Atheist Bible Study 1: Genesis

[tackattack]

I posted nothing that did not relate to the topic at hand. It was immortality in Hebrew culture.

Quoting the OP Grandizer I was just attempting to play by his rules when he stated "Anyway, since this is about Genesis and not any of the other books in the Bible, that's all I'll say here on this matter. "

1. Hebrews did believe in what is commonly referred to as a soul. It is the Spirit and is breath of God called nefesh, it is the breath and what animates us. I didn't say that Hebrews were substance dualists, because they weren't. They believed in a spirit and a body and that the 2 were inseparable. The breath of God (nefesh) was breathed into us by God and animates our flesh.

No references, no citations. Dismissed. They did not believe in "souls'. You have no reference to substantiate that claim. The "breath of God" did animate them, and when that breath left, they were stone cold dead. No souls. They did NOT believe in personal immortality, (as anyone knows who has actually studied ancient Hebrew culture). It CHANGED, and we know why, and when ... apparently you don't. 

The sadducees of Roman Judah did deny the existent of an afterlife. Ancient Judaism was practical in nature and there was no determined dogma on the afterlife. Much later it was developed and argued over - reference chabad.org . However we are talking about part of the soul that transcends death. The nefesh does go to the grave with the body in ancient belief. However, there is a level to souls in kabbalistic belief. I suggest you reference Yechida.
"Until, with the help of the screen, his black point, reaches the size of a small Partzuf, man is considered to have no soul, no Kli, and naturally, no light in him. The presence of even the smallest spiritual Partzuf, having the lights of Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya, Yechida (NaRaNHaY), indicates man’s birth and his leaving of the animal state (which we are used to consider human, by the way).

Man refers to man such a spiritual state where one has already passed the spiritual barrier (Machsom) separating this world from the spiritual one, the world of Assiya; i.e., one who has acquired the spiritual Kli called the soul. " reference

3. From your own cited definition "and "Gehenna" therefore soon became a figurative equivalent for "hell." Hell, like paradise, was created by God (Soṭah 22a); according to Gen. R. ix. 9, the words "very good" in Gen. i. 31 refer to hell; hence the latter must have been created on the sixth day. " and "The "fiery furnace" that Abraham saw (Gen. xv. 17, Hebr.) was Gehenna (Mek. xx. 18b, 71b; comp. Enoch, xcviii. 3, ciii. 8; Matt. xiii. 42, 50; 'Er. 19a, where the "fiery furnace" is also identified with the gate of Gehenna)."

So nothing like hell hunh...

LOL. You can't possibly be serious. Again, IF you had ever studied that culture you would know how ignorant you are coming across. You also did not read the links I provided. 
I PROVED my point ... I don't have to make it again. 

I did read the link and cited a quote from it. If you choose to cherry pick your own source that's on you not me.

4. Just so I cite your same source http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/7440-heaven When I talked about the high place I was referring to shamayim.
"It is the dwelling-place of God, from which He looks down upon all the inhabitants of the earth (Ps. xi. 4; xxxiii. 13, 14), though the heavens and heaven's heaven do not contain Him (Isa. lxvi. 1; I Kings viii. 27). It is the dwelling-place also of the angels (Gen. xxi. 17, xxii. 11, xxviii. 12). From heaven comes the rain, the hail, and the lightning (Gen. viii. 2, xix. 24; Ex. ix. 23; Deut. xi. 11; Job xxxviii. 37). Yhwh, the God of Israel, is eminently the God of heaven "  Do I need to look up Gan Eden and Gehinnom as well for you?

So nothing like heaven hunh....

You are (again) kidding, right ? No one said there was no heaven ... I said heaven is NOT where dead shades went. Heaven was where the divine beings lived, (and since you know NOTHING about the current state of academic wok on the subject, there are all sorts of papers written on the concepts of divine beings and who lived in heaven ... it was NOT dead human shades.)

OK so you agree there is a concept of Heaven, deny your own source that hell is a thing, and we agree that Jews believed their dead shades went to a place called Sheol. But you still believe you are congruent that there is no afterlife belief of the Jews? ... hrmm.. seems like I'm not the one confused. Really though it makes sense that a theological non-cognitivist views of God being nonsense are confused.

5. They did believe all of the dead, good and bad go to sheol, but I believe your google search, cherry picking definition missed the concept of why they were there.
Allow me to show you using your own source even though there's plenty more

"After death, the soul separates from the body and either goes straight to heaven (Gan Eden) or makes a stop in hell (Gehinnom) to purge itself of sins. In the End of Days, the Messiah will gather the Jewish exiles to Israel and the Temple will be rebuilt. Some time later, the dead will be resurrected and reunited with their souls. This new, perfected universe is known as the World to Come.This is a common–yet too simplistic–presentation of Jewish eschatology " - https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article...ssiah-101/

While they may not really concern themselves with eschatology because they believe in both punishment and reward in both this world, and the world to come, it's clearly a thing.
You should check out some kosher kabbalah if you're interested in jewish eschatology - https://www.chabad.org/kabbalah/article_...us-221.htm

You cherry picked that from the "Messianic" section and they did NOT all (far from it) believe in messianism, as they do not today. Messianism was a minority position.  
We know when (and why) messianism arose ... it was a VERY late development. Fail. 

You're not doing so well here. 
You should ask your fundy school for your money back.

It is agreed among scholars, that one of the reasons the Hebrews had no interest in individual immortality, (no "souls" was that the surrounding religious practices of other Canaanite communities, held that the dead were powerful, and remained "present". They "ate" with them, they thought of them as a continued presence. They were a threat to monotheism. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_F._Segal
In Segal's "Life After Death, a History of the Afterlife in the Religions of the West", (also quoted in Dr. BB Scott's "The Trouble With Resurrection" ... a Christian seminary professor of NT) he wrote "That the Bible LACKS a concrete narrative of the afterlife, as we have seen so often manifested in the (pagan) cultures around it, must, we suspect, not just be accidental or deficient; it must be part of the Biblical polemic against its environment....Practically every scholar who systematically surveys the oldest sections of the Biblical text is impressed with the lack of a beatific notion of the hereafter for anyone (p.121) 

You really should read both those books before you say anything more.

We know that when Saul had the Witch of Endor, conjure the shade of Samuel, (in Judges) he asked her, "What do you see ?" (only witches could see/recognize dead shades), she said "I see a DIVINE being, arising from the Earth".
The entire incident says worlds about how and what they thought about the dead, and dead shades.

https://www.bridgesforpeace.com/article/...e_naphash/

"Naphash is from the same root as another Hebrew word that appears over 700 times in the Scriptures. That word is nephesh, and it is a highly significant biblical term. It is often translated “soul”as well as heart, person, life, and mind. Although these terms make sense in many instances, the word is problematic in others simply because there is really no English equivalent to its real Hebrew meaning. To the Western thinker, the word “soul” usually relates to the inner person or the spirit of a man and is often contrasted with the outer man or the body. However, according to Vine’s Expository Dictionary, these oppositional concepts are Greek and Latin in origin and have no counterpart in Hebraic thought.

The basic meaning of the word nephesh, like naphash, has to do with taking a breath, and it refers to the very essence of life. It describes the whole person as a complete unit. When God created Adam, it was His breath that gave the man life, animated him, and empowered him to think and to speak and to love: “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being [naphesh]” (Gen. 2:7). It wasn’t that Adam was a body until God added a soul, the rabbis say. Adam was nothing but mud until God’s breath enlivened him, and he became the image of his Creator.

Although Hebrew thought does not make provision for the separation of body and soul as is common in Greek thought, it does contrast the inner and outer person in a very interesting manner. What we might call the “inner man” was, to the Hebrew, the total person as he viewed himself, while the “outer man” was how he appeared to others or was simply his reputation.

Nephesh meant he may have been a father, a husband, a son, a brother, a cousin; he was tall or short, thin or fat, healthy or ill, weak or strong; he was a member of a family, a clan, a community, a nation; his relationship with his God governed every aspect of his life; his every thought and action were geared toward obedient service to the Lord he loved. In all these different aspects, he viewed himself as one integrated, vibrant unit—nephesh. To those around him, however, he may have been known as a skilled craftsman, a generous giver, or a fearless fighter. Their understanding of him, or his reputation, was the only sense of an outer man the Hebrew would have recognized, and it was referred to as shem, or name.

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I will review those books when I get my hands on them. I already agreed what a nephesh was and that it dies with the body. You're ignoring 2 things though:
1. There isn't a Jew I've met that doesn't believe that a messiah is coming including your cited Sadducees. A lot may disagree that Jesus is that messiah, but God fulfilling His promises are integral to Hebrew belief. If you really feel there is no promised savior that Jewish have been waiting for, I believe you missed some really fundamental principles in your study.
2. blatantly ignoring the entire rabbinical study of the evolution of a soul while focusing on just the nephesh because that suits your goals. You also focus on the sadducee's denial of an afterlife because it supports your argument. It couldn't possibly be that the high social status and money influenced their want for people to focus on the here and now instead of an afterlife?

I've answered and cited instances of Jewish Belief in:
1. a life after this one
2. somewhere for your soul to go after you die
3. You didn't prove agreement among scholars that the reasons the Hebrews had no belief in individual immortality. At your best shot you just claimed they had no interest in it.
4. You claimed that Jews don't believe in a messiah... and that I am ignorant of jewish teachings.

If this is the level you call study and how you make baseless claims, I want nothing to do with it, it seems a little preposterous and disingenuous. I've stated and cited sources external to my personal discussions with rabbi and having services in the synagogue. I haven't appealed to a majority, or made any personal comments (save for the restating of your igtheistic belief) regarding you.

Let me know when the bible study continues.