Soul Sleep and Christian Mortalism are not the same

 And yet they’re stuck sharing the same Wikipedia Page.

Soul Sleep and believing the Soul is just as dead as the body between physical death and physical resurrection have a lot in common, both reject the Platonist/Pythagorean/Essene/Origenist view of The Soul that has become the mainstream popular view. One definitely does and the other still could involve a lack of any concise state between death and resurrection.  

But Soul Sleep allows more wiggle room, it could allow Souls in Sheol/Hades/The Grave to be in a sort of Dreamlike state, same with the Martyrs under the Altar in the Throne Room in Revelation 6 at the 5th Seal and later washing their robes in chapter 7.  Which gives me flexibility in how to deal with passages that seem to imply a pre resurrection afterlife.

But more importantly the idea that the Soul is just dead is what Annihilationists tend to believe.

What Jesus says in Matthew 10:28 is important here.

“And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”

Annihilationists like Lex Meyer seem to think this verse proves their position even though it contradicts it.  If the Soul simply dies when the body dies then anyone who can kill the body can kill the Soul.  Instead killing the Soul is something only God can do, and Jesus goes on to assure us God never would do that.  And in John 11:26 Jesus promises us that we will NEVER die.

The New Testament refers to the dead as asleep multiple times.  That’s why I consider Soul Sleep the face value Biblical View and the burden of proof is on those who reject it.  And the verses they most cling to I've already addressed here.

https://solascripturachristianliberty.blogspot.com/2019/09/do-we-have-promise-that-we-will-be-with.html

It’s also the most ancient traditional view being implied in Justin Martyr and explicitly taught by Athenagoras.  It was also the View of the Smyrna-Lyon tradition of Polycarp-Irenaeus and possibly compatible with what Tertullian taught.  Some who actually believe in Soul Sleep may have unwittingly used more Mortalism based language, so I remain unsure what to think of Tatian, Octavius or Marcus Minucius Felix.

The fact that so many mainstream Christians now treat Soul Sleep as a damnable heresy shows how far we’ve fallen into Platonist Error.

Soul Mortalism is still closer to the Biblical Truth then the mainstream view, but I do want the difference to be known as well as that Soul Sleep is where I stand.

Update October 22nd 2024: This Article by a John Anderson provides a large list of times The Dead are referred to as Asleep.

https://www.fulcrum7.com/apologetics/2021/1/29/fifty-four-texts-that-describe-death-as-sleep#:~:text=The%20Bible%20calls%20death%20%E2%80%9Csleep,the%20Mount%20of%20Transfiguration%20(Mat.

That Author probably holds other Beliefs I disagree with, I haven't read the entire website and even in this article takes the ill advised Tactics of quoting Ecclesiastes  at face value, and clearly doesn't seem to believe in Universal Salvation.  But regardless it's a good resource.

So I'm gonna copy/Paste the list of Verses from that article here, he doesn't say which Translation he used but I'm confident the KJV agrees with all of these..

Deuteronomy 31:16: “The Lord said to Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers.”

II Samuel 7:12:  “When thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers.""

I Kings 1:21:  “When my lord the king shall sleep with his fathers.”

I Kings 2:10:  “David slept with his fathers.”

I Kings 11:21:  “David slept with his fathers.”

I Kings 11:43:  “Solomon slept with his fathers.”

I Kings 14:20: “Jeroboam...slept with his fathers.”

I Kings 14:31:  “Rehoboam slept with his fathers.”

I Kings 15:8: “Abijam slept with his fathers.”

I Kings 15:24:  “Asa slept with his fathers.”

I Kings 16:6:  “Baasha slept with his fathers.”

I Kings 16:28:  “Omri slept with his fathers.”

I Kings 22:40:  “Ahab slept with his fathers.”

I Kings 22:50:  “Jehoshaphat slept with his fathers.”

II Kings 8:24:  “Joram slept with his fathers”

II Kings 10:35:  “Jehu slept with his fathers”

II Kings 13:9:  “Jehoahaz slept with his fathers”

II Kings 13:13:  “Joash slept with his fathers”

II Kings 14:16:  “Jehoash slept with his fathers”

II Kings 14:22:  “The king slept with his fathers”

II Kings 14:29:  “Jeroboam slept with his fathers”

II Kings 15:7:  “Azariah slept with his fathers”

II Kings 15:22: “Menahem slept with his fathers”

II Kings 15:38:  “Jotham slept with his fathers”

II Kings 16:20:   “Ahaz slept with his fathers”

II Kings 20:21:  “Hezekiah slept with his fathers”

II Kings 21: 18:  “Manasseh slept with his fathers”

II Kings  24:6:  “Jehoiakim slept with his fathers”

II Chron. 9:31:  “Solomon slept with his fathers”

II Chron. 12:16:  “Rehoaboam slept with his fathers”

II Chron. 14:1:  “Abijah slept with his fathers”

II Chron. 16:13:  “Asa slept with his fathers”

II Chron. 21:1:  “Jehoshaphat slept with his fathers”

II Chron. 26:2:  “The king slept with his fathers”

II Chron. 26:23:  “Uzziah slept with his fathers”

II Chron. 27:9:   “Jotham slept with his fathers”

II Chron. 28:27:  “Ahaz slept with his fathers”

II Chron. 32:33:  “Hezekiah slept with his fathers”

II Chron. 33:20:  “Manasseh slept with his fathers”

Job 7:21:  “Now shall I sleep in the dust”

Job 14:12:  “They shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep”

Psalm 13:3:  “Lest I sleep the sleep of death”

Psalm 90:5:  “Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep”

Psalm 146:4  “His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.” 

Daniel 12:2:  “Many of they that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake”

Jesus described death as “sleep”:

Matthew 9:24:  “The maid is not dead but sleepeth.”

Mark 5:39:  “The damsel is not dead but sleepeth”

Luke 8:52:  “She is not dead but sleepeth”

John 11:11:  “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth”

At Jesus’ crucifixion: 

Matthew 27:52: “Many bodies of the saints which slept arose”

Luke reiterates I Kings:

Acts 13:36:  “David...fell asleep, and was laid unto his fathers”

Paul describes death as sleep:

I Cor. 15:20:  “Christ is risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that sleep”

I Cor. 15:51:  “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed”

I Thess 4:13:  “I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren,  concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope”

I Thess. 4:14:  “If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus”

And in the comments section 2 Peter 3:4 is added.

The Tribes of Mizraim

 What I want to discus here is how my research into the Tribes of Mizraim named in Genesis 10:13-14 clearly verifies that we are dealing with North Western Africa, even if the name Mizraim itself might be difficult to find there.  Plus I think Khem/Kemet comes from Ham.

Tribes is the term I'm using because strictly speaking Genesis 10 names no sons of Mizraim, they are all tribal designations (the -im suffix) that came from Mizraim.  They could come from names of sons, or names given to regions, or other things.

I should also add that I don't think Josephus's "Ethiopic War" happened, I think that was a myth he or someone before him imagined because they didn't know where to finds the tribes of Mizraim.

I want to start with Patrhos, it is a well documented name for Upper Egypt, particularly the area around Thebes.  It comes from Egyptian pꜣ tꜣ-rsy "the southern land" (e.g., pBritish Museum EA 10375, line 16; cf. Sahidic Coptic ⲡⲁⲧⲟⲩⲣⲏⲥ and Bohairic Coptic ⲡⲁⲑⲟⲩⲣⲏⲥ.^[1][2]).  Isaiah 11:11 lists Pathros between Mizraim and Cush, suggesting that in that context Isaiah is using Mizraim mainly of Lower Egypt.

Caphtor is a complicated subject because of the desire some have to make it Crete or Cyprus or a location in Turkey.  But even Wikipedia ultimately comes down on the side of it being in the Nile Delta region.

The equation of Keftiu with Caphtor commonly features in interpretations that equate Caphtor with Crete, Cyprus, or a locality in Anatolia. Jean Vercoutter in the 1950s had argued, based on an inscription of the tomb of Rekhmire that Keftiu could not be set apart from the "islands of the sea" which he identified as a reference to the Aegean Sea. However in 2003, Vandesleyen pointed out that the term wedj wer (literally "great green") which Vercoutter had translated "the sea" actually refers to the vegetation growing on the banks of the Nile and in the Nile Delta, and that the text places Keftiu in the Nile Delta.^{[Claude Vandersleyen, Keftiu: A Cautionary Note, Oxford Journal of Archaeology, vol 22, issue 2, 2003]}

The Targums and Miamonides refereed to Caphtor as Caphutkia and places it as Damietta on the eastern edge of the Nile Delta near classical Pelusium.  

But the name Caphtor could also be related to Coptos and the Greek Aegyptos and thus Egypt.  They come from Hut-ka-Ptah the name of the Temple Complex of Ptah in Memphis.  There is a Hebrew word spelled and pronounced the same a Kaphtor and translated Knop or Lintel, it's used in The Pentateuch only when describing The Menorah. 

I actually think these two tribes may be enough to account for all of Egypt proper.  Caphtor as Lower Egypt and Pathros as Upper Egypt, Egypt's traditional two great divisions.

The Casluhim are recorded in the inscriptions of the Temple of Kom Ombo as the region name Kasluḥet.  [Archibald Henry Sayce (2009). The "Higher Criticism" and the Verdict of the Monuments. General Books LLC. p. 91.]  Ancient Jewish traditions associated them with Pentapolis aka Cyeneica, suggesting they were the people indigenous to that region before the Greek Colonists came there in Classical times.

As far as the alleged confusion about whether the Philistimes came from Casluhim or Caphtor.  Amos 9:7 refers to their relationship to Capthor as a direct comparison to Israel's relationship with Egypt. So I believe they were Casluhim who had sojourned in Caphtor before eventually settling in the Gaza Strip.

The Lehubim is the name elsewhere contracted to Lubim and the people from who's name comes Libya, a region that at it's broadest Classical Greek definition also included the land of the decedents of Phut, the Berbers in the far west of Africa. 

The three remaining names in Genesis 10:13 I suspect are to be looked for in modern Sudan and Ancient Nubia.

The Naphtuhim may be the namesake of Napata, and/or perhaps via the tendency of B and P to sometimes become confused in etymology Nobatia and Nubia itself.  The Nubians were originally a distinct ethnic group from the Kushites, but the two get conflated a lot making my research difficult.  It seems they were originally further up the Nile from the region Egypt usually called Kush.

I think the name of Anamim/Anemim/Enemim could come from people of Khnum, an Egyptian Deity worshiped on Elaphantine/Syene island near Aswan, but was mythologically viewed as the source of the Nile.  Maybe they were the people of Kerma, or maybe way further south near Tana Kirikos or Lake Victoria.  Or maybe they were the Blemmyes/Blemmues/Balnemmoui?  (Turns out the Blemmyes spoke a Cushetic Language.)  Or Anem could be Akhmim which may have actually been Khent-min.

The Ludim present potential for confusion with the Lud/Lod son of Shem who settled in Turkey commonly known as Lydia (or Lydus in Greek Mythology).  But I think it's the Mizraimite Ludim who are being alluded to in Jeremiah 46:9 and Ezekiel 30:5 with the context there being about Egypt and other nations near Egypt.  Those Ludim are presented as being famed for their Archery which was also the case with the Ancient Nubians.

I think the Mizraimite Ludim were the people of the region known in late Antiquity and medieval times as Alodia which name can be traced back to Ancient Kushite inscriptions as Alut.  Here are some maps of Christian Nubia.

As an extra Biblical Note, I think Makuria is also the land Herodotus knew as Macrobia.

Since I mentioned Phut, Mizraim's brother, above I might as well deal with the documentation on him.

Pliny the Elder Nat. Hist. 5.1 and Ptolemy Geog. iv.1.3 both place the river Phuth on the west side of Mauretania (modern Morocco). Ptolemy also mentions a city Putea in Libya (iv.3.39).  This might be the same river mentioned by other authors under other names being connected to the Atlas Mountains.

Other references seem to place Phut closer to Egypt.  Putaya was the name of the Persian Satrapy of Libya, Nebuchadnezzar refereed to the Cyrenians as the "Putu Yavan" (Ionians in Libya).  I think this location closer to Egypt is probably where Phut first settled, then they migrated further west and their original settlement was taken over by the Casluhim and Lehubim/Lubim.

The notion that Phut and Lubim became different names for the same place is attested by Josephus in AotJ Book 1:6/2.

Egypt as a major Empire and center of Trade located on the crossroads of two continents had a very diverse population. So none of this means other grandsons of Noah didn't also contribute to ancient Egypt.  I still think the Origins of Osiris and Horus could partly lie in the Horite genealogy of Genesis 36 (thus descent from the Hitties and Hivites), as well as that Seb/Keb/Geb could be partly based on one of the three Sebs who were sons of Cush.

The Philistines.

I feel like ranting on this subject a bit.  We now know that the City of Gaza is indeed the oldest of the Philistine Pentapolis, Biblically it's the only one mentioned in Genesis.  We also know the oldest settlement there was an Egyptian Fort built back in the Early Bronze Age.  We also know it was essentially Egypt's regional capital in Canaan during the 18th and Nineteenth Dynasties.  Meaning archeology tells us exactly why The Bible depicted them as essentially Egyptian Colonists.

But the notion that the Philistines weren't in that region till Rameses III, and that they came from the Aegean, continues to pervade because Egyptian records don't use that name till then.  I think Philistines/Peleset was never what they called themselves but always a mostly derogatory term, related to a Hebrew verb used of wallowing in the dust/dirt.  I think the time of Rameses III is simply when these colonials decided to claim independence from their mother empire like the Yankees in 1776, and so only then did the Pharaoh also use this insulting term for them.

But most importantly the Peleset were NOT Sea Peoples in any 20th Dynasty records, scholars like to group then in with the "peoples of the Sea" and "peoples of the Isles" they allied themselves with, but Rameses III did NOT apply that term to the Peleset or the Tjekker.  

If the Philistines post Rameses III seem in their language and fashion and art similar to the Mycenean Greeks, it's because of cultural exchange via the Denyen/Danoi/Danaans they were allied with, not because they originally came from there.

I also read an English Translation of the Peshita where Genesis 10:13-14 says that out of Casluhim came both the Philistines and Caphtorim.

The Bible says the Philistines main patron Deity was Dagan, this is somewhat a mystery since Dagan is in the standard Canaanite pantheon but not a major player. And Archeologists haven't found the evidence for this, partly because they only count anything as Philistine starting with Rameses III.  We know the Egyptians tended to syncretize storm gods like Baal/Hadad with Set.  So Dagan might have been the Canaanite deity who was identified with Osiris or maybe Amon.

I have also come to think about how the nature Hebrew winds sometimes using the names for in fact peoples or locations and started to consider that maybe the Philistim of the Table of Nations has nothing to do with the later Biblical Philistines was a reference to Pelusium.