Scriptural Mormonism: John Granger Cook on "Soul and Spirit in the Hebrew Bible"

Monday, March 24, 2025

John Granger Cook on "Soul and Spirit in the Hebrew Bible"

Soul and Spirit in the Hebrew Bible

There are problems with the foundation of Schnelle's argument - an argument that in addition entirely ignores the lexicographical research of BDAG. One of the fault lines is his concluding statement about ψυκη: "Paul's use of ψυκηis in the Old Testament tradition, where נפש [nphsh] denotes the whole person." This apodictic thesis is repeated so often in modern HB studies that one wonders if scholars who hold it have reflected on the fact that there are numerous texts in the HB that mention post-mortem existence in Sheol. Whatever the dead (and angry) Samuel was when forced up from Sheol in 1 Sam 28, he existed and was not a "psychosomatic unity." Although it is perhaps a bit too general (did Qoheleth believe in any sort of afterlife?), Loren T. Stuckenbruck, commenting on 1 En 102:7, writes, " ... the concept of Sheol is traditional; all, no matter what kind of existence they have had, will descend to Sheol, and no one will be distinguished from the other through reward and punishment." Admittedly texts such as Ps 88:11 use מיתים [mytym] and מיתים [rph'ym] for the dead and not נפשית [nphshwt]. James Barr, however, notes that "in passages concerning the possible leaving of the person in Sheol, there is a marked use of נפשי [nphshy], 'my soul,' and a marked predominance of this over the anthropological expressions that might accompany it or be in parallelism with it" - citing texts in which he translates נפשי as "my soul" such as Ps 30:4 ("you have brought up my soul [so RSV] from Sheol"), Ps 86:13 "you have delivered my soul [so RSV] from the depths of Sheol," Isa 38:17, Ps 88:4, and Ps 16:10. Barr notes that Hans Walter Wolff in his study of HB anthropology, in a sixteen page discussion of nephesh, devotes only one to "soul" "while adding three on its use where 'my soul' is said to be no more than a way of expressing the personal pronoun 'I'." Barr concludes that in some contexts nephesh is "a superior controlling centre which accompanies, expresses and directs the existence of that totality, and one which, especially provides the life to the whole." HALOT, in a marked improvement on the perspective of Wolff, has "3. breath (cf. Ug.) Jb 4113, inhalation, which makes a person and an animal a living being Gn 1₂₀ (so ca. 250 times) soul (but markedly different from the Greek concept of the soul); the נפש is located in the blood ... מנפש ועד בשר Is10₁₈'body and soul', 'root and branch'"; "8. soul as the centre and transmitter of feelings and perceptions"; and "9. dead soul, deceased person, corpse ... ac- tually body." E'nN ['elohim], according to HALOT, can mean "[3c] "ghost 1S 28₁₃."

The realm of the dead provides a distinct challenge to the thesis (dogma?) that for the Hebrews the human is a psychosocial unity. HALOT has for "II אוב prophesying spirit of the dead, frequently with ידעני [spirit of divination] in man or woman Lv 20₂₇, woman is בעכת אוב [female owner/mistress of a spirit; female necromancer] 1 S 28₇; it is heard מארץ [from the earth] Is 29₄ ... " For "I רפאים" HALOT glosses "dead spirits; parallel with מיתים [the dead] Is 26₁₄Ps 88₁₁; parallel with מות [death] Pr 2₁₈; dwelling in שאול [Sheol] Is 14₉ ארץ ר׳ Jb 26₅ Pr 9₁₈, or in אבדין [Abaddon] Ps 88₁₁, בחשך [in darkness] 88₁₃ ארץ ר [land of the reph’aim] Is 2619; קהל ר [assembly of shades/raph’aim] Pr 21₁₆ . . .” It is immediately apparent that the anthropology of the HB is far more complex than that in Schnelle’s approach. Presumably the concept of post-mortem existence in certain HB texts warrants the thesis that there is an aspect of a human being that survives death - at least for some (many?) of the ancient He- brews. In 1 Reg 28:14, the spirit of Samuel appears wearing a robe: και ειπεν αυτη Τι εγνως; ‘Ανδρα ορθιον αναβανοντα εκ της γης ουτος διπλοιδα αναβεβλ ημενος (And he said to her, "What did you perceive?" And she said to him, "A man, standing, coming up out of the ground, and he is wrapped in a double-cloak"; NETS). In other words, the concept of a spirit or ghost appears corporeally despite its incorporeal nature. Obviously, no conclusions can be drawn about Paul's anthropology from these complexities. However, they militate against the conclusion, based on the HB, that ψυκη (or πνευμα) stands for the "whole person" in Paul. His occasional references to an intermediate state between death and resurrection (Phil 1:23, 2 Cor 5:8) also are warrants against the thesis that Paul's anthropology is monist. (John Granger Cook, The Enspirited Body in 1 Corinthians 15 [Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2025], 161-63)