My argument centres around the Septuagint (LXX). For those of you who may not know, the LXX is the Koine Greek translation of the OT. It is well known as a generally poor translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, but it has value to us in several ways:
First of all, because Greek was the language of the day, the LXX was the "Bible" used by Jesus, the disciples, and the early church. If you've ever run into a passage in the NT where it is quoting the OT but the wording isn't quite right when compared to the actual OT passage, that's because they were quoting the LXX, not the original Hebrew.
Secondly, the LXX is very helpful in bridging the cultural gap that I referred to last week. In the NT, especially the Gospels, we have Greek language but Hebrew culture. How do we know which is which? The fact is that a lot of our NT lingo is actually OT lingo, we just don't know it. When we look at the LXX we see words like "church (ecclesia)" and "baptism (baptizo)," which we normally think of as NT concepts. So when Jesus says "church" he wasn't coining a new phrase. He was using the LXX term for OT worship gathering. When the NT writers say "baptism" they are using the OT LXX term for ritual purification (ie. Naaman,2Kg5:10).
The LXX is our linguistic bridge between the OT and the NT.
The reason that this is pertinent to our "soul" discussion is because of the relationship between NEPHESH (Hebrew "soul") and PSYCHE (Greek "soul"). The LXX translates the Hebrew word NEPHESH as PSYCHE. So when a NT writer uses the term PSYCHE he is not identifying "soul" with Greek dualism but with the OT monistic concept of NEPHESH. This is highlighted by Lev. 21:11 (ESV) -"[A Priest] shall not go in to any dead bodies nor make himself unclean..." What is interesting about this verse is that the word "bodies" is actually the word NEPHESH.
But not only is this a "dead NEPHESH" but in the LXX it is a "dead PSYCHE!"
A dead "soul?" That doesn't work from a dualistic perspective, does it?
This link between NEPHESH and PSYCHE is solidified by NT Wright:
“… the word soul is rare in this [dualistic] sense in the early Christian writings. The word PSYCHE was very common in the ancient world and carried a variety of meanings … the New Testament doesn’t use it to describe, so to speak, the bit of you that will ultimately be saved. The word PSYCHE seems here to refer, like the Hebrew NEPHESH, not to a disembodied inner part of the human being but to what we might call the person or even the personality” ("Surprised by Hope" 152).
The fact is that (I would argue) there is no Biblical precedent for dualism. When we see soul (PSYCHE) in the NT it is referring to the OT concept of a holistic being: the spiritual and physical as one integrous being. Yes, we see Paul talking about the battle between the physical and the spiritual aspects of our being but that is part of us as humans living the the tension of how God created us. Remember, Paul was a Pharisee. Odds are he was referring to PSYCHE as NEPHESH and not Plato's kind of PSYCHE.
Sorry for the long scholastic rant.
What do you think?
Are there any other aspects of this that we should be taking a look at?
14 comments:
Thanks for the continuation on the conversation of "Soulless.
I am particularly intrigued by what N.T Wright says in 'Surprised by Hope' & I would like to know more. Does Wright go into more detail? If so I would be interested in reading what he has to say.
Also I am curious about how Wright & Murphy differ (or agree) on the use and popularity of PSYCHE.
Hmm.. So are you saying that the Jewish people reading the LXX would have recognized the word "psyche" as referring to their concept of "nephesh"? This makes me want to think of "psyche" in the Hebrew sense to align myself with the Bible, but how can I slay the dualism paradigm so prevalent in Western society and in my own mind and replace it? Is that a necessary outcome?
As usually happens in academic pursuits the deeper I get into this the less sense it makes. What is the relevance? Is it that the eternal part of us is everything (body, soul, and whatever else)?
Is that picture supposed to be a representation of Jewish and Greek worldviews? I'm guessing the Jewish is the purple blob and stick one and the Greek is the series of individual ordered dots.
Also I was doing some Greek reading the other day and "ekklesia" came up in the passage and it just meant "assembly". No implication of religiousness. In fact, in the passage I was reading it was political meeting.
Thank you Heather. I must admit you articulated much more clearly what I was thinking and trying to get across.
Tim, what are your thoughts? Especially on Heather's question about the word "ekklesia"? I only noted a difference in spelling. Is this significant?
Thanks guys,
Unfortunately I'm going to have to post my "relevance" post to next week so I'll deal with that later... if that's OK with you.
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As for my "ecclesia" vs. Heather's "ekklesia" they are the same thing. Her transliteration is probably more correct, though. Theologians tend to use mine because of latin influence.
And yes, ekklesia simply means "assembly" or "gathering" or "congregation" etc. In and of itself it has no religious connotations. However, both in the NT and in the OT LXX it is used almost exclusively to describe gatherings where people come together to worship. So, it is its usage, not its literal definition, that gives it the religious overtone.
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Yes, I am saying that the Jewish Christians of the early church would have equated PSYCHE with NEPHESH because of the LXX connection. That, combined with their Jewish worldview, would have sealed the deal.
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I don't know if Murphy and Wright are totally on the same page, but they're pretty close. I read some random guy's article about how he was taking a class of Murphy's at Fuller and she brought in Wright as a guest speaker. This guy seemed to think that they were saying pretty much the same thing, Wright just focused more on Biblical Theology (obviously).
I haven't seen Murphy get into the whole PSYCHE/NEPHESH thing. She focuses more on the philosophical, neuro-biological, and psychological aspects of all this.
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Yes, I am saying that the eternal part of us includes a physical body. Just as Christ was raised with a physical body so we shall be raised with a physical body.
We shall not cease to be human in the ressurection. Being human means that the spiritual and the physical are bound together.
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What do you think?
Is there anything else?
Is there something here that you'd like to see a little more fleshed out?
What's the whole point in this conversation? Does it change who I am, in essence, in relation to God? This just doesn't seem like something that would be detrimental to my faith. But I could be wrong.
As for selling my soul, I don't think I will. If I didn't have anyone to play with, as in the Simpsons version of the afterlife, I'd be about as useless as I am now! But worse, because my dualistic self would be singular, and how sad would that be.
Is "ekklesia then used in non-Christian worship sense as well? For example, pagan worship or worship to one's sovereign (king/queen).
I do not think that there is any relevance (Lisa) to "selling your soul" in this conversation. At least from my understanding the debate is focused on the biblical & societal idea of the soul in general. As for being detrimental to your faith, ultimately that is for you to decide. You and God must wrestle through what will challenge your faith.
For some reason I sense that next weeks post on 'relevance' will be of particular interest & may spark a lot of debate. But we shall see...
I'm not sure if I can answer your "ekklesia" question, Jared. My understanding is that the word's religious meaning is only tied to it's Biblical context. Outside of the Bible I don't know that it is used in any other way than a generic "gathering." Heather might be more qualified to speak to this.
I think you're right about next week's post. Everyone, start thinkin about how this is/isn't relevent to your life!
Okay so here is what I found out about "ekklesia" or Ἐκκλησία. In Greek is almost strictly used to refer to a political gathering. It is another example of compounding (Greek just loves compound verbs) where the preposition "ek-" meaning "out of" is paired with "kaleo" meaning "to call out" (where have I seen this before?) So basically it means "to call out" or "the gathering of the ones summoned" as the Encyclopedia Britannica puts it. The Athenian Ekklesia was a public assembly where men over the age of 18 would meet to discuss and vote on political matters. In Greek texts it is almost used exclusively to refer to these political meetings. It is apparently used in 3 rare cases to refer to a religious meeting outside of the bible, but most often writers preferred other words to refer to Hellenic worship of the gods. Most likely everyone hearing the work "ekklesia" living under Greek rule would not have associated it with Greek cultic practices. Their first thought would be of the Athenian political assembly.
Thank you Heather! Your explanation was very enlightening. In particular I found that "ekklesia" was primarily used in a political sense.
I'm still wondering about the 2 heads in your picture for this week. What do they mean?
I dunno. I just "google imaged" the word "soul" and this was one of the pictures.
I think one is supposed to represent the physical, souless, athiestic perspective (with all of the nerves and stuff) and the other is supposed to represent the spiritual perspective (with light? radiating)... or something like that.
I dunno, I just made that up. Maybe we can turn this into a conversation about art.
What do you see?
Well I thought that maybe the purple one with the interconnected ball and sticks might represent a Jewish mindset because of their view of people with regards to their family unit and not so much as individuals. And the one with all of the nicely arranged yellow dots I thought might represent the Greek people. They seem to be more organized and individualistic.
But that's just a theory
Hey Tim, great to see you taking up such an interesting topic. I had the privilege of listening to Murphy lecture for a week this past the September in Prague. This was by far the topic that generated the most discussion (read: disagreement) among students.
If it's any consolation, I too became convinced that it's a very relevant topic. She helped me a bit when she distinguished between an 'ontological' view of the soul (some 'thing' that's inside us somewhere) and an 'aspective' view of the soul (the things that we associate with the soul- consciousness, emotions, hope etc. - are aspects of how God created us).
She saw this as a viable 'middle position' for those who weren't prepared to walk away from belief in the soul while recognizing many of the biblical idiosyncrasies that you helpfully survey in your post (e.g. the influence of Greek dualism on our theology).
For me the lingering question here (especially after reading Surprised By Hope) is what happens to us between death and resurrection? What is the 'us' that is, to use Wright's language, 'safe with God' while we await the resurrection?
In Murphy's case, it seems to me that her movement away from belief in the soul has strengthened her commitment to the bodily resurrection as the hallmark of Christian belief. All in all it was a fascinating series of lectures, my brain hadn't been stretched that far in a long, long time.
Thanks, Gil. It's great to get someone's input that has actually spoken with Murphy. I'm afraid I know only enough to probably misrepresent her ideas.
Jared bought one of her books, so now I can pester him with questions until he lets me borrow it!
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