Was the Transfiguration a vision, or an actual appearance of Moses and Elijah?

[Wick Stick]

There is a reason why it was prohibited (Deut 18:9-12).....communication with the dead is a common practice in false worship because of belief in immortality of the soul....something NOT taught in Scripture, but is found in all false worship. The “soul” is entirely mortal. (Ezek 18:4)
There is no “immortal soul” taught in any passage of Scripture OT or NT.

Only spirits can be immortal because of not needing external means of life support. The “soul” is not the “spirit” and confusing these two words has led people to believe the first lie satan told in Eden....”you surely will not die”, when God told Adam that he would simply “return to the dust”. His “spirit” was the breath of life imparted to him at his creation...and that is what made him a “soul”....a living breathing creature.

I think I agree with your overall point. I have some nits to pick, though...

No afterlife is ever mentioned except by means of a resurrection, which has nothing to do with immortal souls.

I don't think that's quite true. Jesus tells the thief on the cross "today you will be with me in paradise." Revelation contains a chapter that is concerned with paradise (which is there in the heavens). Paul knows a man who was "caught up into paradise."

Paradise seems to be an in-between place. The people there aren't ALIVE, per se. But they exist there, nonetheless, and seem to have some consciousness.

And paradise doesn't seem to be the ONLY in-between place. In Revelation and Hebrews, the martyrs cry out to God for justice. They clearly aren't alive, but they also aren't sleeping. They have some beef that seems to be preventing them from resting.

And of course we have a BAD in-between place. I think there's already some discussion of the Rich Man, but we also have David saying that he won't be left to rot there, and after being resurrected, Jonah seems to have memories of being there.

The Catholic Church had a field day with those places....invented to scare the pants off anyone who disobeyed them....fear is a powerful influence.
We are not to serve God out of fear.

You're talking about Limbo, I guess? A fabrication, for sure. The Catholic idea of Purgatory isn't completely without base, though. Dante fictionalized it as a place, which has caused confusion. The Orthodox identify purgation as an EVENT, rather than a place, which seems true Scripturally.

 

[Aunty Jane]

How can you separate the soul from the spirit?
Both still part of the individual.
It seems that every being is either physical or spiritual.

The Hebrew, Greek, and English words for “spirit” are used in many different ways. But in all their uses they have⁠ something in common.....They all refer to something that is invisible to humans, and that gives the evidence of force in motion—just like breath or wind.

What was it that animated the lifeless body of Adam at his creation? It was the “breath (spirit) of life”, supplied by God, to make Adam a “living soul”.

Do you know how the word “spirit” got to be equated with “ghost”?

 

[St. SteVen]

Do you know how the word “spirit” got to be equated with “ghost”?

No. How?

 

[Aunty Jane]

No. How?

What do we associate with goblins and witches? “Ghosts” are thought to be spirits of the dead and in many cultures there are festivals for these departed “spirits”....

Since the Bible calls only angels “spirits”, nowhere does it say that the human soul is the same as the spirit...they are two different words with two entirely different meanings. The word “ghost” is from German word ”geist” which means “spirit”.
There are no “ghosts” (i.e. the spirit of a human after death), because the spirit that animates a human “soul” is the same as that which animated Adam....”the breath of life”.

God’s people were forbidden to practice necromancy, which is supposedly communicating with spirits of the dead....a form of divination.

Deut 18:9-18...NIV....God told them....
“When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord; because of these same detestable practices the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you. You must be blameless before the Lord your God.”

So, if the dead were really alive in another realm, and communicating with them when they were alive was all right, why forbid communication with the person once they were dead?

What is Halloween based on?

Research reveales that festivals for the dead are widespread, being seen in nearly every major culture region on earth....and most of them center on late October, early November, thought to be the time when the boundary between the living and the dead was closest.
Samhain was an ancient Cetic Festival of the dead, which influenced Halloween.

Belief in life after death is an indicator that satan’s lie has infiltrated the whole world, with people so convinced that it’s true, that they find it hard to give up. But since God did not design us to die, we are programmed to cling to life and hence satan’s lie becomes a comfort when a loved ones dies.

What does satan have to gain by convincing humans that they don’t really die? He is trying to prove God a liar....he is a slanderer, so anything that he can use to prove his own words were true, benefits him. Look how many he has fooled!

 

[St. SteVen]

God’s people were forbidden to practice necromancy, which is supposedly communicating with spirits of the dead....a form of divination.

Interesting that Joseph had a divination cup.

 

[TazzJazz]

Research reveales that festivals for the dead are widespread, being seen in nearly every major culture region on earth....and most of them center on late October, early November, thought to be the time when the boundary between the living and the dead was closest.

Yes! It is amazing that worldwide, many of these festivals occur around the same time of year! Which actually corresponds to the time of year that the Flood occured!

I have a book (by a Colonel John Garnier) and a document (by an R.G. Haliburton(?)) that explains this....Fascinating!

 

[TazzJazz]

No. How?

You know, you are something else....in a good way! You seem to have a humble nature, with strong reasoning skills. I hope we can meet someday, my cousin.

 

[Aunty Jane]

Interesting that Joseph had a divination cup.

Joseph was the Prime Minister in Egypt and was testing his brothers....the cup was part of the ruse.
When he sent them back to their father with food and goods and silver, he had planted the cup in his younger brother, Benjamin’s bag.....the account says...

“As morning dawned, the men were sent on their way with their donkeys. They had not gone far from the city when Joseph said to his steward, “Go after those men at once, and when you catch up with them, say to them, ‘Why have you repaid good with evil? Isn’t this the cup my master drinks from and also uses for divination? This is a wicked thing you have done.’” (Gen 44:3-4 NIV)

Joseph said it was his Master’s cup and that he was the one doing the divination. Joseph was a faithful man and this was before the Law was even given.

This is how the Israelites (Jacob’s descendants) got to be in Egypt in the first place......later, under a different Pharaoh, and after Joseph’s death, God’s people became slaves there. Moses was born under that slavery, and his story in escaping the mandated death of all male children, is an amazing one.....but not until he was 80 years old, did God send him to rescue his people.

Reading the Bible is good...but studying it is even better...because once you have the whole picture, things can look very different to what a cursory reading may imply....

 

[doctrox]

Yet he and Abraham are having a conversation.

In Luke 16, it is the second of two parables.

Do you know how the word “spirit” got to be equated with “ghost”?

ghost = g'host = god host

 

[Wick Stick]

ghost = g'host = god host

That seems wrong? Gh is a phoneme that gives a hard guttural sound in Middle/Old English.... it seems unlikely that the G and H would be separated.

The stupid AI says:

"Ghost" derives from the Old English gāst (soul, spirit, breath), originating from Proto-Germanic *gaistaz and Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰéysd-o- (anger, agitation, or fear).

 

[St. SteVen]

In Luke 16, it is the second of two parables.

Why would Jesus tell a story with misleading implications? (the dead talking)
No indication that anyone ever questioned this. (conscious existence of the dead)

 

[St. SteVen]

You know, you are something else....in a good way! You seem to have a humble nature, with strong reasoning skills. I hope we can meet someday, my cousin.

Likewise.

 

[Aunty Jane]

Why would Jesus tell a story with misleading implications? (the dead talking)
No indication that anyone ever questioned this. (conscious existence of the dead)

He often spoke in parables.....it didn’t make them factual accounts, but spoke of factual things illustratively.

 

[complete]

What do we associate with goblins and witches? “Ghosts” are thought to be spirits of the dead and in many cultures there are festivals for these departed “spirits”....

Since the Bible calls only angels “spirits”, nowhere does it say that the human soul is the same as the spirit...they are two different words with two entirely different meanings. The word “ghost” is from German word ”geist” which means “spirit”.
There are no “ghosts” (i.e. the spirit of a human after death), because the spirit that animates a human “soul” is the same as that which animated Adam....”the breath of life”.

Hello @Auntie Jane,

'The Holy Spirit' is referred to repeatedly as, 'The Holy Ghost'(G4151) in Scripture.

The Soul is defined in Genesis 2:7:-

'But there went up a mist from the earth,
and watered the whole face of the ground.
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground,
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;
and man became a living soul.' (Gen 2:6-7)

The Body, energized by life, is a living soul. It is not immortal. because we are told that. 'the soul'... (i.e., the body energised by the breath of life' '...that sinneth it shall surely die.''

I have to close at this point, and will not be able to take part further.
In Christ Jesus
Chris

 

[St. SteVen]

St. SteVen said:
Why would Jesus tell a story with misleading implications? (the dead talking)
No indication that anyone ever questioned this. (conscious existence of the dead)

He often spoke in parables.....it didn’t make them factual accounts, but spoke of factual things illustratively.

Right. He spoke of factual things illustratively. Like the dead talking, conscious existence of the dead.

 

[Aunty Jane]

St. SteVen said:
Why would Jesus tell a story with misleading implications? (the dead talking)
No indication that anyone ever questioned this. (conscious existence of the dead)

Right. He spoke of factual things illustratively. Like the dead talking, conscious existence of the dead.

You know that there is more than one way to be dead.....?.....and more than one way for things to “speak”....?

Being spiritually dead is dead to God. “Dead in your trespasses” is still walking about on planet earth....

In Gen 4:10, after Cain had killed Abel, God said to him......”What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground.”

Paul also used this illustration of Abel’s blood “speaking”....yet Abel was dead.
“But you have approached a Mount Zion and a city of the living God, heavenly Jerusalem, and myriads of angels 23  in general assembly, and the congregation of the firstborn who have been enrolled in the heavens, and God the Judge of all, and the spiritual lives of righteous ones who have been made perfect, and Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and the sprinkled blood, which speaks in a better way than Abel’s blood.” (Heb 12:22-24)

Remember that the ancient Jews had no belief in an immortal soul, (Eccl 9:5, 10) but as they were want to do, adopted things from the pagans when they were expressly told not to. (Deut 18:9-12)

Paul is addressing those who are anointed by God’s spirit to rule with Christ in heaven....”the congregation of the firstborn” are “enrolled” in a “heavenly Jerusalem”......destined for a new life in a completely different realm, requiring a “new birth” to spirit life in heaven. But their subjects will be redeemed humans on earth.
Not all “Christians” are heaven bound......God created the earth for us. His first purpose for us never went away, because God cannot be defeated by the actions of his own creation. (Isa 55:11; Rev 21:2-4)
What we lost in the beginning, is returned to us in the end......

Christendom is a mirror image of first century Judaism....so many pagan adoptions that, at the judgment, he will say to the “many”....”I never knew you”....(Matt 7:21-23) They are shocked at his rejection.....so they will be the last to know when Jesus catches us all in the act of being who we truly are in God’s eyes....not the rosy picture we paint of ourselves.....

What will he say to us?

 

[doctrox]

[ghost = g'host = god host] seems wrong?

"g'host" is sprinkled throughout occult literature and refers to "the breath of a god" from the earliest attestations (9th century). It could denote any good or evil spirit, such as angels and demons.

The word has no commonly accepted etymology; the OED notes "of obscure origin."

Why would Jesus tell a story with misleading implications? (the dead talking)

It's not misleading when the sum of relevant scripture is consulted.

 

[Wick Stick]

"g'host" is sprinkled throughout occult literature and refers to "the breath of a god" from the earliest attestations (9th century). It could denote any good or evil spirit, such as angels and demons.

The word has no commonly accepted etymology; the OED notes "of obscure origin."

You linked the wrong word - that's the entry for "wraith."

Here's the entry for the word ghost. Not an obscure origin.

 

[Aunty Jane]

You linked the wrong word - that's the entry for "wraith."

Here's the entry for the word ghost. Not an obscure origin.

Either way it is not describing the spirit of a dead person.....the Jews did not believe in life after death as an instantaneous thing...but in a restoration of life on earth, in the future under the rulership of God’s Kingdom.

When Jesus appeared to his disciples walking on the water....Matt 14:26-27 says....
“But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, “It is a ghost!” and they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.” (ESV)

What is the word translated “ghost” here? It is “phantasma”......defined as....

1. “an appearance
2. an apparition, spectre” (Strongs)

An “apparition” is an illusion; something actually not present but temporarily believed in because of excited imagination or other cause. Assuring the disciples that such was not the case and that he was real, Jesus said: “It is I. Do not be afraid.”

A “ghost”, OTOH brings to mind a disembodied spirit...thought to be the spirit of a departed one, but the Bible makes no such claim. There is no mention of Adam receiving a “soul” at his creation, but with the animating “breath (spirit) of life”, he became one.
The “spirit” in him was life itself...the same spirit that animates all living “souls” as Solomon wrote in Eccl 3:18-20....

"I said in my heart with regard to the children of man that God is testing them that they may see that they themselves are but beasts. For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath (“rûaḥ”, spirit), and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity. All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return." (ESV)

Animals are called "souls" in Genesis, which means "a living, breathing creature".....all breathe the same air... all die the same death.....and all end up in the same place.

 

[doctrox]

You linked the wrong word - that's the entry for "wraith."

Go back further, as I did, and you will find "wraith." That's why I sent you to the WayBackMachine; wraith = ghost.