If I recall correctly, there are a number of OT and NT verses that draw a distinction between the soul and spirit, and they’re not used interchangeably.

Correct. “soul” (”psyche” in Greek) is different than “spirit” (”pneuma” in Greek). Actually in 1 Corinthians where Paul is talking about the difference between earthly bodies and heavenly bodies (as most translations put it), it is more accurate to read it as “soulish bodies” and “spiritual bodies”. The adjective is referring not to the substance of the bodies, but the animating force.

So a soulish person is one who is animated by regular earthly forces. A spiritual person is animated by the Holy Spirit. Both are on earth and both have the same physicality, but the spiritual person will inherit an incorruptible body at the resurrection.

That was something I noticed in a number of humanities classes in college. The professors were always trying to look at the Bible and Christianity through the lens of Greek philosophy and Western thought. My argument is you really can’t do that because the Jews were pretty resistant to those influences. The gnostics were known for borrowing, collecting and compiling lore from all over the place (one had no greater value than another), but the Jews didn’t do that. So, if a person wants to examine Christianity’s roots, Judaism would be the proper starting point.

If I recall correctly, there are a number of OT and NT verses that draw a distinction between the soul and spirit, and they’re not used interchangeably.

I don’t think a Hebraic understanding of “soul” in the OT is the same as the Hellenistic understanding of “soul”.

Same word, but different cultures and philosophies…

Yeah, I think in Judaism, “soul” referred to the animating force within someone. So it was separate from their body in a sense, but it couldn’t fully exist apart from a body. It’s sort of like electricity – it needs some sort of conductor. Electricity exists outside of the wires it’s running through in some sense, but not really.

So God somehow keeps our souls in the time between our death, but we aren’t really fully alive again until the resurrection. We’re alive, and I believe aware in some sense, but we were meant to have bodies.

One of the clearest pictures of the afterlife in Judaism is in Daniel 12:2 & 3:

Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.

It’s this idea that Paul is expanding on in 1 Corinthians. So everything he says about the resurrection and the spiritual body has to be read in the light of this.

Same word, but different cultures and philosophies…

Sandman – it wasn’t hunger He was being tempted with, it was an indiscriminate use of divine power

Rick – isn’t that what I said here:

The temptation Jesus was faced with was to meet a legitimate human need (sating hunger) in an illegitimate way (by turning stones to bread).

Phil: There’s nothing evil with the stuff were made of. God made it to be good, and He’s going to redeem it on the last day.

Agreed. But again, even the redeemed body is but a vessel for the spirit/soul.

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”

Phil, Yes, let’s take a look at that passage. I would argue this passage proves (indirectly) that one can only love God within the spiritual/soulish facet of our being. “Strength” would at first lend one to think of the body, but not necessarily as there is a strength of will. The body is but a housing (temporary at that) for the spirit/soul. The body is inanimate in and of itself, divorced of the spirit/soul. It is but an artifice. “We” are to honor the Lord with our bodies. What is the “we”? I contend it is the spirit/soul who is the “real” person. I will exist outside my present physical body. The resurrected body is a differrent concept, but again just a housing for the spirit/soul.

Who teaches a disembodied existence?

Mainly liberal Christians in the vein of John Dominic Crossan or Marcus Borg…

There are some theologians who claim that Jesus didn’t actually physically rise from the dead, but say the resurrection was purely spiritual. I think there are a lot of people who tend to think this way today. I would say those on the conservative mostly have it right on this issue, but it’s the mainline Protestants who are out in left field.

Who teaches a disembodied existence?

Again, I don’t understand your theology of man and the importance of the flesh in the overall view of eternity.

I think you’re confusing “flesh”, as in the substance verses “fleshly” as in the motivation. Our “fleshly” desires and motivations were corrupted by the fall, and our actual bodies have to deal with the physical consequences such as decay and sickness. But it’s not our actual physicality that’s cursed per se. There’s nothing evil with the stuff were made of. God made it to be good, and He’s going to redeem it on the last day.

Jesus was raised with a physical body as the first fruits, and we will be raised with a renewed physical body as well.