The Soul's Comeback: Immortality and Resurrection in Early Christianity

Abstract

In the middle of the twentieth century biblical scholars claimed the unity of the human person as the core of biblical anthropology.1The Hebrew term, “life,” “person,” was no longer to be translated as “soul,” and the best English equivalent for the Greek ψυχή was “person.” In the seventies and eighties, on both sides of the Atlantic, the pendulum swung even further, to the point of favoring the body. In Paris, in the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Pierre Geoltrain offered a lecture course on the “body” in several texts of the New Testament, while in the United States Dale Martin worked on his book published under the titleThe Corinthian Body.2In Geneva, whereexpression corporellehad become a form of instruction in dance and eurhythmic practice at the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze, some New Testament scholars incorporated bodily experience into their understanding of biblical passages.3It was also this time that saw—in the secular realm—the creation of “body shops” and the continuous care of one's own body. With Merleau-Ponty we can say that this recent period witnesses a rediscovery of the body.4