Bridge of Reason

The Witnesses conclude that there is no immortality of the soul, no consciousness after death. To find the truth we must be acquainted with the Greek and Hebrew words. The Hebrew word nephesh literally means 'a breathing' creature but is used widely. Psykhe is the Greek word denoting the breath, the breath of life, then the soul in all its meanings. The literal meaning of the Hebrew word ruach is 'wind' and by resemblance breath. Primarily the Greek word pneuma denotes the wind, but also breath and then especially the spirit which like the wind is invisible, immaterial and powerful. The Society says that the word can mean the person or the life of the person, and take no account of the other different meanings that many Biblical Greek and Hebrew scholars are aware of. They conclude from Joshua 11:11 that the soul cannot be the part of man that survives death because it is struck by the sword. However, the word nephesh is used here as the person and so no evidenc...

  'Father, into your hands I commend my Spirit' Luke23:46 We are looking at how Jehovah’s Witnesses think about the elements of the Christian Pasch (Easter). We have looked at the cross in two previous posts, and there is a major study on the Watchtower ‘cross’ coming in our next newsletter. If you haven’t already you may want to sign up to our mailing list from our website . Ecclesiastes On their website the Watchtower addresses the question, ‘What happens when you die?’ ‘ The Bible says: “The living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all.” ( Ecclesiastes 9:5; Psalm 146:4 ) Therefore, when we die, we cease to exist. The dead can’t think, act, or feel anything.’ Proof-texting is commonplace with Jehovah’s Witnesses and, almost invariably, it gets them into all kinds of trouble. If they insist Ecclesiastes 9:5 is talking about the afterlife they must deal with the rest of the chapter, which doesn’t help their case at a...