Would the Greeks have understood by the words thanatos and nekros that death is never final?

This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 1998.

Thank you for your letter, in which you ask about the Greek understanding of the noun thanatos and of the adjective nekros, and in particular whether Greeks would have understood by these two words the fact that death is never final.

The answer, as far as I can see, is as follows: In Greek, as in any other language, we have to distinguish between the basic core meaning of a word on the one hand, and the many senses in which it is used by speakers of that language on the other. Thanatos in Greek, as in English, means 'death', but the many connotations of that word will vary according to the contexts in which it is used. It is in Greek as it is in English. One can use the word 'death' literally of physical death, or metaphorically. So we could speak of the death of Princess Diana physically; and insofar as we are talking of physical death, we should regard it as final—that is, until the resurrection.

But when it comes to Christian doctrine and theology, physical death is not final in another sense: Christianity does not preach, like Epicurean philosophy does, that, when a person dies physically, that is the end of the person. Christianity teaches that the soul and spirit survive physical death of the body. Revelation 20:12–15 indicates that physical death is not ultimately final, because there will come a resurrection both of the just and of the unjust. In other words, not only do the spirit and the soul survive death, but death shall be undone; and the souls and spirits of the impenitent will be reunited with their bodies.

This, then, is what Scripture teaches about death; but it would be false to say that these doctrines are inherent in the actual Greek word for 'death'. There were many philosophers in ancient Greece who, when they used the word thanatos, would have meant an event which destroys a person completely and leaves nothing but the constituent atoms of his soul and body that are now liberated and free to enter plants and animals and, eventually, other human bodies.

Similarly with the adjective nekros, meaning 'dead': it is used by Greeks and in Scripture of people who are physically dead. It is also used by our Lord in the parable of the Prodigal Son, of the prodigal who was 'dead, and has come to life again' (Luke 15:32). So this 'death' was not final; mercifully, it was in fact reversed.

Similarly, when Ephesians 2:5 points out that before our conversion we were 'dead', that death was not final and irreversible. But it would be similarly mistaken to suppose that this metaphorical usage of the adjective nekros implied that these meanings of the term were inherent in the Greek word.

With warmest greetings,