Chapter 10: Old Testament Messianic Prophecy and the Humanity of the Coming King

We have spent the last four chapters looking at the New Testament's witness to who Jesus is. We explored His full deity (Chapter 6), the completeness of His human nature as body and soul (Chapter 7), the rich inner life of His human soul as portrayed in the Gospels (Chapter 8), and the apostolic testimony to His complete humanity in the Epistles (Chapter 9). But the story of the Messiah does not begin in the New Testament. It begins centuries earlier, woven through the poetry, prophecy, and worship of the Old Testament. Long before Jesus walked the dusty roads of Galilee, the Hebrew Scriptures painted a detailed portrait of the coming King — a figure who would be both divine and genuinely human, who would suffer and triumph, who would pour out His very soul in sacrifice and yet be vindicated by God.

This chapter has a specific purpose: to show that the Old Testament messianic prophecies consistently describe the coming Messiah as possessing a genuine inner life — a nephesh (נֶפֶשׁ, soul) that grieves, a heart that delights in God's will, a spirit upon which the LORD's own Spirit rests. These are not mere descriptions of a body performing biological functions. They describe a person with an interior dimension — an immaterial soul — that is active, aware, and deeply engaged with God. And this matters enormously for our book's argument. If the Old Testament anticipates a Messiah who has a nephesh that makes an offering for guilt, who pours out His nephesh to death, whose nephesh is not abandoned to Sheol — then physicalism about the Messiah's human nature is in serious trouble. On physicalism, there is no nephesh to pour out, no soul to be preserved in the intermediate state, no inner life distinct from the body's brain chemistry. The messianic prophecies simply do not fit a physicalist framework.

My thesis for this chapter is straightforward: the Old Testament messianic prophecies anticipate a coming figure who will be both divine and genuinely human — possessing the full range of human experience including an inner life, emotions, and suffering that presuppose more than a merely physical existence. These prophecies prepare the way for the New Testament's portrait of Jesus as a person with a complete human nature — body and soul — and they create serious difficulties for any view that denies the Messiah has an immaterial soul.

We will examine six major prophetic passages in detail: Isaiah 53 (the Suffering Servant), Psalm 22 (the cry of abandonment), Psalm 16 (the soul preserved from Sheol), Isaiah 11 (the Spirit resting on the Messiah), Psalm 40 (the willing heart of obedience), and Zechariah 12 (the pierced one). For each, we will provide the full biblical text, analyze the relevant Hebrew terms, and draw out the implications for our argument. We will then step back and consider what these passages tell us about the Old Testament's understanding of human nature more broadly — addressing the common claim that the Old Testament is "holistic" or "monistic" and showing that the Hebraic worldview is actually both holistic and dualist.

Let's begin with the most important messianic passage in the entire Old Testament — the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53.

Isaiah 53: The Suffering Servant and His Nephesh

Isaiah 52:13–53:12 is the fourth and greatest of the "Servant Songs" in the book of Isaiah. It describes a mysterious figure — the Servant of the LORD — who suffers vicariously for the sins of others. The early church identified this Servant with Jesus, and the passage has been central to Christian theology of the atonement ever since. But for our purposes, the critical feature of this passage is its repeated use of the word nephesh (נֶפֶשׁ) — the Hebrew word most commonly translated "soul" — in describing the Servant's sacrificial work.

Three times in these three verses, the word nephesh appears — and each time, it is doing heavy theological work. Let's look at each one carefully.

"When His Soul Makes an Offering for Guilt" (v. 10)

The Hebrew phrase here is im-tasim asham nephesho (אִם־תָּשִׂים אָשָׁם נַפְשׁוֹ). The word nephesho means "his soul" or "his life," and it is the grammatical subject of the sacrificial offering. The Servant's nephesh — His soul — is what is being offered as an asham (אָשָׁם), a "guilt offering." This is the language of the Levitical sacrificial system. In the temple, a guilt offering involved the presentation of an animal — a life given in place of another. Here, the Servant's own nephesh serves as the offering. It is not merely His body that is offered on the altar of sacrifice. It is His soul — His inner life, His very self at the deepest level.

This is extraordinary. The sacrificial offering is not described as the Servant's body (basar, בָּשָׂר) being placed on the altar. It is His nephesh — the inner, vital, personal dimension of His being — that constitutes the guilt offering. On physicalism, this language is puzzling at best and meaningless at worst. If there is no immaterial soul, then what is being offered? The body? But the text does not say the body is the offering. It says the nephesh is the offering. The physicalist must reduce this to "when his life makes an offering for guilt" — understanding nephesh simply as "life" in the biological sense. But even this reduction faces a problem: it is the nephesh that makes the offering, not the nephesh that is the offering. The soul is the active agent of sacrifice, not merely a commodity being spent.¹

"Out of the Anguish of His Soul" (v. 11)

The Hebrew reads me'amal nephesho (מֵעֲמַל נַפְשׁוֹ) — literally, "from the labor/anguish of his soul." The word 'amal (עֲמַל) means hard labor, toil, or anguish. It is a word that describes intense inner suffering — not merely physical pain but the deep travail of the soul. After enduring this anguish, the Servant "shall see and be satisfied." The satisfaction comes after and because of the soul's suffering. The sequence is clear: the Servant's soul anguishes, and then — beyond that anguish — the Servant sees the fruit of His work and finds fulfillment.

Notice the implication: the Servant is conscious and aware after the period of suffering. He "shall see" — He perceives, He is aware, He experiences satisfaction. If His soul has been poured out to death (as v. 12 will say), and yet He sees and is satisfied, then His nephesh survives the experience of death. He is not extinguished. He continues to exist and to experience the vindication of His work. On physicalism, this post-suffering awareness is hard to explain — if the Servant is merely a body, and the body died, then who is seeing and being satisfied?²

"He Poured Out His Soul to Death" (v. 12)

This is perhaps the most important phrase in the entire passage for our argument. The Hebrew is he'erah lammavet nephesho (הֶעֱרָה לַמָּוֶת נַפְשׁוֹ). The verb he'erah (הֶעֱרָה) comes from the root 'arah (עָרָה), meaning "to pour out" or "to make bare." The Servant's nephesh is "poured out" — emptied, surrendered — unto death.

This language of "pouring out" the soul is rich with meaning. It implies that the nephesh is something that can be separated from the body at death — it is "poured out" from its bodily container, as it were. The body remains (it will be placed in a grave, as v. 9 indicates — "they made his grave with the wicked"), but the nephesh has been poured out. The body goes one direction; the soul goes another. This is precisely the dualist understanding of death: the soul separates from the body. On physicalism, "pouring out the soul" is a meaningless metaphor — there is nothing to pour out. The person simply ceases to function as a living organism. But the Hebrew text treats the nephesh as something real and active — something that can be offered, can anguish, and can be poured out.³

The Physicalist Objection: "Nephesh Just Means Life"

Some physicalist interpreters will object that nephesh in Isaiah 53 does not mean "soul" as an immaterial substance. They argue that nephesh simply means "life" or "self" — and that the Servant is pouring out His "life," not an immaterial soul. Joel Green, for example, argues that Old Testament anthropological terms like nephesh do not refer to an immaterial substance but to the whole person or the life-force of a living organism.⁴

I want to be fair to this objection. It is true that nephesh has a wide range of meanings in the Old Testament. It can mean "throat," "breath," "desire," "appetite," "life," "person," or "self," depending on the context. Not every occurrence of nephesh refers to an immaterial soul. As John Cooper helpfully notes, nephesh can function as a synecdoche — a part standing for the whole — so that "my nephesh praises the LORD" simply means "I praise the LORD."⁵

However, the objection fails in the context of Isaiah 53 for a specific reason. Even if we grant that nephesh here means "life" rather than "soul," the text still describes a separation. The nephesh is "poured out" to death — while the body continues to exist in the grave. If the nephesh is merely the biological life of the organism, then "pouring out the life" means the life-principle departs from the body. The body remains; the life departs. But what is this life-principle that can "depart" from the body? On physicalism, there is nothing to depart — when the organism stops functioning, the "life" is simply gone. There is no entity, no force, no principle that goes anywhere. The body stops working, and that is the end. But Isaiah describes the nephesh as something that is actively "poured out" — a deliberate act by the Servant, not a passive cessation of biological function. The Servant pours out His nephesh. This implies agency, intentionality, and the existence of something that can be poured.

Furthermore, in verse 11, the nephesh is said to experience anguish — me'amal nephesho, "from the labor of his soul." Can biological life "labor" and "anguish"? This is the language of inner experience — of subjective suffering that goes deeper than the body's physical pain. The Servant's soul anguishes with a depth that cannot be captured by saying "his biological life experienced stress." Something more is going on here. The nephesh in Isaiah 53 is the seat of the Servant's deepest suffering, the subject of His sacrificial offering, and the entity that is poured out at death. It functions as far more than a mere synonym for "life."⁶

The Christological Significance

The New Testament identifies Jesus as the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53. Philip explained this passage to the Ethiopian eunuch and "told him the good news about Jesus" (Acts 8:35). The apostles consistently applied the Servant's suffering to Christ's atoning work (e.g., 1 Pet 2:22–25; Rom 4:25). Jesus Himself said, "the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life [psychēn, ψυχήν] as a ransom for many" (Matt 20:28; Mark 10:45) — language that echoes Isaiah 53's picture of the Servant giving His nephesh as a guilt offering.

If Jesus is the Suffering Servant, then Isaiah 53 describes Jesus' nephesh — His soul — as the subject of His atoning sacrifice. His soul made the guilt offering. His soul endured the anguish. His soul was poured out to death. On the dualist view, this is exactly what we would expect: Jesus has a genuine human soul, and that soul was actively involved in — indeed, was the heart of — His atoning work. On physicalism, Jesus has no soul. His "soul" language must be reduced to metaphor. But can the heart of the atonement really rest on a metaphor? Is it just a figure of speech that the Messiah's innermost being was offered as a guilt offering for the sins of the world?⁷

I believe the stakes are too high for mere metaphor. Isaiah 53 teaches that the Servant's sacrifice involves His entire person — body and soul. As we saw in Chapter 7, Gregory of Nazianzus's great principle — "what is not assumed is not healed" — applies here with full force. If the Servant's nephesh makes the guilt offering, then the nephesh is essential to redemption. If the Messiah has no soul, then there is no nephesh to offer, and the sacrifice described in Isaiah 53 cannot take place as the text describes it.

Psalm 22: The Inner Anguish of the Forsaken Messiah

Psalm 22 opens with words that every Christian recognizes: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Ps 22:1, ESV). Jesus cried these words from the cross (Matt 27:46; Mark 15:34), identifying Himself with the suffering described in this psalm. For our purposes, the psalm is significant because it reveals a profound depth of inner experience in the Messiah — an anguish that goes far beyond physical pain and presupposes a rich interior life.

Let me walk through the key sections. The psalm opens with a cry of abandonment:

The psalmist — whom the New Testament identifies as speaking prophetically of Christ — experiences a sense of abandonment by God. This is not physical pain (that comes later in the psalm). This is spiritual anguish — the experience of being separated from God's felt presence. The psalmist cries out, groans, finds no rest. The Hebrew word for "groaning" here is she'agah (שְׁאָגָה), which can describe the roaring of a lion or the deep groaning of a person in distress. It is visceral, but it is directed at God — it is a cry of the inner person toward the divine.⁸

The Messiah experiences something that only a being with an inner life can experience: shame. Shame is not a physical sensation — it is a complex emotional and psychological experience that involves self-awareness, social consciousness, and an inner sense of humiliation. A purely physical organism can experience pain. But can a purely physical organism experience shame? Shame requires a self that is aware of being seen, evaluated, and found contemptible. It requires an "inner person" who can feel the weight of social rejection at a level deeper than nerve endings.⁹

The psalm then describes the physical sufferings of the Messiah in vivid detail:

Several things stand out. First, the language "I am poured out like water" echoes the "pouring out" language of Isaiah 53:12. The Messiah's inner life is being emptied, drained, surrendered. Second, "my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast." The heart (lev, לֵב) is the seat of the inner person in Hebrew anthropology — the center of thought, will, and emotion. The Messiah's lev is melting. This is not a description of cardiac failure in medical terms. This is a description of the utter dissolution of the Messiah's inner resolve, courage, and strength — His soul is collapsing under the weight of what He is enduring. And third, the physical details — pierced hands and feet, bones out of joint, exposure to mocking enemies — are described from the first-person perspective of the sufferer. This is not a clinical report by an outside observer. This is the Messiah's own testimony about what it was like to experience these things from the inside.¹⁰

The psalm concludes with a dramatic reversal — from abandonment and death to vindication and universal worship:

The sufferer has been heard. God has not ultimately abandoned Him. And the result is universal praise. The arc of the psalm — from dereliction to vindication — mirrors the arc of Christ's experience from the cross to the resurrection. The Messiah who cried out in abandonment is the same Messiah who is vindicated. On the dualist view, the continuity of personal identity through death and vindication is grounded in the soul, which survives death. On physicalism, the identity question becomes acute: if the Messiah is just a body, and the body died, who is being vindicated?¹¹

When Jesus quoted Psalm 22:1 from the cross — "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" — He was not merely citing a verse. He was identifying Himself as the subject of the psalm. He was saying, in effect, "I am the one this psalm is about. This is what is happening to Me right now — in My soul." The inner anguish of Psalm 22 is the inner anguish of Christ's human soul on the cross. And that inner anguish requires a soul to experience it.¹²

Psalm 16:10: The Messiah's Nephesh Preserved from Sheol

Psalm 16 is a psalm of trust in which David expresses his confidence that God will not abandon him to death. Verse 10 is the key verse for our discussion:

The Hebrew reads: ki lo-ta'azov nephshi lish'ol lo-titten chasidkha lir'ot shachat (כִּי לֹא־תַעֲזֹב נַפְשִׁי לִשְׁאוֹל לֹא־תִתֵּן חֲסִידְךָ לִרְאוֹת שָׁחַת). Two things are said about the one who trusts God: (1) God will not abandon his nephesh to Sheol, and (2) God will not let His "holy one" (chasid, חָסִיד) see corruption (shachat, שַׁחַת — decay, the pit).

What makes this verse critically important for our argument is that the apostle Peter quoted it at Pentecost as a prophecy of Christ's resurrection. In Acts 2:27, Peter cites the Septuagint translation: "For you will not abandon my soul [psychēn, ψυχήν] to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption." Peter then interprets the text:

Peter's interpretation is precise and deeply significant for our topic. He says that David "spoke about the resurrection of the Christ" — and specifically, that Christ "was not abandoned to Hades" and "his flesh did not see corruption." Notice the two distinct claims: (1) Christ's soul (psychē) was not abandoned to Hades — implying that His soul was in Hades but was not left there; and (2) His flesh (sarx, σάρξ) did not see corruption — implying that His body was in the grave but did not decompose before the resurrection.¹³

Let me draw out the implications more carefully. Psalm 16:10 presupposes at least three things about the Messiah:

First, the Messiah has a nephesh that is distinct from His body. The nephesh goes to Sheol; the body goes to the grave. These are different destinations for different components of the person. If the nephesh were merely a synonym for "life" (in the biological sense), then saying God "will not abandon my life to Sheol" would mean God will not allow the cessation of biological function to become permanent. That reading is possible but strained. The more natural reading — especially given the parallel with the body not seeing corruption — is that the nephesh and the body are two dimensions of the person that separate at death and go to different places.

Second, the Messiah's nephesh goes to Sheol at death. Sheol (she'ol, שְׁאוֹל) is the realm of the dead in the Old Testament — the place where the departed exist after death. As Cooper argues in his analysis of Old Testament anthropology, Sheol is not merely "the grave" in the sense of a burial plot. It is a realm where the rephaim (רְפָאִים, the shades or spirits of the departed) exist in some diminished form of consciousness.¹⁴ On physicalism, Sheol is a problem — if the dead are simply non-existent, then there is no realm of the dead and no one in it. But the Old Testament consistently describes Sheol as a place where departed persons exist.

Third, God preserves the Messiah's nephesh from remaining in Sheol. The promise is not merely that the body will be raised. It is that the soul will not be abandoned — left permanently — in the realm of the dead. God will bring the nephesh back, reuniting it with the body that has not yet decayed. This is the resurrection: the reunion of body and soul. On physicalism, the resurrection is not a reunion but a re-creation — God takes a dead body and reactivates it. But that is not what Psalm 16 describes. The psalm describes a nephesh that goes to Sheol and a body that goes to the grave, and God's promise to reunite them before the body decays.¹⁵

This passage is directly relevant to the triduum mortis argument that we will develop in Chapter 21. During the three days between Christ's death and resurrection, His nephesh was in Hades/paradise while His body was in the tomb. The hypostatic union was maintained because the Son remained united to both the human soul (in Hades) and the human body (in the tomb). On physicalism, there is no soul to be in Hades, and the Son is united only to a corpse — which raises devastating questions about whether the Incarnation survived the cross.

Isaiah 11:1–5: The Spirit of the LORD Resting on the Messiah

Isaiah 11 describes the coming of a righteous ruler from the line of David — a "shoot from the stump of Jesse" — upon whom the Spirit of the LORD will rest. Here is the full text:

First, the Spirit of the LORD (ruach YHWH, רוּחַ יהוה) rests upon the Messiah. The Hebrew word ruach (רוּחַ) means "spirit," "wind," or "breath." In this context, it is the Spirit of God — the Holy Spirit — coming upon the Messiah and endowing Him with supernatural qualities. The anointing of the Spirit presupposes that the Messiah has an inner spiritual dimension — a capacity to receive and bear the Spirit of God. The Spirit rests upon a person, not upon a brain. The language is relational and personal, not neurological. The Spirit communicates wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, and the fear of the LORD — all of which are qualities of the inner person, the soul.¹⁶

Second, the sixfold endowment of the Spirit describes qualities that are fundamentally interior: wisdom (chokmah, חָכְמָה), understanding (binah, בִּינָה), counsel ('etsah, עֵצָה), might (gevurah, גְּבוּרָה), knowledge (da'at, דַּעַת), and the fear of the LORD (yir'at YHWH, יִרְאַת יהוה). These are not physical capacities. They are intellectual, moral, and spiritual qualities that belong to the inner life of a person. On physicalism, every one of these qualities would need to be reduced to a brain state — a pattern of neural activity in the Messiah's physical brain. But the text describes them as gifts of the Spirit, communicated by God to the inner person of the Messiah. The Spirit does not rewire the Messiah's neurons. The Spirit endows the Messiah's soul with divine wisdom and power.¹⁷

Third, "his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD." The Hebrew word for "delight" here is based on the root ruach (vaharicho, וַהֲרִיחוֹ), which can be rendered as "he shall breathe in" or "he shall delight in." The Messiah's deepest delight — His greatest joy — is found in reverence for God. This is a deeply personal, interior experience. Delight is not something a physical body does; it is something a soul experiences. The Messiah's relationship with the LORD is characterized by inner joy, voluntary reverence, and spiritual pleasure — all of which require a subject of experience that goes beyond mere neural activity.

Fourth, "he shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear." This is remarkable. The Messiah's judgment will not be based on external sensory input alone — the data that enters through the eyes and ears. Instead, He will judge with righteousness and equity — moral qualities that come from the Spirit's endowment of His inner life. The Messiah has access to a kind of knowledge that transcends the physical senses. This is exactly what we would expect from Andrew Loke's Kryptic Model of the Incarnation, which we will discuss in detail in Chapter 17: the divine knowledge is available at the preconscious level, enabling Christ to judge with perfect righteousness even when external sensory evidence might be misleading.¹⁸

Psalm 40:6–8: "I Delight to Do Your Will"

Psalm 40 includes a passage that the author of Hebrews explicitly attributes to Christ. In Hebrews 10:5–7, the writer quotes the Septuagint version of Psalm 40:6–8, introducing it as the words Christ spoke "when he came into the world":

Notice the critical phrase at the end: "I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart" (toratekha betokh me'ai, תּוֹרָתְךָ בְּתוֹךְ מֵעָי). The Hebrew word me'ai (מֵעָי) literally means "my inward parts" or "my bowels" — in Hebrew anthropology, this refers to the deepest interior dimension of the person. The ESV translates it as "heart" because the concept is parallel to lev (לֵב), the seat of the inner person.¹⁹

There are several things to notice here. First, the Messiah speaks in the first person: "I delight." He is the subject of the delight. He experiences willing, joyful obedience to God's will. This is not reluctant compliance or forced submission. It is delight — a deep inner pleasure in doing what God commands. Delight is an experience of the soul. A physical body does not "delight." A brain can process stimuli and produce neurochemical responses that we experience as pleasure — but the biblical writers do not describe the Messiah's obedience in neurochemical terms. They describe it in terms of the inner person's relationship with God.

Second, God's law (torah, תּוֹרָה) is "within my heart." The law is not merely known by the Messiah's intellect — it is internalized, embedded in the deepest part of His being. This echoes the New Covenant promise of Jeremiah 31:33: "I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts." The internalization of God's will in the Messiah's heart is the fullest expression of what the New Covenant will accomplish for all God's people. And it presupposes a "heart" — an inner person — that can receive and treasure God's law. On physicalism, "the law within my heart" becomes "the law encoded in my neural pathways." This reduction strips the language of its personal, relational quality.²⁰

Third, the author of Hebrews applies this text directly to Christ at the Incarnation. When Christ "came into the world," He said: "A body you have prepared for me... I have come to do your will." Notice the relationship between the "I" and the "body." The body is prepared for the "I." The "I" is the one who receives the body. The body is something given to the person, not identical with the person. The "I" who delights to do God's will and who receives a body is the eternal Son — but the willing obedience He expresses is the obedience of His human soul, united to a prepared body. On physicalism, the "I" is the body. There is no "I" who receives a body. But the text clearly distinguishes between the person who speaks ("I have come") and the body that is prepared for Him ("a body you have prepared for me"). This distinction only works on a dualist anthropology — where the person (soul) and the body are related but distinct.²¹

As we discussed in Chapter 9's treatment of Hebrews 10:5–10, this passage is central to understanding how Christ's human will relates to the divine purpose. The Messiah's "I delight to do your will" is the language of dyothelitism — two wills operating in harmony. The human will of the Messiah (seated in His human soul) freely and joyfully embraces the divine will. This will receive its full treatment in Chapter 14, but we should note here that Psalm 40 already anticipates the Christological framework that the ecumenical councils would later define.

Zechariah 12:10: "They Will Look on Me, on Him Whom They Have Pierced"

Zechariah 12:10 is one of the most theologically dense verses in the Old Testament. Here is the full text:

The most striking feature of this verse is the shift between first person and third person. The speaker is the LORD (YHWH) — the context of chapter 12 makes this clear: "Thus declares the LORD" (v. 1). And the LORD says, "they will look on me, on him whom they have pierced." The LORD identifies Himself with the one who is pierced. The speaker says "me" — elai (אֵלַי) — and then shifts to "him" — 'alav (עָלָיו). The one who is pierced is both "me" (the LORD speaking) and "him" (a person who has been physically pierced).²²

This person-switching is theologically explosive. It implies a mysterious identification between the LORD and a human figure who suffers a physical death by piercing. The early church recognized this as a prophecy of Christ's crucifixion — and John's Gospel explicitly applies it: "They will look on him whom they have pierced" (John 19:37, citing Zech 12:10).

For our argument, several things matter. First, the pierced one is identified with the LORD — suggesting the divinity of the Messiah. Second, the pierced one has been physically killed (pierced) — confirming His genuine humanity. Third, the pierced one is the subject of mourning — "they shall mourn for him" — which presupposes that the people recognize Him as a real person with whom they had a relationship. Fourth — and most importantly for our topic — the pierced one is conscious and identifiable after the piercing. "They will look on me" — the LORD says this about a future event, but it implies that the pierced one is not simply dead and gone. He is someone who can be "looked upon" — recognized, seen, mourned. The text anticipates a moment when the people will look at the one they have killed and experience deep grief and repentance.

On the dualist reading, this makes perfect sense. The pierced one — the Messiah — has a soul that survives the piercing. He is not extinct. He can be "looked upon" because He continues to exist. His identity persists beyond the physical death inflicted by the piercing. On physicalism, the pierced one is simply a dead body. He cannot be "looked upon" in any relational sense — He is gone, ceased to exist. The mourning would be purely retrospective — mourning for someone who no longer exists. But the text's language suggests something more. The shift from "me" (the LORD) to "him" (the pierced one) and back again suggests a living, continuous identity that bridges the experience of being pierced and the experience of being looked upon.²³

Additional Messianic Passages

Beyond the six major passages we have examined, several other Old Testament texts contribute to the picture of a Messiah with a genuine inner life. Let me briefly note a few.

Isaiah 42:1–4 — the first Servant Song — describes the Servant as one upon whom God has put His Spirit, who will bring forth justice, who "will not cry aloud or lift up his voice in the street," who will faithfully bring forth justice. The Servant's gentleness and perseverance are inner qualities — patience, determination, compassion — that belong to the soul.²⁴

Isaiah 49:4 — the second Servant Song — has the Servant saying: "But I said, 'I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my right is with the LORD, and my recompense with my God.'" The Servant experiences discouragement, self-doubt, and then a reaffirmation of trust in God. This inner journey — from despair to hope — requires an interior dimension that goes beyond brain chemistry.

Isaiah 50:4–7 — the third Servant Song — describes the Servant's willing submission to suffering: "I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting." The Servant chooses to endure — "I gave my back," "I hid not my face." This is voluntary suffering — suffering embraced by a will that has decided to submit. Voluntary suffering requires a will, and a will (on the dualist view) is a faculty of the soul.²⁵

Daniel 7:13–14 — the "Son of Man" vision — describes "one like a son of man" coming with the clouds of heaven, receiving dominion, glory, and a kingdom. Jesus frequently used "Son of Man" as His preferred self-designation. The figure in Daniel 7 is both human ("like a son of man") and divine (coming with the clouds — a divine prerogative — and receiving eternal dominion). The very title "Son of Man" emphasizes the genuine humanity of the Messiah — and genuine humanity, as the councils would later insist, includes a human soul.²⁶

Micah 5:2 — "But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days." The Messiah has an origin that is "from of old, from ancient days" — suggesting pre-existence — and yet He will "come forth" from Bethlehem — a genuine human birth. The pre-existent one enters human existence. On dualism, this is the eternal Son assuming a human nature (body + soul) at the Incarnation. On physicalism, the pre-existent one becomes a physical body — with no immaterial soul to serve as the locus of the union between His eternal existence and His temporal, human existence.

Old Testament Anthropology: Holistic AND Dualist

We have now surveyed the major messianic prophecies and their implications for the Messiah's inner life. But I want to step back and address a broader question that lies behind much of the physicalism-versus-dualism debate: what does the Old Testament actually teach about human nature? Is the Old Testament "monistic" or "holistic" — and does that rule out dualism?

This is important because one of the most common arguments for physicalism runs like this: "The Old Testament has a holistic view of human nature. The Hebrews did not believe in an immaterial soul separate from the body. They saw the person as a unified whole. Therefore, the Old Testament supports physicalism (or at least does not support dualism)." Nancey Murphy has argued that "in the Hebrew Bible, human life is regularly understood monistically rather than dualistically." Joel Green has similarly argued that the Old Testament portrays humans as psychosomatic unities without a separable soul.²⁷

I want to engage this argument carefully, because it has a grain of truth — but the conclusion physicalists draw from it is wrong.

The Grain of Truth: Hebrew Holism

The Old Testament does indeed emphasize the unity of the human person. Unlike some versions of Greek philosophy (especially the Platonic tradition), which viewed the body as a prison for the soul and looked forward to the soul's liberation from bodily existence, the Hebrew Scriptures celebrate the goodness of embodied life. A full human existence, for the Israelites, means living in a body — eating, drinking, working, worshiping, loving — in this world. As Cooper notes, the Old Testament is "resoundingly this-worldly. The fullest possible existence for a human being is to live an earthly life as God created it to be lived."²⁸

Furthermore, the Old Testament's anthropological vocabulary does not draw sharp lines between "body" and "soul" in the way that Cartesian dualism does. As we have seen, nephesh can mean "throat," "breath," "desire," "life," "person," or "self" — not just "soul." Ruach can mean "wind," "breath," or "spirit" — and it often refers to the Spirit of God rather than a human immaterial soul. The heart (lev) can think, feel, and will. The kidneys (kelayot) can experience moral conviction. The bowels (me'im) can express deep emotion. The Hebrew writers attributed psychological and spiritual functions to bodily organs in ways that seem strange to modern readers accustomed to Cartesian dualism. Cooper helpfully summarizes this as "functional holism" — the view that in normal, living human experience, body and soul function together as an integrated whole, with no sharp division of labor between "body functions" and "soul functions."²⁹

So the physicalists are right that the Old Testament is holistic. But they are wrong about what holism implies.

The Mistake: Confusing Holism with Monism

The critical error in the physicalist argument is the assumption that holism entails monism — that if the person is a unified whole in life, then the person must be only a physical organism with no immaterial soul. But this does not follow at all. As Cooper persuasively argues, the Old Testament teaches what he calls "holistic dualism" — the view that the human person is a unified whole composed of two ontologically distinct components (body and soul) that are deeply integrated in life but can and do separate at death.³⁰

Think of it this way. A married couple is a "unified whole" in the sense that they function together, share life, and are deeply intertwined. But they are still two distinct persons. Their unity does not mean they are only one person. Similarly, the Old Testament's emphasis on the unity of the human person does not mean the person is only one "substance." Body and soul are deeply united in life — but they are still distinct, and they separate at death.

The evidence for this dualist dimension of Old Testament anthropology is substantial. Consider the following:

Genesis 2:7 describes God forming the body from dust ('adamah, אֲדָמָה) and then breathing into it the breath of life (nishmat chayyim, נִשְׁמַת חַיִּים), so that the man became a living soul (nephesh chayyah, נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה). As discussed in Chapter 3, this passage describes two components being brought together: the material body from the earth and the life-breath from God. These are "mutually irreducible" — dust and divine breath are not the same kind of thing. They combine to make one living person, but they come from different sources. Cooper rightly notes that this two-ingredient picture "does not look as though it could be philosophically elaborated into monism."³¹

Genesis 35:18 describes Rachel's nephesh "departing" (yatsa, יָצָא) at death — as we treated in detail in Chapter 3. 1 Kings 17:21–22 describes the nephesh of the widow's son "returning" (shuv, שׁוּב) to him at Elijah's prayer. Ecclesiastes 12:7 describes the dust returning to earth while the spirit (ruach) returns to God who gave it. In each of these passages, something — the nephesh or ruach — separates from the body at death and goes somewhere else. This is the behavior of a distinct entity, not a mere function of the physical organism. If the nephesh were merely a way of talking about the living organism, it could not "depart" — the organism simply stops functioning. But the Old Testament describes the nephesh as something that leaves.³²

The existence of Sheol as a realm of the dead reinforces this point. The Old Testament consistently depicts Sheol as a place where the dead — the rephaim (רְפָאִים, "shades" or "spirits") — exist in some diminished but real form. In 1 Samuel 28, Samuel's spirit is brought up from the dead and speaks intelligibly to Saul. In Isaiah 14:9–10, the dead in Sheol are "stirred up" to meet the king of Babylon when he arrives. These are not merely literary devices. They reflect a genuine Old Testament belief that something of the person survives death and exists in Sheol. As Cooper argues, the existence of the dead in Sheol — however diminished their existence — entails that the person is not simply identical with the body. Something survives the body's dissolution.³³

The Messianic Passages Confirm the Dualist Dimension

What we have seen in this chapter's survey of messianic prophecies reinforces Cooper's conclusion. The messianic passages consistently use nephesh and ruach language that presupposes an inner dimension of the person that is not reducible to the body. The Suffering Servant's nephesh makes a guilt offering, anguishes, and is poured out to death. The Messiah of Psalm 22 experiences spiritual abandonment, shame, and the melting of His heart. The holy one of Psalm 16 has a nephesh that goes to Sheol and is preserved from remaining there. The Messiah of Isaiah 11 receives the Spirit's anointing upon His inner person. The speaker of Psalm 40 delights in God's will, with God's law written within His heart.

None of this language can be adequately captured by physicalism. On physicalism, the Servant's nephesh is not a real entity that can be offered, anguish, or be poured out — it is merely a way of talking about the organism's biological life. The Messiah's shame in Psalm 22 is merely a neurochemical event in His brain. Psalm 16's promise about the nephesh in Sheol is meaningless because there is no nephesh and no Sheol. The Spirit's anointing in Isaiah 11 is merely a divine alteration of brain chemistry. The delight in God's will in Psalm 40 is just a neurological response. I find these reductions deeply unsatisfying — and I believe the biblical writers would have found them incomprehensible.³⁴

The "Greek Import" Objection

Before we leave this topic, I need to address one more objection that physicalists often raise: the claim that body-soul dualism is a "Greek philosophical import" that was read into the Hebrew Scriptures by later Christian interpreters influenced by Plato. Murphy, Green, and others have argued that the church fathers "systematically read the Greek mind into the Scriptures" and that dualism is a product of Hellenistic philosophy, not Hebrew thought.³⁵

This objection has some historical validity — it is true that some church fathers (especially those influenced by Platonism) read the Bible through Greek philosophical lenses. But the objection commits the genetic fallacy: even if dualism has roots in Greek philosophy, the question is whether it is true — not where it came from. Physicalism also has philosophical roots (in Enlightenment materialism, empiricism, and logical positivism). The question is not whose philosophical ancestry is more respectable but whose reading of the text is more accurate.

And as we have seen, the Old Testament itself — without any help from Greek philosophy — describes the nephesh departing the body at death, the ruach returning to God, and the dead existing in Sheol. These are not ideas imported by the church fathers. They are present in the Hebrew text itself. As Cooper writes, the view that "the Old Testament, holism, and monism" go naturally together "is one of the most persistent and influential misconceptions in the entire debate." The truth is that "Old Testament anthropology is both holistic and dualistic in senses yet to be explicated."³⁶

Furthermore, we should note that the accusation of "Greek import" can cut both ways. Some scholars have argued that the modern rejection of dualism is itself a philosophical import — driven by Enlightenment materialism, scientific naturalism, and the assumption that "what science cannot detect is not real." If the church fathers are guilty of reading Plato into the Bible, perhaps the modern physicalists are guilty of reading David Hume and Thomas Hobbes into the Bible. Cooper notes this point with characteristic precision: "Is it possible that the modern mind has its own blindnesses and prejudices, its own tendency to create the past in its own image?"³⁷

The Messiah's Nephesh and Physicalism's Failure

Let me now draw together the threads of this chapter and state the overall argument clearly.

The Old Testament messianic prophecies paint a remarkably consistent portrait of the coming Messiah. He is a figure who will suffer deeply — not just in His body but in His soul. His nephesh will be the subject of sacrificial offering, the location of anguish, and the entity that is poured out to death. His heart will melt under the weight of shame and abandonment. His soul will go to Sheol and be preserved there by God. His inner person will be anointed with the Spirit. His heart will delight in God's will. And even after His body is pierced, He will be looked upon, recognized, and mourned.

This portrait is thoroughly dualist. It describes a Messiah who has both a body (that can be pierced, that lies in the grave, that does not see corruption) and a soul (that can be offered, that anguishes, that is poured out, that goes to Sheol, that delights in God's will). The two are related but distinct. The body goes to the grave; the soul goes to Sheol. The body is pierced; the soul is poured out. The body is prepared by God (Psalm 40 via Hebrews 10); the soul delights in doing God's will.

Physicalism cannot do justice to this portrait. If the Messiah has no soul — if He is merely a physical organism — then the prophetic language about the nephesh is either metaphorical (in which case the most profound descriptions of the Servant's sacrifice are figures of speech rather than descriptions of reality) or meaningless (in which case the prophets did not know what they were talking about). Neither option is acceptable for those who believe, as I do, that the Old Testament prophets spoke under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and that their words describe genuine realities about the coming Messiah.

Moreover, these messianic prophecies anticipate the New Testament's portrait of Jesus. When Jesus cried "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" from the cross, He was living out the inner anguish of Psalm 22. When He said "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit" (Luke 23:46), He was enacting the departure of the nephesh described in Isaiah 53:12. When Peter preached at Pentecost that God "did not abandon his soul to Hades" (Acts 2:31), he was interpreting Psalm 16:10 as a prophecy of what actually happened to Christ's nephesh during the triduum mortis. The Old Testament sets up the framework; the New Testament fills it in. And that framework is consistently, persistently, and unavoidably dualist.³⁸

Christological Implications: Why This Matters for the Incarnation

Let me close by connecting the messianic prophecies to the book's central argument. If the Old Testament anticipates a Messiah who has a genuine nephesh — a soul — then Christ, as the fulfillment of these prophecies, must have a genuine soul. This is not optional or negotiable. It is woven into the very fabric of the prophetic expectation.

Consider the chain of reasoning. Isaiah 53 says the Servant's nephesh makes a guilt offering. Jesus is the Suffering Servant. Therefore, Jesus' nephesh makes a guilt offering. If Jesus has no nephesh — if He is merely a physical organism — then Isaiah 53 is not fulfilled. The prophecy requires a Messiah with a soul.

Psalm 16:10 says the Messiah's nephesh will not be abandoned to Sheol. Peter says this was fulfilled in Christ's resurrection. Therefore, Christ had a nephesh that went to Sheol and was preserved there by God. If Christ has no nephesh, then Peter's interpretation of Psalm 16 is wrong. The prophecy requires a Messiah with a soul that survives death.

Psalm 40:6–8 says the Messiah delights to do God's will, with God's law within His heart. Hebrews 10 applies this to Christ at the Incarnation. The Messiah's willing obedience — His active, joyful embrace of the Father's plan — requires a will, a heart, an inner person who can delight. If Christ has no soul, this willing obedience is merely brain function. The prophecy requires a Messiah with an inner life of genuine moral agency.

In short: the messianic prophecies demand a Messiah who is more than a body. They demand a Messiah with a soul — a genuine inner life that can suffer, will, delight, be offered, be poured out, go to Sheol, and be preserved by God. This is exactly what the New Testament portrays in Jesus of Nazareth. And it is exactly what the ecumenical councils defined when they declared that Christ is "truly man of a rational soul and a body" (the Chalcedonian Definition, which we will examine in Chapter 11).³⁹

Physicalism fails the messianic prophecies just as it fails the New Testament witness, the conciliar definitions, and the philosophical arguments for dualism. The coming King anticipated in the Old Testament is a King with a body and a soul. And because He is both, He can do what the prophets said He would do: offer His nephesh for guilt, endure the anguish of His soul, be poured out to death — and then rise again, vindicated, glorified, and triumphant, never to die again.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we have surveyed the major Old Testament messianic prophecies that bear on the humanity and inner life of the coming Messiah. We have examined Isaiah 53's description of the Suffering Servant whose nephesh is the subject of His sacrificial offering, Psalm 22's portrayal of the Messiah's inner anguish on the cross, Psalm 16's prophecy of the Messiah's soul being preserved from Sheol, Isaiah 11's picture of the Spirit-anointed King, Psalm 40's depiction of the Messiah's willing heart of obedience, and Zechariah 12's mysterious identification of the pierced one with the LORD Himself.

In every case, the messianic prophecies describe a figure with a genuine inner life — a nephesh that suffers, wills, delights, is offered, and survives death. This inner life is not reducible to the Messiah's physical body. It is a distinct dimension of His person — what the later tradition would call His "human soul."

We have also addressed the broader question of Old Testament anthropology and shown that the Hebrew worldview is not merely "holistic" in the monistic sense that physicalists claim. It is what Cooper rightly calls "holistic dualism" — an integrated view of the person as a unified whole in life, but a whole composed of two distinct realities (body and soul) that can and do separate at death. The Old Testament is holistic and dualist — and the messianic prophecies are among the clearest expressions of this dual reality.

With this chapter, we have completed Part II of our book — the biblical witness to Christ's two natures. Over the last five chapters, we have seen that the New Testament presents Jesus as fully divine (Chapter 6) and fully human with a genuine soul (Chapters 7–9), and that the Old Testament's messianic prophecies anticipate this same portrait (this chapter). We turn now in Part III to the church's reflection on this biblical witness — the ecumenical councils, the creeds, and the development of orthodox Christology that would define what it means to say that Christ is "truly God and truly man, of a rational soul and a body."

Footnotes

¹ The Hebrew grammar of Isaiah 53:10 has been debated, with some scholars reading the phrase differently depending on how one vocalizes tasim. However, the standard reading — "when his soul makes an offering for guilt" — treats the nephesh as the agent or content of the offering. See John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah: Chapters 40–66, New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 400–402. ↩

² The phrase me'amal nephesho yir'eh yisba' ("out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied") implies post-mortem consciousness and vindication. See J. Alec Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah: An Introduction and Commentary (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 442–43. ↩

³ The verb 'arah (עָרָה) in the Hiphil means "to empty out" or "to pour out" and conveys a deliberate, active surrender. See Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, rev. ed. (Leiden: Brill, 2001), s.v. "ערה." ↩

⁴ Joel B. Green, Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 56–72. Green argues that nephesh in the Old Testament does not refer to an immaterial substance but to the whole person or the life-force of a living organism. ↩

⁵ John W. Cooper, Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 39–40. Cooper notes that nephesh has a wide variety of meanings and that synecdoche (part-for-whole reference) accounts for many but not all of its uses. ↩

⁶ Cooper, Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting, 44–45. Cooper cautions against the overreaching generalization that all uses of nephesh are mere synecdoche for "the whole person," noting that "the variety of linguistic usage in the Old Testament defies any simple generalization." ↩

⁷ On the identification of Jesus with the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53, see Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on the New Testament's Christology of Divine Identity (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008), 47–50. ↩

⁸ The word she'agah (שְׁאָגָה) conveys deep, anguished crying. See Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalms 1–59, trans. Hilton C. Oswald, Continental Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 292–94. ↩

⁹ Joshua R. Farris, An Introduction to Theological Anthropology: Humans, Both Creaturely and Divine (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2020), 71–73. Farris discusses how human experiences like shame, moral awareness, and self-reflection presuppose an interior dimension not reducible to physical processes. ↩

¹⁰ Derek Kidner, Psalms 1–72, Tyndale Old Testament Commentary (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1973), 105–8. Kidner notes the remarkable correspondence between the details of Psalm 22 and the Gospel accounts of the crucifixion. ↩

¹¹ On the continuity of personal identity through death and resurrection as grounded in the soul, see Richard Swinburne, Mind, Brain, and Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 148–55. ↩

¹² Michael A. Wilkinson, Crowned with Glory and Honor: A Chalcedonian Anthropology, Studies in Historical and Systematic Theology (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Academic, 2024), 78–80. Wilkinson argues that Christ's use of Psalm 22 from the cross reveals the depth of His human soul's genuine suffering and relationship with the Father. ↩

¹³ I. Howard Marshall, "Acts," in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, ed. G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007), 541–43. Marshall notes that Peter's interpretation of Psalm 16 presupposes a distinction between the soul (in Hades) and the body (in the tomb). ↩

¹⁴ Cooper, Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting, 56–69. Cooper provides an extensive analysis of Sheol and the existence of the rephaim (shades of the dead) in Old Testament thought, arguing that the dead exist in Sheol in some diminished but real form of consciousness. ↩

¹⁵ The distinction between the soul going to Sheol and the body remaining in the tomb is the foundational dualist implication of Psalm 16:10. See Peter C. Craigie, Psalms 1–50, 2nd ed., Word Biblical Commentary (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2004), 158–59. ↩

¹⁶ Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah, 121–24. Motyer discusses the sixfold endowment of the Spirit as describing the interior qualities of the coming Messiah, emphasizing that these are personal and spiritual — not merely intellectual or political. ↩

¹⁷ Farris, Introduction to Theological Anthropology, 102–4. Farris notes that spiritual gifts and endowments described in the Old Testament presuppose an immaterial dimension of the person that can receive and bear the Spirit's influence. ↩

¹⁸ Andrew Ter Ern Loke, A Kryptic Model of the Incarnation, Routledge New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology, and Biblical Studies (London: Routledge, 2014), chap. 4, "A New Kryptic Christology: The Divine Preconscious Model." Loke's model explains how Christ could possess supernatural knowledge and judgment beyond sensory input through the preconscious access to divine attributes. ↩

¹⁹ The term me'ai (מֵעָי) literally refers to the inward parts or bowels but functioned in Hebrew anthropology as a term for the deepest interior dimension of the person. See Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1907), s.v. "מֵעֶה." ↩

²⁰ Wilkinson, Crowned with Glory and Honor, 62–64. Wilkinson discusses the significance of the "heart" in Hebrew anthropology as the seat of the inner person, arguing that the Old Testament's use of lev and cognate terms presupposes an interior dimension that is not reducible to the physical body. ↩

²¹ The distinction between the "I" who comes and the "body" prepared for Him in Hebrews 10:5–7 is noted by several commentators as implying a pre-existent person who receives a body at the Incarnation. See William L. Lane, Hebrews 9–13, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, 1991), 262–64. For a full treatment of this passage in its epistolary context, see Chapter 9 of this book. ↩

²² The textual issue in Zechariah 12:10 — the alternation between "me" (elai) and "him" ('alav) — has been discussed extensively. Some scholars emend "me" to "him" throughout, but the Masoretic Text preserves the striking alternation. See Thomas Edward McComiskey, ed., The Minor Prophets: An Exegetical and Expository Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1998), 3:1210–14. ↩

²³ Andrew Ter Ern Loke, The Origin of Divine Christology, Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), chap. 5, sec. 5.4, "Zechariah 12:10." Loke discusses how this verse anticipates the identification of the Messiah with YHWH. ↩

²⁴ Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah: Chapters 40–66, 110–15. ↩

²⁵ Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah, 400–402. The Servant's voluntary submission to suffering in Isaiah 50 presupposes genuine moral agency — a will that chooses to endure. ↩

²⁶ On the "Son of Man" in Daniel 7 and its significance for Christology, see Loke, Origin of Divine Christology, chap. 4, sec. 4.3, "Daniel 7." ↩

²⁷ Nancey Murphy, Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 17–23. Green, Body, Soul, and Human Life, 49–60. Both Murphy and Green argue that Old Testament anthropology is monistic or at least non-dualistic. ↩

²⁸ Cooper, Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting, 38. Cooper notes the resoundingly this-worldly character of Old Testament anthropology while denying that this rules out dualism. ↩

²⁹ Cooper, Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting, 43–45. Cooper distinguishes "functional holism" (body and soul function together as a unity in life) from "ontological holism" (the person is only one substance), arguing that the Old Testament affirms the former but not the latter. ↩

³⁰ Cooper, Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting, 47–48. Cooper's concept of "holistic dualism" captures the dual reality of Old Testament anthropology: two ingredients (dust and divine breath) are combined to make one living creature. ↩

³¹ Cooper, Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting, 48. Cooper writes that the Old Testament picture includes "two kinds of ingredient" — dust and life-breath — that "amount to a mutually irreducible duality which God puts together to get one person," a picture that "does not look as though it could be philosophically elaborated into monism." ↩

³² For the full exegesis of Genesis 35:18, 1 Kings 17:21–22, and Ecclesiastes 12:7, see Chapter 3 of this book. These passages show that the nephesh and ruach are treated as entities that can depart from and return to the body. ↩

³³ Cooper, Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting, 56–72. Cooper's treatment of Sheol and the rephaim demonstrates that the Old Testament consistently depicts the dead as existing in some diminished but real form — which entails that the person is not identical with the body. ↩

³⁴ Wilkinson, Crowned with Glory and Honor, 45–48. Wilkinson argues that reducing biblical anthropological language to mere metaphor for physical processes trivializes the text and fails to do justice to the biblical authors' intentions. ↩

³⁵ Cooper, Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting, 24–26. Cooper presents and critiques the historical-theological challenge to dualism — the claim that body-soul dualism was imported into Christian theology from Greek philosophy rather than derived from Scripture. ↩

³⁶ Cooper, Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting, 37. Cooper challenges the equation of Hebrew holism with philosophical monism, arguing that the holistic emphasis of the Old Testament is fully compatible with a form of dualism. ↩

³⁷ Cooper, Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting, 37. Cooper asks whether "the modern mind has its own blindnesses and prejudices, its own tendency to create the past in its own image" — a pointed challenge to those who assume that the modern rejection of dualism is more "objective" than the traditional affirmation of it. ↩

³⁸ For the New Testament's use of nephesh/psychē language in describing Christ's human soul, see Chapters 7 and 8 of this book. For Peter's interpretation of Psalm 16:10 at Pentecost, see the treatment of Acts 2:27, 31 in Chapter 9. ↩

³⁹ Timothy Pawl, In Defense of Conciliar Christology, Oxford Studies in Analytic Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), chap. 1, "The Content of Conciliar Christology," under "Concerning the Human Nature of Christ." Pawl notes that the Chalcedonian Definition explicitly defines Christ's human nature as consisting of a "rational soul and a body" — a definition that presupposes the kind of body-soul dualism that the messianic prophecies anticipate. ↩

Bibliography

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Brown, Francis, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs. A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament. Oxford: Clarendon, 1907.

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Kidner, Derek. Psalms 1–72. Tyndale Old Testament Commentary. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1973.

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Old Testament Messianic Prophecy and the Humanity of the Coming King

Introduction

Isaiah 53: The Suffering Servant and His Nephesh