Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
In reaction to the claim by some scholars that sōma in the NT, especially in Paul, has a ‘holistic’ meaning, according to which the term refers to the whole person under some aspect, and not the physical body, or form, R. H. Gundry has argued for a return to a wholly physical understanding of sōma. Gundry argues that the presence of anthropological dualism in the NT speaks against the holistic understanding of soma. He adduces a number of passages in support of his contention that there is anthropological dualism in the NT and concludes by saying that the ultimate source of anthropological dualism in the NT is the OT, and not Greek thought.
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3 Ibid., 117–34, 148, n. 2.
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19 Ibid.
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21 R. Jewett, Paul's Anthropological Terms (Leiden, 1971) 189: ‘The references to the spirit of the sinner which was to be saved by the destruction of the flesh (I Cor. 5.5b) and to Paul's spirit which was active in the Corinthian congregation even during Paul's physical absence must both be understood as the divine spirit apportioned to Christian persons’.
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29 Ibid., 116.
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43 This is evident from the following considerations: (a) As far as ‘body’ (basar) in Psalm 16.9 is concerned, it is unlikely that it refers to the body in the grave, as suggested by the LXX and Acts 2.26 (‘my flesh will dwell in hope’). The OT expression ‘to dwell in safety’ is always used of the living (see Deut. 33.12; Jer. 23.6; 33.16). There is no example in the OT of this expression being used of the dead (see. F. Brown, S. R. Driver and C. A. Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, s.v. p. 105, where all the examples refer to the living), (b) The parallelism in v. 10 suggests that (=‘me’, RSV) and (‘thy godly one’) are related and probably have the same reference. This means that (‘me’) should be understood to mean the whole person. In other words, the first part of v. 10 is saying, ‘For thou dost not give me up to Sheol.’ (c) The use of Sheol and Pit need not imply that here we are dealing with a situation after death. Both terms are often only graphic descriptions of a place of death-like danger from which God rescues a person (cf. Psalms 18.6; 30.3; 71.20; 86.13; 88.4–7; Jonah 2.1, etc.).
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54 Ibid., 265: ‘Und der Gott des Friedens heilige euch gänzlich und in alien Teilen. Sowohl Seele als Leib sei beim Kommen unseres Herrn Jesu Christi untadelig bewahrt.’
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71 So e.g. Psalms 16.9–10; 49.16; 86.13; 30.4; 89.49; Prov. 23.14; I Sam. 2.6.
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74 See Phaedo 66B; 114C, 67D; Phaedrus 249.
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78 Cf. also the view of Hoffmann, P. (Die Toten in Chrisms, Münster [1966] 58–80Google Scholar, 321–47) that OT anthropology is monistic and that NT dualism derives from Hellenistic influence.