Read verse 10 and it clarifies those previous verses....
"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going." (ESV)
So the dead 'know nothing', 'do nothing', 'plan nothing' and cannot think or exercise any wisdom....."dead" sound like dead to me.
This is describing the condition of the dead in the place where they are going. (sheol)
They "know nothing" of what is happening on the earth, they lose the "thoughts" (plans) they had while alive on the earth (it does not say they do not think), they do not "work" like they did while alive, and they have no wisdom, which is something needed for life on earth to know what to do.
There is nothing there imo that shows the JW doctrine that the dead are non existent.
Figuratively speaking...yes. Isaiah was a Jewish prophet and the ancient Jews had no belief in an afterlife. This is not meant to be taken literally. He was reciting a taunt meant for the King of Babylon....prophetically it applied to Nebuchadnezzar and his dynasty of Kings.
This would be one of the scriptures that gave Jews a belief in an afterlife (except for the Sadducees whom Jesus said did not know the scriptures, and went on to say that God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and that He is not God of the dead but of the living------they were dead bodily but still alive in sheol and so could be resurrected,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,something that cannot happen if the dead go out of existence, it would be a re-creation and a re-creation is no more than a copy of a person, so the Sadducees did not believe in a resurrection because they did not believe that we have a soul which survives death.)
It wasn't "Samuel" but a demon impersonating him. Saul did not see or hear this spirit...only the medium did.
Saul was the one who eradicated these mediums out of the land at Jehovah's command.....why? Because spiritism was connected to the demons and the devil worshipping Canaanites.....not God. If the living prophets would not speak with Saul, why would a dead prophet do so, by a means forbidden in God's word? (Deuteronomy 18:9-12)
According to the story in the Bible it was Samuel, and JWs have to deny that it was Samuel.
Why Samuel spoke to Saul is God's business, maybe to give him the true prophecy that he gave.
God uses those who do evil for His purposes, He even used Satan in the story of Job.
The witch was shocked when she actually saw Samuel come up, it was not common for her and it that which made her realise that it was Saul she was speaking with.
Jesus sacrificed his body for humankind....if he took it back, he'd have cancelled out the sacrifice.
Jesus "died in the flesh but was made alive in the spirit" (1 Peter 3:18) He was a spirit being before his earthly mission and returned there after it was completed. Flesh and blood cannot exist in heaven. (1 Corinthians 15:42-50) Spirit beings can materialize fleshly bodies.
Jesus gave His life as a ransom for many and He took His life back. (Matt 20:28, John 10:17,18) Why do you say that He could do that but not take His body back? We actually know He took His body back, it is in the gospels (Matt 28:5, Luke 24:37-39,John 2:19-22)
Again, you did not finish the scripture....if you read on that verse says....
"And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. [Gehenna]"
Souls are DESTROYED in Gehenna.....(hell) There is no reason why God would want to torture people after they die, no matter how wicked they were in their sinful flesh. The death penalty was the highest form of punishment under God's law. Death pays for sin, as Jesus demonstrated. His death also redeems mankind from their graves.
Everlasting life is contrasted with everlasting death.....that's is all there is. No hell of torment.
I was not taking about everlasting torment in hell I was talking about the truth of our soul which is not killed at the death of the body, which Matt 10:28 affirms and teaches.
As for everlasting torment I agree with JWs about this but also affirm that the Bible does speak of the torment of those who are thrown into the lake of fire even though it does not say it lasts forever.
Where do you see this stated in the Bible? Resurrection is a complete restoration of the life that was lost. When Jesus resurrected Lazarus, where did Jesus say that he was?
John 11:11-14....
"After saying these things, he said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.” 12 The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” 13 Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep. 14 Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died"....
Death is just like a sleep from which the dead will be awakened, returned to this life as Lazarus was, reunited with his family and friends. (John 5:28-29) Even the unrighteous are called from the same place as the righteous. (Acts 24:15)
Just because Lazarus did not know or remember where he was tells us nothing.
Lazarus soul returned to him just as the soul of the boy in (1Kings 17:21,22)
Man became a living soul in Genesis but the soul survives the death of the body according to Jesus and the soul of the boy returned to him in 1Kings etc. I just put the scriptures together and realise that even though Genesis says Adam became a living soul, the word soul is expounded on in the scriptures and has a deeper meaning than what the JWs accept.
Both the righteous and unrighteous are called from sheol/hades are reunited with the body in resurrection.
Yes, the Greeks were a strong influence on the Jews who came to view "sheol" as some kind of 'underworld'....but there was no teaching in God's word about an immortal soul that survived death to continue living in a spirit world. That idea came from Greek Platonism.....it was not a Jewish concept, but adopted by them as they continued to descend into apostasy. The teachings of the Pharisees were roundly condemned by Jesus because of adopting false teachings. (Matthew 23)
In the Christian Greek scriptures the word hades is used and the many Greeks who became Christians would know what they meant, even though all the underworld activities that the dead may have been involved in in Greek mythology would be divorced from the Christian teaching, but still the same basic thing was taught by the Jews and Christians about a place for the souls of the dead and it is not the teaching that the JWs teach.
It seems that for a few centuries before Christ till the first century the Jews believed in 2 places in sheol, one for the righteous and one for the unrighteous (hence the story of Lazarus in Luke 16) and the place for the righteous in sheol was called "paradise" and this is what Jesus would have meant when He told the thief he would be in paradise with Him on that day.
I ask this because if God is all knowing.He knew some people were going to hell and some weren't.
