The 8th century B.C. stele of Kuttamuwa (Credit: Eudora Struble, University of Chicago)

University of Chicago archaeologists have uncovered an ancient monument to the soul of a royal official in southeastern Turkey. The find, a sort of tombstone called a “stele,” is significant because it indicates a belief in the soul apart from the body. The inscription writes that the royal official’s soul now inhabits the stele itself.

This also means that there was ancient diversity in beliefs about the soul. As The New York Times puts it: “the stele provided the first written evidence that the people in this region held to the religious concept of the soul apart from the body. By contrast, Semitic contemporaries, including the Israelites, believed that the body and soul were inseparable, which for them made cremation unthinkable, as noted in the Bible.”

This latter idea of “embodied soul,” of a deeply integrated concept of body and soul woven together, is incredibly important to Christianity. Contrary to popular belief, Christians do not believe in the immortality of the soul, but in the resurrection of the dead, a belief it inherited from Judaism.

Why is this important? It’s important because it cuts against the grain of anything that would denigrate the body in favor of a disembodied soul. It’s important because a Christian’s hope is found not in some hidden heaven beyond the clouds, but in the risen Christ whose kingdom of grace and truth, of peace and justice—even as it breaks into the here-and-now of this flesh-and-blood world—shall have no end.