How do non-soul sleep adherents interpret 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18?

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Essentially, the passage is simply seen as an euphemism for death — and quite a common one, given that a dead person often looks like they are sleeping: the Greek personification of sleep, Hypnos, was said to the twin brother of Death (Thanatos) by both Homer in the Illiad and Hesiod in the Theogony. The other common metaphor for death is "departing" or "passing on", essentially going on a journey.

We have other passages to argue the opposite position, which is that Soul Sleep does not occur, like the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Lk 16:19–31), though I'm not sure it is in scope of the question. At any rate, weighing in for and against, we non-mortalists hold that the position that the soul is unconscious before the Resurrection cannot be considered orthodox.

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A euphemism for death would be an accurate way to interpret sleep. Here are two additional points that are worth considering though. Both of these would have profound implications regarding what a deceased person would perceive after death.

  1. Are individuals that died prior to Crucifixion/Pentacost accounted as the same in the afterlife? If not, it could explain how one experiences "sleep" and another experiences what they perceive as being "present".
  2. The concept of time as a dimension did not take shape prior to the 1900's. Even more then a century after Relativity was theorized, the theory is not widely disseminated and understood. How is time understood to pass after death?

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