Mar 8:37 Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
Mar 8:37 Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
In the previous verse, Christ expressed the idea that it is our consciousness that gives life meaning. The key term here is "exchange." The word used means the thing traded in return for trying to get something else. The first part of the trade is the soul. Here, Christ simple asks the question about the second part of that trade: what is more valuable than your sense of self, your self-awareness?
While the term used here for soul (psuchê) is often translated as "life" (including the verse that begins this discussion), it specifically means our consciousness. Christ says that our self awareness is not destroyed by death (Mat 10:28) like life is. We can lose our self-awareness to distraction. Something that Christ describes elsewhere as "trashing" it (genna, usually translated as hell, means a specific trash heap in which children were once sacrificed to Baal) in the same way that we can trash our bodies and losing it.
It occurs to me that one of the dangers of an "entertainment" culture is that we seek to lose our sense of self, our consciousness. We busy our physical mind with constant distraction (music, TV, etc.) so that we lose touch with our daily lives. At what point does seeking entertainment cross over into exchanging our consciousness for an alternative? At the point where it begins trashing our lives.
"Give" is from didômi (didomi), which means "to give," "to grant," "to hand over," and "to describe."
"Exchange" is from antallagma (antallagma), which means "that which is given or taken in exchange." It has the sense of the second part of a barter, the counterpart of allagma, (ant-allagma) which is the primary thing that is traded and also means "the price" or "the reward" for a thing and "change" and "vicissitude."
"Soul" is from psuchê (psyche), which means "breath," "life," "self," "spirit," and "soul." It has the clear sense of the conscious self. It is also used to describe "the spirit" of things. It is often translated as "soul."
