My soul survived in my question… so I’ll ask again what I didn’t understand

You wrote, “As for Maimonides, when a person dies, his intellect also no longer exists.” That seems to contradict what I saw on YouTube, that Maimonides believes that what remains after death is the intellect. No??

It’s well known that you’re a trailblazer and a slaughterer of sacred cows. But to argue with an explicit YouTube video?! There’s a limit….

By the way, the green card’s on me. You’ve been spoiled.

The Aristotelian proofs for the immateriality of the intellect deal with the fact that, first of all, everything grasped through the senses or imagination is always some particular thing, particular with respect to its color, shape, size, and so on. There is nothing grasped by the senses that is both blue and green at the same time and in the same respect. There is no triangle in the physical world that is both isosceles and right-angled. But the essence of a thing is not particular—for example, the essence of a triangle is an intellectual extrapolation that creates a common denominator for both the right triangle and the isosceles triangle, both the blue triangle and the green one—and yet it is still grasped, though not by the senses and not by imagination (you cannot imagine a colorless triangle that is both isosceles and right-angled), but by the intellect. From this it follows that what is not particular is not material, and therefore that which grasps what is not material is itself not material.

Second, if the intellect were material, then it would have a structure or configuration that limits what can be grasped in accordance with that structure: we would grasp things according to the material mode of existence of our intellect, and not according to the things themselves, which would make science impossible. But since science is possible, the intellect must be structureless and immaterial. In addition, even if one could imagine that the intellect is material, one could not believe that claim, because if things cannot be grasped as they are, then the truth about whether the intellect is material or immaterial cannot be grasped either.

Third, in order to know, the form of the thing, or the meaningful content of the thing (“what” the thing is that we are speaking about), must somehow be received by the knower. But if the intellect receiving it were material, then the intellect’s knowledge would be particular rather than universal, because every material thing that receives a form receives it in a particularized way. Yet we know universal essences. Therefore, the intellect is not material.

By the way, from the immateriality of the intellect one may infer that the survival of the thinking self after death is logically possible, but not that it is actual. The plain meaning of Scripture does not support Maimonides’ claim that there is such survival. Rather, the wicked perish forever and the righteous rise in the resurrection of the dead.

It may very well be that the plain meaning of Scripture does believe in the survival of the soul. True, not according to Maimonides’ conception, but there are quite a few verses that support such survival. From “and the spirit returns to God who gave it,” to going down to Sheol (the Canaanite world of the dead; according to the Hebrew Bible, everyone gets there, righteous and wicked alike), all the way to the story of Saul and the medium.

Some commentators claimed that the medium’s deeds were a lie and a sleight of hand, but from the verses it seems that according to the plain meaning the event actually happened. And it also shows that this belief was widespread.

Even the resurrection of the dead can be understood allegorically if one follows the plain meaning of Scripture. The reason this belief was accepted is because the Sages determined it, not because of the plain meaning.

In addition, the plain meaning is also not relevant for a believing person, because tradition, the words of the Sages, and various interpretations override it. Beyond that, tradition is what gives validity to the words of the Hebrew Bible, since it is what determines that it should be taken into account, and it is what determined which books would be included in it.
A sola scriptura approach may ultimately lead to undermining the holy scriptures themselves—for why Jeremiah and Esther, but not Maccabees, Enoch, and Jubilees?

I’ll say again that there is no obstacle to saying that everything is lost with the destruction of the body, but that is not necessary. If Maimonides thinks we have a soul beyond the body, then when the body is destroyed the soul/intellect can also remain. I don’t see any difficulty here.

I’ll just add that Aristotle’s words on this matter are very obscure and can be understood in several ways.
The two main approaches are those of Alexander of Aphrodisias and Themistius.

Alexander interprets Aristotle to mean that the passive intellect is “potentiality.” It is not something with existence in its own right and therefore is lost with the body, but it can be “actualized” through the acquisition of wisdom, and in that way it “unites” with the active intellect and attains metaphysical existence.

According to Themistius, the passive intellect is a “miniature model” of the active intellect, has existence in its own right, and continues to exist beyond the body. It can be seen as part of the active intellect.

Even according to Alexander, many understand that in practice there is no individual existence for the soul. If two people attained a certain wisdom, what survives is that same wisdom, not the individual soul. Just as the triangle has no individual metaphysical existence, but only its “form” is preserved, and in practice every triangle enters the template of the “ideal triangle.”

Most medieval philosophers followed Alexander’s approach. In most of his writings Maimonides seems to follow Alexander’s view, but there are a few places where he seems to follow Themistius’ view, that is, he holds that the soul/intellect is eternal even without the attainment of intelligibles, contrary to most of his writings.

The heretics, as usual, ignore explicit verses.

God tried to promote man to a higher level and placed him in the Garden of Eden so that he wouldn’t have to spend all day dealing with survival like the animals. But man (like every spoiled person) got above himself and started talking about being like God, eternal life, and the survival of the soul.

“By the sweat of your brow shall you eat bread, until you return to the ground, for from it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you shall return.”

Copenhagen
It seems to me you mean equilateral.

Kobi

I too once believed in a world of souls—but the plain meaning of Scripture forces me to doubt it.

The spirit in the verse “and the spirit returns to God who gave it” is apparently that without which the body is not alive (as in “and He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life”—a spirit that gives life to the dead body), not some Cartesian self, Aristotelian intellect, or any sort of personal consciousness. Ecclesiastes did not believe in any form of bodiless life after death:

“For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing at all, and they have no more reward, for their memory is forgotten. Their love also, their hatred also, and their envy have already perished; and they have no more portion forever in all that is done under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 9:5–6)

—There you have it explicitly: the dead person has no consciousness whatsoever. And likewise (chapter 3):

“For the fate of humans and the fate of beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other, and they all have one spirit, and man has no advantage over the beast, for all is vanity. All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all return to dust. Who knows whether the spirit of man rises upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth?” (as a rhetorical question: you don’t know that it is so—because it is not so, in line with what I said before: “as one dies, so dies the other”).

As for Saul and the medium, as some commentators thought, it is not at all clear that this is the plain meaning. There are several ways to understand the story—for example, that the medium lied (and there are hints of that in the story itself), that a demon impersonating Samuel lied, and so on—but it is less plausible to claim that it was Samuel himself, and that he cooperated with the subversive act against God’s will that a person not turn to a medium to discover what will happen in the future (and then Samuel voluntarily gives him information about what will happen in the future).

In general, one should be careful about extracting doctrines from biblical stories when they conflict with explicit theological statements. The ambiguous is interpreted in light of the clear, not the clear in light of the ambiguous.

I won’t get into biblical interpretation, but it is not likely to understand the resurrection of the dead in Isaiah, in Daniel, and apparently also in several places in Psalms as allegory. In any case, the early interpretive tradition did not understand it as allegory—which provides additional evidence, if you have any doubt. The reason for belief in the resurrection of the dead cannot be the Sages, because as many of the medieval authorities (Rishonim) thought, the Sages have no absolute authority to determine what is true in matters of faith and belief (see, for example, Rabbi Abraham son of Maimonides in his “Essay on the Aggadic Teachings of the Sages”). Rather, as Abravanel and Maimonides wrote, it is an explicit determination in the spirit of prophecy:

“Daniel and Ezekiel both saw divine visions in the land of the Chaldeans; both were holy and wise… and the prophet Jeremiah said of them both, ‘The Lord has raised up prophets for us in Babylon’… and the nature of the matters and the style of the words prove that his level in them was pure and clear, more than the prophecies of Ezekiel, whether concerning the kingdoms, or concerning the future redemption and the fixing of its time, and also concerning the resurrection of the dead; for as the Rabbi wrote in the Epistle on Resurrection: no writings were found that testify to it clearly, without any way to push them aside by argument and objection, like the words of the angel to Daniel… Daniel was a bearer of good tidings, proclaiming salvation in all this, and he is the pillar upon which we rely.” (Springs of Salvation, spring 3, palm 1)

I don’t understand your claim about tradition. After all, tradition itself (the early tradition) established that the World to Come is the world of resurrection. A world of souls as a substitute for the rabbinic World to Come is Maimonides’ invention. That is more or less like criticizing Rabbi Saadia Gaon’s view of the flaw in belief in transmigration, which spread among the people, as “a sola scriptura approach.”

Last Decisor,

It is true that man was apparently created naturally mortal, but God prevented him from accessing the Tree of Life only after he sinned.

The cherubim intended to guard access to the Tree of Life are also represented in the Holy of Holies in the Temple.

I don’t understand—seemingly, if we take the Hebrew Bible as one whole, it is absolutely obvious that there are verses indicating the World to Come.
And that’s very much how it seems to me in many less explicit places, such as in Psalms…

Is the claim here in the debate that these are later additions?
Why not just accept that there is a World to Come, as Rabbi Saadia Gaon says?

I think the Hebrew Bible did believe in some kind of survival of the soul/spirit.
First of all, the Hebrew Bible mentions Sheol quite a few times. And we need to ask ourselves what that Sheol is. According to biblical scholarship and the Ancient Near East, Sheol is the Canaanite world of the dead. It is imagined as being consumed by the god Mot.
The Hebrew Bible indeed does not elaborate on this, but one has to understand it from the cultural-religious context of that period.

As for “the dead know that they will die etc.,” it is quite possible that the meaning is that their deeds have no significance in Sheol. The mode of existence there is different.
According to the plain meaning of Scripture in quite a few places, one can see that there is no action in Sheol.
Existence there is not described positively, and it seems that reward is in this world.
This is very similar to how the Canaanites conceived the world of the dead, where the mode of existence is different and governed by different gods.

According to the plain meaning, the story with the medium really happened literally. The later interpretations that the medium deceived him came from rationalist medieval commentators.
The Torah forbids summoning through a medium, but that does not mean such summoning is impossible. In fact, here Maimonides innovated the idea that the Torah aims at true beliefs and distances people from the delusions and foolishness of idol worshippers. In the Bible there is not a single mention that this is the intent.

There are also quite a few contradictions between different books of the Hebrew Bible, and because of this the Sages even wanted to disqualify the book of Ezekiel, but דווקא on this topic Scripture is actually pretty consistent in my opinion.
Likewise there are many contradictions between the plain meaning of the verses, the homiletic interpretation, and even the rabbinic interpretations from which halakhic rulings were inferred (at the Torah level).

As for the resurrection of the dead in Ezekiel and Isaiah, it seems allegorical, like many prophecies, whereas in Daniel in my opinion it is harder to see it as allegory. But the book of Daniel (at least part of it) is a book written very late, and quite a lot was added to it, and part of it is clearly pseudepigraphic.

The point about tradition that I mentioned is that it is what determines the interpretation, context, and beliefs of the verses. The literal resurrection of the dead and the acceptance of the book of Daniel come by the force of tradition, which rejects other books such as Enoch and 2 Maccabees that were written not so far away in time.

Rabbinic tradition believes in existence after death, and the aggadic literature of the Sages is full of descriptions of the world of the dead. Whole areas of law were even written based on these assumptions, so these are not aggadot and allegories that can simply be dismissed; in the Sages’ view, this is a factual description.

I do not think the Sages have no authority in matters of faith, and the issue is more complicated than one sweeping statement or another. Quite a few halakhic rulings were determined that way. But that is not what I claimed.
I claimed that the authority of the scriptures comes from tradition, and not the other way around.
After all, tradition determined what would be included in the canon and what would not.
Therefore tradition is the competent authority to determine what the scriptures hold.
After all, if the book of Numbers, for example, had not been included in the canon, you would never have thought to take it seriously.

By the way, from the words of the Sages it seems that the World to Come is the world of the resurrection of the dead. In later periods, the World to Come became the world of souls/Garden of Eden, and Tosafot even concluded that there are two “World to Comes”: the world of souls/Garden of Eden, and the world of resurrection.

Kobi,
It also seems obvious to me, in my humble opinion, that from examining the Hebrew Bible the soul does not vanish after death, and by the way regarding summoning through a medium—it’s ridiculous; whether it’s allegory or not, in the end did Saul believe in it? Yes. So that shows that he thought something remains…
The only question, as I understand it, that can be asked is regarding judgment in the World to Come. And regarding that there are more explicit verses (like the end of Ecclesiastes, Daniel, and others) and less explicit ones in the Hebrew Bible (like Psalms about what will happen to the wicked and reward for the righteous) that very much seem to hint at it.
By the way, in Job specifically, as one of the early books, in chapter 3 it’s really not clear whether there is reward and punishment. But the Sages already comment on that regarding him.

By the way, I heard—and remember only vaguely—that even before the giving of the Torah, in Egypt they spoke very explicitly about the World to Come, and there is some connection between the Ten Commandments and their conception. As if the Ten Commandments sharpen the sins that the Torah sees as severe in relation to punishment in the World to Come, in a way people with an Egyptian background would understand.
And if so, one can accept the approach of the commentators that the Torah did not deal with the World to Come precisely because it was so obvious. Surely M knows these matters accurately.

P.S.
You can read interestingly here about the theological distinction in the Hebrew Bible between the body and soul/spirit:
http://tchelet.org.il/article.php?id=338&page=all

Copenhagen,
If you reject the later interpretation, how do you determine that the verses speak about literal resurrection and not, say, a metaphor for the revival of Israel or something similar?
After all, many of the prophets’ words are allegories.

In addition, from where do you derive the authority of Scripture? And how do you know how to interpret it? There are quite a few ways to interpret it. Even Christians base the authority of the New Testament and the messiahship of Jesus on the scriptures.
How do you observe the commandments? According to the plain meaning or according to the Sages’ interpretation?

I’m not sure why it matters what the ancient Hebrews believed. Even if Ecclesiastes and the author of the book of Samuel believed in the existence of a world of souls, that doesn’t mean the belief is actually true—only that they believed it.

In any case, it’s a bit hard for me to assume that God would create a person to live here for 80 years, for no clear purpose, and then die. If this world is only a small part of the process of existence, the mind can rest.

In addition, we do not see justice being done in this world. There is no recompense for good or bad deeds, so it seems natural to assume that there is something after death, where a person receives recompense for his deeds.

To all the newbie prophets: “and the spirit returns to God who gave it” was not written by Ecclesiastes but by the Sages.

To all the newbies,
As is well known, the verse “For the fate of humans and the fate of beasts is the same” was not written by Ecclesiastes but by the Sadducees, and this connects to the Pharisees’ dispute with them, and these matters go way back 🙂

Why can’t one say that Ecclesiastes is conveying some sort of message through pessimistic thinking until he matures, that meaning in something infinite is found in the service of God? Just as the book “Stable and Unstable Truth” by the site owner begins from the broken trough of certainty and moves to probability.

Another example of a split between Ecclesiastes and a later addition:
“For the fate of the children of man and the fate of the beast is one fate for them; as one dies, so dies the other, and one spirit is for all; and man has no advantage over beast, for all is vanity. All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all return to dust.”

The following verse is a later addition by a standard heretic:

“Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes downward to the earth.”

Ecclesiastes’ pessimistic thinking is realistic. Human beings don’t want to die on the one hand (like every living creature), but on the other hand nature forces them to die.

Ecclesiastes spoke about a person rejoicing in his deeds. And in that he found a small bright spot. Certainly not in the service of God as such, which is basically just a substitute for idolatry (an appropriate substitute for the standard heretic).

Kobi,

It is clear to me that the Hebrew Bible believed in some kind of life after death. But it is simply the world of the resurrection of the dead, as the Mishnah says: “All Israel have a share in the World to Come, as it is said: ‘And your people are all righteous; they shall inherit the land forever,’” and as Psalms says, “For the Lord loves justice and does not forsake His faithful ones; they are preserved forever, but the offspring of the wicked shall be cut off.” By contrast: “The righteous shall inherit the land and dwell upon it forever.” The tendency, following Maimonides, to see this as the survival of a bodiless soul is an anachronistic projection.

Sheol is another word for the grave. “Costly is the redemption of their life, and it ceases forever… yet man in honor does not abide; he is likened to the beasts that perish… Like sheep they are appointed for Sheol; death shall shepherd them… man in honor who does not understand is like the beasts that perish.” (Psalms 49)

That is, the destruction of the wicked person devoid of understanding (who goes to Sheol and remains there) is eternal like that of the beast.

We cannot learn from the beliefs of the pagan Canaanite world if they contradict the plain meaning—for the purpose of Scripture is to educate people not to learn from that world.

It is not only that there is “no action” in Sheol. Rather, “His spirit departs, he returns to his earth; on that very day his thoughts perish,” and likewise, “There is no deed or calculation or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.” — That is, there is no consciousness. No “I think.”

If you rely on the story of the medium, I would say you are building mountains hanging by a hair, but I won’t get into that long topic in itself.

The sayings about wanting to disqualify certain books are, in a sense, aggadic—meant to convey certain messages (for example, regarding the problems faced by a believer struggling with holy writ), but not to claim that the Sages actually had the power to suppress anything. As Josephus records, the Hebrew Bible was essentially sealed in the fifth century BCE by the Men of the Great Assembly (as Maimonides says)—among them prophets—long before these aggadic sayings in the Sages.

I do not think that in Isaiah the resurrection of the dead is an allegory—but that would drag us into a separate discussion about the interpretive context of various verses, and this is not the place.

As for Daniel—the notion that it is late is indeed trendy in secular scholarship (and it could not be otherwise, because it is full of very detailed and very accurate prophecies, especially in chapter 11), but close examination shows that this has no serious backing—quite the opposite. In any case, if you think so, then you are rejecting the rabbinic tradition that clearly attributes the book to that very Daniel who was in Babylon in the sixth century BCE with Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. So why complain against me in the name of supposedly binding tradition about a hypothetical world of souls? Physician, heal yourself.

The books of Enoch and Maccabees had to be rejected because books later than the fifth century were not accepted.

It is true that there are quite a few references in the Sages to a world of souls, but still the ultimate world of reward and punishment to which Scripture points, the purpose of the righteous person’s life, is the World to Come, which is clearly not the world of souls but rather the world of resurrection.

In my opinion there is something misleading in the statement that it was “determined” that a certain book would be included in the canon. It is more accurate to describe it as something that was recognized, perceived, or known among those who observed the commandments that a certain book was written with prophetic spirit, and that perception later led, at the time of the closing of the Hebrew Bible, to the communal determination that these books were included in the canon.

David,

As for how I know it refers to literal resurrection—the argument requires long analysis, so forgive me for refraining—maybe I’ll write about it some other time.

You can get an impression of the authority of Scripture from the fact that it was closed in a period when God’s providence over the Jewish people was manifest, with prophets walking among us, and they, according to tradition, were among those who certified that from then on no more books were to be added. In any case, it was mainly written by prophets known among the people whose prophecies were fulfilled.

I don’t see how one can base the authority of the New Testament writings on the Hebrew Bible—I know of no prophecy about new books that are going to be included in the canon in the future or anything like that.

When you have a question about how to observe some commandment, you turn to tradition. Not because it is incapable of error, but because after all it records the way the commandments were observed from the Second Temple period onward, a period at the beginning of which there were still sages and prophets who observed those same commandments and received the traditions from the First Temple period, and there is no doubt that God-fearing people watched their practice and followed it. Besides, after all there has to be some way to observe the commandments, and it is not in heaven.

Shai,

Clearly. There is a purpose, as stated—but it is not the world of souls but the world of resurrection—for the righteous. And it seems that the wicked are annihilated forever (rather than suffering forever in a spirit world).

Where is there resurrection of the dead in Psalms?

I don’t understand how you inferred from “they shall inherit the land” that this is talking about the world of resurrection? And again, rabbinic descriptions are full of descriptions of a world of souls, and these are not allegorical aggadot, because halakhic rulings were decided on that basis.

Sheol is the Canaanite world of the dead. If you think the Hebrew Bible meant “grave,” then why did it use the word Sheol? After all, the context of Sheol as it was perceived then (and even today by those familiar with Ancient Near Eastern beliefs) is a hidden world of the dead, and existence there is like the existence of shades.
I’m not inferring from the pagan world regarding the Torah, but when there is an explicit word with a certain meaning, that is likely what is intended. After all, in every other place where the Torah opposed pagan notions, it said so explicitly and did not use their conceptual vocabulary.

And again, from the verse in Ecclesiastes, “the dead have no more reward, for their memory is forgotten,” one can also infer that there is no resurrection of the dead at all.

As for the medium, if the Hebrew Bible thought there is no existence after death, why mention the story? Why not come out against this belief? (The fact that it forbade consulting the dead does not mean it is impossible, or that this belief was not true in its view.) In other places the Hebrew Bible comes out forcefully against false pagan beliefs.
In my opinion the story shows that at least this belief did exist among the people—and not only among the ignorant masses, but also among the sages of that time.

The books of Enoch and Maccabees were disqualified also because of the beliefs written there that contradicted the Sages’ view. These books were important among the sectarians, but that is another topic.
The existence of an oral tradition is what determined what would be included in the canon and what would not. It is actually what gives validity to the holy scriptures, as I wrote in previous comments.
Without tradition, no one would accept the Hebrew Bible as a source of faith.
Tradition sometimes even contradicts the plain meaning of the verses.
As several commenters asked you: how do you observe certain commandments when the plain meaning of the Hebrew Bible says something entirely different? For if I understood correctly, you hold a “sola scriptura” view similar to the Protestants, but you observe the commandments according to rabbinic tradition, and it’s really interesting how you deal with that dissonance.

I’m also interested to know from where you derive the truth of the scriptures. In my opinion there has to be an ancient tradition that accepts the truth of the scriptures (or other proofs of their truth, but I’m not aware of any).

As for resurrection in the book of Daniel, from the plain meaning it seems that wicked people too will rise but will be judged to everlasting contempt; according to the Sages as well, it seems they rise to receive their punishment, though there are several views on who rises and why.

By the way, if the soul is extinguished after death, how can the resurrection of the dead be possible? The metaphysical self no longer exists.

Copenhagen, actually from Psalm 49 it’s obvious there is a World to Come. You want to say that means resurrection of the dead—fine, whatever… even according to my approach with Sheol it fits the verses very well.
And summoning through a medium—it is absolutely obvious that if Saul thought Samuel would be there, that means there is continued existence for the soul or the soul of the righteous.
The same could be said about Enoch or Elijah. But of course, the gates of interpretation have never been locked…

Regarding the external books, the Sages also forbade reading them, not only excluded them from the canon. That is, the Sages did indeed determine the canon and the theology and the beliefs, and determined what would count as legitimate and what would not. And again, the fact that there was an early tradition actually strengthens my point. For the Sages did not determine it arbitrarily. And that is my claim: tradition validates the scriptures, not the other way around.

From several places one sees that the relationship between the psalmist and God is so deep that somehow it will not be ended forever by death.

Here are a few examples:

“For You will not abandon my life to Sheol; You will not let Your faithful one see the Pit.” Note that all the verses are clear that “nefesh” in its plain sense means simply “the living body”—certainly not a bodiless soul, as emerges from the present context as well. (16:10)

In chapter 17 the psalmist asks God to protect him from the attacks of the wicked: “Rise up, O Lord, confront him, bring him low… deliver my soul from the wicked by Your sword; from men by Your hand, O Lord—from men of the world whose portion is in life”—from those whose portion and reward are in the present world—“and whose bellies You fill with Your treasure; they are satisfied with children and leave their abundance to their infants”—those whose stomachs are filled with Your treasure and whose wealth passes to their heirs at this time.

By contrast: “As for me, in righteousness I shall behold Your face; when I awake (when I awake to life from the sleep of the grave, I shall be satisfied with) Your likeness,” Your nearness.

In Psalm 49 the psalmist notes that in the natural state both rich and poor are destroyed, and no one can redeem his brother, so as to give God a ransom for his life (“No man can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him; for the redemption of their life is costly”) therefore: “and it ceases forever”—he is lost forever. The price of redeeming his life is too great to cause him to reach the state of: “that he should still live forever and not see the Pit.” Without a special intervention by God, eternal annihilation is unavoidable.

In contrast to them, “But God will redeem my life from the hand of Sheol, for He will take me, Selah.” The wicked indeed perish in Sheol like the beast (for “In death there is no remembrance of You; in Sheol who will give You thanks?”), but God will personally see to the redemption of the righteous.

“You who have shown me many troubles and evils—you will revive me again, and from the depths of the earth You will bring me up again.” (71:20) — with emphasis on the fact that this will happen again, that is, after death.

Psalm 73 deals with the eternal destruction of the wicked—as opposed to the fate of the righteous (vv. 23–26). Note that it cannot be interpreted as meaning that he will die before his time, which verse 4 denies.

And likewise: “A brutish man does not know, and a fool does not understand this: when the wicked spring up like grass and all evildoers flourish, it is only that they may be destroyed forever.” (92). This stands in contrast to the righteous, who do not necessarily flourish in the present period since they are not destined for destruction forever.

Kobi,

“Inherit the land” plainly refers to life in the land, not to a world of souls. The fact that the righteous will inherit the land the Sages received from Scripture, for example Daniel 7:18.

As for why Scripture used one terminology rather than another, I’ll leave that to speculation. What matters is that it explicitly tells you several times that there is no consciousness, thought, desire, or action in Sheol.

Regarding Ecclesiastes, he correctly expresses the view that the natural state of the dead is that no trace of them remains. The resurrection of the dead is a selective, special intervention by providence (see the verses from Psalms I cited above that interpret it that way).

Many times Scripture tells a story seemingly innocently and lets the reader wrestle with what theological meanings can be inferred from its details, if any. (For example, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”)

I don’t know how you got from my words to “sola scriptura.” What I argued is that historically Scripture was accepted among those who fear God because it was known as the word of God. Not that it was arbitrarily decided that it is the word of God, and by virtue of that became the word of God (which is ontologically absurd, and historically false). Later it was fixed as canon, because people understood that prophecy had left the nation and decided that from then on no more books would be added.

Daniel says that “many” will rise. From this I infer that there will be ordinary wicked people who will not rise (as in the plain meaning of many other verses), and also exceptional wicked people who will rise in order to receive punishment to everlasting contempt, so that God’s justice will be visible to all, as Isaiah says: “And they shall go forth and look upon the corpses of the men who rebelled against Me; for their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.”

From the principle of the identity of indiscernibles, one can perhaps say that your particular “I” can exist only as a result of the union of a particular body with a soul—as described in Genesis: “And the Lord God formed the man from dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” If one imagines an “I” without a body, there is nothing distinguishing it from other “I”s.

In Psalm 49 God redeems him from Sheol, and from the comparison with the wicked it is clear that otherwise he would not exist—this is fully understandable if it refers to the resurrection of the dead, but does not fit a world of souls in any way.

The Sages forbade external books, but even without the prohibition they were not included in the historical canon of the Men of the Great Assembly and were not accepted by all the God-fearing people in the nation as the biblical books were.

“Inherit the land” can also be understood as rule over the land, or as reward in this world. The way of the wicked will perish, and justice and the divine command will prevail. But the truth is that in order to understand Scripture one also has to study the language, culture, and context of the Ancient Near East, to whose people the Hebrew Bible is addressed.

By the way, I remember that once they tried to prove post-mortem existence in this way; after a little research I understood that the verses are referring to burial customs and rituals of the Ancient Near East.

As for your view, which I labeled “sola scriptura,” that’s because you follow the plain meaning of Scripture and ignore rabbinic tradition, which holds otherwise. I’m not necessarily saying your words are wrong, but I don’t understand why you reject tradition in certain matters and accept it in others (observance of the commandments).

I also still don’t understand how you determine that the scriptures are the word of God. After all, anyone can write a book and say it is the word of God, and there are thousands of sects and religions that claim exactly that.
In my opinion—and this is my argument—tradition is what gives validity to the scriptures, for without it they are just books like Maccabees, Enoch, Jubilees, the Gospels, Revelation, etc.

The tradition passed down through the generations is what validates the scriptures. The same tradition that goes back to Sinai and claims the Torah was given there; the one that validated the hermeneutic rules given at Sinai (which are not mentioned in the scriptures at all); the one that grants authority to the sages to interpret it in every generation (in the Hebrew Bible authority belongs to priests and prophets, and even there it is very limited); and it is that same tradition that interpreted the scriptures (which can be interpreted in hundreds and thousands of different ways, as the Christians, Essenes, Sadducees, and other sects that operated in the past all testify), and that same tradition which holds that there is a metaphysical world of souls.

I never claimed that the Hebrew Bible was determined arbitrarily, only that there was a transmitted tradition and that is what gave validity to the scriptures. For what other reason is there to think the Hebrew Bible is true and should be observed? If I’m not mistaken, Rabbi Michael Abraham also took this view in one of the questions asked here, and even argued that there is no point in studying the Hebrew Bible without tradition because it can be interpreted in several ways, and what matters is the tradition.
He even gave examples of contradictions between the written text and the words of the Sages regarding the idolatrous city, the stubborn and rebellious son, and even regarding laws given at Sinai that are not mentioned in the scriptures.

Again, I don’t understand how you accept statements of the Sages that contradict explicit verses—a thing that those who sanctified the holy scriptures alone rejected. Starting with the Sadducees, the Samaritans, the Karaites, and even the Ethiopians (who also have a tradition, though a much thinner one).

And again, the fact that the scriptures were fixed in advance actually does strengthen my claim that there was a transmitted tradition, and not that the Sages determined it arbitrarily.

In my opinion, if the Hebrew Bible opposed belief in the survival of the soul, it would have come out against it explicitly, just as it came out against dozens and hundreds of pagan beliefs that it saw as mistaken.
It did not just happen to use the terminology of Sheol.
The prophet did not just happen not to protest the belief in summoning through a medium, and the writer did not just happen to omit or treat the story negatively.

As for what you said about nefesh, I agree. “Nefesh” in the Hebrew Bible means “life,” but the term “ruach” speaks of a metaphysical self, in my opinion. Note that in the story of the medium, Saul’s “spirit” rises, and likewise in “and the soul returns to God who gave it.”

“For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol” is a request/wish not to die a physical death, not about the future resurrection of the dead. At least that’s how I understand it.

I also understand all the other examples as speaking about physical death, not the end of days—except for “You who have shown me…” where it perhaps can be understood as resurrection of the dead.
I remember studying Psalms for matriculation exams; I never saw these things explained as resurrection of the dead, so the text can be interpreted in several ways. It may speak of resurrection, but I haven’t been convinced.

I don’t understand why one needs to trace the beliefs of the ancient Hebrews. The question whether there is existence after death is a factual question.
Even if certain figures in the Hebrew Bible did not believe in the survival of the soul, that does not mean it doesn’t exist. Especially since you brought proofs from a book like Psalms, which at most was written with holy inspiration and not actual prophecy, and even there the prophet usually does not receive answers to such questions.

Similarly, the fact that certain figures in the Hebrew Bible believed in existence in Sheol and summoning by a medium does not mean that this is necessarily true.

So even if the World to Come is the resurrection of the dead, that does not mean there is no world of souls or metaphysical existence.

I don’t understand. If there is no survival of the soul, how is the person who rises the same person? His body decomposed and was rebuilt. It is not even made of the same matter it was made of before he died, and it is even possible that the matter of which he is made ended up in another person.
That is no longer the same person. In order for a person to rise in resurrection, he needs to have an individual metaphysical self.
It is not enough to be only an “ideal” form, and certainly not to lack metaphysical existence.