My attention was grabbed by this sentence:
Not least, I re-read my dissertation on worship as a physical experience, and I loved hearing Dr Paula Gooder speak at St Paul’s, she wrote a wonderful book on the relationship between religion and the human body, and I learned from her that the neo-platonic concept of separation of body and soul are not the Jewish way of seeing humanity: we are not a soul trapped in an incarnated body… we’re more of an animated personality.
I'm interested in what you mean by "an animated personality" and how this relates to the "the Jewish way of seeing humanity"? Obviously you could tell me to read her book, but I'm hoping for a simple paragraph that might persuade me I have a chance of understanding the book!
Paula wrote a very accessible book called "Body" which I was reading as source material for my dissertation several years ago. I was looking for arguments around the idea that worship could be physical rather than intellectual... ie - could I go for a bike ride and call it worship? Not saying that going for a bike ride is Christian worship, but exploring whether, if the intention was right, it could be.
I discovered a lot of neo platonic influence in my tutors, in books, and in a popular understanding of the separation of soul and body. But Hebrew understanding - years past - wasn't aligned with Greek thinking. Early Jewish faith didn't have a concept of the separation of soul and body (according to Paula), rather that humanity is created whole and indivisible. Hebrew (and by extension Christian) creation stories don't have a narrative of earthy vessels brought to life by the addition of a soul. There is no soul: only a human, a personality living a breathing as one indivisible unit.
I don't know if I'm helping or just rewording what I've already written.
I think the original body/soul idea was about encouraging Greeks to fight in wars confident that they would go to heaven as a soul when their body died. I think it started out as theatre, which later became popular understanding... and this body/soul fiction of Plato still persists today.
Hebrew / Jewish faith didn't originally see it that way. I don't know whether that's changed. Christians are certainly swayed by it and it causes a massive amount of confusion about death, resurrection etc.
A little from the blurb about Paula Gooder's book:
The word ‘spirituality’ is notoriously difficult to define or tie down. It is often used in a relatively vague way to refer to the inner relationship between one’s ‘spirit’ or ‘soul’ and God. The implication is that people only relate to God with their ‘inner’ being (the soul/spirit) and not with any other part of who they are. There is a lurking influence of Neo-Platonism within Christian thinking that tends to assume that the material is bad and the spiritual good; that there is a gaping hole between our inner and our outer selves and that the proper location of devotion is our inner being. There is a further assumption that, especially in the writings of Paul, the soul/spirit is to be placed in the ‘good’ category while opposite it, in the ‘bad’ category, is the body/flesh – leaving the question of what is meant by heart and mind largely ignored.
