aha!duality. Now this is really the word that I have lived with for decades! actually its a good question because I have used it so often that it might have lost its original meaning for me anyway. (It has become one of those private words which takes on layers of meaning of its own as you use it). When I googled it I found that duality should refer to mathematics and that I ought really to be using the word 'dualism' instead. I used to use that word but . . . .well I don't quite know why I stopped . . . . except that there can then be a confusion with the dualism of 'good and evil' which is not what I am referring to . . . yes it is there on the wiki page. It goes back to Aristotle's notion of 'body' and 'soul' as being seperate entities and it sweeps through into Jewish thought very late on, presumably with the Greek invasion of the Holy Land (Judas Maccabaeus).
There is a tradition of Jewish thought [which I believe is still strong] which simply does not recognise the division of body from soul. The soul is the body and the body is the soul and it makes no sense to talk about them as seperate. When we read the Old Testament it is important to bear this in mind because it really does change their view of their world and of themselves, and their view of God too of course. . . In Judas Maccabaeus, Ecclesiastes, Daniel and other parts of the Bible which were written in the two or three centuries preceding the birth of Jesus, very possibly as a result of Greek philosophical influence (try as the Jews might, they couldn't resist it completely; [I think Ecclesiastes was written in Greek], and wealthier Jews would very likely have learnt Greek philosophy just as they learnt the language, if not directly, then by social osmosis), the notion of an afterlife creeps in to the texts (sometimes just as the vaguest idea) and alongside that, [perhaps inevitably?], comes the very Greek notion of body and soul as seperate.
This is where it gets complicated and fascinating because one of the problems amongst the educated Jews that we meet in the gospels is that of resurrection. The pharisees didnt believe in it whilst the saducees did . . . Jesus obviously does and yet, so far as I can recall, I cannot think of any time when Jesus seperates body and soul in direct language (perhaps someone can put me right about that.)
The question of the bodily resurrection of Jesus is stressed over and over throughout the gospels (they are always talking about how he ate with them after he had risen) and yet, more and more, as the Christian gospel moves through the Graeco-Roman world, the Jewish understanding of singularity of body and soul is replaced by the Greek duality. The reasons are obvious: there is 'gihad' (between good and evil; between 'world' and Christian community etc, between celibacy and marriage) in the Christian message, and there is afterlife so it is perfectly natural for the Greek-educated Christians to assume seperation of body and soul as Christian too and we are heirs of that crucially mixed-up tradition . . . and yet, and yet, unless body and soul are 'sown back together' and become one then I don't think we can understand the resurrection of Jesus at all . . . . coming in on all of this is the question of sex. The Greek view is broad and all-encompassing as we know, whilst the Jewish one was both strict and rigid. But when these two worlds clash then all sorts of complex problems arise . . . .
enough for now . . . but this subject has occupied me for years and years and I still havent got to the bottom of it.
What I find really exciting and so extraordinary about all of this is that, if it had not been for the Greek invasion of Judaea and the ensuing Roman take-over, and the clashing of the two cultural worlds of Hellenism and Judaism, then the Christian church could never have been founded at all!