It seems to me that the New Testament should be understood from the paradigm of the Old Testament. The language, the categories of thought, and the presuppositions that we can glean from the Old Testament should be applied to and inform our understanding of the New Testament. This just seems self-evident to me. Jesus was a Jew, all the Apostles were Jews, and with the exception of Luke, all the New Testament writers were Jews. Jesus affirmed his Jewish heritage, he affirmed the Shema - "the Lord your God is one God" - Paul argues that the Gentiles who believe are grafted onto the root of Abraham, and so on.

 

The problem is, after 70AD (the destruction of the temple and the dispersion of the Jews) the Church became increasingly Hellenized. The Old Testament has become marginalized. Greek idioms, Greek philosophical categories of thought, and Greek presuppositions became predominant. Nowhere is this more evident than in the area of the nature of man. The Hebraic paradigm that can be supported from the Old Testament is that the dust of the earth plus the life-force (breath) of God is what creates a living soul. Human souls do not have inherent immortality, nor do human souls retain consciousness after death. There is little if any dualism in Jewish thought. Man is one thing, a living soul. The word, "soul" is used to denote the whole person:

 

Soul (Heb. nepes) - 1. living being, self, life, person. 2. The inner person, seat of emotions and passions (VED & The Brown Driver Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (BDB)).

 

The body is an integral part of the soul, according to the Hebrew paradigm. When the body dies, the soul ceases to be. The "inner person" (see 2nd definition above) the seat of emotions and passions, ceases to be.

 

• "For there will be no work, nor reason, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in Sheol (the grave) where you are going" (Ecclesiastes 9:10).

 

The spirit of the person is not the person, but is the life-force, the breath of God, the animating power that gives life. In the sense that it is in everything - man and animals alike - it is impersonal.

 

• "When you take away their breath (ruah), they perish and return to the dust from which they came. When you send forth your breath (ruah), they are created" (Psalm 104:29:30).

• "When his spirit (ruah) departs he returns to his earth; on that day his thoughts perish" (Psalm 146:4)

• "And when the dust returns to the earth as it once was, and the life breath (ruah) returns to God who gave it" (Ecclesiastes 12:7).

• "For the lot of man and of beast is one lot; the one dies as well as the other. Both have the same life-breath, and man has no advantage over the beast; but all is vanity. Both go to the same place; both were made from the dust, and to the dust they both return." (Ecclesiastes 3:19-20)

 

When Jesus said, "Into your hands I commend my spirit" he was surrendering his life-force back to God. His spirit was not him. He died and went into the heart of the earth for 3 days and nights. On the morning of his resurrection he said to Mary, "...I have not yet ascended..."

 

The goal of life for the Jew was to attain the resurrection and be "enfleshed" in an immortal body - forever. The goal of the Greek was to discard the body and free the soul from the flesh - forever.

 

It can be a very difficult process to switch from our western Greek paradigm to the Hebraic paradigm. The Hebraic paradigm runs counter to centuries of philosophical and theological thought. By default, we think in Greek categories and have Greek presuppositions. However, I have become convinced that there is NO CHANCE AT ALL of understanding what the Bible means, that is, what it meant to those who wrote it, unless we somehow successfully divest ourselves from the Greek paradigm.

 

Here is an example of what happens:

 

The Greek presupposition is that the soul merely inhabits the body. When the body dies, the soul is freed from the flesh and the personal identity is maintained apart from the body. Indeed, Socrates (Plato's teacher) taught that the body is a prison, and death is freedom.

 

With this in mind, what does the following say? "I long to depart and be with Christ."

 

What it says is something like, "I long to die and go to heaven to be with Christ." It presumes that the REAL person is not the body, but the soul as distinct and independent from the body.

 

The Hebraic presupposition is that there is no consciousness in death, that when one is dead it is like being asleep, or like what you experienced before you were conceived - which is nothing. The goal is not to die and go to heaven, that doesn't exist in this paradigm, the goal is to attain to the resurrection.

 

With this in mind, what does the following say? "I long to depart and be with Christ."

 

It says something like, "I long to die and be resurrected." Christ is resurrected, so to be "with him" means to be resurrected.

 

Two completely different meanings from the same statement, depending upon which presupposition is in play.

 

Which presupposition is more likely to have been held by Jesus, Paul, and the other writers of the New Testament? It stands to reason that the New Testament writers were writing from the Hebraic paradigm. Just to test the hypothesis, pretend that you hold the Jewish presuppositions and just read the New Testament and see what it says. You'll find that, first of all, it's much easier said than done. Another thing that will happen as you persevere is that you will discover a whole new (to us) significance to the concept of the resurrection, and the absolute centrality of it in the minds of the New Testament writers. This cannot be maintained if one holds to the Greek presupposition. The Greek presupposition renders the significance of the resurrection moot. It's more like an afterthought - the REAL goal is to "be saved" and go to heaven. Not so with the writers of the New Testament.

 

I said it is easier said than done: I've been working on it for years and years and I am still discovering presuppositions that I was not aware of, that are the result of my time, culture, education, the church I was raised in, what was handed down to me from my fathers, etc that inform what I see when I read the Bible. EVERYONE "interprets" what they read, including me. I don't think there is such a thing as "letting the text speak for itself." My motivation has to do with defining and inculcating into my thinking the same presuppositions that the Biblical writers had, and from which they wrote. That is the only way to have any chance at all that my interpretation will correspond to the intended meaning of Biblical texts.

 

One more thing. My use of the word, "Hebraic" and the phrase, "Jewish paradigm" is very much an oversimplification (as is "Greek paradigm"). Jewish thought at the time of Jesus was not monolithic. There were many competing sects and they all believed different things. For instance, the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead at all. They did not accept any of the prophets as scripture, they only accepted the 5 books of Moses. The Pharisees believed in the resurrection of the dead and they accepted the prophets and other writings as scripture. In my opinion there are indications that Jesus, to some degree, accommodated this and dealt with whoever he was dealing with on their own ground. For instance, when talking to the Pharisees, he would quote from the prophets; when talking to the Sadducees (who only accepted the Pentateuch), he did not. So we have Jesus arguing with the Sadducees about the Resurrection of the dead. Which scriptural proof does Christ use? Does he appeal to the book of Wisdom, which they didn't accept? No, he quotes Exodus 3:6 (see Matthew 22:31-32). And right after this, when the Sadducees ask Him about the greatest Commandment, Christ -- again -- quotes the Pentateuch only, Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18 (see Matthew 22:36-39). On the other hand, when Christ talked to the Pharisees, he quotes Isaiah, which the Pharisees (and not the Sadducees) accepted as inspired (see Matthew 15:1-9). Also, Jesus, as well as the New Testament writers, quote passages as scripture that do not exist in any text that has survived. For example, Mat. 2:23, "He shall be called a Nazarene," is attributed to words spoken by the prophets, but does not exist in ANY Old Testament text. Other N.T. quotations with unknown sources would be:
 

• John 7:38: Here Jesus says, "He who believes in me, AS THE SCRIPTURE SAID, 'From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.'" What Scripture? That saying does not exist in any scripture that we know of, yet Jesus Himself calls it Scripture.

•  Luke 11:49: Here Jesus says, "For this reason also the wisdom of God said, 'I will send to them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and some of them they will persecute..." Where is this quote to be found that Jesus says is from the wisdom of God? Nowhere that we know of.

• James 4:5: "Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: 'He jealously desires the Spirit which he has made to dwell in us?'" Where is this "Scripture" that James is quoting? Nowhere that we know of.

 

In addition to all that, there were differing points of view and misunderstandings even among the apostles. Many times they took literally what Jesus meant figuratively (e.g. John 11:12) other times they took figuratively that which he meant literally (e.g. Mark 9:10).

 

My point is that when I use the term "Hebraic Paradigm" I'm speaking of the paradigm and presuppositions held by Jesus and also the Apostles. THAT is what I strive to uncover.

 

"Strive to uncover" is an accurate description. If Jesus and the apostles, and those to whom they wrote and spoke, had access to "scripture" that has been lost, that we don't have, there are going to be gaps in our understanding. And there are of course, other issues. 2,000 years of time is no small matter. Issues of translation, culture, etc all stand against an accurate understanding. We look at everything we DO have, and based on THAT we hypothesize - mostly by inference - the presuppositions that were in play. It's admittedly inexact, and any kind of complete and final certainty is probably not possible. But the possibility of getting close - to any degree - is exciting enough to keep ME interested.

 

So, in spite of the fact that I write with an air of confidence - that comes with the territory - I admit I have been wrong many times. My theology is in a continuous state of adjustment. What is there to prove that I am not wrong on this - again? I certainly don't have it all figured out, by any stretch of the imagination. For instance, how does  the apparent dualism in Romans 7 fit into all of this? I don't know. For another instance: in Mathew 27:52 there occurs a limited resurrection of "many". If it is appointed for man to die ONCE (Hebrews 9:27), and if "no one has ascended to heaven" (John 3:13), where are those people now? Are there immortal people walking around? I don't know.

 

Again, what is there to prove that I am not wrong - again? In a word - nothing. I could be wrong. But this is where I'm at now, on my journey, and I just thought I'd share!

 

In the interest of sharing, the following page has more personal thoughts on the subject of what happens when we die, along with some implications.