Subject: An interesting discussion/question |
Bible Note: Dear Jamison, I was under the impression that you wanted to stop posting and go off the forum and discuss this without going any further. I must be mistaken somehow in what your intention was concerning your intention to avoid a debate. I looked at your five scriptures and found that only two of them are about your view, the rest don't fit. Ecclesiastes 9:5,10 For the living know they will die; but the dead do not know anything, nor have they any longer a reward, for their memory is forgotten. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might; for there is no activity or planning or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol where you are going. Here in both verses Solomon makes a contrast between the dead and the living about what they will know about the activities of life. The emphasis here is not on the dead not being aware, it is on the dead no longer having any cognizance of the affairs of life. The affairs of life a running theme through out Ecclesiastes and Solomon is making a point about the vanity of death as being without the same quality as life. And that is the context of this passage, not soul sleep, to say otherwise is to divorce an intrepretation from the author's intent in writting is constrained to the contrast between the quality of life with the vanity of death. Job 14:10-12 But man dies and lies prostrate. Man expires, and where is he? A water evaporates from the sea, and a river becomes parched and dried up, so man lies down and does not rise. Until the heavens are no longer, He will not awake nor be aroused out of his sleep. The context of this exerpt from Job 14 is that back up in verse 1 Job speaks of the futility of life. :1 Man, who is born of woman, is short lived and full of turmoil. Like a flower that withers. He also flees like a shadow and does not remain. That first verse is the whole theme for the entire 14th chapter of Job, everthing else is related to and comes out of that verse. Verses 10 through 12 are talking about the futility of life because it ends in death and the dead no longer are roused from the grave and to live. The author's intent in writting about death is constrained to the futility of life because it ends in death, and is not about soul sleep. more to come, Tamara |