Soul in the Bible

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For other uses, see Soul (disambiguation).
For traditional Christian and non-Christian use, see Soul.

The traditional concept of an immaterial and immortal soul distinct from the body was not found in Judaism before the Babylonian Exile,[1] but developed as a result of interaction with Persian and Hellenistic philosophies.[2] Accordingly, the Hebrew word nephesh, although translated as "soul" in some older English Bibles, actually has a meaning closer to "living being". Nephesh was rendered in the Septuagint as ψυχή (psūchê), the Greek word for soul. The New Testament also uses the word ψυχή, but with the Hebrew meaning and not the Greek.[3]

Etymology

The only Hebrew word traditionally translated "soul" (nephesh) in English language Bibles refers to a living, breathing conscious body, rather than to an immortal soul.[4] In the New Testament, the Greek word traditionally translated "soul" (ψυχή) has substantially the same meaning as the Hebrew, without reference to an immortal soul.[5]

Genesis 2:7

According to Genesis 2:7 God did not make a body and put a soul into it like a letter into an envelope of dust; rather he formed man's body from the dust, then, by breathing divine breath into it, he made the body of dust live, i.e. the dust did not embody a soul, but it became a soul—a whole creature.[7]

Rabbinic understanding of Genesis 2:7 as found in the Targum

Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan:[8]

And the Lord God created man in two formations; and took dust from the place of the house of the sanctuary, and from the four winds of the world, and mixed from all the waters of the world, and created him red, black, and white; and breathed into his nostrils the inspiration of life, and there was in the body of Adam the inspiration of a speaking spirit, unto the illumination of the eyes and the hearing of the ears.

Targum Onkelos:[9]

And the Lord God created Adam from dust of the ground, and breathed upon his face the breath of lives, and it became in Adam a Discoursing Spirit.

Man as nephesh

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See also: Johannes Pedersen (theologian) § 2Perdersen’s beliefs

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The LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath[neshemah] of life;
and man became a living[chay] soul.[nephesh] (Genesis 2:7 with notes added)

Here and “all through Scripture” a “living soul” denotes a “living person”.[10] This is because, as Brevard Childs writes, in the biblical view, a person “does not have a soul, but is a soul”. [11]

Animals as nephesh

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And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living[chay] creature,[nephesh] that was the name thereof.

— Genesis 2:19 with notes added

The definition of soul [psūchê] in the New Testament is based on the definition found in the Old Testament. "And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul;[psūchê] the last Adam [was made] a quickening spirit." (1Corinthians 15:45)

New Testament

The New Testament counterpart to the Old Testament word for soul, nephesh, is psyche. The two words carry a similar “range of meanings.” Both can designate the person or the person’s life as a whole.[12] For all uses and meanings of psyche/ψυχἠ, see Joseph Henry Thayer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament [1]

Death of the soul

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Main article: Christian mortalism

Nephesh and Psūchê are not naturally immortal.[2][13][14][15][16] They die[17] and are uncomprehending[18] during the time between death and Judgment Day resurrection,[19][20][21][22][23] also known as the Intermediate state.

John Goldingay writes, "The life of a human being came more directly from God, and it is also evident that when someone dies, the breath (rûaḥ, e.g., Ps 104:29) or the life (nepeš, e.g., Gen 35:18) disappears and returns to the God who is rûaḥ."[24]

Immortality

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Main article: Immortality of the soul

The concept of an immaterial soul separate from and surviving the body is common today but according to modern scholars, it was not found in ancient Hebrew beliefs.[1] The word nephesh never means an immortal soul[25] or an incorporeal part of the human being[26] that can survive death of the body as the spirit of dead,[27] In addition Ecclesiastes 9:5 states " For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. "(King James)

Traditional Christianity

In Patristic thought, towards the end of the 2nd century, Psūchê had begun to be understood in a more Greek than a Hebrew way, contrasted with the body. By the 3rd century, with the influence of Origen, the Christian traditions of the inherent immortality of the soul and its divine nature were established.[28] Inherent immortality of the soul was accepted among western and eastern theologians throughout the middle ages, and after the Reformation, as evidenced by the Westminster Confession.

Modern scholarship

The modern scholarly consensus holds that the canonical teaching of the Old Testament made no reference to an "immortal soul" independent of the body.[29][30][31][32] A wide range of scholarly reference works consistently represent this view.[33][34][35][36][37]

In the last six decades, Eastern Orthodox theologians have also widely accepted conditional immortality, or "immortality by grace" (κατὰ χάριν ἀθανασία, kata charin athanasia), of the soul, returning to the views of the late 2nd century, where immortality was still considered as a gift granted with the value of Jesus' death and resurrection.[38]

Many modern theologians reject the view that the Bible teaches the doctrine of the immortal soul,[39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47] and Hebblethwaite observes the doctrine is "not popular amongst Christian theologians or among Christian philosophers today".[48]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Tabor, James, What the Bible says about Death, Afterlife, and the Future, , access date: December 14, 2013. "The ancient Hebrews had no idea of an immortal soul living a full and vital life beyond death, nor of any resurrection or return from death. Human beings, like the beasts of the field, are made of "dust of the earth," and at death they return to that dust (Gen. 2:7; 3:19). The Hebrew word nephesh, traditionally translated "living soul" but more properly understood as "living creature," is the same word used for all breathing creatures and refers to nothing immortal.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament
  4. ↑ "Even as we are conscious of the broad and very common biblical usage of the term "soul," we must be clear that scripture does not present even a rudimentarily developed theology of the soul. The creation narrative is clear that all life originates with God. Yet the Hebrew scripture offers no specific understanding of the origin of individual souls, of when and how they become attached to specific bodies, or of their potential existence, apart from the body, after death. The reason for this is that, as we noted at the beginning, the Hebrew Bible does not present a theory of the soul developed much beyond the simple concept of a force associated with respiration, hence, a life-force.", Avery-Peck, "Soul", in Neusner, et al. (eds.), "The Encyclopedia of Judaism", p. 1343 (2000)
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Numbers come from Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance and Zondervan’s Exhaustive NIV Concordance.
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Targum Pseudo-Jonathan
  9. ↑ Targum of Onkelos
  10. ↑ James Hastings, A Dictionary of the Bible: Vol IV: Part I: Pleroma-Shimon (Scribner's sons, 1902), s. v. “Psychology,” 166-167.
  11. ↑ Brevard S. Childs, Old Testament Theology in a Canonical Context (Fortress, 1985), 199.
  12. ↑ Walter A. Elwell, ed, Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology (Baker Books, 1966), s. v. “Soul”.
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ See Ezekiel 18:4, 20, "The soul that sins it shall die."
  18. ↑ "For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even their memory is gone. Their love, their hate and their jealousy have long since vanished; never again will they have a part in anything that happens under the sun." Ecc 9:5-6
  19. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  22. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  23. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  24. ↑ Goldingay, "Old Testament Theology", volume 2, p. 640 (2006)
  25. ↑ Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology.
  26. ↑ Dictionary of Biblical Theology, Father Xavier Leon Dufour, 1985.
  27. ↑ New International Dictionary.
  28. ↑ The early Hebrews apparently had a concept of the soul but did not separate it from the body, although later Jewish writers developed the idea of the soul further. Old Testament references to the soul are related to the concept of breath and establish no distinction between the ethereal soul and the corporeal body. Christian concepts of a body-soul dichotomy originated with the ancient Greeks and were introduced into Christian theology at an early date by St. Gregory of Nyssa and by St. Augustine.—Britannica, 2004
  29. ↑ "Twentieth century biblical scholarship largely agrees that the ancient Jews had little explicit notion of a personal afterlife until very late in the Old Testament period. Immortality of the soul was a typically Greek philosophical notion quite foreign to the thought of ancient Semitic peoples. Only the latest stratum of the Old Testament asserts even the resurrection of the body, a view more congenial to Semites." - Donelley, "Calvinism and Scholasticism in Vermigli's doctrine of man and grace", p. 99 (1976)
  30. ↑ "Modern scholarship has underscored the fact that Hebrew and Greek concepts of soul were not synonymous. While the Hebrew thought world distinguished soul from body (as material basis of life), there was no question of two separate, independent entities. A person did not have a body but was an animated body, a unit of life manifesting itself in fleshly form—a psychophysical organism (Buttrick, 1962). Although Greek concepts of the soul varied widely according to the particular era and philosophical school, Greek thought often presented a view of the soul as a separate entity from body. Until recent decades Christian theology of the soul has been more reflective of Greek (compartmentalized) than Hebrew (unitive) ideas.", Moon, "Soul", in Benner & Hill (eds.), "Baker encyclopedia of psychology & counseling, p. 1148 (2nd ed. 1999)
  31. ↑ "A broad consensus emerged among biblical and theological scholars that soul-body dualism is a Platonic, Hellenistic idea that is not found anywhere in the Bible. The Bible, from cover to cover, promotes what they call the "Hebrew concept of the whole person." G. C. Berkouwer writes that the biblical view is always holistic, that in the Bible the soul is never ascribed any special religious significance. Werner Jaeger writes that soul-body dualism is a bizzare idea that has been read into the Bible by misguided church fathers such as Augustine. Rudolf Bultmann writes that Paul uses the word soma (body) to refer to the whole person, the self, so that there is not a soul and body, but rather the body is the whole thing. This interpretation of Pauline anthropology has been a theme in much subsequent Pauline scholarship.", McMinn & Phillips, "Care for the soul: exploring the intersection of psychology & theology", pp. 107-108 (2001).
  32. ↑ "The general consensus is that the Old Testament rejected any natural or innate immortality.", McNamara, "Beauty and the Priest: Finding God in the New Age", p. 64 (1997).
  33. ↑ "Indeed, the salvation of the 'immortal soul' has sometimes been a commonplace in preaching, but it is fundamentally unbiblical. Biblical anthropology is not dualistic but monistic: human being consists in the integrated wholeness of body and soul, and the Bible never contemplates the disembodied existence of the soul in bliss.", Myers (ed.), "The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary", p. 518 (1987).
  34. ↑ "There is no suggestion in the OT of the transmigration of the soul as an immaterial, immortal entity. Man is a unity of body and soul—terms that describe not so much two separate entities in a person as much as one person from different standpoints. Hence, in the description of man's creation in Genesis 2:7, the phrase 'a living soul' (kjv) is better translated as 'a living being.'", Elwell & Comfort (eds.), "Tyndale Bible dictionary", p. 1216 (2001)
  35. ↑ "Barr is surely right to stress that the Genesis story as it now stands indicates that humans were not created immortal, but had (and lost) the chance to gain unending life.’, Wright, ‘The Resurrection of the Son of God’, p. 92 (2003); Wright himself actually interprets some passages of Scripture as indicating alternative beliefs, "The Bible offers a spectrum of belief about life after death", Wright, "The Resurrection of the Son of God", p. 129 (2003)
  36. ↑ "In contrast to the two enigmatic references to Enoch and Elijah, there are ample references to the fact that death is the ultimate destiny for all human beings, that God has no contact with or power over the dead, and that the dead do not have any relationship with God (see, inter alia, Ps. 6:6, 30:9–10, 39:13–14, 49:6–13, 115:16–18, 146:2–4). If there is a conceivable setting for the introduction of a doctrine of the afterlife, it would be in Job, since Job, although righteous, is harmed by God in the present life. But Job 10:20–22 and 14:1–10 affirm the opposite.", Gillman, "Death and Afterlife, Judaic Doctrines Of", in Neusner, "The Encyclopedia of Judaism", volume 1, p. 176 (2000)
  37. ↑ "'Who knows whether the breath of human beings rises up and the breath of an animal sinks down to the earth?' (Eccles 3:21). In Qohelet's day there were perhaps people who were speculating that human beings would enjoy a positive afterlife, as animals would not. Qohelet points out that there is no evidence for this.", Goldingay, "Old Testament Theology", volume 2, p. 644 (2006)
    "The life of a human being came more directly from God, and it is also evident that when someone dies, the breath (rûaḥ, e.g., Ps 104:29) or the life (nepeš, e.g., Gen 35:18) disappears and returns to the God who is rûaḥ. And whereas the living may hope that the absence of God may give way again to God’s presence, the dead are forever cut off from God’s presence.241 Death means an end to fellowship with God and to fellowship with other people. It means an end to the activity of God and the activity of other people. Even more obviously, it means an end to my own activity. It means an end to awareness.", ibid., p. 640
  38. ↑ Compare The 'Immortality' of the Soul, George Florovsky.
  39. ↑ "But the Jew did not believe that human beings consist of an immortal soul entombed for a while in a mortal body.", Caird & Hurst, "New Testament Theology", p. 267 (1994).
  40. ↑ "While the idea of an immortal soul is an established belief for most Christians, it cannot be supported by Biblical texts.", Ford & Muers, "The modern theologians: an introduction to Christian theology since 1918", p. 693 (2005).
  41. ↑ "Consequently Buddhist and biblical views of the self agree that there exists no immortal soul that remains self-identically permanent through time.", Ford & Muers, "The modern theologians: an introduction to Christian theology since 1918", p. 693 (2005).
  42. ↑ "Berkouwer has a long chapter on the meaning of the soul called "The Whole Man." Here he denounces the theory of a "substantial dichotomy" between an immortal soul and a mortal body.", Moody, "The Word of Truth: A Summary of Christian Doctrine Based on Biblical Revelation", p. 182 (1990).
  43. ↑ "Berkouwer's critique of belief in the natural immortality of the soul is as significant as it is Scriptural. At times he argues that "creedal caution" is better than dogmatic theology, but his main thrust is against the theory of belief in an immortal soul independent of God. Only God is by nature immortal, and man's immortality is a gift received in dependence upon the immortal God.", Moody, "The Word of Truth: A Summary of Christian Doctrine Based on Biblical Revelation", p. 182 (1990).
  44. ↑ "Fudge admits that belief in the immortality of the soul is the main current in church history. He, however, favors another view: 'Crisscrossing all of this flows the stream of Christian mortalism. . . . This understanding appears as the sparkling water of pristine Christianity.' He defines mortalism as 'the belief that according to divine revelation the soul does not exist as an independent substance after the death of the body.'", Fudge & Peterson, "Two views of hell: a biblical & theological dialogue", p. 173 (2000).
  45. ↑ "Theodore R. Clark also taught it. In his view, the whole person is mortal and subject to final and total destruction.", Richards, "Winds of doctrines: the origin and development of Southern Baptist theology", p. 207 (1991).
  46. ↑ "It is generally accepted that in biblical thought there is no separation of body and soul and, consequently, the resurrection of the body is central. The idea of an immortal soul is not a Hebrew concept but comes from Platonic philosophy. It is, therefore, considered a severe distortion of the NT to read this foreign idea into its teaching.", Vogels, "Review of "The Garden of Eden and the Hope of Immortality", by James Barr", Critical Review of Books in Religion, volume 7, p. 80 (1994).
  47. ↑ "Several Evangelical theologians suggest that the concept of man possessing an 'immortal soul' is not the teaching of the Word of God. Clark Pinnock argues that its source is Plato (or Greek philosophy in general), and not the Bible.", Dixon, "What Is Man?", Emmaus Journal (9.2.168), 2000.
  48. ↑ "That the idea of the soul's immortality as disembodied state beyond death is not popular amongst Christian theologians or among Christian philosophers today has already been acknowledged.", Hebblethwaite, "Philosophical theology and Christian doctrine", p. 113 (2005).

External links

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