Sheol), and Abaddon has no covering.” (Job 26:5,6, NAB). Not only do shades exist, but they exhibit emotions and tremble.
Similarly, the inspired writers of the Book of Proverbs were fully aware that the departed dead, the shades, reside in Sheol, the nether world; they were not annihilated, they did not become extinct at death. Speaking of the ways of the adulteress, Proverbs 2:18 provides: “For her path sinks down to death, and her footsteps lead to the shades (rephaim) (NAB). Referring to those who live a life of folly, Proverbs 9:18 warns, “Little he knows that the shades are there, that in the depths of the nether world (sheol) are her guests” (NAB). And Proverbs 21:16 is an unambiguous warning, “The man who strays from the way of good sense will abide in the assembly of the shades (rephaim).
And if that's not enough, try this on:
One common misconception is that Sheol (Hebrew) is a place where only the wicked, unredeemed go, but that is not the case (PBD at 784). The grieving patriarch Jacob was inconsolable when told of his son Joseph's (fabricated) death, stating, “No, I will go down mourning to my son in the nether world (Sheol) (Genesis 37:35). Jacob, son of Isaac and father of twelve sons who in turn would father the twelve tribes of Israel, believed his eleventh son, Joseph, was dead and departed to Sheol, not extinct, and his grief was such that he wished to join him. And Job, while enduring excruciating torment, pleaded to God for shelter in the nether world of Sheol. He did not want to go there to be tormented further, but to escape the agony and torment he was suffering on earth, and then return: “Oh, that you would hide me in the nether world and keep me sheltered till your wrath is past,” (Job 14:13). His agony was so great he wondered why he wasn't delivered a stillborn baby; then he would find rest in Sheol:” For then I would have lain down and been quiet; I would have slept; then I would have been at rest. (Job 3:13, ESV). One cannot be extinct and non-existent and yet enjoy restful sleep and later return to the world when God's wrath is over. It's not possible.
King David was fully aware that Sheol was a place to which souls depart, writing, “For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption,” (Psalm 16:10, ESV). He repeatedly speaks of Sheol as a place, as a concrete figure of speech, as a destination from which souls are brought up, and prevented from going down into (see Psalms 139:8, 49:15, 86:13). God, through David, would never have uttered these words if no such place existed where souls go. Sheol is a reality, a destination for the departed dead made abundantly clear at Psalm 139:8: “If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there.” Annihilationism cannot be read into these verses.
Rachel cannot be non-existent as her voice is heard in Ramah: “Thus says the Lord, “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more (Jeremiah 31:15, ESV). Ramah is “a village about five miles north of Jerusalem, where Rachel was buried (1 Samuel 10, 2). Rachel is said to mourn for her children since she was the ancestress of Ephraim, the chief of the northern tribes. Matthew 2:18 applies this verse to the slaughter of the innocent by Herod” (NAB notes, 31-15).
And the great prophet Ezekiel was instructed by Almighty God to lament the wicked of Egypt destined for the pit of the nether world. A place in Sheol “shall be made them for all their hordes” (Ezekiel 32:20, NAB). These Egyptian hordes cannot be non-existent because “from the midst of the nether world the mighty warriors shall speak to Egypt: “Whom do you excel in beauty? Come down, you and your allies, lie with the uncircumcised, with those slain by the sword” (vv. 20-21). Those that go down to the pit are not only conscious, but experience emotion, as they “bear their disgrace with those who go down to the pit” (Ezekiel 32:24, NAB).
Leo said:
There is no question that postmortem punishment was part of early Jewish and Christian eschatology on the afterlife.
Leo, don't you mean:
There is no question that postmortem punishment was part of LATE Jewish and EARLY Christian eschatology on the afterlife.
My understanding (and I swear I've seen you mention it in other threads) is that EARLY Jewish exchatology didn't include the idea of punishment in the after-life (or much concern with the afterlife, if any at all), and concerns with afterlife were introduced due to syncretism with Zoroasterian beliefs.
A quick Google shows this:
http://near-death.com/experiences/judaism06.html
Jewish Afterlife Beliefs |
The core of Judaism is a covenant relationship - which is both a contractual agreement and a "marriage" of love - between Yahweh and his chosen people. Because Judaism is built around a relationship involving agreements and promises in this life, the afterlife is less essential for Judaism than for other world religions. It would, in fact, be relatively easy to imagine Judaism without any afterlife beliefs whatsoever. Because of the non-centrality of the afterlife for Judaism, this tradition has been able to entertain a wide variety of different afterlife notions throughout its history, more so than perhaps any other religion.
The ancient Hebrews emphasized the importance of the present life over the afterlife. As with both the ancient Greeks and Mesopotamians, the afterlife, if it was considered at all, was conceived of as a pale shadow of earthly life, much like the Greek Hades. Also similar to the Greek Hades, in the Hebrew afterlife no distinction was made between the treatment of the just and the unjust after death. Instead, rewards and punishments were meted out in the present life, and in the covenant "contract" Yahweh promised to do just that.
Reflection on the inequalities of this life and on the apparent failure of Yahweh to make good on his covenant promises led serious religious thinkers to consider the option of resurrection. The resurrection of ordinary human beings seems to have originated in the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism. As a result of several centuries of Persian control of the Middle East region, Jews were brought into contact with Zoroastrian religious ideas and the notion of resurrection. Zoroaster combined resurrection with the idea of a final judgment, in which the entire human race is resurrected and individuals rewarded or punished. This concept clearly appealed to Jewish religious thinkers of the time as an adequate way of coming to grips with the injustices that were so apparent in this life.
As implied in the Book of Daniel, the Jewish notion of resurrection in the Maccabeean period was tied to a notion of judgment, and even to separate realms for the judged. In rabbinical thought, the model for heaven was Eden. The rabbinic word for hell, "Gehenna", is taken from the name of a valley of fire where children were said to be sacrificed as burnt offerings to Baal and Moloch (Semitic deities). Gehenna is a place of intense punishment and cleansing. This place is also known as "She'ol" and other names. This line of Jewish thought argues that after death the soul has to be purified before it can go on the rest of its journey. The amount of time needed for purification depends on how the soul dealt with life. One Jewish tradition states that a soul needs a maximum of 11 months for purification, which is why, when a parent dies, the kaddish (memorial prayer) is recited for 11 months. The concept of Gehenna as a place for temporary purification was the source for the orthodox Christian doctrine of "purgatory."
The first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus stated that the Pharisees, the Jewish sect that founded rabbinic Judaism to which Paul once belonged, believed in reincarnation. He writes that the Pharisees believed the souls of evil men are punished after death. The souls of good men are "removed into other bodies" and they will "have power to revive and live again."
From time to time in Jewish history, there had been an insistent belief that their prophets were reborn. Reincarnation was part of the Jewish dogmas, being taught under the name of "resurrection". Only the Sadducees, who believed that everything ended with death, did not accept the idea of reincarnation. Jewish ideas included the concept that people could live again without knowing exactly the manners by which this could happen.
Josephus records that the Essenes of the Dead Sea Scrolls lived "the same kind of life" as the followers of Pythagoras, the Greek philosopher who taught reincarnation. According to Josephus, the Essenes believed that the soul is both immortal and preexistent, necessary for tenets for belief in reincarnation.
The Dead Sea Scrolls prove that the Jewish mystical tradition of divine union went back to the first, perhaps even the third century B.C.E. Jewish mysticism has its origins in Greek mysticism, a system of belief which included reincarnation. Among the Dead Sea Scrolls, some of the hymns found are similar to the Hekhaloth hymns of the Jewish mystics. One text of hymns gives us clear evidence of Jewish mysticism. The text is called "Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice." Fragments of 1 Enoch, which is considered the oldest text of Jewish mysticism, were also found with the Scrolls. Since evidence shows Jewish mysticism existed in the third century B.C.E., as Enoch indicates, then it would certainly have existed in first-century Israel.
Reincarnation has been a belief for thousands of years for orthodox Jews. The Zohar is a book of great authority among Kabbalistic Jews. It states the following:
"All souls are subject to revolutions." |
"Men do not know the way they have been judged in all time." (Zohar II, 199b) |
That is, in their "revolutions" they lose all memory of the actions that led to their being judged.
Another Kabbalistic book, the Kether Malkuth states:
"If she, the soul, be pure, then she shall obtain favor... but if she has been defiled, then she shall wander for a time in pain and despair... until the days of her purification." (Kether Malkuth) |
How can the soul be defiled before birth? Where does the soul wander if not on this or some other world until the days of her purification? The rabbis explained this verse to mean that the defiled soul wanders down from paradise through many births until the soul regained its purity.
I n the Talmud, "gilgul neshamot" (i.e., reincarnation) is constantly mentioned. The term literally means "the judgment of the revolutions of the souls." In this view, people who had committed extraordinary sins were given an opportunity to return to life in order to set things right. More particularly, they were reincarnated in circumstances similar to those of their previous incarnation. Thus, Moses and Jethro, for example, were supposed to be the gilgulim of Cain and Abel.
In contemporary Judaism, the traditional, mainstream view of resurrection is maintained by the orthodox, but generally not by the non-orthodox. Outside the orthodox fold, ordinary believers often accept the notion of an immortal soul, not unlike the notion held by most Christians. Many also accepted reincarnation. And many secular and Reform Jews continue to view themselves as part of the tradition of Judaism, without adhering to any sort of afterlife belief.
jd said:
I don't regard Scripture as myth, and it is apparent you haven't bothered to read the information here:
http://www.soul.host-ed.me/index.html
Had you done so you would have seen that these two verses I cited were just the tip fo the ice berg and many other verses substantiate the existence of the soul (spirit) in both the OT and the NT. The evidence is overwhelming. Here are a few more proof texts:
Apparently you failed to understand that I leap-frogged to a time before the OT was written to show the likely ROOTS of the beliefs found in the OT.
I'm not denying that the OT seemingly indicates a belief in the soul: in fact, I'm showing that such beliefs were NOT UNCOMMON in the ancient world, and even predated the Bible. Hence the concepts found inside the Bible cannot be attributed to Divine Inspiration, unless you feel that the "Divine Inspiration" was provided by a God named Atum to the Egyptians, and the Hebrews simply recycled their "inspiration".
There is no question that postmortem punishment was part of LATE Jewish and EARLY Christian eschatology on the afterlife.My understanding (and I swear I've seen you mention it in other threads) is that EARLY Jewish exchatology didn't include the idea of punishment in the after-life (or much concern with the afterlife, if any at all), and concerns with afterlife were introduced due to syncretism with Zoroasterian beliefs.
I am referring to Second-Temple Judaism; the problem is...where does Judaism begin? I wouldn't call pre-exilic Yahwism "Judaism" and I tend to reserve the identifier "Jew" to the post-exilic period (Judahite, or Israelite, is the term I would use for the pre-exilic period). Some scholars refer to Second Temple Judaism as early Judaism to distinguish it from later rabbinical/Talmudic Judaism and then from still later medieval Judaism. Others, such as Gabriele Boccacinni, use the term Middle Judaisms to refer to the period in question, to distinguish the pluralistic sectarian stage of Judaism (with such sects as Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, etc.) from earlier Zadokite Judaism and from later post-Second Temple rabbinical Judaism.
Israelite eschatology did not include the notion of postmortem punishment. The notion arose in the Second Temple period in robust form in the Hellenistic period, and possibly arising in the Persian period (depending on how one interprets Trito-Isaiah); similarly resurrection does not appear in its full form until the Hellenistic period.
I think your source strongly overstates the case for an ancient Jewish belief in reincarnation (and it is a no-no to mix together a late medieval source like the Zohar with much earlier sources like the Dead Sea Scrolls without due qualification).
Apparently you failed to understand that I leap-frogged to a time before the OT was written to show the likely ROOTS of the beliefs found in the OT.
I'm not denying that the OT seemingly indicates a belief in the soul: in fact, I'm showing that such beliefs were NOT UNCOMMON in the ancient world, and even predated the Bible. Hence the concepts found inside the Bible cannot be attributed to Divine Inspiration, unless you feel that the "Divine Inspiration" was provided by a God named Atum to the Egyptians, and the Hebrews simply recycled their "inspiration".
That's utter nonsense and illogical. Just because earlier people believed in departed souls before the Bible was written doesn't mean those relevant verses weren't inspired by God. If anything it indicates that God affirms what pagans believed, if that belief coincides with Scripture. The belief in the afterlife even predates the Egyptians in many other cultures because it is so obvious, one of those given concepts that most people easily believe in it. Following your reasoning there is no creator, either, no God, because ancient peoples before the time of Moses believed in a God/creator however that is defined. And there was no flood because the flood account in the Epic in Gilgamesh was written before Genesis. It's purely speculative to assume that the Bible writers were inspired by earlier pagans. You have not proof, and lack any causal connection.Similarly, just because Plato held ideas of body/soul dualism doesn't mean Christ was wrong, or the other NT writers, in affirming that fact.
If you have been to an Orthodox Jewish funeral you would likely hear the Rabbi explain the differing views of the Torah Observant Jews and the Reformed view.
