My personal belief: Yes, only Homo sapiens received the Original Blessing. This is when they also were given a Conscience, when sin became possible, and so this was misconstrued as Original Sin. It is reasonable to associate this with the invention of art, music and reverence for the dead, but the exact date may never be determined. If one must consider Genesis as essentially historical, it is not beyond reason to think that it was Adam and Eve that received the Original Blessing. I do not see any possible way this could ever be “testable forensic science”. As long as it is not ridiculous, I can accept it as partly based on Faith.
Al Leo
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This is a good answer, Albert. Very logical. Do you accept the concept that animals also have souls but are not immortal? Their souls die with the body as Aristotle believed. I must stop now. I am growing tired. Also, please read again my statement a little above. You too Patrick.
Please re-read my entry below. I have added some more. If everything has a soul as Aristotle believed, then that is not what determines if we are human. If Conditional Immortality is correct and all things have a soul and if the human soul becomes immortal only when we accept Christ, then non-Christians are not human. I do not believe that and neither do you. Therefore, there must be other things that make us human. Nicht Wahr?
Henry, I haven’t been intentionally ignoring you! But you’ll have to help me out with which of the many statements above in all 83 posts you wanted my reaction. If it was just over the general question of the thread about the nature of the human soul, I’ve lately tended to become suspicious of the strong dualism (bordering on gnosticism, I guess) that we seem to have inherited more from the Greeks than from Christ. As a gospel reader under the heavy recent influence of N.T. Wright, I’m thinking we Christians have too easily dismissed our bodily temple as somehow insignificant next to our eternal (disembodied) soul. I suspect we’ve lost something the original Hebrews had in their eschatology whereby God’s Kingdom is here right now already, even if not yet fully implemented. And that our bodies and this planet —in their new transformed versions anyway, are an inextricable part of our future in Christ. How that is reconciled with Jesus’ statement not to fear those who can only destroy the body, I’ve never been too sure about. That is among the main things that still gives me pause over this despite the overwhelming teachings of the rest of the gospels that we are to have resurrected bodies in that last time. It is all very far from clear for me, but I don’t lose much sleep over my ignorance on that front, since that also is in God’s domain, and trust goes a long way when it’s the creator of the universe you are trusting.
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One more thing … I didn’t mean to make it sound like there is a stark dichotomy between things that are of Greek origin and things of Christian origin. Jesus lived in a time in which there was already a heavy Hellenistic influence permeating much of society, and Jesus himself doesn’t seem to have repudiated that (…nor did Paul later). So it isn’t as if the “disembodied soul” concept is automatically wrong even if it did have Platonic origins. But it doesn’t easily get reconciled with everything that early apostles and gospel writers are teaching us either. So as usual, it seems to be complicated.
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The “them” I was humorously referring to were all the +40K year old species you all are bent out of shape about. Since my time machine is up on blocks in the back yard and I failed my classes in temporal mechanics, I’m stuck here in the present. But other than a few excursions into polygenism by a few wayward evolutionary enthusiasts of yesteryear, I’m not aware that anybody today has ever had any doubts or problems accepting all 7+ billion of us as 100% human, even if we don’t always live up to that in our actions. Thankfully Christan theology provides the light we need to be crystal clear about this.
Look up about three to five entries from your last entry to me. You may find it interesting even though you may not agree. I hope that helps. Just about five up from here above Albert’s statement. I mention Anglican Theologian Phillip Edgcomb Hughes in that entry. I will see everyone tomorrow. It has been a pleasure. I hope that helps. Good night friend. These scientists do not understand the concept of nephesh and psyche in the Bible. They do not refer to the Greek view of the soul.
Sorry I’ve been falling behind, Henry! You even addressed a question to me and I missed it. I may have already said much of what I need to say on this in my immediate responses above. But regarding your specific words above, I will add a few more thoughts.
I don’t hold to very many dogmas regarding such a difficult-to-define concept like the soul. But among some of the things I do hold would be this: God can do what God wants regarding whether a soul is destroyed, or is immortal, or something in between. Another thing that I believe is not true is that the soul is some specific thing (or occupies some specific gland) in the body. If the soul was an entirely physical manifestation of something, then it could be destroyed by people, and that would run contrary to Jesus’ words that you have quoted that nobody but God could kill a soul. If the soul were merely something physical, then any any martyr burned at the stake or person vaporized by a bomb would have also had their soul destroyed. But while I am fairly sure about that negative statement, it doesn’t get me much closer to any positive statement about what a soul is. Maybe it’s just our nebulously definitional way of referring to “all that’s most important” in a person’s identity. While I don’t believe the soul is merely physical, I don’t think that is the same as saying that our bodies are therefore relatively unimportant, though some Scriptures can certainly be cited toward that conclusion … (better to enter heaven maimed than not get in at all). I do believe our body is a holy temple in a very literal sense. It (for all 7+ billion of us) is the focal point of God being present on earth in the same way that the actual temple of Jerusalem used to be. If I were forced to make speculations right now on what a “soul” must be, it would probably have something to do with who we are in God, and so in that sense eternal.
I do appreciate and agree with your warnings, Henry, that eternity should not be confused with unending time. As you have said, even science a la Einstein, has blown the whole linear time thing out of the water. That alone should relieve us of notions that we can easily conflate eternity with some simple notion of an unending sequence of time. You are exactly right to question in what way can we see a sequence of events as being absolute in time. If I were a photon traversing the universe at the speed of light, then the whole history of time from big bang to … [end of universe?] would all have flown by in an instant flash – all “events” happening at once! The YECs “history of time” would be about 6000 years too big! Try that on for size.
I don’t harbor much dogma on these things at the physical level (much less the metaphysical level) since science has shown us rather how ignorant we are (quite far from the naive assessment that we have closing gaps). A more accurate picture of affairs is that we advance only to encounter vastly huger gaps than we had been aware of before. Even if God were merely a god of the gaps (and this is easily refuted at nearly every level), even so --it seems utter hubris to me to think that gaps are disappearing.
There … hopefully among all that ramble I managed to hit on something of what you wanted to discuss, Henry. But if not, I look forward to reading your responses and responding further as I can.
Blessings to you and your family.
Your reasoning is great. I am glad you read them and appreciate them. It is always good to hear from you, Melvin. Take care and I shall see everyone tomorrow. I am reading several books now including studying Greek Language Tools by William Mounce and reading two German novels. My Nancy should be home soon.
God bless.
That’s always the million dollar question, isn’t it?
I honestly don’t spend that much time thinking about immortal souls. I have never found the various Sunday school lessons I’ve sat through with concentric circle diagrams separating the soul/spirit/body and delineating the various death and life points of each human component to be all that edifying or biblical.
I think there is a material reality and an intersecting and overlapping spiritual reality. We are more than the sum of our physical parts and our chemical reactions and electrical nerve impulses. Whether you call that “more” a soul or a spirit or a mind or a life force or the essence of humanity, it’s mostly semantics to me.
I think the Bible clearly challenges us to hope in the final resurrection, where believers are promised eternal material bodies. What happens to our soul/spirit/mind when we die and until that time, I don’t know, and I don’t think Scripture is clear. Maybe we are released from time and jump to the final resurrection. Maybe there is some sort of “soul sleep.” Maybe we are present with God in some disembodied form until the Paraousia. I think all the theories we could come up with are guesses.
I believe we will all face judgment and the righteous will be vindicated and justice will prevail. I don’t see how the popular “love wins” idea is all that vindicating. But on the other hand, most days, I would like to believe that eternal conscious torment of the damned is a misunderstanding. Again, I think most theories about hell and judgment are guesses.
Eddie didn’t like the last time I used the word “guess” to describe anyone’s well thought-out theological position, so I’ll clarify that I don’t think such theories are “just a guess” but I do think they involve a good deal of conjecture, assumption, and hypothesizing and “guess” is the best English word I can come up with.
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I like your response. I believe that when my parents passed from time into eternity, they were at the Second Advent of Christ. I wrote my father’s funeral in 1985; however, another clergyman delivered it. I based the Scripture on 2 Corinthians 5:1-10. When he finished my sermon, he looked at me and said: It is my belief that today, Charles Miller, aged 56 years, has now a new body. Dr. J. P. Moreland, a former seminary professor of mine, calls this the Perspectival View. I tend to call it instantaneous resurrection. I helped a professor who was writing his Ph.D. dissertation on this subject. He dedicated a page to me. I am not feeling well now; therefore, I wish you adieu for this evening. I do not believe in soul sleep because of too many verses that I could name to support the immediate going to Christ. When you have experienced the death of someone you loved, it does make a difference. I know from experience. Believe me, it makes a difference. I appreciate your kind response.
Near-death experience in survivors of cardiac arrest: a prospective study in the Netherlands
http://profezie3m.altervista.org/archivio/TheLancet_NDE.htm
division of Cardiology, Hospital Rijnstate, Arnhem, Netherlands (P van Lommel MD); Tilburg, Netherlands (R van Wees PhD); Nijmegen, Netherlands (V Meyers PhD); and Capelle a/d Ijssel, Netherlands (I Elfferich PhD)
“During a night shift an ambulance brings in a 44-year-old cyanotic, comatose man into the coronary care unit. He had been found about an hour before in a meadow by passers-by. After admission, he receives artificial respiration without intubation, while heart massage and defibrillation are also applied. When we want to intubate the patient, he turns out to have dentures in his mouth. I remove these upper dentures and put them onto the ‘crash car’. Meanwhile, we continue extensive CPR. After about an hour and a half the patient has sufficient heart rhythm and blood pressure, but he is still ventilated and intubated, and he is still comatose. He is transferred to the intensive care unit to continue the necessary artificial respiration. Only after more than a week do I meet again with the patient, who is by now back on the cardiac ward. I distribute his medication. The moment he sees me he says: ‘Oh, that nurse knows where my dentures are’. I am very surprised. Then he elucidates: ‘Yes, you were there when I was brought into hospital and you took my dentures out of my mouth and put them onto that car, it had all these bottles on it and there was this sliding drawer underneath and there you put my teeth.’ I was especially amazed because I remembered this happening while the man was in deep coma and in the process of CPR. When I asked further, it appeared the man had seen himself lying in bed, that he had perceived from above how nurses and doctors had been busy with CPR. He was also able to describe correctly and in detail the small room in which he had been resuscitated as well as the appearance of those present like myself. At the time that he observed the situation he had been very much afraid that we would stop CPR and that he would die. And it is true that we had been very negative about the patient’s prognosis due to his very poor medical condition when admitted. The patient tells me that he desperately and unsuccessfully tried to make it clear to us that he was still alive and that we should continue CPR. He is deeply impressed by his experience and says he is no longer afraid of death. 4 weeks later he left hospital as a healthy man.”
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The account distinctly describes what occultists have for so long referred to as etheric projection (projection of the etheric body). This subtle body (the etheric body) normally exists in coincidence with the physical body but upon death separates from it as the physical body relinquishes its hold upon it—this experience is sometimes referred to as giving up the ghost.
During a near-death experience, as the etheric body is separated from the physical body (also called an out-of-body experience), the individual with vivid visualization abilities will be able to see his/her physical body lying there (including the immediate surroundings) from this exteriorized position—focus of consciousness must necessarily be directed from the phantom body. This is precisely why having vivid visualization abilities is a major factor in successfully experiencing an “out-of-body experience.”
Under “Interpretation” in the “Summary” to the study done in the Netherlands we read; “We do not know why so few cardiac patients report NDE after CPR.” Well… cerebral anoxia is a condition that refers to oxygen loss in the brain, however, oxygen loss is not a factor in self induced out-of-body experience—vivid visualization abilities are! This factor is somewhat touched on in the “Introduction” section of the paper;
“Such experiences could also be linked to a changing state of consciousness (transcendence), in which perception, cognitive functioning, emotion, and sense of identity function independently from normal body-linked waking consciousness.” The Lancet: Near-death experience in survivors of cardiac arrest
How can you see from a phantom body that hasn’t yet learned to see? It cannot be done! And whether the experiences are strictly internal such as—seeing a tunnel, a light, deceased relatives, or a life review, these as well require “vivid visualization abilities.” This is a similar reason as to why so many people almost never remember their dreams—they hardly have any vivid visualization abilities. So, this should explain why “so few cardiac patients report NDE after CPR.”
Interestingly, there are extensively profound techniques that facilitate the out-of-body experience without having to go through a near-death experience or experiencing death itself. When so desired, the person can simply and easily return to his physical body without any harm done whatsoever. However, the training and experience is not for the faint-hearted.
Through extensive study and profound consideration on these difficult matters I have reached a definite conclusion—with death of the physical body the etheric body loses its vehicle for existence and therefore dissipates into the fabric of space and time.
What we call the soul (psyche) is something altogether different from what the etheric body is. The soul is what continues to exist in the souls of those who remain—particularly, our children. Through DNA and psychological characteristics information soul is passed on to our children. As I recall, this is why on numerous occasions, as a child, my mother referred to me as her soul—l’anima mia. It would seem that some individuals instinctively understand something that others don’t. Just recently we heard Vice President Joe Biden refer to his son, Beau, as his soul. http://www.people.com/article/joe-biden-beau-biden-death-cancer-research
So… considering the title question above, “Do Humans Have a Non-Physical Soul? (And How Does Modern Science Affect the Question?),” my answer is—Yes, humans have a non-physical soul, but it’s not what most people believe it is—the soul is the genetic and the psychological information that makes an individual the person that he or she is. Modern science (biology and psychology) would do well to clarify what is implied by the term soul, this way, the question can be appropriately answered. Therefore, @BradKramer this is the way I see how modern science affects the question.
Tony
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I could turn around and simply say that because our lives are finite, nothing we do will matter in the end. Everything is vanity and we are to be pitied above all creatures because we are acutely aware of what we have to lose. Our children’s beautiful smiles, experiences, hopes and dreams will be snuffed out and that will be the end of them. Only darkness will remain.
THAT is the reality of a World without Christian hope.
And I find that unacceptable.
We can’t. Mainstream modern theological scholarship on this subject is instructive.
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‘Twentieth century biblical scholarship largely agrees that the ancient Jews had little explicit notion of a personal afterlife until very late in the Old Testament period. Immortality of the soul was a typically Greek philosophical notion quite foreign to the thought of ancient Semitic peoples. Only the latest stratum of the Old Testament asserts even the resurrection of the body, a view more congenial to Semites.’, Donelley, ‘Calvinism and Scholasticism in Vermigli’s doctrine of man and grace’, p. 99 (1976); note that this was written over 30 years ago, and the academic consensus has only strengthened on the issue.
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‘For a Hebrew, ‘soul’ indicated the unity of a human person; Hebrews were living bodies, they did not have bodies. This Hebrew field of meaning is breached in the Wisdom of Solomon by explicit introduction of Greek ideas of soul. A dualism of soul and body is present: ‘a perishable body weighs down the soul’ (9:15). This perishable body is opposed by an immortal soul (3:1-3). Such dualism might imply that soul is superior to body. In the nt, ‘soul’ retains its basic Hebrew field of meaning. Soul refers to one’s life: Herod sought Jesus’ soul (Matt. 2:20); one might save a soul or take it (Mark 3:4). Death occurs when God ‘requires your soul’ (Luke 12:20). ‘Soul’ may refer to the whole person, the self: ‘three thousand souls’ were converted in Acts 2:41 (see Acts 3:23). Although the Greek idea of an immortal soul different in kind from the mortal body is not evident, ‘soul’ denotes the existence of a person after death (see Luke 9:25; 12:4; 21:19); yet Greek influence may be found in 1 Peter’s remark about ‘the salvation of souls’ (1:9). A moderate dualism exists in the contrast of spirit with body and even soul, where ‘soul’ means life that is not yet caught up in grace. See also Flesh and Spirit; Human Being.’, Neyrey, ‘Soul’, in Achtemeier, Harper, & Row (eds.), ‘Harper’s Bible Dictionary’, pp. 982-983 (1st ed. 1985).
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‘Indeed, the salvation of the “immortal soul” has sometimes been a commonplace in preaching, but it is fundamentally unbiblical. Biblical anthropology is not dualistic but monistic: human being consists in the integrated wholeness of body and soul, and the Bible never contemplates the disembodied existence of the soul in bliss.’, Myers (ed.), ‘The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary’, p. 518 (1987).
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‘A particular instance of the Heb. avoidance of dualism is the biblical doctrine of man. Greek thought, and in consequence many Hellenizing Jewish and Christian sages, regarded the body as a prison-house of the soul: sōma sēma ‘the body is a tomb’. The aim of the sage was to achieve deliverance from all that is bodily and thus liberate the soul. But to the Bible man is not a soul in a body but a body/soul unity; so true is this that even in the resurrection, although flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, we shall still have bodies (1 Cor. 15:35ff.).’, Cressey, ‘Dualism’, in Cressey, Wood, & Marshall (eds.), ‘New Bible Dictionary’, p. 284 (3rd. ed. 1996).
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‘Modern scholarship has underscored the fact that Hebrew and Greek concepts of soul were not synonymous. While the Hebrew thought world distinguished soul from body (as material basis of life), there was no question of two separate, independent entities. A person did not have a body but was an animated body, a unit of life manifesting itself in fleshly form—a psychophysical organism (Buttrick, 1962). Although Greek concepts of the soul varied widely according to the particular era and philosophical school, Greek thought often presented a view of the soul as a separate entity from body. Until recent decades Christian theology of the soul has been more reflective of Greek (compartmentalized) than Hebrew (unitive) ideas.’, Moon, ‘Soul’, in Benner & Hill (eds.), ‘Baker encyclopedia of psychology & counseling, p. 1148 (2nd ed. 1999).
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‘Even as we are conscious of the broad and very common biblical usage of the term “soul,” we must be clear that Scripture does not present even a rudimentarily developed theology of the soul. The creation narrative is clear that all life originates with God. Yet the Hebrew Scripture offers no specific understanding of the origin of individual souls, of when and how they become attached to specific bodies, or of their potential existence, apart from the body, after death. The reason for this is that, as we noted at the beginning, the Hebrew Bible does not present a theory of the soul developed much beyond the simple concept of a force associated with respiration, hence, a life-force.’, Avery-Peck, ‘Soul’, in Neusner, et al. (eds.), ‘The Encyclopedia of Judaism’, p. 1343 (2000).
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‘Gn. 2:7 refers to God forming Adam ‘from the dust of the ground’ and breathing ‘into his nostrils the breath of life’, so that man becomes a ‘living being’. The word ‘being’ translates the Hebrew word nep̄eš which, though often translated by the Eng. word ‘soul’, ought not to be interpreted in the sense suggested by Hellenistic thought (see Platonism; Soul, Origin of). It should rather be understood in its own context within the OT as indicative of men and women as living beings or persons in relationship to God and other people. The lxx translates this Heb. word nep̄eš with the Gk. word psychē, which explains the habit of interpreting this OT concept in the light of Gk. use of psychē. Yet it is surely more appropriate to understand the use of psychē (in both the lxx and the NT) in the light of the OT’s use of nep̄eš. According to Gn. 2, any conception of the soul as a separate (and separable) part or division of our being would seem to be invalid. Similarly, the popular debate concerning whether human nature is a bipartite or tripartite being has the appearance of a rather ill-founded and unhelpful irrelevancy. The human person is a ‘soul’ by virtue of being a ‘body’ made alive by the ‘breath’ (or ‘Spirit’) of God.’, Ferguson & Packer (eds.),’New Dictionary of Theology’, pp. 28-29 (electronic ed. 2000).
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‘Far from referring simply to one aspect of a person, “soul” refers to the whole person. Thus, a corpse is referred to as a “dead soul,” even though the word is usually translated “dead body” (Lev. 21:11; Num. 6:6). “Soul” can also refer to a person’s very life itself 1 Kgs. 19:4; Ezek. 32:10).“Soul” often refers by extension to the whole person.’, Carrigan, ‘Soul’, Freedman, Myers, & Beck (eds.) ‘Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible’, p. 1245 (2000).
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‘There is no suggestion in the OT of the transmigration of the soul as an immaterial, immortal entity. Man is a unity of body and soul—terms that describe not so much two separate entities in a person as much as one person from different standpoints. Hence, in the description of man’s creation in Genesis 2:7, the phrase “a living soul” (kjv) is better translated as “a living being.”’, Elwell & Comfort (eds.), ‘Tyndale Bible dictionary, p. 1216 (2001).
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‘It has been noted already that the soul, like the body, derives from God. This implies that man is composed of soul and body, and the Bible makes it plain that this is so. The soul and the body belong together, so that without either the one or the other there is no true man. Disembodied existence in Sheol is unreal. Paul does not seek a life outside the body, but wants to be clothed with a new and spiritual body (1 Cor. 15; 2 Cor. 5).’, Bromiley, ‘Psychology’, in Bromiley, ‘The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia’, volume 3, p. 1045 (rev. ed. 2002).
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‘Nor is any place left for dualism. Soul and body are not separate entities which are able to work in concert by virtue of a preestablished harmony (Leibniz).’ , ibid., p. 1045.
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‘All Christians believe in immortality, understood as a final resurrection to everlasting life. The majority have held that immortality also includes continuing existence of the soul or person between death and resurrection. Almost every detail of this general confession and its biblical basis, however, has been disputed. The debate has been fueled by the development of beliefs about the afterlife within the Bible itself and the variety of language in which they are expressed. The Hebrew Bible does not present the human soul (nepeš) or spirit (rûah) as an immortal substance, and for the most part it envisions the dead as ghosts in Sheol, the dark, sleepy underworld. Nevertheless it expresses hope beyond death (see Pss. 23 and 49:15) and eventually asserts physical resurrection (see Isa. 26:19; Dan. 12:2).’, Cooper, ‘Immortality’, in Fahlbusch & Bromiley (eds.), ‘The Encyclopedia of Christianity’, volume 2, p. (2003).
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‘soul. The idea of a distinction between the soul, the immaterial principle of life and intelligence, and the body is of great antiquity, though only gradually expressed with any precision. Hebrew thought made little of this distinction, and there is practically no specific teaching on the subject in the Bible beyond an underlying assumption of some form of afterlife (see immortality)., Cross & Livingstone, (eds.), ‘The Oxford dictionary of the Christian Church’, p. 1531 (3rd rev. ed. 2005).
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‘The English translation of nepeš by the term “soul” has too often been misunderstood as teaching a bipartite (soul and body—dichotomy) or tripartite (body, soul, and spirit—trichotomy) anthropology. Equally misleading is the interpretation that too radically separates soul from body as in the Greek view of human nature. See body; spirit. N. Porteous (in IDB, 4:428) states it well when he says, “The Hebrew could not conceive of a disembodied nepeš, though he could use nepeš with or without the adjective ‘dead,’ for corpse (e.g., Lev. 19:28; Num. 6:6).” Or as R. B. Laurin has suggested, “To the Hebrew, man was not a ‘body’ and a ‘soul,’ but rather a ‘body-soul,’ a unit of vital power” (BDT, 492). In this connection, the most significant text is Gen. 2:7, “the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life [nišmat hayyîm], and the man became a living being [nepeš hayyâ]” (the KJV rendering “living soul” is misleading).’, Lake, ‘Soul’, in Silva & Tenney (eds.), ‘The Zondervan Encyclopedia of the Bible’, volume 5, p. 586 (rev. ed. 2009).
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‘What is essential to understanding the Hebrew mind is the recognition that the human being is a unit: body-soul! The soul is not, therefore, unaffected by the experience of death. OT eschatology does indeed contain seminal elements of hope implying the more positive teaching of the NT, as can be seen in the OT phrase, “rested with his fathers” (1 Ki. 2:10 et al.), in David’s confident attitude toward the death of his child (2 Sam. 12:12–23), and in Job’s hope for a resurrection (Job 19:20–29). It is this essential soul-body oneness that provides the uniqueness of the biblical concept of the resurrection of the body as distinguished from the Greek idea of the immortality of the soul.’, ibid., p. 587.
It means we need to start taking resurrection seriously.
It makes an immortal soul irrelevant.
Perhaps the most impressive statement by Paul in the New Testament is his describing a future time when men and women rise up to meet Jesus in the sky - - and he admits that he does not know whether these men and women had bodies of matter or of spirit.
And we can understand why Paul could not decide. He was raised a Pharisee … and raised to believe that the afterlife was a PHYSICAL reality.
And yet, during the same age, the Essene view of the afterlife invoked a NON-MATERIAL state of the afterlife … where the SOUL was made of SPIRITUAL matter.
When we read Josephus, we might find the various terms and explanations to be somewhat confusing … but out of his writings we can piece together the difference between the views of the Pharisees and those of the Essenes.
The Zealots of Masada might arguably be considered different from the Essenes. But it is in this group that Josephus phrases the most amazing speech … a speech which may not have actually happened… but a speech which, nonetheless, demonstrates the existence of a most amazing theology: that immaterial souls immediately (or after 3 days?) rise up from the dead body to go to a blessed place… a place where they continue to worship God … and wait for the fullness of his revelations.
More details of this scenario can be found in the work called “History of the Rechabites” - - which appears to be a Jewish writing which had a Christianized beginning and ending appended to it.
I frequently ponder the irony that the most commonly rendered version of the fate of the human soul, in Western Civilization, is the ESSENE version … rather than the PHARISAIC one. While some Evangelical or Fundamentalist writers draw the general literary arc that people’s souls slumber until the End of Days, the POPULAR notion of the soul is that it moves on to a spiritual existence - - and THERE the soul waits for the End of the Universe.
I believe @Jonathan_Burke intuitively rejects the Zoroastrian mysticism that came to infuse the post Exilic mindset of messianic Jews… I am very sympathetic… But of course, for you to be sympathetic as well, you would have to agree that Zoroastrian mysticism is a real component of Christianity…
Could you be clearer please? Are you saying the sources I cited do not reflect mainstream theological scholarship?
I don’t adopt that view at all.