So, some Jehovah's witness knocked on my door...

[margin overa]

I talked to some JW's several years ago and actually learned a lot. They said the Bible does not teach that you have an immortal soul. I tried so hard to prove them wrong, but searched and asked questions of people who would know, and they were right! That whole concept comes from Plato and the Greeks.

Right - the actual immortality of any person other than God certainly isn't a Biblical idea. It really just goes to show how deeply interpretation and cultural and historical mores are influenced by philosophies and beliefs originating outside of Scripture.

[agricola]

You won't find any 'life after death' in the Hebrew Bible (or at least, not until very very late) but it is present in the NT - mainly it is an idea that developed within Judaism during/after the Babylonian exile, when the Jews encountered the very advanced and 'enlightened' (for its time) faith of Zoroastrianism, which features:

a good God and an evil God
an eternal battle between Good and Evil, which will continue until the end of time, when Good will overcome.
angels and a hierarchy of angels ( in the Hebrew Bible, angels are simply 'messengers' and don't have much definition - like names)
demons and a hierarchy of demons (ditto)
an active 'afterlife' with souls, and judgment, and heaven and hell.
a savior will be born of a virgin (remember, this religion PREDATES Christianity - by a LOT)

h**p://www.religioustolerance.org/zoroastr2.htm

Zoroastrian Beliefs:

Beliefs include:
A single god Ahura Mazda who is supreme. Communication between Himself and humans is by a number of Attributes, called Amesha Spentas or Bounteous Immortals. Within the Gathas, the original Zoroastrian sacred text, these Immortals are sometimes described as concepts, and are sometimes personified.

One school of thought promotes a cosmic dualism between:

a_ An all powerful God Ahura Mazda who is the only deity worthy of being worshipped, and

b_ An evil spirit of violence and death, Angra Mainyu, who opposes Ahura Mazda.

The resulting cosmic conflict involves the entire universe, including humanity who is required to choose which to follow. Evil, and the Spirit of Evil, will be completely destroyed at the end of time. Dualism will come to an end and Goodness will be all in all.


Another school of thought perceives the battle between Good and Evil as an ethical dualism, set within the human consciousness.

Asha is a form of righteous, an all encompassing, natural law.

Legends, which are probably not those of Zarathushtra's original teachings are:

After death, a person's urvan (soul) is allowed three days to meditate on his/her past life. The soul is then judged by a troika consisting of Mithra, Sraosha and Rashnu. If the good thoughts, words and deeds outweigh the bad, then the soul is taken into Heaven. Otherwise, the soul is led to Hell.

The universe will go through a total of three eras:

1 Creation;

2 The present world where good and evil are mixed. People's good works are seen as gradually transforming the world towards its heavenly ideal;

3 A final state after this renovation when good and evil will be separated.

Eventually, everything will be purified. Even the occupants of hell will be released.


A Saoshyant (savior) will be born of a virgin, but of the lineage of the Prophet Zoroaster who will raise the dead and judge everyone in a final judgment. This is a theme that is seen in many world religions.

[margin overa]

That's true (and aren't those precursors and parallels interesting and sobering!), but doesn't mean that the idea of a truly, inarguably immortal soul that would, without exception, spend an eternity in either bliss or torment is necessarily a NT doctrine. Jewish and Christian ideas about God have never been static, have never been universally agreed-upon within their ranks, and have always been highly influenced by coming into contact with other faith traditions, from Platonists to Zoroastrians to Hellenists...

The Apocrypha spend a great deal of time on such matters, as do the pseudo-epigraphic gospels.

[Lev]

That's true (and aren't those precursors and parallels interesting and sobering!), but doesn't mean that the idea of a truly, inarguably immortal soul that would, without exception, spend an eternity in either bliss or torment is necessarily a NT doctrine. Jewish and Christian ideas about God have never been static, have never been universally agreed-upon within their ranks, and have always been highly influenced by coming into contact with other faith traditions, from Platonists to Zoroastrians to Hellenists...

The Apocrypha spend a great deal of time on such matters, as do the pseudo-epigraphic gospels.

I prefer the interpretation that has God granting immortality to the righteous. Makes a lot of sense to the NT idea of "eternal life," which almost without exception is presented as a gift, something one receives, and not something one inherently has. This interpretation also makes the idea of hell as eternal conscious torment (which I'm not sure is biblical) easier to disregard.

Lev

[agricola]

The pseudiprapha and apocryphal literature were written during that same post-Babylonian exile period, and address the ideas and concepts that exposure to Zoroastrianism (which is an 'attractive' sort of faith) gave to Judaism.

It is often proposed that Genesis 1 was written by the priests in exile in direct reaction to the Zoroastrian creation story - the Babylonian story was full of conflict. In Genesis 1, God simply speaks and things are made. But the general sequence is near-identical.

Lev - the idea that humans 'have' a soul and that the soul is innately immortal is a Greek import into Christianity. Judaism (modern, which is a descendent of second temple Pharisaism) teaches that humans are a body/soul entity, and death 'ends' the human being - the body decays and the soul 'returns' to God who gives it in the first place. At the end of time, 'resurrection' is the return of the renewed body/soul combo, and only those people whom God 'remembers' are resurrected: immortality is a gift.

There is a statement someplace (totally flew out of my head just now - sorry) about sinful people punished with death (oh yeah - the soul that sins shall die) and to a Jewish reader, that is a very simple and clear statement: God will not 'remember' that person to resurrect them. They get this life, and that's it. No afterlife.

It's in the daily prayerbook (Jewish prayerbook) as well - prayers asking God to 'remember us to life'.

[KLP]

So are yall arguing that there is no punishment or come-uppance for the wicked? That God will not take His vengeance and punish the evil for their deeds? Where is the "cosmic" justice that is supposed to motivate/convince one to let God handle things in Hs way? Why would Jesus tell the story of the rich man and Lazarus? It shows this notion of an overall justice being meted out and that there is a place a punishment in the afterlife and at least Jews were going there who disregard God's instructions.

Perhaps punishment is not eternal? But reward and life are eternal? Maybe.

Of course making assertions about Man having an immortal soul at conception (or before) is really a non-factor as to whether he eventually does live on immortally, since the argument is that "life" is granted later (at or after physical death).

I am trying to understand what practical difference the idea that man does not automatically have an eternal soul... how does it effect how one lives their life. Unless one accepts a version of nihilism I don't see how it makes a difference. And yes, I get that nihilism (how ever you get there) is sort of an "option plan" in this case. Where one can opt to go for eternal life (the double bonus round) or not. And really there is no real consequence or downside for not opting to be on God's side or to be trying to with God. What happens to the truly evil and hurtful people...nothing?

How is this position of nihilism not just as susceptible to the charge of "feel good" emotion based doctrine as is anything else? That it just makes the people feel better and therefore they are all for it like "faith only" or like notions where most everybody makes it to heaven no matter what (purgatory, many paths up the mountain, etc)?

[margin overa]

IIRC, Edward Fudge's conclusion was that the reprobate, unrepentant sinner would be punished, then destroyed; the one who had accepted God's grace would be "granted" immortality, as God alone is an immortal being. It's been a while since I read his book on hell.

[agricola]

So are yall arguing that there is no punishment or come-uppance for the wicked? That God will not take His vengeance and punish the evil for their deeds? Where is the "cosmic" justice that is supposed to motivate/convince one to let God handle things in Hs way? Why would Jesus tell the story of the rich man and Lazarus? It shows this notion of an overall justice being meted out and that there is a place a punishment in the afterlife and at least Jews were going there who disregard God's instructions.

Perhaps punishment is not eternal? But reward and life are eternal? Maybe.

Of course making assertions about Man having an immortal soul at conception (or before) is really a non-factor as to whether he eventually does live on immortally, since the argument is that "life" is granted later (at or after physical death).

I am trying to understand what practical difference the idea that man does not automatically have an eternal soul... how does it effect how one lives their life. Unless one accepts a version of nihilism I don't see how it makes a difference. And yes, I get that nihilism (how ever you get there) is sort of an "option plan" in this case. Where one can opt to go for eternal life (the double bonus round) or not. And really there is no real consequence or downside for not opting to be on God's side or to be trying to with God. What happens to the truly evil and hurtful people...nothing?

How is this position of nihilism not just as susceptible to the charge of "feel good" emotion based doctrine as is anything else? That it just makes the people feel better and therefore they are all for it like "faith only" or like notions where most everybody makes it to heaven no matter what (purgatory, many paths up the mountain, etc)?

Jesus' parable of Lazarus and the rich man was of course designed to teach a lesson, and it was taught in terms his audience would naturally 'get'. Ideas about there even BEING an afterlife came about only during/after the Babylonian exile - there is little or nothing (outside the book of Daniel, which is post exile anyway) that hints at their being any existence past this one.

The Sadducees denied that there even WAS an afterlife (and therefore had no teachings about what it was going to be like). The Pharisees (and popularization among the people generally) thought there WAS one - but exactly what it would be like was a raging discussion, because - of course - there was nothing written about it in the (existing at the time) scriptures.

Then you had the Greeks moving through the area with Alexander, followed by the Greek-influenced Romans, bringing their dualism (body/soul, material/spiritual) philosophy and their also already existing ideas about an afterlife (Hades, lord of the underworld, etc). So late Second Temple period Jews had plenty of examples to draw on, plus their own speculations.

Since Christianity, growing out of Judaism but largely in the Greco-Roman environment, has the doctrine of soul immortality, heaven and hell and judgment day (mostly Zoroastrian) and the idea of the division between the material/bodily world and the spiritual/soul world.

The NT books are a reasonably good source, in fact, for some of the variety of interpretations going on in that period of time - we don't have a lot written from that period. The docs in the Dead Sea collection present some ideas, and the Talmud collects ideas and sayings from the second temple period, but they weren't written down and compiled until around the third/fourth century CE by which time some ideas had won out over others, so probably the 'winners' got more prominent attention.


Judaism (modern) grew out of the same period and the same environment, but rejected the dualism philosophy which elevates the spiritual/soul above the material/body, and provisionally rejected the idea of soul immortality. Plus Judaism has a heaven concept (although not strongly developed in any particulars as to exactly what it consists of) and a limited purgatory concept, but no 'hell'. The soul that sins, dies - that is, the truly evil are not gifted with a resurrection. Judaism has no concept of an eternal punishment, nor is 'the devil' any kind of opponent to God in any meaningful way at all (in fact, the satan is one of God's angels, tasked with tempting humans to use their FREE WILL - either to choose the evil, or to choose the good - the story of Jesus in the wilderness and the devil tempting him is right in that tradition - the devil has no power to compel, only the ability to tempt).


There are some conflicting ideas about what happens at the end of time - some say that all people are resurrected FOR JUDGMENT but the truly evil just get - basically - their day in court and are sentenced and that's it. Others think the truly evil don't get resurrected at all - they just die once and that's the end of them. However, none of those ideas ever made it as far as getting any kind of official blessing. They exist, that's all. Even the concept of reincarnation of the soul into multiple bodies exists (and is a common motif in some kinds of kabbalah) but none of those ideas are any kind of official doctrine - they are 'hypotheses' that never became 'theory' (doctrine).

Christianity has the Revelation (book), but Judaism has no such 'official source' for the end days. This is not considered much of a problem, since our focus is directed on 'this world' which is the 'world of action' where we can actually make a difference.

[KLP]

There are more than just hints at a supernatural existence and a life after a physical death.

David had a strong belief in a life after death since he looked forward to being with his son. Saul looked to talk to the dead. God specifically told Abraham that he would go to his fathers in peace, people were gathered to their people...and that was not just about cemetery plot location. Isaiah speaks of the dead shall live. Enoch and Elijah were "translated" to a different life (not physical). Again, David in Psalms says that he will not be abandoned to the realm of the dead but will have eternal pleasure at Gods right hand. So there is a difference between the realm of the dead and those that are living with God.

But you are correct that many Jews had all sorts of various opinions and traditions about stuff but then that is not exactly news. David says he will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. In any case, bringing up Zoroastrian/Green/Roman really has no bearing on Nihilism being true or reality or whether or not David expected to have life after death. But yes, the history of various cultures is interesting.

[FCOCER]

I have decided my response to them will be, "I left one cult and have no desire to join another, thank you very much."