This is the transcript of Restitutio episode 567: Are the Dead Conscious? with Dustin Smith and Sam Tideman This transcript was auto-generated and only approximates the contents of this episode. Transcript 00:00 Sean Finnegan Hey there, I'm Sean Finnegan. And you are listening to Restitutio podcast that seeks to recover authentic Christianity and live it out today. 00:12 Sean Finnegan Dustin Smith and Sam Tiedeman discuss whether people are conscious in the intermediate state between death and resurrection. Interestingly, neither of them think the deceased are currently in heaven or hell. Smith affirms the sleep of the dead, seeing all the dead, whether good or bad, as unconscious and unaware. 00:32 Sean Finnegan Of the passage of time. 00:34 Sean Finnegan Tiedeman puts forward the idea that the souls of the dead are in a semi conscious, dreamlike state in a chamber called Shield or Hades. 00:42 Sean Finnegan Today is part. 00:43 Sean Finnegan One of their discussion, in which both lay out their positions and then discuss Ecclesiastes 910 in Isaiah 14. Doctor Dustin Smith currently serves as a New Testament. 00:54 Sean Finnegan Scholar at Spartanburg Methodist College in South Carolina, Smith has authored or edited 6 books, including the 2024 monograph Wisdom Christology in the Gospel of John. He is also the weekly host of the Biblical Unitarian podcast. 01:12 Sean Finnegan Sam Tiedeman is a Harvard educated data scientist at Google who has keen interests in biblical studies, theology, and especially church history among several others. He hosts the YouTube channel transfigured, which has a total of nearly 250,000 views with interesting guests like Tim Mackie, Alistair McGrath, and John Vervaeke. 01:32 Sean Finnegan Among others, and in today's episode, these two have a respectful dialogue on this important question. 01:40 Sean Finnegan Are you awake in the intermediate state here now is episode 567. Are the dead conscious with Dustin Smith and Sam Teerman? 01:58 Sean Finnegan Welcome to restitutio, Dustin Smith and Sam. 02:02 Sean Finnegan Meet him in. 02:03 Sean Finnegan So glad to have you guys here today, yeah. 02:05 Sam Tideman Thank you, Sean. 02:06 Dustin Smith Yeah, it's good to see you guys. 02:08 Sean Finnegan You 2 have been having somewhat of a dialogue on Facebook groups about your differing views on what happens immediately following death, and the question we're discussing today is, is the soul conscious? 02:24 Sean Finnegan In the afterlife or after death? So far as I understand it, Dustin is saying no, and same as saying yes. 02:31 Sam Tideman I'm trying to defend the yes side for now, right. 02:33 Sean Finnegan All right. So Sam is not necessarily saying yes, he's defending. 02:38 Sean Finnegan The yes side. 02:40 Sounds good. 02:40 Sean Finnegan Fam, we'll leave that nuance for you to unpack later in the conversation if you would like to. To begin with, we'll just hear from Dustin and hear his thoughts on conditional immortality and also the sleep of the dead. So go ahead, Dustin, won't you take it away? 02:59 Dustin Smith Yeah. Thanks, Sam and Sean. 03:00 Dustin Smith For inviting us to have this conversation. 03:03 Dustin Smith And when it comes to the topic of whether the soul is conscious or unconscious. 03:10 Dustin Smith At the point of death, of course, I'm going to take a position that is going to be looking at what the Bible says, because this is going to be a very different conversation. If we were to ask, what did Plato think on this particular topic or what did some sex of Judaism think on this particular topic, or what did portolan think on this topic? OK, so. 03:30 Dustin Smith So it's all going to come down to where are we drawing our information? And since I'm a Christian and I'm committed to Scripture and the teachings of Jesus, then I of course I'm going to be drawing on that info. 03:42 Dustin Smith And I admit that this is a topic that if we look at all the information, it is fairly complex. I'm just gonna acknowledge that from the beginning. So I kind of wanted to at least. 03:53 Dustin Smith Folly. 03:54 Dustin Smith Over to Sam, because I kind of see this as kind of a friendly conversation and same has been nothing but a Christian gentleman in the midst of these conversations. So I've got five points. I would say that I would just kind of want to volley over to him and just kind of hear what he thinks might be persuasive or what he thinks I've just made-up or might need a little bit more nuance and so. 04:15 Dustin Smith So the the first point that I want to suggest is that the dead are unconscious in the grave. And of course there are various words that describe the grave in Hebrew shale and in Greek Hades. And so I've got a handful of passages that are just kind of meant to. 04:33 Dustin Smith Be a sampling of this. 04:34 Dustin Smith So Ecclesiastes 910 says that whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. For there is no activity or planning or knowledge and wisdom and shale where you are going. And I'm focusing there, by the way, on the pronouns, cause I'm very curious as to. 04:50 Dustin Smith Where a person goes when they die, not necessarily their body, not necessarily their spirits, not necessarily their breath. Where is the person going? And so Sheila is where you are going. And Sheila, it's very clear in that passage that there's no activity planning, knowledge or wisdom. We get a little bit more of this and some 100. 05:10 Dustin Smith 26 verse 4 where it says his spirit departs. It also translate that as his breath. OK but notice he returns to the Earth. So that's where. 05:19 Dustin Smith Goes and on that very day, his thoughts perish. So I'm assuming that returning to the earth is like going to the grave. Your thoughts perish. There's no activity. But notice he's going there. But there's a distinction between he going to the earth and the spirit departing in Second Kings, chapter 22, verse 20 says therefore, behold. 05:39 Dustin Smith I will gather you notice that pronoun to your fathers and you'll be gathered to your grave in peace and your eyes will not see all the evil which I will bring on this pal. 05:51 Dustin Smith That suggests that when this person is dead, he's gathered with his fathers, they're dead. They're in the grave, he's going to be at peace, but he's not gonna be able to see or witness or observe or have any sort of conscious knowledge of anything that God is actually doing. 06:06 Dustin Smith And then Isaiah 38 verses 18 through 19, it says that shale cannot praise you. 06:12 Dustin Smith And then in the parallelism, it says death cannot praise you. Those who, there's that pronoun, those who go down to the pit cannot hope for your faith. 06:20 Dustin Smith Unless, but it is the living who gives things to you. So there's a contrast there between those who are dead and go down to the pit and the living who actually can give you thanks. But death cannot think or praise you. And then that put a variety of other passages that we could look at that indicate that those who go down to the grave have no activity, no planning, no knowledge. 06:42 Dustin Smith And again, it's the person that's going there and I'm interested in that information. Let's move to the second point. 06:47 Dustin Smith The second thing that I would want to bring up is that biblically speaking, souls are mortal. They are not immortal. There is no phrase in the Bible of an immortal soul. And of course we could start with Genesis 27 where we have Yahweh forming humanity at Dom from the dust of the ground, breathing into his nostrils the breath of life. 07:07 Dustin Smith And human becoming a living soul, a nebbish Haya. So we have kind of the clear mathematical equation. We have dust of ground plus breadth of life equals living soul. So you are a soul. You don't possess a soul. 07:21 Dustin Smith And then there are just several passages where the word for soul. 07:25 Dustin Smith Which is either Nefesh in Hebrew or Sikhi in Greek. 07:31 Dustin Smith Die and there's over 50 passages and it's a clear teaching in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. So I just picked a couple of them. Leviticus 2329. 07:40 Dustin Smith If there's any soul. 07:42 Dustin Smith Will not humble himself on this day. He shall be cut off from his people. Ezekiel 18, verse four and verse 20. They both say the same thing. The soul who sins will die. That much is clear. Jesus also taught this, and he taught it about himself. The son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his soul. 08:02 Dustin Smith The ransom for many. And what does that mean? It means that Jesus is going to die on behalf of other people. 08:08 Dustin Smith Now a lot of these passages, of course, are going to take the word for soul, and they're going to just translate English as life. He's going to give his life or ransom for many. But I think when we look at the original languages, it becomes abundantly clear that the biblical authors believed that souls are mortal and that they die and they're not immortal. And then first, Sean 3/16. 08:28 Dustin Smith Is that we know love by this, that he and that's referring to Christ. He laid down his soul for us, OK. 08:36 Dustin Smith Kind of have. 08:38 Dustin Smith Over 50 passages in the Old Testament and the New Testament to where the soul is mortal or dies. So clearly it's an Old Testament teaching and the early church continue to adopt this, and you have passages there and the teachings of Jesus and Paul acts James, Peter Revelation again to me that is a very. 08:58 Dustin Smith Persuasive point from my point of view. 09:00 Dustin Smith The third thing that I would like to raise is that death is likened unto sleep is an Old Testament teaching, and it's a teaching that Jesus himself believed and taught to his followers. So we have several passages and kings and chronicles that will indicate the various kings, whether they're good or bad, they die, and they slept with their fathers. So Solomon slept with his fathers. 09:20 Dustin Smith Second chronicles 931, we have the famous passage from which we actually get the phrase eternal life Daniel 12/2. Many who sleep. Where are they doing it? And the dust of the ground? What's gonna happen? They're going to awaken. 09:32 Dustin Smith And they're going to awaken to everlasting life. That's resurrection life, but others to disgrace and lasting contempt. Jesus, believe this. And he says it's our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep. I'm going to awaken him out of sleep. And then, of course, 3 verses later, he says Lazarus is dead. John 1111 and 11, verse 14. So, Jesus, believe this. And he taught this. 09:52 Dustin Smith And then we can see that Jesus, who himself was asleep and was raised from the dead, is the first fruits of those who are asleep, according to Paul in first Corinthians 15, at verse 20. 10:05 Dustin Smith So there are lots of passages in the Old Testament that describe the dead as being asleep, and also there are several New Testament passages that indicate this as well. So it's something that the early church continued to believe, despite the fact that I'm acknowledging that there was a diversity in Second Temple Judaism on this particular topic. And maybe Sam will talk about this a little bit more. 10:25 Dustin Smith Point #4 these are. I'm just gonna call some self-evident truths. Things that I just kind of figure we could all generally agree on. Death is the opposite of life. 10:36 Dustin Smith I mean, when something is dead, it's not alive. When something is alive, it's not dead. Death and life are just clearly contrasted in the Bible, dude. Only 30, verse 19. He always says I have set before you. Life and death. And the whole point is is to choose one and not the other. And second Samuel 1521, whether for death. 10:54 Dustin Smith Or for life. 10:55 Dustin Smith They're also your servant will be so you can only have one of those death or life now, Paul says in Romans 6, verse 10 for the death that he Christ died, he died to sin once and for all. But the life that he lives, he lives to God. So we have death. He died. But On the contrary, the life that he now currently lives. 11:17 Dustin Smith Is something quite opposite from death. 11:19 Dustin Smith And then if I want to know if someone is actually conscious at the point of death, I would like to ask Jesus, the only person who has died and has come back to life and is still living. And. 11:30 Dustin Smith As he say in Revelation 117 through 18, he tells John the Revelator I'm the 1st and the last. I'm the living one. I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever more. So he's contrasting the fact that I'm alive now, but I was dead in the past. He's not indicating that when I was dead, I was still alive in some other capacity. 11:51 Dustin Smith So to me, death and life are just opposites. I take that as a self-evident point at the resurrection, the dead, which is a. 12:00 Dustin Smith Plural adjective E negri. They will be raised in upward direction. OK, so when we're, whenever we talk about resurrection and being raised, I tend to kind of point upwards to say if you're being raised, then you are previously located somewhere below that. 12:15 Dustin Smith This, of course, deals more with talking with people about whether they go to heaven when they die, but it seems that the New Testament riders would describe resurrection, or rising or standing back up again in the sense of an upward direction. She's topped this and John 520 through 29 and hours come in, which all are in their tombs, will hear his voice, and we'll. 12:34 Dustin Smith 4th. 12:35 Dustin Smith Those who did good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment, and the preaching of acts we have in Acts 224, God raised him up again. Again, the upper direction, and then Paul taught this in for Sicilians 414. Jesus died and rose again. If he rose, that's an upward direction. 12:56 Dustin Smith So I take that as a self-evident point. And the third thing is that God alone possesses immortality, which means that people don't have immortal souls. We know that from first Timothy 616, God alone innately possesses immortality. He has granted it to Jesus. That's true, but Jesus does not innately. 13:13 Dustin Smith Possess immortality and immortality will be given to believers at the resurrection based on 1st Corinthians 1550 through like 54. OK last slide I think will be kind of interesting. Let me just kind of how much time I got left. 13:26 Dustin Smith Here I'm already out of my time, so I'm going to very, very quickly go through. 13:29 Dustin Smith This is the testimony of the early church to kind of show what the people who learned at the feet of the disciples believed and taught, and so the left column deals with Christian writers that actually talked about immortality, conditionalism and resurrection. 13:48 Dustin Smith And the ones that are written in white are those that believed in conditional mortality, and these are writers that lived in the 1st century and lived in the 2nd century. OK. And there's one name there in Red Athena, Goris of Athens. And he is someone that actually taught the immortality of the soul. 14:05 Dustin Smith OK, but these are the writers that wrote in the 1st and 2nd centuries and we have 18 of them that are conditionalist and one of them, which is someone teaching the immortality of the soul. But whenever you get to the 3rd century, it starts to change between Clement and Alexandria. Tolian the politics, pseudo clementines. 14:26 Dustin Smith Oniscus, Felix. Origin and then all the rest there. You start to see a shift there. You only have two riders, innovation and arnobius of Sicca that are conditionalist and nine of them are actually believing in. 14:41 Dustin Smith Natural mortality and the immortality of the soul. So to me you can see a very, very clear shift between the 1st 2 centuries to where it was dominant. 90% of the riders believed in conditional mortality, but when you get to the 3rd century, it changes very, very quickly. So those are my respectful volleys over to Sam and I look forward to. 15:01 Dustin Smith An engaging discussion. 15:03 Sean Finnegan Thank you, Dustin. Some interesting thoughts there. Sam, maybe you could start by telling us a little bit about how you have been reconsidering your view and where you're coming from as far as your perspective on this whole subject? 15:20 Sam Tideman Sure. Thanks, Sean, and thanks for that. Dustin and I. Yeah, I also wanna just iterate. I have the utmost respect for Sean and Dustin. So lest anyone misinterpret some Facebook posts and messages as some kind of form of, I don't know, beef or lack of friendship between dust and that's not what's going on. 15:40 Sam Tideman If anything, I'm I'm trying to constructively engage with this subject and I should say, you know, I was brought up being taught basically everything that Dustin just said. 15:51 Sam Tideman Said. And I will also admit, like I was at a funeral for not not someone particularly close to me, but I was at a funeral a few weeks ago and like, I'm like, searching within myself about what I like actually believe and think is going on because I've been thinking about this recently. I'm like, you know, it still makes intuitive sense to me to believe what, Dustin? 16:11 Sam Tideman Was just saying, but I will also say I've been wrestling with some. I feel like strains of evidence or lines of arguments that I don't feel like fit well with what Dustin's presentation was just arguing. 16:24 Sam Tideman And trying to make sense of this and to really kind of, you know, be a Brian, go back to the scriptures as well as supplementing it with thinking about church history and church fathers and things like that. So let me be clear about what I'm arguing. I am not. And so by arguing, I'm going to kind of probably for the rest of this presentation. 16:44 Sam Tideman Put on the persona of someone who is disagreeing with Dustin, even though, as I've sort of just expressed within myself, I'm a little bit torn and sort of at an inquisitive and exploring and struggling stage at this moment. 16:57 Sam Tideman But for the rest of this conversation, what I am supporting is not the common Christian view of you die. Good people have their soul go straight to heaven. Bad people have their soul go straight to hell. There's a resurrection for some reason, and then everyone returns back to where they previously were, except with maybe with a body this time. 17:18 Sam Tideman That is not what I am arguing or trying to defend at all. So let me be very clear what I am arguing. 17:24 Sam Tideman That's that. You know, my podcast deals a lot with church history and reading the names on the list that Dustin showed in his last slide, and from a lot of people on that list, I see a separate view of the afterlife, which is not what I was taught growing up, nor is it the common kind of Christian folk belief in the afterlife. But this. 17:45 Sam Tideman Alternative kind of in between view. 17:47 Sam Tideman Where souls are not immortal in the sense they have not existed from before all time, there are some Christians in history who believe that mostly ones who really liked Plato. But a lot of the church fathers that I'll be quoting in support of this view, like politics, one of the Church fathers whom I am will be kind of leaning on a. 18:06 Sam Tideman Lot the book. 18:07 Sam Tideman That I'm quoting from is called against Plato. So you know this is not the platonic view of the soul. Souls begin to exist probably in the womb of the mother, when the person is just becoming into existence. The soul is something like the conscious animation of the body. 18:25 Sam Tideman But when you die, your soul descends into Hades, or the underworld or shale, and it sort of continues in like a shadowy existence. Like it's not like this is a good thing, that you have died, or that you're in a better place, really. But your soul is in Hades and there's a part of Hades that is not nice. 18:45 Sam Tideman Where the soul is experiencing some sort of torment or unpleasant existence. But there's also a more restful part of Hades where it's often called the bosom of Abraham, where the soul could be with the other righteous dead, such as as Abraham or other righteous. 19:03 Sam Tideman People. But the point is, is that you're awaiting resurrection. You have not gone to heaven. No one has gone up. Everyone is going down, but that you're still conscious when you're down there and everyone is sort of awaiting the resurrection and your fate while you're down in Hades or shale is a foreshadow of your future judgment. 19:23 Sam Tideman But it isn't the final judgment itself. 19:25 Sam Tideman Health and then at the resurrection the Righteous will be have their soul reunited with a glorified spiritual body. The unrighteous will receive kind of a plain body, and then there is the judgment and the unrighteous will be destroyed. Soul and body there ever after. 19:46 Sam Tideman No longer being conscious in any sense. 19:49 Sam Tideman So in a certain way, there's some of Dustin's slides I actually agree with in this view that I'm supporting that there is conditional immortality. Only the righteous will have their soul exist forever. So I'm not supporting the immortality of the soul. What I am arguing for is that there is a lot of evidence. 20:09 Sam Tideman Kind of what? Both within the Bible, and especially outside of the Bible, of the idea that the soul is conscious after your death and prior to the resurrection in the underworld. 20:20 Sam Tideman And I think that there are some Old Testament texts that support this idea where you can see like in Isaiah, say 14, nine through 11, shale beneath is stirred up to meet you when you come. This is like sort of this boastful text that's talking about the enemies of Israel who are about to die. And like shale, beneath his stirred up to meet you. 20:40 Sam Tideman When you come, it rouses the shades and the shades. Here is this Hebrew word, refaim. If I'm saying that correctly, which is sort of like this word that seems to mean something like ghost, honestly, or soul of a dead person where the shades are roused to. 20:56 Sam Tideman Teach you all who were leaders of the earth that rises from their Thrones, who were kings of the nations. All of them will answer and say to you you too have become as weak as we. You have become like us. Your pomp is brought down to shale. The sounds of your harps. Maggots are laid as a bed beneath you, and worms are your covers. So this idea. 21:16 Sam Tideman That there are these souls in Hades or shale that are welcoming the new dead and kind of with taunts right, that they've become weak. It's not a good thing that you're going down to shale. No one should look forward to this. Even souls going to the bosom of Abraham shouldn't be excited. 21:32 Sam Tideman About this and I think that this also makes sense of say, there's the story of the Witch of Endor where Saul is, you know, in this desperate state. And he does something that he knows is against the law. He goes and consults a witch. This witch conjures up Samuel's soul. It's also kind of weird because the weird the word for soul there is Elohim. 21:52 Sam Tideman Which if you know, is also the word for God. So that's a confusing data point in and of itself, but it certainly seems like Samuel is somehow brought up to Saul's presence by this necro. 22:04 Sam Tideman Answer and Saul recognizes Samuel Samuel recognizes Saul, and then it's just called Samuel for the rest of the story, and Samuel even gives a prophecy in the his dead state that comes to fulfillment, and it is nowhere said that this was a. 22:22 Sam Tideman Trick or a fraud or a? 22:24 Sam Tideman Hoax or something like that. 22:25 Sam Tideman It is simply treated as if Saul had talked to Samuel, and so either the witch gave a true prophecy, or the witch truly conjured Saul or Samuel. Excuse me from the under. 22:35 Sam Tideman World I would also say that in the apocryphal literature of the intertestamental period, especially sort of in the Second Temple period, there are a lot of books that are Jewish works that talk about the soul being conscious after death in Hades, Wisdom of Solomon has a quote. The Book of Enoch which was extremely influential, and it's even quoted in the New Testament. And there are lots of sort of illusions or connections to. 23:00 Sam Tideman The book of first. 23:01 Sam Tideman Back in the New Testament, it has a description where the souls are separated into different compartments in the underworld and that they're conscious while they're down there, and that this is sort of a foreshadow of the judgment and that they're escorted down there by angels and 4th Maccabees also has something where the souls who. 23:22 Sam Tideman Are about to die. They're gonna go down, and they're gonna be with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. So this idea was active in the Jewish imagination at the time of the New Testament. 23:34 Sam Tideman And then I think the New Testament also has a couple of ideas that connect with this. Obviously, I'm sure we'll talk about this more. I won't dig into it too much now, but the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, where Jesus is talking about, you know, there's this rich man and a poor man, both of them die and go down into Hades. The rich man is sort of suffering, but he can see Lazarus over in the Abraham of bosom. 23:56 Sam Tideman In Abraham's bosom, and he's having a more pleasant. 23:58 Sam Tideman Time and so this again reflects it's it's not like Jesus is just making up these views of the afterlife on the spot. They connect with other Jewish ideas that we can see in the apocryphal literature at the time. And my argument would be is that while the main point of the story isn't to teach about the afterlife, the main point of the story is to teach kind of a combination of. 24:20 Sam Tideman Rich people should be nice to poor people, but also even if a person were raised from the dead, that wouldn't be enough to convince some stubborn people. That seems to be the moral thrust of the parable. It's using views of the afterlife that were present in his. 24:34 Sam Tideman The ends and it seems to be endorsing them and using them in such a way that it seems like Jesus himself would believe that and expect his listeners to believe those details of the afterlife. And it's not just some some details that Jesus is making up out of whole cloth and then I would also say Dustin talked about this about Jesus's own death. 24:55 Sam Tideman There are some passages in the New Testament where it seems like Jesus's own soul goes down into Hades and is conscious there. 25:04 Sam Tideman Like the fact that Jesus is even described as descending, that's from Ephesians 4. And there's also a couple of other places that Dustin mentioned. It's not like Jesus's tomb was vertically lower than Earth because Jesus's tomb, you know, there was a stone and you could walk into it. 25:24 Sam Tideman So when, like Mary Magdalene is standing outside the tomb, they're at the same vertical height. So in what sense is Jesus descending? And I think that this is connecting with this view that your soul goes down into the underworld, even if your body is could be at Earth height or regular height, or even if your body isn't even lower. 25:43 Sam Tideman They're like a couple of these passages that just don't really fit in with the view that the soul's unconscious like in first Peter. It says that Jesus also suffered ones for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous. They might bring us to God being put to death in the flesh. He was made alive in the spirit in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison. 26:03 Sam Tideman And so who are those fears in prison? Is this while Jesus is dead? Is this after the resurrection? It's a little bit unclear. 26:10 Sam Tideman Acts Chapter 2 also talks about Jesus being down in Hades. His soul is specifically down in Hades, but his body is not seeing corruption and then he's raised back up and again I Dustin talked about this. This raised upwards. Even that phrase raised up seems to suggest that there's a soul that's down somewhere that then gets brought up from somewhere. 26:31 Sam Tideman To somewhere higher. 26:33 Sam Tideman One thing that I should say when I was reading the church fathers, I'm not aware of any Christians who it could be argued, have the full view of the afterlife that Dustin is supporting in terms of souls being unconscious and then annihilation after the resurrection. While I agree that Dustin is absolutely right that it was. 26:54 Sam Tideman Way more common in early Christianity to believe that souls are ultimately destroyed after the judgment. 27:00 Sam Tideman What I'm talking about is prior to the judgment and he lives, Irenaeus on people who believe in conditional immortality, which I think is right, but Irenaeus is super clear that Jesus went down into Hades when he died. Jesus talks to Abraham. According to Irenaeus, the souls of the Righteous are also down in Hades and they're conscious. 27:20 Sam Tideman And that they are waiting to be resurrected. And Irenaeus is an amazing testimony against the idea that souls go to heaven when they die. He rails against that idea and really defends the Kingdom of God as the Christian hope as opposed to heaven as the. 27:35 Sam Tideman And hope. And so I'm sure that Sean does and I would all agree with that emphasis. But at the same time, he talks about all the souls going down into Hades and being conscious there, awaiting the resurrection. That's his view of the afterlife, how politics is also super clear on this about. And he has, he has this whole elaboration on the afterlife. And like I said, this is in a book. 27:55 Sam Tideman Called against Plato. So it's not like he's intentionally borrowing platonic ideas. 28:00 Sam Tideman And it talks even even more detail about how the bosom of Abraham works, why there's a chasm between the Nice Place and the bad place, how an Angel escorts your soul and he goes into way more details on all of this, even though he himself believes that the Christians aren't in heaven when they die, they're down there in the nice part of Hades, Afriat, who's also one of my favorite. 28:20 Sam Tideman Kind of sources to cite as over there in Persia who I think is. 28:24 Sam Tideman Is kind of independent of some of the Hellenization of the Greek fathers. He also has a very similar view. And another thing that's interesting is he talks about sleep and he says that the dead are asleep while also simultaneously talking about how souls are conscious when they die. And for him sleep doesn't mean unconscious, it means. 28:44 Sam Tideman Like a dreamlike intermediate state. 28:46 Sam Tideman And so even the language in the New Testament that talks about falling asleep being asleep for when you die before you're resurrected, this view could accommodate that language by understanding that as a metaphor or an image of this shadowy existence. Because when you're sleep, you are kind of conscious. Sometimes you can have dreams, you can have other sort of restlessness. 29:07 Sam Tideman And stirring while you're asleep. It's not like you're you're not existing. 29:10 Sam Tideman And so that image of being asleep when you die is not incompatible with this sort of language. And then there's just a couple of other things that don't fit. And maybe this isn't like a really a challenge to Dustin's view. But like Elijah and Enoch seem to be assumed into heaven in some sense, so that that might just be a special exception that doesn't has no problem with. But then there's also like that. 29:31 Sam Tideman Weird verse and Jude where it talks about Michael and Satan wrestling over the body of Moses and it's like what's going on there that doesn't make any sense. But there's also a 1st century Jewish. 29:42 Sam Tideman Work called the Assumption of Moses that describes Michael taking Moses's body after he died, and body and soul bringing it up to heaven. And so if you connect it with some of these other ideas in the time these verses make more sense. So I think that the Jewish view of the afterlife is more complex and nuanced than just souls are completely. 30:03 Sam Tideman Unconscious when you die. So like if I had to summarize it in like 1 sentence, I think the verse that sort of best captures what I'm talking about. 30:13 Sam Tideman I think the Sadducees believe that your soul was unconscious when you died, but they also didn't believe in the resurrection, so they thought when you die, when you die, that's just it, you know, lights out, done nothing in the future, and the contrary view seems to have been something like what the Pharisees held, which was very similar to the Book of Enoch and those other works of a conscious underworld. 30:33 Sam Tideman Afterlife, followed by resurrection and and final destination, and so the verse that I think really kind of I'll I'll wrap it up here. Matthew 1028 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 or. 30:51 Sam Tideman Hannah. And so I think that Jesus is contrasting kind of worldly powers that can kill your body, but your soul is still like alive or not killed, but fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell and that's God. So don't fear Satan or the works of this world or the powers of this world. 31:11 Sam Tideman Who can't ultimately destroy you? Fear God, who is the one that can ultimately destroy you. And so I feel like that's sort of the summary of the view that I'm trying to support. I'll. 31:21 Sam Tideman Wrap it up there. Thank you. 31:23 Sean Finnegan Dustin, you might want to highlight certain aspects of your presentation that you'd like Sam to engage with rather than just. 31:32 Sean Finnegan Pushing everything onto Sam's presentation, what would you say? And Dustin, are the points on your presentation. 31:40 Sean Finnegan That are in conflict with Sam's current position. 31:44 Sean Finnegan Because he was trying to say that a number of them are in agreement. 31:47 Dustin Smith One of the things that I acknowledged at the very, very beginning is that there's not one Jewish view, OK, and I wouldn't even say that we could just sit there and say there's one pharisaical view because I do think that as far as Pharisees are concerned, we've got the evidence of Paul, who was a Pharisee, turned Christ follower. 32:08 Dustin Smith So and and it seems that he is teaching that when people are dead, they are in, they're with the dead. They're with the the, the E Negri. 32:16 Dustin Smith And that they are woken up from dead and he describes death as sleep in the same way that that Christ was asleep. So I don't wanna sit there and say, like all people believe, one particular thing, the Bible nerd at me just wants to like, go to every single passage that he just talked about and said let's let's work through this. Let's do this cuz I kind of feel like in this is not that Sam is. 32:36 Dustin Smith I think intentionally trying to make this particular argument, but it almost seems like there's a shotgun approach here because our initial. 32:43 Dustin Smith Topic under which we kind of wanted to have a discussion is dealing with. 32:48 Dustin Smith Is the sole conscious after death, but a lot of the things that he talked about had nothing to do with souls at all, whether Moses's body was taken to Heaven has nothing to do with a conscious soul. I'd love to just kind of go through some of those like I'd love to talk through the Isaiah 14 passage and talk about this, the refaim, because that typically doesn't get discussed. 33:08 Dustin Smith And conditional mortality discussions, or in sermons I've never heard a sermon on the refaim at all. So I thought, OK, let's take some time and we. 33:16 Dustin Smith Could look into that, he. 33:18 Dustin Smith Raised this passage in first Peter. 33:20 Dustin Smith Three about Jesus preaching to the spirits, and I think that one comes up a lot. Just I would refer people to this really, really good textbook and appendix #4. 33:25 Dustin Smith Some of those. 33:32 Dustin Smith Kingdom journey and this is not a paid endorsement, but for those that are interested, I think Sean actually at least gives, I think a very, very good take on the most common passages, some of which Sam raised others he did not. 33:46 Sean Finnegan Yeah, I tried to be very brief there. So they're not thorough explanations, sort of like the. 33:48 Yeah. 33:52 Sam Tideman And also let me be clear, I don't even think my view's trying to deemphasize the Kingdom of God as the future hope either. Yeah, so I don't think really my view is in any direct conflict with the main thrust of Sean's thesis from that. 34:04 Sean Finnegan Book. Well, I wonder if we could make this kind of even by having Sam respond to a couple of these texts and then Dustin. 34:12 Sean Finnegan You can respond to a couple of Sam's points so. So Sam, perhaps you could explain how your view fits with Ecclesiastes 910. 34:14 Dustin Smith Sure. 34:22 Sam Tideman Yeah. When I am going back and forth on this issue, there are some verses that I'm really kind of tilt me in the direction of. Well, maybe the souls really are asleep and I'm seeing things where there isn't something to be seen. And I think that especially the Book of Ecclesiastes in particular. 34:40 Sam Tideman Is very pessimistic about the state of death. 34:45 Sam Tideman And seems to give no credence to any form of anything after death, and I think that the only way that I can imagine to harmonize things so you know just reading Ecclesiastes 910, whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. For there is no activity or planning. 35:06 Sam Tideman Or knowledge or wisdom in shale where you are going is that in a certain way you can still see in this verse that it's saying that you are going to shale. 35:19 Sam Tideman And that shale is still kind of a destination and that I don't think that sometimes the idea that it just means you're grave is really kind of makes sense of that language and that I would point to the idea of shale not as it nothing important really is going on there. 35:40 Sam Tideman And that it's bad to be down there. It's especially bad if you are unrighteous. It's less bad if you were righteous, but that it is a realm that, generally speaking, does not interact with this world and that you are cut off from all of the powers that you have when you're alive. 35:57 Sam Tideman And that there. 35:59 Sam Tideman In a certain sense, no real activity or planning or knowledge or wisdom going on down there, which is all of what Ecclesiastes is about. But I still think even in this verse you can still kind of see the idea that you are going to shale, and if you connect that with some of this other language, I don't think it's impossible to reconcile. 36:19 Sean Finnegan Yeah. So let me just ask a clarifying question, Sam, you're conceptualizing this intermediate state as a time of semi semi consciousness. 36:27 Sam Tideman Shadowy existence. 36:31 Is that of there? 36:31 Sam Tideman Something like that, yeah. 36:33 Sean Finnegan Because the text here says no knowledge, no thought, no wisdom, which I think is kind of like. 36:40 Sean Finnegan A good description of any dreams I've ever had. They're all just sort of like chaotic and the. 36:45 Sam Tideman Yeah. 36:46 Sean Finnegan More often than not, where I'm trying to escape something, at least those are the ones that wake me up, and then I remember what happened. 36:53 Sam Tideman MHM. 36:54 Sean Finnegan I don't know. Like maybe you could fill in a little more. Is it just sort of like a dreamy? 36:59 Sean Finnegan In my conscious existence. 36:59 Sam Tideman It's also funny. 37:01 Sam Tideman Like I I'm not sure some people might not find what I'm about to say, say persuasive. I'm like, reading through the odyssey with my kids right now. 37:10 Sam Tideman And there is a scene where Odysseus is told by a witch basically that he needs to go consult with a dead prophet who is in Hades. And so he needs to get like this special permission. He has to kind of like sneak in and is a, you know, sort of a whole dramatic thing. But he goes down to Hades and there's sort of like. 37:31 Sam Tideman And it uses. I mean it's this is in Greek and as opposed to Hebrew, but the word shades is also used and there's these. It's like the shadowy place that is completely unattractive. 37:42 Sam Tideman But he does have, you know, a conversation with his mother and with one of his dead soldiers and Achilles. And then he finally finds the Prophet who he needs to talk to and to get instructions on how to get back to Ithaca. And like, when I read that, and then I read the, which vendor story? I'm like, that's very similar. And even Samuel and the witch. 38:03 Sam Tideman Indoor story is this, he says. Why did you disturb? 38:06 Sam Tideman To me, like as if, like, he's in kind of a restful doesn't want to be disturbed kind of place and then he's like almost like semi awoken or something like that by the witch, by the Necromancer, and then goes back to where he is. And that seems honestly, it's like that story is very similar in a lot of ways to the Odysseus story. 38:26 Sam Tideman And I think that this view of the afterlife was common within Judaism, but even across sort of the ancient classical world as well, and that. 38:35 Sean Finnegan Yeah, it certainly is common among the the Greek folk tales and stuff. It's all over the place. You've. 38:41 Sean Finnegan A fairly well developed concept of the the river and the ferryman and everything that you've said there. Let's go over to Dustin. Dustin, could you engage with Isaiah 14 and give us some thoughts on that? What was the exact scripture, Sam? 38:46 Sam Tideman Mm-hmm. 38:59 Sam Tideman Isaiah 14 nine through 11. 39:01 Sam Tideman Although the passage is actually a little bit longer than that, that mentions Rafael, that that's sort of a a good one. 39:04 Sean Finnegan Yeah, I remember this text. This is the one with the King of Babylon, and he's prophesying his doom. And he. 39:11 Sean Finnegan He goes down to shale and shale gets stirred up and everyone's like, ohh, is this the tough guy used to threaten the world? Dustin, perhaps you could take over. 39:22 Dustin Smith Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's, it's good to see that. You know, Sam's not thinking that he went off to heaven because obviously the text very clearly indicates that he went to shale. It's mentioned in verse 9, verse 11 and verse 15. So that much is very, very clear. We do have to remember, though, that the prophets, the Old Testament prophets are mostly poetry, 2/3 of old. 39:42 Dustin Smith Prophets, major prophets are poetry, so my default is reading the poetry, and clearly it is all over the. 39:49 Dustin Smith I mean, we have this metaphorical contrast, like, you know, he's gonna be exalted up to heaven. But no, he's gonna be brought down in humiliation. He's gonna be humbled to the lowest possible point. So we have this sort of metaphorical contrast of God actually judging this particular guy. I mean, even the personification of shale. 40:09 Dustin Smith Self inverse. 40:10 Dustin Smith Mine shale from beneath you is excited over you to meet you. It is showing that even the realm of the dead. 40:17 Dustin Smith It's very, very happy to welcome him. OK. But I think we would all agree that is the poet waxing poetically. But I do want to talk a little bit about the the refine here because there's a lot of like older scholarship on this word that I think that people have kind of looked up and it might give them the wrong impression on this. 40:35 Dustin Smith Often it just gets translated as refined. There are some. 40:39 Like. 40:39 Dustin Smith People groups in the Old Testament that are called that, and that's not what we're talking about here. There are 8 count them, eight texts in the Hebrew Bible that describe the refine in regards to the underworld. OK. Now in older scholarship, people thought that this word had to do with people being like, really, really weak. 40:59 Dustin Smith And the reason for that and for those that can't understand Hebrew, I'll do the best I can to explain this. Refine is resh pay, olive yode and MIM. But the verb to be weak is resh pay. Hey. 41:15 Dustin Smith But that's not, you know, the the Rafael is not the plural of that because there's no hey and refaim, the third consonant is actually an Olaf. And so scholars have said, OK, well, actually it doesn't actually mean to be weak. It actually if you take Resh pay and all if it actually has to do with people. 41:35 Dustin Smith That are healing, which is interesting because the Septuagint will translate some of these as physicians. And Jerome actually translates some of them as Medicus. So. And they've also correlated this with some of the Eucharistic evidence as well. So. 41:50 Dustin Smith To to say that these these refi him, which by the way are never described as souls, they're never, never set in parallelism with the nefesh, you know, I I don't think they're talking about departed souls that are conscious. OK, these are some sort. They're they're dead. They're in the underworld, but they're not. 42:07 Dustin Smith In the sense that they're weak because they're still alive, they're still conscious. Again, the word hasn't doesn't have anything to do with being weak. And so I think we have to kind of set that aside every single time that they're mentioned. They're never named, they're never attributed to a known person. And of course, as I mentioned, they're never defined as a nefesh in context. 42:27 Dustin Smith So when it comes to passages like this, of course I want to very cautiously approach a difficult passage by building what I think is a firm foundation, and I think are simple, straightforward, clear, unambiguous, not bound by textual variants. Those sort of passages. OK, so of course I start off by indicating that. 42:48 Dustin Smith Souls are mortal. When people die, they're in the grave. They're sleeping. And I gave, you know, hundreds of texts for that. If you're watching the video, you're able to see that. But let me give you another passage that actually does talk about the reframe that I do think is on the clear side. And this is all. 43:04 Dustin Smith 28 verse 10 which is in Sam's notes, where the psalmist says in parallelism will you perform wonders for the dead. This is the plural word for dead may team and then in parallelism it says will the departed spirits. That's the refine, rise and praise you. 43:25 Dustin Smith OK, so that these are just the refinement, just another way of talking about the dead. That's clear. They're not alive again. Death is the opposite of life. They're dead, and it's asking the question, are they gonna perform wonders or are they going to rise? And they're, are they going to praise you now someone might sit there and say, well, the text doesn't actually answer that. OK. But the earliest interpretation. 43:46 Dustin Smith Behalf of the Hebrew text is the translator of the Septuagint, who uses the negative particle me. 43:53 Dustin Smith In asking that question and those that know Greek will know that the negative particle of me always assumes a negative answer. So will the dead perform wonders? Will the refinement rise and praise you? The answer would be no, they're not OK. So to me, when I look at a passage like that. 44:10 Dustin Smith That seems to be kind. 44:11 Dustin Smith Clear and straightforward that they're not conscious. OK, so then we finally can go to this Isaiah passage. OK, I think what's going on there is that we have the poet. 44:20 Dustin Smith Saying haha, you know, you think being a Babylon that you were great and you were mighty. But we are going to welcome you and the sort of language of the welcoming that actually is taking. 44:30 Dustin Smith Case involves at the end of verse 9. 44:34 Dustin Smith That shall it. That's the subject. It raises all the kings of the nations from their Thrones. And these are the ones that have already died. But the depiction here is that the Kings are sitting in throned in shale, which I you probably don't think is is very, very literal. So I think what's going on here is that we have a poetic passage. 44:55 Dustin Smith That is taunting mocking the King of Babylon, who thought he was so great. But actually he's being humbled and brought low. And the way to do that is to have shale itself welcome him and all these other. 45:08 Dustin Smith Dead, whatever they are. But they're not talking souls also welcome them as well. So again, those are just some thoughts that I had over the last 10 minutes, I guess. 45:18 Sean Finnegan Yeah, it's interesting that word. 45:21 Sean Finnegan In the subdued agent is translated giants. 45:26 Sean Finnegan For Rafael, right? 45:26 Dustin Smith In some place that, and I think that's because when they appear like in Genesis, they've kind of assumed that this is some sort of giant race or whatever. But there are some places where it does get translated as as as physicians in a in a. 45:40 Dustin Smith Couple of places. 45:40 Sean Finnegan That. 45:41 Sean Finnegan You were bringing up Dustin just a minute ago, where you were saying in the septum. 45:45 Sean Finnegan And it was it had a negative question. 45:48 Dustin Smith Yeah, Psalm 88, verse 10. 45:51 Sean Finnegan OK. 45:52 Dustin Smith It is the the negative particle me, the particle of negation, and I'm sorry for all the people that were just going around, all these foreign language words, but I I kind of feel like you. You almost have to to, you know, anchor this stuff down and to give it some clarity. And I know Sam's not opposed to that because he's a very diligent truth seeker. 46:08 Dustin Smith I have a lot of respect for him. 46:10 Sean Finnegan Yeah, this word is a real puzzle. Sam, this refaim. So in the Isaiah text, the Greek is translating it as Yugang Ites. It's like the word, like, like, basically gigantic. 46:20 Sam Tideman Pants, yeah. 46:22 Sean Finnegan In Greek and then in Psalm 8810, which in the Septuagint is 8711, it's actually translated as healers. The same word. So there's this word's kind of. 46:34 Sam Tideman Tricky. Yeah. And. And it's even interesting that the ESV would even use the word shades, right, because that is the same word that, like, if you read the odyssey, like I said, we'll get translated for the Greek word for, like, those ghosts that appear with Odysseus. And I think why the Septuagint might use Gigantes or giants? 46:54 Sam Tideman Is that it's talking about like the Great kings of old, and that I think it is connecting it with like the famous heroes from the past. 47:01 Sam Tideman List and that that's part of the taunt of this verse, is that like? Ohh, even you who think you're mighty now you're gonna get to sent to shall. And all of those heroes, the mighty ones that the giants of the past they'll rise up from. And I do think it's kind of saying that it's as if they're sitting on Thrones down in shale. 47:21 Sam Tideman Maybe even the kings of their own realm of the underworld or something like that. And all these people who are even more mighty than the King of Babylon will rise up and taunt you when you go down to where. 47:32 Sam Tideman They are, and when it says shale is stirred up again, like the underworld is stirred up, the souls that are there. It's kind of like naturally kind of still and not doing very much. But you can, like, awaken it in this weird sort of way that's similar to the witch waking the soul Samuel or something like that. 47:52 Sean Finnegan This is interesting. I I think what we're seeing here, you guys can correct me if I'm wrong is that with Dustin, he's taking this as metaphorical that this is not a true description of the intermediate state. But this is sort of like a. 48:10 Sean Finnegan A hypothetical scenario used by the Prophet to taunt the king. Whereas Sam, you're taking this more literally that this is an accurate description of. 48:23 Sean Finnegan What could happen? 48:24 Sam Tideman It's poetic and it's a taunt, but I think it there's more reality to what's being taunted than than maybe Dustin is interpreting it as. 48:25 Sean Finnegan Is that? 48:35 Sean Finnegan OK. 48:35 Dustin Smith My response there is that if if we are strictly speaking, sticking to our subject of whether the soul is conscious after death, the word nefesh just doesn't appear in this passage at all. So it's in some sense not relevant to our discussion. That's why I wanted to stick to the the clear passages. 48:58 Sean Finnegan Well, we're gonna have to pause our conversation there. We've got quite a bit more, but I think that's enough for today. 49:05 Sean Finnegan What did you think? Come on over to restitutio.org and find episode 567. Are the dead conscious and leave your feedback there. Now, last week I read out a podcast review from Apple Podcast from a Jehovah's Witness who was very delighted to have discovered this podcast. 49:27 Sean Finnegan And I just came across this other comment by a Jehovah's Witness. 49:31 Sean Finnegan Basically criticizing me for not giving the Jehovah's Witnesses more credit, and I thought it was a little bit of an unfair statement, so I figured I'd read it out here at the end where I get to say my piece. Anyhow, this is from somebody with the name truth seeker on a review of my recent book Kingdom Journey on Amazon. This is. 49:52 Sean Finnegan Currently the only non five star review he gave me 4 stars which hey, let's face it, that's not. That's not terrible. He could have really sank this. 50:01 Sean Finnegan Since we don't really have that many reviews on there yet, but yeah, four stars and this is what he said, he said. This is a great introduction to the central theme of the Bible, IE the establishment of God's Kingdom and the restoration of a paradise on Earth. It's not so much a systematic study of the topic or exegesis of the scriptures as I expected it to be. 50:22 Sean Finnegan But more of a personal biography of how Sean came to learn what many have known for quite some time when scriptures were discussed. Both the scriptures and reasoning used in the book are strikingly similar to the ones used in Jehovah's Witnesses publication. 50:38 Sean Finnegan I personally was mostly interested in the part of the early church fathers and their views on this, and it was decent, although I wish it was more thorough. It at least gave me some interesting quotes and material for further research. 50:54 Sean Finnegan However, I give it four stars 3.5 if I could, because of what I feel is a major oversight by Sean. 51:02 Sean Finnegan That of not even mentioning Jehovah's Witnesses wants not only are what Jehovah's Witnesses believe almost identical to what Sean believes when it comes to Paradise on Earth, but they have, without comparison, done more than all other groups in modern times to preach this good news. For over 100 years now, so to completely omit their mention in. 51:24 Sean Finnegan Any discussion about groups that have rediscovered the truth about the Kingdom is at best a sign of ignorance and at worst a gross over. 51:34 Right. 51:35 Sean Finnegan All right, I wanted to reply to a couple of things here. First of all, the book is not meant to be a systematic theology in the sense that I only cover the biblical versus on a subject. Now, I do cover all of the relevant texts about the Kingdom of God. At least that's I believe I did. 51:55 Sean Finnegan And I layout a. 51:57 Sean Finnegan Full orbed robust understanding of what the Kingdom is. 52:02 Sean Finnegan Definitely covered the vast majority of texts about the Kingdom of God and tried to lay it out in a systematic and comprehensive way. 52:12 Sean Finnegan But what I also did, and this is something that I don't see other people doing very much of and I would love to see more of is marry that to a historical account. So it's not just a systematic theology of the Kingdom of God. It is also a historical of count of. 52:32 Sean Finnegan How Christianity and why Christianity, and who in Christianity rejected the kingdom's message and the Kingdom truths that are so clear throughout the Bible? 52:43 Sean Finnegan And then I add to that the story of how the Kingdom was rediscovered. And that's where I think I really rubbed this particular Jehovah's Witness the wrong way. 52:54 Sean Finnegan Because I did not include the Jehovah's Witnesses as a member of the groups that rediscover the Kingdom, and I want to explain that so. 53:04 So. 53:05 Sean Finnegan It's a fair question, but it really comes down to methodology. What I was looking at doing in that chapter about recovering the Kingdom or rediscovering it. 53:16 Sean Finnegan Is to look at the initiators of these different movements. So you really had three major movements, the Anabaptists, and you know that is somewhat murky. It's a little hard to get at the historical evidence for the Anabaptist rediscovering the Kingdom. It's more negative evidence from hostile witnesses. 53:36 Sean Finnegan Namely, the creeds of the. 53:38 Sean Finnegan Major reformed churches that are criticizing the Anabaptists, and to my Knowledge, Anabaptists have not held this as a distinctive to this day, so I didn't want to emphasize that too much. But I did want to give him credit because it does start popping up right there at the beginning of the Reformation period 500 years ago in the 16th century, and then I moved. 53:58 Sean Finnegan Pretty quickly to the advent. 54:00 Sean Finnegan List groups that rediscovered, especially William Miller, who was active in the early 1800s and middle 1800s, and his immediate followers, namely the groups that developed into the the 7th Day Adventist, the Advent Christian Church, the Church of God. 54:20 Sean Finnegan General conference and several others. Now it is true that the Jehovah's Witnesses did eventually come out of the Adventist movement, but it was late and the Jehovah's Witnesses got their start with Charles Tays Russell, who was himself an ADL. 54:37 Sean Finnegan Scientist who really got things going in the 1870s, which is a bit late for the story I was telling, and I know that Jehovah's Witnesses have grown a lot in the 20th century and that they have embraced this Kingdom ideology. But my purpose was looking at the founders, not the successors. 54:58 Sean Finnegan If I wanted to look at the successors, I'd have to look at my own group and then other groups that I'm aware of today that also hold to the Kingdom of God belief. 55:07 Sean Finnegan Including some mainstream evangelicals, which is pretty exciting in my opinion. But hey, I couldn't go into every group that believes this way. I I know that the Jehovah's Witnesses have a lot of pride in and I would say rightly placed pride in their belief in a paradise on Earth. But. 55:27 Sean Finnegan That didn't really make sense methodologically for me to include. 55:31 Sean Finnegan Them and then the third group that I included were the German scholars of the New Testament, Historical Jesus scholars, as we tend to call them today, who really had a whole independent focus to coming to grips with this in the 20th century. So that's the true reason why I didn't include the Jehovah's Witnesses. 55:51 Sean Finnegan I also am not super familiar with the Jehovah's Witnesses doctrine. I know that it is a little different than what I have been explaining. From what I understand in the Bible. 56:03 Sean Finnegan Because they also have this idea of some Christians going to heaven and reigning over the Earth, reigning not upon the earth but over the earth. 56:12 Sean Finnegan And I think that might be limited just to the 144,000, but I am by number means an expert on Jehovah's Witnesses doctrine, which brings me to another interesting point, which is, hey, Jehovah's Witnesses are listening to the podcast. They're buying the book. That's great. I think we can mutually strengthen each other and encourage. 56:33 Sean Finnegan Each other, even if we disagree on a number of other important issues. 56:39 Sean Finnegan Today also a comment came in on Episode 562, which was Part 1 of the Kingdom Seminar we just finished up last week. It was called. Why should you care? And this is what someone named Daniel wrote. And he says the way international has never taught that heaven is the ultimate destination. 57:00 Sean Finnegan I don't know what kind of superiority complex you have, but you ought to do more research before you slander entire generations of biblical workmen. 57:11 Sean Finnegan Twi has always published their doctrine in books and are the dead alive now. Is the book you are referring to? The entire book is about how dead people are not alive in heaven. Direct quotation. Quote from Victor Paul, Wirral, 1982, page 25. 57:31 Sean Finnegan When this time comes, all shall have been judged. Sentences passed, rewards given, and there will be a new heaven and a new Earth where there is no more sin, sickness or dying at that time Christ shall be King of Kings and Lord of Lord. 57:46 Sean Finnegan Well, Daniel, I've got a couple of thoughts in response to what you said, first of all. 57:52 Sean Finnegan I don't have a superiority complex, so I'm just going to reject that. I I'm not really sure how to respond when you just attribute negative motivations to me, I don't even know you and I don't think you really know me, so I don't think that's really a good way to engage. 58:13 Sean Finnegan Just like assuming negative motivations on somebody and then name calling more or less ad hominem attacks. 58:20 Sean Finnegan So just a word to the wise on that one, if you want to challenge somebody, just use facts, man. Use evidence which you know you did, but you colored it with this negative charged language, which makes it a little less likely that you will be engaged with at least. 58:27 Just. 58:41 Sean Finnegan For most. 58:41 Sean Finnegan People anyhow, what I said in the episode, and I did talk about the way international a little bit, but I talked about it really from my perspective, I was very careful not to make any broad sweeping statements about the way doctrine today, nor about way doctrine in the past. In fact, this is what I said. 59:02 Sean Finnegan My parents were in an organization called the Way International, and in that Biblical Unitarian ministry, they taught that dead people. 59:15 Sean Finnegan Are not alive. That was kind of one of their slogans. The dead are not alive. It sounds kind of like an obvious statement, which I think is why they went with it, but yeah. So they believe that dead people were awaiting the resurrection. And I don't know if this was their official doctrine or if this is just how I learned it as a little kid. 59:34 Sean Finnegan But. 59:36 Sean Finnegan What we believed is that Jesus was coming back to resurrect the dead and bring us to heaven. That's how I grew up. So Daniel, that's what I actually said. As you can hear, I did not paint with a broad brush. I was very careful to say this was my experience. I don't think the way had a very. 59:56 Sean Finnegan Clearly defined doctrine of eschatology when it comes to the final situation. What I grew up believing was that because of Dispensationalism, the Christians would be able to live in heaven. 1:00:13 Sean Finnegan And the Jews would be able to live on the Earth. That was renewed to Paradise, and Christians could go in heaven, or they could go on the earth. And that's what I grew up believing, rightly or wrongly. But it doesn't matter. This is not what the Bible teaches. What the Bible clearly teaches is that. 1:00:33 Sean Finnegan The ultimate destination of the righteous is the earth, and that there is one hope. As I mentioned in a previous episode, Ephesians 4 says there's one hope for the people of God not. 1:00:43 Sean Finnegan Who hopes the Jews don't get a lesser hope than the Christians get we're we're the ones that are grafted into what God had promised to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, through the prophets, to ancient Israel, like we're the ones that are piggybacking on them, not the other way around. 1:01:02 Sean Finnegan And if anything, it's way easier to live for God as a Christian than it was as a as a Jewish person, because we have the example of Christ and we have the coming of the spirit to empower us to. 1:01:13 Sean Finnegan So if anything, I would say it would be the opposite way, where the Jews would have a better reward and the Christians would have a lesser reward because it was easier for us. But that's just my opinion and it's not what the Bible says. What the Bible says is that there's one hope and that we are to look forward to the Kingdom of God coming on the Earth. I hope that. 1:01:33 Sean Finnegan Clarifies everything. Once again, this is amazing. Daniel, thanks so much for listening. I didn't know that current way. International people. We're listening to the podcast. You know, you you hear these rumors of high control groups like the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Way International. 1:01:48 Sean Finnegan That their people are not allowed to listen to stuff and to check other websites and buy books from other organizations. And it's just really exciting to see two very clear examples just today from people that are finding the freedom to break out of. 1:02:08 Sean Finnegan Their groups own publications and resources, and I think that's a really healthy thing. I think it's really helpful for us all to not just listen to people that agree with us or people that come from the same background that we come from. It's really helpful to listen to people from other backgrounds too. I know I do it all the time. 1:02:25 Sean Finnegan Because I'm always seeking to grow and learn more truth. 1:02:29 Sean Finnegan Well, that's enough rambling for today. Thanks everybody for tuning in. If you'd like to support us, you can do that at restitutio.org, catch you next week for Part 2 of the discussion between Smith and Tiedeman, where they talk about the Witch of Indoor and the parable of the rich man. 1:02:50 Sean Finnegan And Lazarus that is going to be juicy. 1:02:53 Sean Finnegan So tune in next week for that. And remember, the truth has nothing to fear.