NotMyRealName

(I Kings 21:21 [KJV])

Who made "affections" and lust? God, man or the devil? Secondly, how would our species propagate without lust?

Ecclesiastes 9:11 time and chance happeneth to them all

The Mesozoic era ended 66 million years ago. There have been no more dinosaurs since then. Luke's genealogy of Jesus (which differs from the one in Matthew) goes from Adam to Jesus. Add 2,000 years and you get the biblical age of the earth. At this point some believers may need to decide what biblical inerrancy means to them. On one extreme you have Timothy Paul Jones arguing in Misquoting Truth that it means the broad picture general idea stuff of the Bible is correct while at the other extreme you have some (hopefully a very small minority) who would argue that characters in the Bible were speaking the exact English words found in the KJV.

simplify, simplify - Henry David Thoreau

I've enjoyed a few things from ScrollPublishing that broadened my interest.

Where does a circle begin? Cycles are everywhere in nature. Seasons, day/night, years, trees die to add to soil to grow more trees. Rocks erode, compress to sedimentary rock, get pushed down deep and change to metamorphic rock and later emerge again. How old was Adam when he was created? We don't know, but he was a man, not a boy or baby. When he was a day old he was also X years old. And if we could travel back in time and cut down a tree outside the Garden of Eden we could count the rings and hence the years of age for that tree that was less than a week old. I'm sure the forests had good soil. Soil that would show decomposed plant matter. And we would find plants of various points in their life cycle. Perhaps we would also pick up a rock and have it tested for age finding it was 4 billion years old even though it was created in the week. God made the cycles and picked some point within each one to start things off.

First define terms. What is a soul? Is it a person's entire identity or a shadow of oneself? Or something in between? Does it grow with the individual, and does it also decline with the individual? If a soul includes one's undesirable qualities then loss of those would cause a person to lose some of their identity. Good or bad. And is there a future soul which would be the perfection of being that we were not able to achieve ourselves? Would a baby or fetus receive the limited soul they had or a future soul? Does the butterfly remember the worm? If not then the worm completely died and should never have cared about what may happen to it. We will have only opinions on this topic to be sure. Yours, mine and others. btw, you mentioned possibility of Greek influence, but not Persian. Finally, you used the derogatory term "soul sleep." The Bible over and over and over again describes death as sleep. I have read other opinions claiming the dead body is resurrected and rejoined with the disembodied soul in heaven. The body of flesh is dead and corrupted. I believe we will receive a new body. It seems odd that God would place the new body in the grave just to raise it up where the decomposed flesh is. Besides, how would that happen to bodies obliterated by explosions and the like? Does God need the atoms and molecules of a corpse to create a new body? But I don't have all the answers. Even St. Paul, who was closer to the Lord than any of us will ever be in the flesh said "now we see through a glass darkly."

A static existence with no challenges would be quite dull. A broader question encompassing your narrow example is how much of ourselves, our human nature, our soul, our memories would be preserved? Does the butterfly have the self of its former worm? If not then the worm has truly died and should not have cared that it may be a butterfly someday. On the other hand too much of ourselves seems incongruous with heaven. Perhaps you know of an irascible personality. Maybe they mean no harm, but that is just the way they are. We can't imagine an ill-temper in heaven, but that is part of his/her identity. Take away too much identity (soul) and the person is really dead. And what is a soul anyway? It is a very difficult question if you think about it.

No one knows, but we all have our opinions and hopes. The bible actually says we don't know and can't know - 1 Corinthians 2:9 A relative thinks we will be in a robe in a choir eternally just praising the Lord, and we may recognize family members but can't love them like we did before. Just always and eternally singing praises in that choir and doing nothing else. No mingling, nothing. Gosh, that sounds awful! But not as bad as the alternative.

Every answer you get is an opinion even if they are vehement about it and include lots of bible verses, some not really applicable or out of context. Here is my opinion for what it's worth. My bible says over and over and over that the dead are sleeping (until the end time). I do not know where. I suppose the saved are somehow with Jesus, but it makes no sense to me that they are in heaven and the condemned in Hell, else what is the judgement day for? This, for whatever reason, is not what I perceive the popular opinion. Everyone wants to believe their loved one went directly to heaven. Some people try to explain the dead are sleeping passages as they pertain only to the body which is resurrected. The flesh rots away, so I don't understand their argument. Perhaps God is to take the atoms and molecules and create a new body. Also, the term "spiritual body" is perhaps the greatest example of an oxymoron I can imagine - a bit like saying night-day, yes-no, positive-negative. A body is by definition tangible while "spiritual" is by definition non-tangible. And yes, I know the term "spiritual body" is in some bibles. Generally I beware those who seem to have all the answers. There are many, many religious things I don't know or understand. If St. Paul said now we see through a glass darkly, and he was closer to the Lord than any of us will ever be in the flesh, then who am I to proclaim that I have all the answers?