What is a "soul?"

[Uber Genius]

15 hours ago, Retrobyter said:

His point in saying that "He is not the God of the dead but of the living," was NOT to say that they continued to live in "Heaven" or "Sheol" or "Hades." His point was to say that they would LIVE AGAIN IN THE RESURRECTION.

So the tense in the passage is present not future. So "God of the living," not "God of those who will be living again."

Secondly, the continued existence of soul is inferred by scholars on this passage.

So significantly one sided was the scholarly interpretations that I found no commentary that agreed with your point above! In fact in 45 years of Bible study, 40 interacting with commentaries, I have never encountered the inference.

Random Sample First Six (No cherry picking here, copied and pasted in the order they appeared).

Mark 12:27, Matt 22:23, Luke 18

 

Commentary Survey

 

Mathew Henry

 

"It is certain that Abraham's soul exists and acts, though now for a time separate from the body." 

 

Gill's

 

"God is the God of these persons, they must be now alive in their souls, for God is not the God of the dead; and that their bodies must rise again, or he will not be the God of their whole persons"

 

Cambridge 

 

"Jehovah could not have called Himself the God of persons who do not exist, and over whom death had completely triumphed. The patriarchs, therefore, though their bodies were dead, must themselves have been still living in the separate state, and awaiting the resurrection."

 

ICC

 

"27. Οὐκ ἔστιν Θεὸς νεκρῶν ἀλλὰ ζώντων—Without the art., Θεὸς becomes the pred., not the subj., and νεκρῶν is also anarthrous, so that it reads, He is not a God of dead men, but of living."

 

"As this is commonly explained, it is made to hinge on the use of the present, instead of the past. The statement is, he is their God, not he was; and hence, they are still living."

 

"t follows from the nature of God that, when he calls himself the God of any people, certain things are implied in the statement about these people, e.g. that they are righteous, not sinners; blessed, not wretched; and here living, not dead. That is, immortality may be inferred from the nature of God himself in the case of those whom he calls his. But Jesus applies it to the resurrection of the dead generally, and not simply of the righteous dead. What the Sadducees denied was the possibility of the resurrection on materialistic grounds; at the basis of their denial of the resurrection was the other denial of spiritual being.1 But Jesus proves the possibility of the resurrection by examples.2 Notice that Jesus does not reveal the fact of the resurrection, but argues it from acknowledged premises. Given, he says, the fact of God, and the resurrection follows. He recognizes the rational ground of immortality. And what is of more importance, he recognizes the validity of our intuition about God. We can say that certain things may be assumed about him on first principles."

So you just asserted something about the meaning that doesn't correspond with the grammar of the text and doesn't seem to be a representative sample of scholars. Now I'm not bound to scholars if one can present an abductive inference with more explanatory power of the Biblical data. Certainly this I should how theological knowledge has moved forward since the closing of the canon, generally speaking.

 

New English Translation notes

"Matthew 22:32 sn He is not God of the dead but of the living. Jesus’ point was that if God could identify himself as God of the three old patriarchs, then they must still be alive when God spoke to Moses; and so they must be raised."

 

Adam Clark 

"Let it be observed, that Abraham was dead upwards of 300 years before these words were spoken to Moses: yet still God calls himself the God of Abraham, etc. Now Christ properly observes that God is not the God of the dead, (that word being equal, in the sense of the Sadducees, to an eternal annihilation), but of the living; it therefore follows that, if he be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, these are not dead, but alive; alive with God, though they had ceased, for some hundreds of years, to exist among mortals. We may see, from this, that our Lord combats and confutes another opinion of the Sadducees, viz. that there is neither angel nor spirit; by showing that the soul is not only immortal, but lives with God, even while the body is detained in the dust of the earth, which body is afterwards to be raised to life, and united with its soul by the miraculous power of God, of which power they showed themselves to be ignorant when they denied the possibility of a resurrection."

Please provide some justification and a reference a scholar that holds your view.

[Uber Genius]

4 hours ago, Josheb said:

I would encourage you to read through at least the first six pages. Inconvenient perhaps, but a great deal of diversity was brought to bear on the op and, imo, some fairly convincing cases were made against the traditional "tripartite" view common in Christianity. 

Glad to, thanks for the heads up.

[Uber Genius]

On 1/13/2021 at 7:29 PM, Retrobyter said:

revamped by learning the true meanings of these words and phrases. I was at such a point back in 1978. It took a long time without a teacher, but I managed to learn basic definitions that added upon other definitions until the Holy Spirit made sense of it all to me. He freed me from all the meaningless "religious words and phrases," so I know He can do it for you, too.

I take what you said above (now that I revamped it by learning its true meaning), that you "Do believe in souls being distinct from the body!" 

I determined that by "freeing myself of the meaningless religious words and phrases," in your post above and other posts. 

So since you clearly agree that your initial post was in error, what are we discussing?

-------------

Wait what? How dare I misrepresent what you said, you say?

The problem with eisegesis, reading your own meaning into texts, whether religious language, or ancient texts, or everyday conversation is that you eliminate the ability to get to true meaning.

words have meaning, but inside the context of sentences, and those sentences have context in relation to paragraphs. If we conflate the meaning of the words (the lowest whole unit of meaning), we have destroyed the ability to communicate period.

All sentences become meaningless.

All posts that have as their most basic presumption the unity of meaning of words, sentences, paragraphs, etc. will become meaningless on the view that there is no standard meaning for words. Or becomes a special pleading fallacy if applied only to religious words (your interpretation of HS or the metaphor Breath in the OT) or to religious truth claims.

Before we delve further we need to get to solid ground on whether words have objective meaning or not.

I'm wiling tondhfnis djfndisn enfndis if you so desire.

oops...looks like I can destroy meaning at the alphabetic level by simple randomization. 

 

[Retrobyter]

13 hours ago, Frits said:

 

Hi bro Retrobyter,

So if I understand what you want to say, there is no heaven for the Christian after death?  So he/she does not take up residence with the Lord Jesus after he died?

 God bless.

Shalom, Frits.

Right. The word "heaven," whether translated from shaamayim (in Hebrew) or from ouranos (in Greek), means the "sky," particularly referring to the ocean of air we have around us that we call the "atmosphere."

In the Resurrection shown in 1 Thessalonians 4, we don't go TO "heaven"; we go THROUGH "heaven" on our way to wherever the Lord Yeshua` is going when He returns to earth. To me, that's obviously the Middle East, for when He comes again, He will come with URGENCY to rescue His people, the nation of Israel. That also includes us in the process if we're in some sort of dire trouble.

According to the prophecies, He will come ZEALOUSLY and URGENTLY to rescue them from what I believe will be an attempted genocide of the children of Israel. He will start in a town of what used to be known as Edom called "Botsrah" ("Bozrah" in some versions). Then, He shall rescue the small towns of Yhudah ("Judah") and finally come to Yerushalaim ("Jerusalem"). After He routes the enemies out of Yerushalaim, He will chase them across the Mountains of Israel ("West Bank") and they will turn and think to take a stand in the Valley of Yizr`e'l ("Jezreel") under the view of Har Megiddown ("Tel Megiddo" or "Armageddon" in Greek). There, however, He will SOUNDLY defeat them and take FULL ownership of the Land of Israel!

Ask anyone what they will be doing in "Heaven" and most will say "enjoying God and His Christ" and "enjoying my mansion" and "spending time with my family and friends who have gone on before." So, they're either expecting to "kick back and relax" or "to party hardy" with friends and loved ones.

Nope. WE'VE GOT WORK TO DO before the New Jerusalem (with our mansions) comes down to this earth! Does anyone really believe that "ruling and reigning with the Messiah" will be a piece of cake?! I should hope not! It'll be WORK trying to sort out claims and disputes! Those we can solve will be our responsibility; those we can't solve we will escalate to the next highest position above us. Eventually, if a claim or dispute so warrants it, the escalation will go to the Great Judge, Yeshua` the Messiah and Melekh ("King") Himself!

While we know to expect them, there will be global judgments, such as the final Great White Throne Judgment; HOWEVER, the Messiah of God - the One Anointed by God to be King - will be a Great Judge THROUGHOUT the Millennium! That's one of the most important jobs of a King of Israel! That's both external and INTERNAL to the body of believers, as well! Think of all the various ways that we've offended one another. Don't you think all that has to be dealt with, as well? Once ALL enemies are defeated, THEN we'll be ready for the New Jerusalem!

[Retrobyter]

2 hours ago, Uber Genius said:

So the tense in the passage is present not future. So "God of the living," not "God of those who will be living again."

Secondly, the continued existence of soul is inferred by scholars on this passage.

So significantly one sided was the scholarly interpretations that I found no commentary that agreed with your point above! In fact in 45 years of Bible study, 40 interacting with commentaries, I have never encountered the inference.

Random Sample First Six (No cherry picking here, copied and pasted in the order they appeared).

Mark 12:27, Matt 22:23, Luke 18

 

Commentary Survey

 

Mathew Henry

 

"It is certain that Abraham's soul exists and acts, though now for a time separate from the body." 

 

Gill's

 

"God is the God of these persons, they must be now alive in their souls, for God is not the God of the dead; and that their bodies must rise again, or he will not be the God of their whole persons"

 

Cambridge 

 

"Jehovah could not have called Himself the God of persons who do not exist, and over whom death had completely triumphed. The patriarchs, therefore, though their bodies were dead, must themselves have been still living in the separate state, and awaiting the resurrection."

 

ICC

 

"27. Οὐκ ἔστιν Θεὸς νεκρῶν ἀλλὰ ζώντων—Without the art., Θεὸς becomes the pred., not the subj., and νεκρῶν is also anarthrous, so that it reads, He is not a God of dead men, but of living."

 

"As this is commonly explained, it is made to hinge on the use of the present, instead of the past. The statement is, he is their God, not he was; and hence, they are still living."

 

"t follows from the nature of God that, when he calls himself the God of any people, certain things are implied in the statement about these people, e.g. that they are righteous, not sinners; blessed, not wretched; and here living, not dead. That is, immortality may be inferred from the nature of God himself in the case of those whom he calls his. But Jesus applies it to the resurrection of the dead generally, and not simply of the righteous dead. What the Sadducees denied was the possibility of the resurrection on materialistic grounds; at the basis of their denial of the resurrection was the other denial of spiritual being.1 But Jesus proves the possibility of the resurrection by examples.2 Notice that Jesus does not reveal the fact of the resurrection, but argues it from acknowledged premises. Given, he says, the fact of God, and the resurrection follows. He recognizes the rational ground of immortality. And what is of more importance, he recognizes the validity of our intuition about God. We can say that certain things may be assumed about him on first principles."

So you just asserted something about the meaning that doesn't correspond with the grammar of the text and doesn't seem to be a representative sample of scholars. Now I'm not bound to scholars if one can present an abductive inference with more explanatory power of the Biblical data. Certainly this I should how theological knowledge has moved forward since the closing of the canon, generally speaking.

 

New English Translation notes

"Matthew 22:32 sn He is not God of the dead but of the living. Jesus’ point was that if God could identify himself as God of the three old patriarchs, then they must still be alive when God spoke to Moses; and so they must be raised."

 

Adam Clark 

"Let it be observed, that Abraham was dead upwards of 300 years before these words were spoken to Moses: yet still God calls himself the God of Abraham, etc. Now Christ properly observes that God is not the God of the dead, (that word being equal, in the sense of the Sadducees, to an eternal annihilation), but of the living; it therefore follows that, if he be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, these are not dead, but alive; alive with God, though they had ceased, for some hundreds of years, to exist among mortals. We may see, from this, that our Lord combats and confutes another opinion of the Sadducees, viz. that there is neither angel nor spirit; by showing that the soul is not only immortal, but lives with God, even while the body is detained in the dust of the earth, which body is afterwards to be raised to life, and united with its soul by the miraculous power of God, of which power they showed themselves to be ignorant when they denied the possibility of a resurrection."

Please provide some justification and a reference a scholar that holds your view.

Shalom, Uber Genius.

To "provide some justification and a reference to a scholar that holds [my] view" would be difficult for me to do since I know of no such circles of influence. I can't imagine that they're not out there somewhere; I just haven't come across them, yet. I HOPE one or many of them exist! I just haven't met them, yet.

God has given me a highly analytical mind, a mathematical mind, and my Mom used to DRILL the English grammar into me for ordinary conversation! And God gave me a verse to which I adhere vehemently:

Romans 3:4 (KJV)

4 God forbid: yea, let God be true, but EVERY MAN A LIAR; as it is written,

"That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged."

I hold little value in commentaries and opinions. HOWEVER, I LOVE to investigate God's Word, and IF the commentary reveals a thought I haven't thought of myself, yet, then THAT'S a good commentary. Whatever I read, though, I always take it with a "grain of salt." If and WHEN that commentary strays from God's Word (and it will at some point), it's time to part company with that commentary.

Not a ONE of these guys starts with the simple truth of God's Word; they ALL delve into the theology of the Dark Ages FIRST! Watch:

Mathew Henry

 

"It is certain that Abraham's soul exists and acts, though now for a time separate from the body." 

Oh, really? How is that possible since Avraham's air-breathing creature LIES SILENT IN A CAVE?! And, how does one separate an "air-breathing creature" from the body? Isn't it the body that breathes air? Since Adam WAS the creature that breathed air, so we ALL are creatures (created beings) that breathe air! Since we ALL are creatures that breathe air, then Avraham also was a creature that breathed air! We ARE our bodies!

 

 

 

Gill's

 

"God is the God of these persons, they must be now alive in their souls, for God is not the God of the dead; and that their bodies must rise again, or he will not be the God of their whole persons"

Again, how can a person be a "soul" if he or she no longer "breathes air?"

 

 

Cambridge 

 

"Jehovah could not have called Himself the God of persons who do not exist, and over whom death had completely triumphed. The patriarchs, therefore, though their bodies were dead, must themselves have been still living in the separate state, and awaiting the resurrection."

AH! But that's the point He was making to the Tsduqiym (Sadducees)! These persons DO still exist! Even if they have totally dissolved into chemicals that dissipated into the soil, they STILL EXIST IN THE MIND OF GOD! God REMEMBERS those who have died in great detail!

As I've said before, Resurrection is an ACT OF CREATION! No matter how decayed we become, God will need to step in and both reverse the process and breathe life into us again!

 

ICC

 

"27. Οὐκ ἔστιν Θεὸς νεκρῶν ἀλλὰ ζώντων—Without the art., Θεὸς becomes the pred., not the subj., and νεκρῶν is also anarthrous, so that it reads, He is not a God of dead men, but of living."

This changes nothing because the context is the RESURRECTION!

"As this is commonly explained, it is made to hinge on the use of the present, instead of the past. The statement is, he is their God, not he was; and hence, they are still living."

No, they are PRESENTLY slated to be raised to life in the Resurrection of the Justified! (or the Resurrection of the Unjust, if applicable). This is what the Tsduqiym did NOT believe!

Hope this helps.

[Retrobyter]

7 hours ago, Uber Genius said:

I take what you said above (now that I revamped it by learning its true meaning), that you "Do believe in souls being distinct from the body!" 

...

Shalom, Uber Genius.

Not a lot of time tonight, but let's just start here. I believe that souls are air-breathing bodies. Other than that, no, I do not see them as being distinct.

[DeighAnn]

Each however in the own order, first fruit Christ


 

[DeighAnn]

Then those of Christ at the coming of Him. 

[Frits]

9 hours ago, Retrobyter said:

Oh, really? How is that possible since Avraham's air-breathing creature LIES SILENT IN A CAVE?! And, how does one separate an "air-breathing creature" from the body? Isn't it the body that breathes air? Since Adam WAS the creature that breathed air, so we ALL are creatures (created beings) that breathe air! Since we ALL are creatures that breathe air, then Avraham also was a creature that breathed air! We ARE our bodies!

Bro Retrobyter,

I say that man has two bodies, a natural body and a spiritual body. (2Cor.5:1)
When he dies, he loses the natural, which disappears in dissolution.
But he still has the spiritual and with that the Christian lives on with the Lord Jesus.
So mind, soul and body always stay together!
The natural body was sown by birth and disappears.  The spiritual body appears at the resurrection from heaven to earth, just as the Lord Jesus did.  The spiritual body does not depend on nourishment or air like the earthly, because it is heavenly.

God bless.

Edited January 22, 2021 by Frits

[Frits]

9 hours ago, Retrobyter said:

Oh, really? How is that possible since Avraham's air-breathing creature LIES SILENT IN A CAVE?! And, how does one separate an "air-breathing creature" from the body? Isn't it the body that breathes air? Since Adam WAS the creature that breathed air, so we ALL are creatures (created beings) that breathe air! Since we ALL are creatures that breathe air, then Avraham also was a creature that breathed air! We ARE our bodies!

2Co 5:1 KJV
For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

It does not say here that we Christians no longer have a body after death.
Nor does it say that if our earthly dead body has perished in dissolution, that then we have completely disappeared and there is only a memory left!
It doesn't even say that we get a new body when we die.
But it says here that after we die we have a 'house' (body), in heavens.
Hallelujah, Praise the Lord Jezus!

Edited January 22, 2021 by Frits