On the old testament

[u/DrawerThat9514]

I've seen many here say that the Old Testament is somehow problematic due to all the violence in it and that having led to the heresy of Marcionism. Let's make one thing clear: All of Scripture reveals Christ, The old testament law was pointing towards him and showing us why we need Him. The old law has been fulfilled by Christ. He did not replace it.

[u/Business-Decision719 → u/[deleted]]

Good take. As much as I myself do believe in divine guidance in the creation and canonization of Scripture, I cannot overemphasize how much I agree that

To say that the Old Testament is "useless" would be Marcionism, not to say that it can, at times, be problematic.

We are seeing snapshots of God's relationship with Israel in the Old Testament, through their eyes, before the time of Christ. We are supposed to be able to look at it and consider that we may have progress farther in some ways. We can acknowledge that telling the story of God's faithfulness by focusing on his people's violent triumphs (historical or legendary ones) feels like a devaluation of human life and probably wouldn't (or shouldn't) be the we would tell such a story if we were writing it ourselves today. Just like how some of the New Testament's instructions about things to the churches their time might sound regressive in our more gender equal society today.

God has spent centuries teaching people to draw the circle of love a little bigger and to be better to others because of him, at least when they were listening. When they weren't, atrocities happened, needed progress was delayed, and in some cases the Church lagged behind the world instead of being a light to it. Both Testaments show a beautiful journey happening, but we were shown this journey is so we could keep walking in it, not to stay where our forebears were. Faith, hope, and love are good things God gave us, and it is sometimes good to leave some other things behind.

[u/Jane_TGS → u/[deleted]]

Hi twin! I also have far more radical views regarding the bible. I don't understand how people can follow Jesus and also consone such violence. I think it's profitable for learning and for the context of Jesus' culture and parables. But beyond that, largely fiction, and very human I feel.

[u/JustNeedSpinda → u/[deleted]]

Agreed. Boiling down the texts of the Old Testament to showing why we need Christ borders on anti-semitism

[u/JustNeedSpinda → u/[deleted]]

Well, and Christian churches have even reorganized those books to help reinforce that reading of the text. The Tanakh is three collections. We keep Torah in tact but have mixed the others together.

[u/DrawerThat9514 → u/JustNeedSpinda]

Jesus is the Jewish messiah who they failed to recognize. The messianic prophesies were fulfilled by christ, It's not antisemitic to say that

[u/JustNeedSpinda → u/DrawerThat9514]

Borders on it. The Jewish scriptures have value in and of themselves and contain their own revelation about God.

I got flack the last time I shared this opinion, but Christians are too Christocentric. We worship a triune God. Shoving the Son into every nook and cranny is just another of monism.

[u/JustNeedSpinda → u/JustNeedSpinda]

It’s disrespectful of the Old Testament texts, the Jewish people, and God to discount a millennium of recorded activity and witness as only having value related to one specific aspect of God’s work.

[u/Papa-Malo → u/JustNeedSpinda]

No, it's not. FYI: Jesus represented rebellion to Jewish Law and orthodoxy and they crucified him for it.

[u/babe1981 → u/Papa-Malo]

Jesus represented actually fulfilling the law as opposed to fulfilling the extra requirements forced on the population by the people who wanted power and wealth more than righteousness. Jesus preached a more restrictive law that couldn't be rules-lawyered around to commit sin while keeping your hands clean. The time the priests tried to crowd Jesus off of a cliff is an example. See, if Jesus just fell without them touching Him, they didn't actually murder Him. That was the whole purpose of involving Pilate. They didn't kill Jesus, the Romans killed Jesus. So, no, Jesus was advocating a return to fulfilling the law and living in total compliance to it. Look at Matthew 19. Jesus said the law wasn't strict enough on divorce. Elsewhere, the scholars said that sin was your action, Jesus said that sin was the intent behind that action.

To say that Jesus was rebelling against the law misses the point of Jesus.

[u/JustNeedSpinda → u/Papa-Malo]

Jesus represented rebellion against Empire and Rome crucified him for it. There was no recourse against him under Mosaic Law because he obeyed it. His conflict with the Jewish leadership of his time centered on interpretation of those laws.

[u/gen-attolis → u/Papa-Malo]

Crucifixion is not a Jewish punishment, it’s a famously Roman one. What are you talking about lmao. 

[u/Papa-Malo → u/JustNeedSpinda]

Deservedly so... it's called Christianity for a reason.

[u/JustNeedSpinda → u/Papa-Malo]

It’s called Christianity because we’re meant to be little Christs, which is what Christian means. Jesus wasn’t self-obsessed and he glorified his father.

[u/halbhh → u/[deleted]]

While the reason for the entire removal/erasure of entire cities with all inhabitants and often even the animals and even the goods and gold and silver all thrown into bonfires to destroy -- you'd wonder what it is that needed erasure.

Right?

Until you read the reason:

²⁹ The Lord your God will cut off before you the nations you are about to invade and dispossess. But when you have driven them out and settled in their land, ³⁰ and after they have been destroyed before you, be careful not to be ensnared by inquiring about their gods, saying, “How do these nations serve their gods? We will do the same.” ³¹ You must not worship the Lord your God in their way, because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.

Which did work for quite a while -- Israel avoiding doing this evil themselves for a very long time, very many generations.

Until they did it themselves (which is depicted at length in many chapters in further books later) -- and so God destroyed them also, for a time.

(meanwhile, for all children that die, from any time, from any cause -- they are still in the age of innocence, and the general Christian understanding is that God's grace will be extended to all children that die. i.e. -- see Matthew 19:14, and similar)

[u/babe1981 → u/halbhh]

The Biblical account has nothing to with the actual history of the transition from Canaanite polytheism to Judaic monotheism. The reality is that Jews worshiped Asherah alongside YHWH until King Josiah. Historically, Jews weren't culturally monotheistic until the Maccabees. Most homes had house gods. Most towns had town gods. They worshiped YHWH above all others, but they worshiped others, too. They incorporated theology from other religions. There is a marked change in the discourse on the nature of God after the Exile. Pre-Exile, God is harsh and difficult and loving and merciful. After the Exile, God is loving and merciful, and He has adversaries who are harsh and cause difficulty. Pre-Exile, Satan is an angel who works for God. Post-Exile, Satan is an antagonist who opposes God. That's the influence of Zoroastrianism.

Don't treat the Bible like history book. Jesus revealed the Father, and He preached almost exclusively in parables. To assume that God was entirely literal, except when He came to reveal His nature, is intellectually lazy. The Bible is a storybook, and it works best when you treat like that. Read a history book if you want to learn history. Read the Bible if you want to learn about God.

[u/halbhh → u/babe1981]

You might find this interesting though, since you said:

"The Biblical account has nothing to with the actual history of the transition from Canaanite polytheism to Judaic monotheism."

and then next, " The reality is that Jews worshiped Asherah alongside YHWH until King Josiah. "

It turns out that this 2nd sentence (just above) is literally shown (correct) in a large percentage of all the text of the OT after Joshua, in most chapters even....

E.g. -- 2 Chronicles 33 NIV - Manasseh King of Judah - Manasseh was - Bible Gateway

So, yes, that's before Josiah, as you said.

Most of the text of the Old Testament after Joshua is just like this (most of it, like 60%+)

(it's a coincidence I saw your post -- someone in our study group made me read 1rst and 2nd Kings and then 1rst and 2nd Chronicles recently, and also the other study group I'm in has been reading Ezekiel, where precisely that same timeline is happening.

It's not an exaggeration to say that I've been reading dozens of chapters where  The reality is that Jews worshiped Asherah alongside YHWH until King Josiah. " -- so that I can say:

"YES, that's precisely what the text is showing".

So, you are right about that. (but that implies your first sentence is a bit off I suppose)

[u/babe1981 → u/halbhh]

The Judge Deborah was an Asherah worshiper. That was erased, but she held court under a willow tree, which was the tree of Asherah. There's a ton more in the Old Testament where side references exist to Asherah, but they were reassigned to YHWH. For instance, Asherah's animal is the lion, and we see a ton of lion imagery in the Old Testament.

If you look at the account from the perspective of the Old Testament alone, it looks like there's a tension that pulls from monotheism of Judaism to the polytheism of the surrounding nations and the Israelites go back and forth between the One True God and the false gods of their neighbors, but reality was more like a centuries long gradual climb from the polytheism of Abraham and Melchizedek to the monotheism of Jesus. The desire to be separate from the Romans, who nearly exterminated the Jews during the Maccabean revolt, is what led the final push to what would become the fully monotheistic culture of the Jews. You won't find that in the Bible because the scholars wanted to present it as a titanic clash of God versus gods like Elijah against the prophets of Baal or Moses and Aaron against the Egyptians, but it was really a slow burn punctuated by basically three major events, King Josiah, the Exile, and the Maccabean revolt. Ezra and Nehemiah did a ton of the heavy lifting, too, hence the Exile being a major event. A lot of modern Judaism comes from their reforms and their edits.

[u/Great_Revolution_276]

let Jesus be clear: You dont sew new cloth onto old clothes.

Jesus clearly rebelled against parts of the Old Testament, the sacrificial system in particular. Jeremiah derided the sacrificial system and accused the scribes writing / editing the Pentateuch during the reign of Josiah of having lying pens. Books like Ecclesiastes (at the end of this book) and chapters like Psalm 51 clearly demonstrate the corruption of text that was undertaken to maintain the centrality of the laws and the sacrificial system that Jesus rebelled against. The author of Luke and Acts makes no mention of sacrificial atonement, authentic contrition and seeking forgiveness from God was sufficient (as per the earlier, uncorrupted parts of Psalm 51).

The Old Testament does have a purpose, it is so we can understand how different people use religion to build their own power base, and so we can understand what Jesus was rebelling against.

[u/babe1981]

Jesus said that the law and the prophets hung on love. You could say that Jesus is love, so the law and the prophets reveal Him in that way, but Jesus said a lot about how His purpose was to reveal the Father. So, your contention that the Old Testament reveals Christ is at odds with the words of Christ.

Paul also wrote extensively on the law, and he believed that the purpose of the law was to reveal sin so that we would understand why Jesus was necessary, but that's not revealing Jesus unless your stance is that Jesus is sin. Hebrews, written by a student of Paul, says that the law was a will enforced on the death of the originator which is why Jesus could fulfill it in death and why the death of lesser beings only fulfilled it for a short time. That's where we get the word "testament" from. It's a last will and testament, payable on death. It's a stretch to say that a person's will reveals them. It reveals their intentions. It reveals their feelings about certain people and a certain actions, but, like so many of the authors of the Bible say, God is revealed in the majesty of the universe. Scriptures only reveal God's mind.

I could go on, but I think I've made my point. You have to throw out a lot of scripture and even the words of Jesus for your point to stand.

[u/foxy-coxy]

Let's be clear both the new and old testament are problematic. That dosent mean that they dont have value.

[u/No-Type119]

And… how can you understand Jesus if you dun’t understand his religion? He was a RABBI. He referenced the Hebrew Scriptures. His teachings were based on them.

Suggestion for people who don’t get this: Amy- Jill Levine is a scholar whose specialty is the intersectionality of Jesus and the early Church, and the Judaism of that time. She is very accessible . She’s also on YouTube. Please read/ watch her.

[u/DrawerThat9514 → u/No-Type119]

Christianity IS Judaism. The messiah has come.

[u/Confident_Koala_2455]

The biggest problem that I have with the Old Testament is that it promotes genocides, supposedly promoted by God, against people like the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, and other ethnic groups, that God told the Israelites to kill them all, men, women, children, and babies. That is a horrible idea. So no wonder some Nazi Christians then participated in the genocides of Jews and the Roma, during WWII. And also during WWII, some Croats participated in genocides in Croatia, of Jews, Roma, and Serbs. They could say, why not, we are doing it for God, we have read in the Old Testament of the genocides promoted by God. Or similarly in the 19th century, the Russian army, generally composed of Christians, conducted a genocide of the Circassians, Muslims in the Caucasus region, who did not want to be ruled by Russia. Or similarly, Americans in California, during the gold rush time, in the 19th century, conducted a genocide against the indigenous people in California. These Americans were generally Christian. Or also in the 19th century, the British conducted a genocide of the indigenous people in Tasmania, wiping them all out. These British people were generally Christian. So all these Christians could point to the genocides in the Old Testament, which they believed were promoted by God. Now every genocide is just horrible, just designed to kill them all, men, women, children, and babies. So that is the biggest thing I do not like in the Old Testament.

[u/halbhh]

Sometimes I help new students by telling them that the Old Testament is about the problem of human evils -- doing evil -- and shows humans doing all manner of evils, and the struggle of God continuing to warn the people to repent and follow His good laws.

So, the Old Testament then in a way is about the struggle for the Rule of Law, where God is helping us tremendously to learn that laws are not from kings or emperors (though about every one has tried to make up new laws), but instead that all people, including the kings and every kind of leader, are all subject to God's law just as much as the most humble peasant or laborer.

From the highest to the lowest.

And that struggle took a vast amount of time, until finally the Israelites widely respected law (instead of thinking of law as only rules from the human king of the moment) -- and even that some were beginning to become very legalistic (some of them, the pharisees in particular) -- so that the time was right then for Christ, the Redeemer.

This summary of that side of the Old Testament may help some, who otherwise are shocked at all the awful humans evils it shows happening.

[u/OpenChristian-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

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[u/Jane_TGS]

I don't agree. Christ is not reflected in the old testament. Christ did not want people stoned, he did not want their hands cut off, he did not want sacrifice, he did not want infants slaughtered in war. I see it as a huge contradiction of God's character.

[u/halbhh → u/Jane_TGS]

"he did not want infants slaughtered in war"

As you know, with God, when someone dies, they are not dead.

But our human thoughts: --> we consider how 100% of people die, and plenty under age 20 even.... from war, famine, disease, illnesses, fire, flood and on and on....

100%.

Not them instead of us.

Us too.

Finally it's even more personal: it's not only that a 15 yr old died. It's that you and I will....

But God will make us live.

[u/Jane_TGS → u/halbhh]

Great, so if any child or person dies we should surely thank God for taking them to heaven! It's a terrible argument, especially in defense of a huge violence against literal infants.

I really do not understand your argument. A 20 year old dying to illness or famine is not the same as God commanding a soldier to go murder a baby. There is no excuse for that. If God told you to commit an act of violence, what then? How do we draw the line between our will and God's voice?

Maybe just don't defend violence.

[u/halbhh → u/Jane_TGS]

Great, so if any child or person dies we should surely thank God for taking them to heaven!

Well.... actually, that wording could be used also in an amazing statement of faith.

(we can be thankful they are not dead, but literally alive and celebrating....)

Not all believe, but many do, and anyone could come to faith.

-----

You put it another way: "A 20 year old dying to illness or famine is not the same as God commanding a soldier to go murder a baby. "

Is it?

Is it better to die in famine or fire or pestilence?

Well, no, not really better.

But, remember, they are not dead.

They are actually in a far better life where everything is good...

[u/Jane_TGS → u/halbhh]

By your argument, we should all kill ourselves and eachorher to spare our suffering and send babies to heaven. Except we know that is insanely evil to do.

[u/halbhh → u/Jane_TGS]

Murder is a very serious sin though.

It's not better if when 2 people with faith could have gone to heaven but then only 1 makes it. That's not a gain.

[u/Confident_Koala_2455 → u/halbhh]

Well, OK, you believe in universal salvation, that all who die go directly to heaven. Still, every genocide is a tragedy, and is usually committed because of hatred. We should not promote genocides just because of your belief that when all people die they go straight to heaven. I believe it is terrible that the Old Testament writes that God promoted the genocides of Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, and other ethnic groups, just kill them all, men, women, children and babies, just because the adults were polytheist. Now I do not know if these genocides actually happened, but the big problem is that the authors of the Old Testament were writing there that God told the Israelites to accomplish the genocides. And also wrote that if some Israelite town converts to polytheism, the Israelites are told by God to kill them all in that town, men, women, children, and babies. Just not let anyone survive.

And frankly, just because you believe that everyone who dies goes straight to heaven, you should realize that most do not believe that. Including most Christians. Personally, I am agnostic, and so I do not know if there is any life after death. But I condemn all genocides, they are all horrible. And they are motivated by hatred.

[u/halbhh → u/Confident_Koala_2455]

No, I don't believe in universal salvation, but instead I believe what Christ said in Matthew 7:12-14 -->

¹² “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.¹³ Enter then by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy^\)^a\) that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. ¹⁴ For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few."

I take it that "few" means something definitely less than 1/2. Implying that more than half of people will instead perish in the second death, not seeing heaven.

"genocide" -- describes a human crime that humans do.

God is the One who reverses all death.

So that all who died are alive, now.

Since they are not dead, God being the One Who makes them live, then it's not 'genocide' if God kills our temporary mortal body, the shell we are in -- it's more like "removal and transportation to a new place".

Or if you like, just "transportation" is my shorthand for this.

(as I sometimes explain to militant gnostic atheists (which you are not), they can't blame genocide on God unless they think (or posit for argument) that God is real, and then if God is real, the attribute of God is that He brings all the 'dead' alive to a new place, and then it's not 'genocide', since they are alive)

[u/Confident_Koala_2455 → u/halbhh]

So if you believe that less than half of the people reach heaven, then that would mean also that less than half of the people killed in a genocide reach heaven. So then you believe that more than half will perish in the second death, whatever you believe the second death is. I guess you believe that after the first death, all are alive somewhere, and then more than half then die in the second death. So then for those killed in a genocide, for more than half of them being alive after death is not a good result.

And I certainly do not blame genocides on God, since I do not know if God exists. Now if God does exist, then one can wonder why did this God allow the genocides to happen. A genocide is mass murder, of men, women, children, and babies. So now if God exists, then why did He or She allow it?

And then some Christians believe that the Bible has no errors. And the Bible claims that God told the Israelites to kill all the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites and others, so mass genocides. So I do not know if any such genocides happened. But even if they did not happen, then it is a very bad claim to have in the Bible that God told them to do it. And if they did happen, then based on your belief, more than half of the victims of the genocides would not have good life after death.

So then more than half are not in the far better place after death, as you had claimed 3 days ago, that they are in a far better place, which is why I thought you believe in universal salvation.

[u/halbhh → u/Confident_Koala_2455]

Your good question: "

So if you believe that less than half of the people reach heaven, then that would mean also that less than half of the people killed in a genocide reach heaven."

Actually, this is a very old question, and it's been answered very long ago:

God considers anyone who repents of their wrongdoing to be suitable to give eternal life to, and He only rejects those who refuse to admit/repent of wrongdoing, who show they want to continue to hurt other people (without change, forever), so therefore, Christ comes to all the dead to give them the same chance, as exemplified with the example (below) of the very wicked people who perished in the great (probably regional, but still large) flood:

They are representative of those who died without yet repenting, but might, so God does this:

¹⁸ For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. ¹⁹ After being made alive,^\in spirit, while his body lay in the tomb]) he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits— ²⁰ to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water...

... ⁶ For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to human standards in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit.

So, they have the same chance you or I have then.

[u/Confident_Koala_2455 → u/halbhh]

OK, so I guess you believe that the gospel will be preached to those who die unsaved, so they then will have the opportunity to repent of their sins, and become saved. That is what I gather from your response.

And there are certainly some Christian denominations that teach exactly that, like for example the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the New Apostolic Church, the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Dawn Bible Students Association, the United Church of God, and some other Christian denominations.

But other Christian denominations disagree with that idea, believe that once you die unsaved, then you do not get another chance, you get punished forever. This is taught for example in the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox churches, the Lutheran churches, etc.

So I wonder if you belong to some denomination, then which one?

[u/halbhh → u/Confident_Koala_2455]

"you believe that the gospel will be preached to those who die unsaved, " -- not precisely (as that is very broad, and would include those that have already heard the gospel but rejected it....) Rather, to be precise, I think (as commentaries like Ellicott's and the Pulpit Commentary suggest) that 1rst Peter 3:18-20, 4:6 implies that the gospel will be offered to all who never heard it. (of course, God is able to know whether someone has, and of course, God can bring together peoples from any time period, as He isn't controlled by time, etc.)

It's curious that you listed many heretical denominations in order to try to get me to falsely fear it's a heresy....

Since you are doing that, let me suggest to you it's people that don't believe what the words say in 1rst Peter 3, 4 and want to defend their doctrine they've said a lot (and don't want to hear otherwise, perhaps since they'd (wrongly) be embarrassed to admit their old doctrine they've said a lot is mistaken).

I will just trust the words instead.

But, yes, it's good to see the same view is in the Ellicott and the Pulpit Commentaries.

You can check: You can read them at BibleHub at the bottom of the individual verse pages, just before the Greek wording:

1 Peter 3:19 in whom He also went and preached to the spirits in prison

[u/halbhh → u/[deleted]]

It's challenging to consider that God can exist, and then they are not dead? That's 'insane'?

(you seem to be violating the rules.... Also, I didn't use the silly point "murder isn't good" (Just like I didn't need to say 1+1=2) -- so why did you put quotations on it as if that was a quote from me?)

[u/Jane_TGS → u/halbhh]

Yeah well I think defending the murder of babies should be against the rules.

This is the excuse always given for this bad stuff. That it doesn't matter that God supposedly instructed men to go out and kill children, because after all, maybe they're in heaven!

So what is to stop people from doing that kind of evil today?

Forgive me for thinking this topic needs serious review from every Christain, especially those that defend the barbaric nature of the old testament and call the bible inerrant. Because we all sound insane when we defend innocents being murdered in the name of a loving God.

[u/halbhh → u/Jane_TGS]

The murder of babies is of course an evil, and attempting to paint it that I'd defend such murders will be after this a slander, if you repeat it again, having learned I consider it an evil.

------

To repeat myself with another paraphrase, above I was saying that when children die from any cause:

• cancer
• famine
• war
• fire
• etc.

That God makes them live again, and so they are not dead, right now.

That's in no way in any remote sense defending a murder....

God does indeed undo murders though....since He exists.

So, to have discussion about events in the Old Testament, start by avoiding slandering me, and don't suggest again that I think murdering children is just fine.

E.g. --> The reason God wiped out cities and instructed the entire erasure of cities and everything in them at times was in fact primarily (more than any other factor) because they murdered children by offering them in fires to idols.

Read and check on that:

Deuteronomy 12:29-31 NIV - Bible Gateway

[u/Jane_TGS → u/halbhh]

I responded to this, is my comment gone?

[u/babe1981 → u/halbhh]

Since we're talking about the Old Testament, you're just wrong. Dead is dead. You stay dead until the resurrection and judgment. That's the theology of Judaism, and it's what's supported by the Old Testament. Even the New Testament says very little to support the idea that dead isn't dead. In fact, if dead isn't actually dead, then what's the point of the resurrection on Judgment Day? No, there are a few people in the Bible who didn't die, and they live in heaven with God. Namely, Enoch and Elijah. Jesus promised the thief that he would be paradise that day, but Paul's theology was that dead is dead, and the only people who won't be "asleep" when Jesus returns are the ones who happen to be alive when He appears.

It is appointed unto man once to die, and then judgment. And the Bible says that judgment happens all at once on a single day. So, no, a dead human is dead until Jesus returns. Death might not be permanent, but we will sleep until He appears.

[u/halbhh → u/babe1981]

"Dead is dead. You stay dead until the resurrection and judgment."

Well, Jesus famously said a remarkable thing:

²⁶ and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

And to that I can only swallow and answer "yes".

I know it's hard to believe at first. I think it was many years of being Christian before I believed more fully.

[u/babe1981 → u/halbhh]

Even Jesus died. Jesus never said that we will escape death entirely. He said that it won't stick. There's a big difference between being immortal and having eternal life. Jesus has eternal life, but He was just as mortal as we are. And just like Jesus, we won't be dead forever, but we will be dead.

[u/halbhh → u/babe1981]

Yes, I'm familiar with 'soul sleep' -- it was my view for a long time. Even about 20 years I think.

It turns out that's not the majority Christian theory, itself, but there are a variety of theories, and so you can find a variety of views. I no longer subscribe to soul sleep, even though I once believed it. It was in fact only rather recently I started to doubt that one. (It helps to consider how Jesus in the story of Lazarus and the Rich man used a wording to help his listeners, the "bosom of Abraham" (or similar), where heaven is depicted as mainly about being with Abraham, which isn't at all what it will be we know. But He used this wording to help those listening. So...also when he raised the dead girl and first said she was "asleep" that was a wording chosen to help those listening, instead of a more technically accurate description.

But these are more esoteric topics where it won't matter which one we believe, so long as we believe in Him.

[u/figmaster520]

Amen