BibleProject - What Happens After We Die?

Episode Date: December 12, 2017

Want to participate in our Nephesh Q+R? Have a question about your “soul”? Send us your question [e-mail]. Don’t forget to tell us your name and where you’re from! What happens to our souls after we die? This is our third episode on the Hebrew word “Nephesh”. It usually gets translated as “soul” in modern bibles. But to the hebrews the word often meant “throat”. This episode Tim and Jon discuss the Hebrew concepts of an afterlife. The Hebrews would often use the word “Nephesh” when talking about eternal life in the Scriptures. In part 1 (0-7:00), the guys talk about the difficulty of getting the nephesh concept across in a short video. They discuss the possible gradients of ways to read the Shema. In part 2 (7:00-17:30), Jon asks “Isn’t there some sort of non material part of me that survives death?” To which Tim replies “Yes.” But it’s not necessarily what you think. Tim says the biblical authors refuse to speculate about what happens after death, only that the authors say we are “with the Lord.” He uses Psalm 16 and Psalm 49 as an example. Psalm 16:8-10: I have set the Lord continually before me; Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will dwell securely. For You will not abandon my nephesh to the grave; Nor will You ballow Your Holy One to see the pit. You will make known to me the path of life; Tim says Bible scholar NT Wright calls it “life after life after death.” In part 3 (17:30-end), the guys discuss the concept of Nephesh in the New Testament. Nephesh is translated with the Greek word “psuche.” It’s often used to describe a person as an embodied, living organism. A few of Jesus’ famous sayings with the word “psuche” include: Matthew 6:25 Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your psuche, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Luke 17:33 Whoever tries to save their psuche will lose it, and whoever loses their psuche will preserve it. Psuche can also be used to describe the animating life-energy of a person (very similar to pneuma/ruakh) Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of psuche and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 1 Thessalonians 5:23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, psuche and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you to all our supporters! Show Resources: Our video on the word Nephesh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_igCcWAMAM More resources on our website www.thebibleproject.com N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God. Music Credits: Defender Instrumental: Rosasharn Scream Pilots: Moby Boost: Joakim Karud Back To Life: Soul II Soul: Non-Profit and Educational Fair Use Produced by: Jon Collins and Dan Gummel

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode. What happens after we die?

Do we go to heaven? Or do we come back to life? Back to life, back to life. Back to life. I'm John Collins. This is the Bible Project podcast and we're talking about Hebrew word nefesh. It's often translated in English as soul. In this episode we're discussing what happens to our souls, our nefesh, after we die. People often assume the idea of an eternal, non-physical existence that humans living on after death, apart from their bodies, as disembodied souls forever and ever.

That's a really important idea in the Bible, or a main teaching of the Bible. And I certainly thought that, till I actually started reading the Bible. In the past two episodes, we've discovered that in Hebrew thought, people don't have a soul, they are a soul, a living breathing nefesh. According to the Bible, God has committed to recreating and renewing his whole world, a physical world, and if that's the case. Then within this biblical mindset, death cannot be the end of me. What is the me? What is the state and experience of the me after I die? So what's after death? You might be surprised with the biblical authors think.

Thanks for joining us. Here we go. So why are we having this conversation? Well because you're trying to ruin my existence, Tim. You're nephish? You're trying to know. No, no, I'm joking. We're having this because, well, because we're good to do a video on Sol and it's going to spin some people out.

We're going to try and condense all this into a three and a half minute video. Yeah. And honestly, the video will be like, that's really interesting, but really? I have a ton of questions. I have a ton of questions. That's what it's going to do. And then hopefully you can listen to this and have less questions. So let's bring it around because the video is part of explaining the shaman.

So hero is real, love the Lord, your God, with all of your heart, and with all of your nephesh. So now seeing those two alongside each other, I think helps clarify. We've already done heart, and that's a very, it's very holistic. Yeah. Sense of view and everything. The holistic sense of your thoughts, emotions, desires. But what it doesn't account for is your body, your physical existence, and your very life itself represented by that constituted

by that body. So it's with your thoughts, ideas, purposes, desires. Okay, so that's interesting. And now here it's with your whole self. So this might help. Like why wouldn't Moses just have the line be, love the Lord your God with all your nephesh? Because that seems to also incorporate the essence of who you are,

which means also your emotions, feelings. So like when my nephesh is thirsting, I'm not talking about, I'm just literally thirsty, I'm talking about my whole essence is longing for something. Yes. And in that way, we're kind of in the realm of notions. So it could have been a simpler prayer, just to say,

love the Lord you got with all of your neffesh. Yes. So what is heart doing? Yeah. Okay, but notice from all the examples we looked at, that your neffesh is what we might call like your base physical existence. Thirst, hunger, sex, right?

And it represents your physical life. Your heart is about emotions, thoughts, ideas, longings that are obviously your heart's in your body connected. But in some ways it's like, I don't have a lot of control over the fact of what my nephish needs. It needs to breathe. It needs food.

It needs sleep. But I have a lot of control over the thoughts and purposes and desires. I see. And I can shape those. So your heart, your love, there's a certain amount of control that... Like volition or will. That seems to keep those all connected. Yep.

Yeah. With your body, it's less so. Yeah. These things, these are more of your, just instinctual needs. Your existence as a physical being. So I devote the things I can control, in a way, my thoughts, ideas, purposes.

I devote those all, in allegiance and love to God. And then my whole body and physical life with all of its limitations and possibilities, I dedicate those to God as well. So I might be jumping the gun, but when we talk about it that way, wouldn't the word we use is flesh. Like my flesh, like the way Paul uses it.

Like I have these urges and these instincts and it's my body, but you know. Yes. Well, I mean, I think the fact that this word can come to stand for just the person as a whole, the whole person, or the whole self. Love the Lord's God with all of your thoughts, ideas and feelings, and with your entire self. Maybe the English word self doesn't get there. Why? Because your thoughts, emotions and feelings, doesn't cover your entire self. Yeah. I guess. No, it doesn't. No. No. Love the Lord's God with all your thoughts, desires and feelings. Your heart. Yeah.

But more so and your whole and also they're almost seems like more so. It's like here's like the small part of you Oh, that's a reason like a little bit. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I never thought about that. But then like there's like a scale Yeah, it's almost like it's a piece of scale. Yeah, this part of you, with the whole of you, and then we're gonna see that word, strength, everything you can- Is about the possibilities. Yeah. And the opportunities that are not yet realized.

It's almost like, yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. I've never thought about the sliding scale. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, nefesh. There you have it. Neffesh. Isn't there some non-material part of me that survives a death? So this is a Bible talk about that. So yes, it does

You're like why'd why'd you take me through all this? Okay, but but the point is is that's that's not the focus. Yeah, that's not the emphasis got it And so the reason why the the biblical authors have a category for a You that survives after death after your body gives out, is not because of Greek speculation, or not because they believe, no, it's really, it has to do with their deep conviction that God made this world good, that He loves it, and that He's committed to it, and He's committed to rescuing it so that it can be what he always meant it to be. And if that's the case, then within this biblical,

he reminds that death cannot be the end of me. What the biblical authors refuse to speculate about is what is the me? What is the state and experience of the me after I die? And we've had these conversations before. There's virtually no information. The grave or being with the Lord. And so here we go. Here's one of just, it's a great example in the Old Testament, where the poet of Psalm 16 is talking about how God is committed to him, connected to David, the hope of the David King, how God's committed to him, and he says,

Psalm 16 verse 8, I've set the Lord continually before me because he's at my right hand, I won't be shaken. Therefore, my heart is glad, my glory rejoices, my flesh dwell securely, you won't abandon my nephish to the grave, or allow your holy one to see you the pit. You'll make known to me the path of life. So here's a sense of you won't abandon my nephish to the grave. So when I die... Isn't my body going to go to the grave? Yeah, so in that sense, my nephish, my physical existence is, but there's another sense in which that can't be the end of the story if this God is who this God says he is.

He's committed to redeeming his world and his people. And so here's the use of nephash that does seem to be the you that isn't tied to your current mortal body, but is connected to the you that will be the immortal physical you. You've made known to be the immortal physical you. You've made known to me the path of life. There'll be a way through death to a physical existence on the other side. So this is not talking about afterlife.

This is talking about when this nephish, when this prototype of my nephish gets out, the next version will be what you usher me into. So this is very important. This is not talking about the afterlife. Even in this use, we're not talking about just an immortal eternal soul. It's talking about, my neffish will take new form. So I mean, he's gonna die.

But in another sense, he's able to say, you're not gonna let my neffphish die. How do you know he's going to die? He knows he's going to die? Well, I think there's the sense of, I mean, it's just being human. You're going to die, unless you're enoc. But a lot of these are like, Psalms were like, oh, that's right. Matter of words for dying. No, we're like enemies are going to come and get them. And he's asking God to protect them. Yes. Oh, that's not what's happening here. No, that's right There's one layer of which the poets often describe brushes with danger with this depiction of death right here or you're saying He's just often these poets saying basically like god don't let these guys kill me

And then and then for me to say you know what I believe that you won't let them kill me. You won't let me get buried in the ground. Yeah, that's right. So there's one sense in which you can read that simply as what's going on here. But this is one among a number of these suffering and deliverance poems and the deliverance comes out the other side. I didn't also didn't copy and paste the whole poem. The last line of the poem is,

in your presence is fullness of joy, in your right hand or pleasures forever. It seems like what the poet's straining at here is that if God is truly committed to me, and to this world, in this case, to the line of David, he says he is, then death can't be the end. There has to be a form of life, eternal life, physical existence that God still has in store. There's a similar sentiment in the conclusion of Psalm 73. It's just

not that many, but that's the basic idea. There's this verse where it says, you will redeem my life from the grave. Uh-huh. I think it's like, you will redeem my life from the grave, you will surely take me to yourself. Here it is, yeah. Psalm 49.

Yeah, yeah, that's the other main one. Yep. God will redeem me from the realm of the dead, he will surely take me to himself. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, as for the wicked, death will be their shepherd. But God will redeem my nefesh, who will redeem my nefesh from the grave, for he will take me. So what it says. He will take me. So once again, we're in the take me. Is it the nefesh twice? Take my nefesh? Just take me. No, just take me. So once again, we're in the take me. Is it the is Neffis twice take my Neffis?

Just take me. No, just take me. So what does it mean for God to redeem rescue? A solid from the grave. And again, we think yeah, into the pearly through the pearly gates. Yeah, to eternal bliss. Yeah, so think I'm going home. So redeem is a vocabulary from the Exodus story and

rescue. So, what does it mean to be rescued from the power of death? It doesn't mean that you, I'm trying to think if you use the Exodus as an image, if you're enslaved in Egypt, you're saved out of slavery. And your status changes. And your status changes and you go into the promised land. Yeah. So here it's, you're redeemed from having to die. And then your status changes so that you can be alive. Can be alive. Yeah.

So there's a resurrection hope here. Correct. That's where these are the bedrock, or to use a different metaphor, the seed bed. And I'm not making this up. The Apostle Peter thought so too, at the top of page 8. Psalm 16 was really important for the early Christians and how helped them find language about Jesus.

This is right after Peter is giving a message and he quotes the section of Psalm 16 that we just read. And here's this commentary. He says, fellow Israelites, I tell you confidently, the patriarch David died. He was buried. His tomb was with us to this day. But he was a prophet and he knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his seed descendants on the throne. Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, named in the quotes from the psalm that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead nor did his body see decay. God raised this Jesus to life and were all witnesses.

So Peter looked at this hope that he saw in the Psalms of Resurrection. He said, look, that's what happened. Yes. This poem wasn't talking about the afterlife. This poem was talking about the hope of God, risking someone into new physical existence. And it's not afterlife. It's more life. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Or what scholar, NT, right? He has a clever phrase, his fat book on the resurrection he called it, life after life after death. So life after life after death, life after life after death. Resurrection life after life after death. I'm so confused. Well, because because by definition, if my if I die, if my body gives out, the hope and the trust is that what happened to Jesus will happen to me. But most likely there's going to be a time gap, like there has been for many followers of Jesus.

So where are those people? What is the afterlife existence of those? And it's very, we have no idea. It's very obscuring. It's very obscuring. Here we go, in the Old Testament. Yeah. It's just, there's no, nothing.

He will take me. Yeah. And then what we know is that death won't be the end. You've redeemed me from the power of the grave. And so if that's afterlife, that's life after death, then what the resurrection is is really the life after that. Life after death. The life after the life after death.

And then Paul, right in those handful of passages, two, and then once with Jesus, right to the guy next to him on the cross, today you'll be with me in paradise. Yeah, that's the afterlife. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. So that's life after death, according to the New Testament, is to be with Jesus. Yeah.

So we're all obsessed with what is life after death. That's right. And he writes clever turn of phrase as to say, we should be more obsessed with the life that comes after life. Well, and what the biblical authors are actually talking about is the life that comes after life. Life after death. Come on, let's clever.

You get his clever. So we just stopped talking about the life after life. We should start talking about the life after. Yes. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, who else good? That's John Collins. Oh, John Collins.

Point that one. Hey, oh. Straight bike. There's a couple of passages that then talk about the, in the New Testament, the equivalent for Nephesh. It's different languages. Greek. So it's Greek word, suke.

So there's a couple of passages where actually in teachings of Jesus, he'll talk about the Nephesh slash suke of, because in Greek, the Nephesh becomes Suke. Mm-hmm, yeah. When the Hebrew Bible is translated into Greek, before Jesus, the standard translation for Nephesh was Suke. Got it. And then that's, so again, it's the Jewish authors

of the New Testament, thinking in Hebrew Bible categories, but they're using the Greek language. But you weren't thinking in Platonic numbers. So think a famous saying of Jesus, whoever tries to save their suke will lose it, and whoever loses their suke will preserve it, or save it. The user gets translated life, and I think that's a good translation. But it's not the word life, It's the equivalent of nefesh. Hmm. What's the Hebrew word for life?

Chayam. Chayam. Chayam. Yeah. Oh yeah, tell us. Chayam. Chayam. Chayam. For life, yeah.

Um, so here's, uh, oh, another famous saying of Jesus. Therefore, I tell you, don't worry about your suke. Hmm. What you will eat and listen to the conversation. Yeah, I hope. What worry about your suke. What you will eat and listen to the conversation. What you will eat, what you will drink, or don't worry about your body, what you're going to wear. Isn't distinction there? Yes. Isn't your suke more than food and isn't your body more than clothes? Yes, so there's this distinction body and suke and what what is it that sustains the body well food and drink What is it that sustains?

It's almost there's like surface close just go on your body. Yeah, you're right Your identity your essential self that can scrape off and we grow pretty easy Yes, and then he says even your suke is more than just food. Yeah. And this seems to be the logic underneath fasting for Jesus. You symbolically withhold food from yourself on regular intervals to remind yourself that your truest self, your true physical life, is based on God's generosity, not by your own ability to feed yourself. It's like Psalm 42. My nefesh, hunger's in thirst, forgot.

Man doesn't live by bread alone, that kind of thing. So that same mindset. Isn't that interesting? It's not life more than food. It's not your nefesh, your suke, more than food is not your Neffesh your suke more than food. Yeah I don't know that's confusing to me. I don't think of my life as just food But what he's saying is what sustains you what truly sustains the true you because Here's no things I live in a time where like there's just tons of food. I just go to the supermarket, there's lots of food.

Yes. So if I put myself in the mental categories of someone who's every day, it's like, let's make the bread, let's make sure we got enough food. Yeah, is there enough food? Is there enough food today? Right. That becomes like a daily obsession of sustenance. And so it can almost begin to feel like my life is about food,

right? My life is about when can I get more food in me? That's what this corporal embodied existence feels like. It's just a chase after a nourishment. That's what it needs. Yeah. And if I was a caterpapillar that would be my life Yeah, your life would just be about food. Yeah, that's my job. Mm-hmm fill up my belly. Yep, but by fasting

image of God bearing humans Life is your suitcase more. It's more than that transcends in fact spend a while spend a day or two or a week Yeah without that. And you'll realize there's something more going on. Yeah, you're still you, and there's a you that can live and exist in the world, interact with God and others that transcends your physical appetites. Man, Jesus, g- He packs so much into these little things. Don't worry about it. Well, I'm not going to run around naked Jesus, so you can forget about that one. Yeah. Here's the wopper. Don't be afraid of those who can kill the body, but cannot kill

the tsukai. This is in an encouragement for like, if you're going Matthew chapter 10, if you're going out sharing the kingdom of God, it's when he's sending out the other disciples to go ahead of him or 72 and Luke. Yeah. It's just a 12 in Matthew 12. Oh, okay. And he's trying to encourage them like, hey, listen know God is where the spare is he won't let it Yeah, hair of your head fall to ground and don't be afraid all they can do is kill you

They can't kill your touquet Now that's interesting it to play because one of the terms for murderer. Yeah, it's okay Is the suitcase layer or the nephish layer? Yeah, and so in one sense that's true But now they were back to the same idea for Jesus. That's not all there is. Who I am is not just the fate of this prototype version of me. My current physical existence isn't all that there is to me. So this begins to really gel with this idea of where we were starting, which is more of a spiritual part of you. Yes, that he very clearly doesn't use the word spirit. He doesn't use the word spirit. He uses the word a very physical, earthy word. You're 2K.

Don't worry about people who can kill your body because they really can't kill you. Because I can't kill you. And then the next phrase, he connects it to future vindication. Rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both Tzuke and body in hell. So what you should have your eye on is the hope of resurrection. If your hope is on resurrection, you can kill me now. It's fine. God will redeem me from the power of the grave. Don't base your decision making on people who can only kill the prototype version of you in the moment.

God will take care of... Keep the after party in mind. Keep the after party in mind. What you really should base your decisions off of is the one who controls the after party, the after party, and who gets the party. Whether or not you will be resurrected into the new creation. That's the person's verdict you should care about. So even this example doesn't show Jesus saying, see, after all, you know, there's the eternal non-physical part of you. His eye is still on your physical existence. It's whether you exist in this form or in the new creation. And so by saying who can destroy your suke, he's in hell.

What's he talking about? Whole other conversation. Yeah, this gets us into what did Jesus mean when he used the word Gehenna, which gets translated as hell in English. And the depictions of final, the fate of those the wicked who don't want to be a part of the new creation. What's their status or existence?

And there are different portraits given in the New Testament and different metaphors. We kind of talked about this before in some of the day of the Lord Conversation. So here he uses the very destroy. Yeah, destroy. So in other words, don't worry about someone to kill you right now. This version of your body, but the real you that will live on into

resurrection and new creation, they can't touch that. But there is somebody who controls whether or not you will be raised into the new creation. And the opposite of that, he uses as destruction of your entire self. He used the word prototype a couple times, is that? I just started using it. Well, I'm just, for Jesus, what he's talking about is... Did you read that somewhere? Stage one or stage two?

No, I'm just thinking, yeah, it's a good image. I like it, yeah. Because it's like, Jesus walking around Galilee. It's the MVP is what they call that in the tech world. What is that? The minimal viable product. Oh, wow.

This is the first. That's interesting. That's what you need to get out the door. Don't make the perfect thing. Just get the MVP out there. Wow. The minimal viable product and then, and then tweak it from there.

tweak it from there. Yeah, maybe it's a bad analogy. It probably doesn't work on it. Prototype means like less like that, so forget the normal vibe. Prototypes, we're like, here's a fully working thing, but we're not mass producing it yet. It's kind of what prototypes are. Yeah, that's a good point, so the analogy breaks down too. But it is an interesting condition.

But that's the vision of humanity and Jesus' relationship humanity and the New Testament that we are the prototype of which he is the full real thing. He is the human that I am made to be, but have not attained to him. Human 2.0. And he's human 2.0. And we're human beta remains. That's right. And so what he's talking about here. That would make him human 2.0. And we're human beta ribbons. And so what he's talking about here.

That would make him human 1.0. Our existence in, yeah, 1.0 or prototype version is really important. It's not the end goal. There you go. We're in Paul, Paul the Apostles language, the first atom. In whose image we all reflect. Yeah, first Corinthians 1.0. And then what he calls the last atom, whose image we all reflect. Yeah, first Corinthians 10. Adam 1.0. And then what he calls the last Adam,

the fulfillment of humanity. Hmm. It's not the second Adam, it's the last Adam. The resurrected Jesus. Hmm. So there you go. There you go. Even the uses that you might think,

oh, there's that good old immortal soul. Don't even really mean quite that. They need to get reworked in light of the biblical story of new creation and these concepts of the physical world is good, but compromised and will be redeemed and my nephish is me, my physical embodied existence. I don't feel like the video we're gonna make

is gonna help everyone turn that corner. No, we're going to limit it to the basic Hebrew meanings. And it's just going to raise a bunch of questions. Because it basically is just going to work through, hey, Neffesh means your physical body as yourself. Yeah. Yeah. And everyone's going to be asking, what are you saying?

Are you saying I don't have a soul? Yeah. Are you saying we don't have a soul, Tim? Yeah, that'll be the, I'm saying we are a soul. I am a soul. Are you saying there's no afterlife? No, I'm saying there's life after life. Yeah, that's right. Life after.

The life after. Yeah. So a friend and theological mentor once said to me if you are comfortable With what you already think and believe about Christianity and life and God in the world For gonna say it's don't read the Bible Because who said that to you? Can we appreciate this? It'll just mess up everything you believe well Who said that to you? Get me a precious test. Yeah.

It'll just mess up everything you believe. Well, no, just read it with a really good study Bible. I could like explain everything to you. Yeah. Or read without thinking. I read it well. Mess with you, believe. I don't know.

Like, I read the Bible a lot and you just force everything into the categories that you understand. Sure. And then certain translations help you do that in a way. Yeah. But it is, but then there's parts where you're just like, I don't get that, but it's not safe to ask questions, and it's confusing, and so I'm just going to keep on.

Yeah. Yeah. So we are, we're for the opposite of that. Hold. All right. Cheers. Thanks for listening to this episode for the opposite of that. Oh. Alright. Cheers. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Bible Project podcast. If you're like us and you ask lots of questions about the Bible, like, what is the Bible?

Why is it confusing and hard to read? And why is there so much in there? You might enjoy our YouTube video series called How to Read the Bible. Also, we released a video that Tim and I have been referencing in these episodes about Neffesh and the link to it is in the show notes. You can also find it on our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash the Bible project. Or you can go to our website, thebibelproject.com. We're a crowd funded nonprofit and we can make all of these resources because of your

generous support. So thank you for being a part of this with us. We'll be back to do a Q&R episode next time on Nefesh. So if you have questions about the Hebrew word Nefesh or about the concept of a soul in the Bible, send it to us. You can send it to info at jointhebibleproject.com. Try to record your question, keep it to around 15 seconds and don't forget to tell us your name and where you're from. Looking forward to hearing your questions.

Thanks for being a part of this with us. you