Frank Goad
Well-Known Member
What do Jehovah's Witnesses think of 2 Samuel 11:11?In the king james version?Compared to the Jehovah's Witnesses bible?
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What do Jehovah's Witnesses think of 2 Samuel 11:11?In the king james version?Compared to the Jehovah's Witnesses bible?
If you look at Genesis 2:7.It says man has no soul.But in 2 Samuel 11:11 it says man is alive.And so is his soul.How do jws explain this?
I think it's rude to "correct" people's questions to promote one's own agenda.
YLT doesn't say "my soul" it says "thy soul" and it's probably the most literal translation out there.Jewish Scripture? Go to the source.....
2 Samuel 11:11...Jewish Tanakh...
"And Uriah said to David: "The ark and Israel and Judah dwell in booths, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are encamped in the open field; and shall I come to my house to eat and to drink and to live with my wife? By your life and by the life of my soul, if I will do this thing."
Bathsheba's husband was a noble man who was making an oath, swearing on his life that as long as his men were separated from their wives, then so would he be.
David was seeking to explain away Bathsheba's pregnancy when her husband had been away fighting battles all that time. He had broken God's law by taking another man's wife and to cover up the pregnancy he was going to have her husband sleep with her.....he failed, so he had Uriah placed in the front line of battle so that he would be killed......a horrible time in David's life and he paid for it later with one problem after another. But to preserve his covenant with David, God did not take his life, (even though he had committed two capital offenses.)
Are you going to tell Jews how to translate their own scripture?YLT doesn't say "my soul" it says "thy soul" and it's probably the most literal translation out there.
2 Samuel 11:11 Young's Literal Translation (YLT)
11 And Uriah saith unto David, `The ark, and Israel, and Judah, are abiding in booths, and my lord Joab, and the servants of my lord, on the face of the field are encamping; and I -- I go in unto my house to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife! -- thy life, and the life of thy soul -- if I do this thing.'
It does not look like a correction to me. It is a comment in the form of a question.
Perhaps you should go back and reread the post then.
"I think the correct question would be..." didn't raise any flags for you?
It's disingenuous of you; since you also don't always accept their translation. Apparently only when it suits you. Regardless of that, let's not pretend that only Jews know Hebrew well enough to make a proper translation. Understanding Hebrew has nothing to do with one's religion. It's just a matter of skill.Are you going to tell Jews how to translate their own scripture?
It's disingenuous of you; since you also don't always accept their translation.
Apparently only when it suits you. Regardless of that, let's not pretend that only Jews know Hebrew well enough to make a proper translation. Understanding Hebrew has nothing to do with one's religion. It's just a matter of skill.
Understanding the Hebrew word "soul" is not difficult, especially when, in the Hebrew scriptures these "souls" are both human and animal. Does an animal have a soul that survives the death of its body? Where in the scriptures will I find that notion?
Why would Solomon lament the fact that animals and humans die the same death?
Ecclesiastes 3:18-20....
"I also said in my heart about the sons of men that the true God will test them and show them that they are like animals, 19 for there is an outcome for humans and an outcome for animals; they all have the same outcome. As the one dies, so the other dies; and they all have but one spirit. So man has no superiority over animals, for everything is futile. 20 All are going to the same place. They all come from the dust, and they all are returning to the dust."
No immortal souls here....all return to the dust of the earth from which they were created.
I was thinking of a builder.... He dug down deep till he hit rock. Then he laid a foundation on that rock. Then he started to construct his house on the solid foundation.What do Jehovah's Witnesses think of 2 Samuel 11:11?In the king james version?Compared to the Jehovah's Witnesses bible?
1Kings 17:21 Then he stretched himself out over the child three times and cried out to the LORD, “O LORD my God, please let this boy’s soul return to him!” 22 And the LORD listened to the voice of Elijah, and the child’s soul returned to him, and he lived.23 Then Elijah took the child, brought him down from the upper room into the house, and gave him to his mother. “Look, your son is alive,” Elijah declared.…
It is clear from scripture that "soul" means more than what it does in Gen 2:27. The Watchtower agrees with that but has decided to accept only some of the meanings that the word means and reject those that do not agree with it's doctrines.
Because that is what he saw with his eyes.
Do you agree with Solomon in this passage that man has no superiority over animals?
Maybe you are taking Solomon's words (or some of them at least) as fact and forgetting the ones you disagree with.
Ecclesiastes it seems has to be read with a bit of understanding of what Solomon was doing in it and the various arguments he is making in it. It is not all factual.
Yes animals and man return to the dust from which they were created but that is not the be all and end all of what happens to them at death. I have already spoken of Matt 10:28 many times. Matt 10:28 does not speak of an immortal soul but does say that we have a soul which survives the death of the body.
Eccles 3:20 All go to one place; all come from dust, and all return to dust. 21 Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and the spirit of the animal descends into the earth?22 I have seen that there is nothing better for a man than to enjoy his work, because that is his lot. For who can bring him to see what will come after him?
Eccles is speaking in places of what Solomon could see with his own eyes, not what actually happens at death, but of course sometimes in his arguments he does tell us the truth from God and from what he sees with his wisdom.
I meant what is disingenuous is that you cite the Jews as being the only credible source for a proper translation but your new world translation is not made by Jews.What is disingenuous about the meaning of a Hebrew word? We are speaking about "soul" which is clearly presented here as someone taking an oath on their life that they will not do what a king commanded them to do.
Understanding the Hebrew word "soul" is not difficult, especially when, in the Hebrew scriptures these "souls" are both human and animal. Does an animal have a soul that survives the death of its body? Where in the scriptures will I find that notion?
I know that some ingrained beliefs are hard to shed, but immortality of the soul is not taught in any scripture. Please find me one single passage that has those two words side by side....?
Why would Solomon lament the fact that animals and humans die the same death?
Ecclesiastes 3:18-20....
"I also said in my heart about the sons of men that the true God will test them and show them that they are like animals, 19 for there is an outcome for humans and an outcome for animals; they all have the same outcome. As the one dies, so the other dies; and they all have but one spirit. So man has no superiority over animals, for everything is futile. 20 All are going to the same place. They all come from the dust, and they all are returning to the dust."
No immortal souls here....all return to the dust of the earth from which they were created.
I meant what is disingenuous is that you cite the Jews as being the only credible source for a proper translation but your new world translation is not made by Jews.
As for souls and spirits it's a different word in Hebrew. Humans are understood scripturally as body, soul and spirit. (1 Thessalonians 5:23)
The soul is the person themselves. The spirit is your spirit form and your body is your physical body.
So the soul exists forever either in the physical body or in the spirit form. This is why Jesus says not to fear the one who can only kill your body but not your soul. (Matthew 10:28)
Why would he say that if the soul dies with the body? The soul is you, it's your mind. I don't mean your brain but the thoughts or consciousness that exists as you. It continues on after the death of the body and if it's lost it's dead so it is in hades; but if it's saved then God keeps it alive.
If you read on in Ecclesiastes 3:21 we find that the spirit of man goes upwards and the spirit of animals go down when they die. So there is a difference; but the writer's point is that while they're alive on the earth in the flesh they have no difference from animals.
Ecclesiastes speaks of the futility and vanity of those living in the flesh. That is those living for this world. The world passes away and they are like the beasts that perish as in Psalm 49:12-20.
In Psalm 49:15 we see that God will redeem the souls of the faithful from the grave/sheol/hades. So that's how your soul doesn't die if you're saved.
Where did Elijah believe that the boy was? If he was with God, (if that is what you believe happened to him) why would ask God to bring him back to life? Wouldn’t his mother be glad that he was there and be confident that she would join him there some day if that was the ultimate goal of this life?
The ancient Jews had no belief in a soul that was separate and distinct from the body. The soul was the whole person. The word was synonymous with life as my brother’s previous post confirms...
Strong's Concordance
nephesh: a soul, living being, life, self, person, desire, passion, appetite, emotion
Original Word: נֶפֶשׁ
Part of Speech: Noun Feminine
Transliteration: nephesh
Phonetic Spelling: (neh'-fesh)
Definition: a soul, living being, life, self, person, desire, passion, appetite, emotion
What Elijah requested was that God return his life....not that a separate part of the child that had gone to some unknown destination (which is never mentioned in scripture) was retrieved and put back inside his lifeless body.
Well, that is what you want to believe, so be it. We have done extensive studies into all these things, so suit yourself. You have convinced yourself that we have it all wrong and you have it all right, so why even bother to argue?
What facts are we disagreeing with?
Understanding what knowledge Solomon had at that point in time, he saw immediately how futile life was if this world if it simply ended in death. We had no superiority over the animals, so it didn’t make sense. He had no belief in an immortal soul, so can you not see his frustration? How could he make the statement he did in Ecclesiastes 9:5,6,10 if he believed in an immortal soul that survived death?
That belief was adopted later, but from pagan concepts, not biblical ones.
That is the way you want to interpret it, but that is not what Jesus said. He said that God “destroys” the soul, so its not immortal. An immortal cannot die. God restoring the soul is restoring a life. God destroying a soul means....being taken out of existence.
OK, now you are talking about the “spirit”, not the “soul”. Again, what did Solomon believe about the “spirit” in living things?
He believed what Moses wrote in Genesis that Adam became a soul with the “breath [spirit] of life”. The spirit is the breath in all living things, when we cease to breathe, we cease to live. Solomon knew that animals were not created to live forever, but humans were. The spirit of life can only be given back by God. So the breath of life goes down into the earth with a dead animal soul because it will not return to life, but in humans, it returns to God because only he can give breath (spirit) back to a soul in the resurrection. (Ecclesiastes 12:7)
So are you telling us what Solomon believed and what he didn’t? He believed what was written in his own scripture....the words of the mediator Moses and the prophets. None of them taught that life continues after death. Why would it when God designed humans for everlasting life here on earth? This earth was never meant to be a training ground for heaven.
It amazes me that people hang on so tenaciously to this false belief, because it isn’t taught in the Bible.....not in the Hebrew Scriptures at all...and only with reference to those with “the heavenly calling” in the Greek. (Hebrews 3:1) And even then, it is a transformation from physical life to spirit life for a specific purpose by resurrection, not as a continuation of life.
I suppose people find it comforting to think of lost loved ones as still alive somewhere.....but if they are aware of what is taking place down here on earth with their family members, then how could heaven be a happy place? What a horrible thing to witness illness or accident and suffering of loved ones enduring the trials of this life and not being able to do anything about it? How frustrating!
I personally find it more comforting to think of them as sleeping peacefully, unaware of anything.....awaiting the call from Jesus to come out of their graves and to the arms of their loved ones, once he has established his kingdom. (John 5:28-29)
What you choose to believe is up to you, but there is only one truth....one road to life.