Did Biblical writers recognize plants as living?

[dwilkins]

ANE is Ancient Near East. In Biblical times they were following a view of astronomy in which apotheosis was the goal. That meant that if you were important enough you'd become a star when you died. That is the basis behind all of the "morning star" (or Lucifer) vocabulary in scripture. We know that people don't become stars when they die. But, that imagery was meant to say something about going "up" to heaven at the end of this life. Our science is different from theirs, but the point that was being made is still close enough. The good guys spend eternity with God. We don't know any more about that than John did when he said in 1st John 3:2 that he didn't know what Christ was like after his ascension, but we'd eventually be like him. We can vaguely conceive of these things enough to understand that there is a promise involved, but there is no point arguing about some of the details.

Doug

[Paidion]

Here are my personal beliefs about my "soul", as I understand the term from Scripture:

I do not "have a soul"; I "am a soul". That is, I am a being (OT) or a self (NT).

When I die, the spirit of life departs from my body and returns to the God who gave it. The spirit of life is not myself—not a soul which is separate from my body. At death, I no longer exist. Only my dead body from which life has departed, exists. I am dead...and I will stay dead, until Jesus raises me at the last day. (John 6:39, 40, 44, 54)

[jriccitelli]

I do not "have a soul"; I "am a soul". That is, I am a being (OT) or a self (NT)

That I agree with, although I differ in that I believe 'I' and my body can separate. My spirit soul and I are are the same thing, they are synonymous. At death my body will no-longer be part of me (if it ever was), and my spirit/soul (me) will leave my body and go to be with God.

With your system, I worry about your no longer existing. If you don't exist, and your body disappears into atoms. I can't imagine the next you is formed only from a memory God has of you, is that right?
I don't know why you insist that 'our' components are one, and yet you can't allow God and Jesus to be One.

[jriccitelli]

I laughed when I read the original question, but it is interesting. From googling the topic, it appears that there's some actual debate about it in relation to whether or not anything died before A&E disobeyed God...

Although I don't want to imagine carnivores ate meat prior to the fall, I do have a crazy theory that the dinosaurs and carnivores actually lived outside the Garden of Edens edges even while Adam lived in the garden. I had a reason for thinking that but I cant remember why. Just the act of eating veggies would require the breakdown of organic material (as does growth, as in having children) so there must have been 'some' organic processes in effect.

And like i wrote under the other thread; God must have 'taught' Adam the meaning of death, or given him the understanding supernaturally, i guess.

[Paidion]

I don't know why you insist that 'our' components are one, and yet you can't allow God and Jesus to be One.

Simply because God and Jesus are two Persons, whereas "our components" are not.

Of course, God and Jesus ARE one in another sense—one in Love, one in desire, one in purpose, etc.
In this same sense, Jesus prayed that his disciples might become one in the same way that He and his Father are one.

What would it mean for Christ's disciples to become One in the Modalist sense of the Father and the Son's Oneness (One divine Individual)? Or in the Trinitarian sense (A divine compound Being)?