In the Bible, the word "Soul" comes from the Hebrew word "nephesh" and its Greek equivalent "psykhe". As we can see in the following chart, it certainly doesn't have the immortal aspect to it that people think it does.
Abbreviations:
- N = New
- S = Standard
- A = American
- L = Living
- E = English
- B = Bible
- V = Version
- T = Translation
- W = World
- C = Contemporary
- To = Today
-
I = International
| Bible | Gen. 2:7 | Gen. 9:5 | Ezekiel 18:4 | Matt 10:28 | Acts 3:23 | 1Cor. 15:45 | 1Peter 3:20 | Rev. 16:3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N.W.T. | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL |
| King James | SOUL | Life | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL |
| L. B. | Person | Omit | SOUL | SOUL | Anyone | BODY | Persons | Everything |
| A.S.V. | SOUL | Life | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL |
| R.S.V. | Being | Life | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | Being | Person | Thing |
| N.E.B. | Creature | Life | SOUL | SOUL | Anyone | Being | Persons | Thing |
| N.L.T. | Person | Person | Person | SOUL | Omit | Person | People | Everything |
| N.A.B. | Being | Life | Life | SOUL | Everyone | Being | Persons | Creature |
| N.R.S.V | Being | Life | Person | SOUL | Everyone | Being | Persons | Thing |
| To.E.V | Live | Life | Person | SOUL | Anyone | Being | People | Creature |
| N.I.V. | Being | Life | SOUL | SOUL | Anyone | Being | People | Thing |
| N.King James V. | Being | Life | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | Being | SOUL | Creature |
| C.E.V. | Life | Life | Those | SOUL | No one | Person | People | Thing |
| N.A.S.B. | Being | Life | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | Persons | Thing |
| Modern Language B. | SOUL | Life | Person | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | Creature |
| Young | Creature | Life | Person | SOUL | SOUL | Creature | SOUL | SOUL |
| Deaf | Thing | Life | Person | SOUL | Person | Thing | People | Thing |
| Darby | SOUL | Life | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL |
| Jerusalem B | Being | Life | Man | SOUL | Man | SOUL | People | Creature |
| Rotherham | SOUL | Life | Person | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL |
| A.T. | Being | Lives | Person | SOUL | Anyone | Creature | People | Thing |
| Lamsa | Being | Life | SOUL | SOUL | Person | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL |
| Webster B | SOUL | Life | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL |
| Amplified B | Being | Life | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | Being | People | Thing |
| Phillips | N/A | N/A | N/A | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | Thing |
| Douay | SOUL | Life | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL |
| Beck | Being | Anyone | The One | SOUL | Anyone | Being | Persons | Thing |
| Concordant | N/A | N/A | N/A | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL |
| Emph Diag | N/A | N/A | N/A | Life | SOUL | SOUL | Persons | SOUL |
| B. Basic E. | SOUL | Life | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | Persons | Thing |
| Moffatt | Being | Life | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | Being | SOUL | Thing |
| Weymouth | N/A | N/A | N/A | SOUL | Everyone | Animal | Persons | Creature |
| Williams | N/A | N/A | N/A | SOUL | Person | Creature | People | Thing |
| Byington | Person | Life | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | Life |
| R.E.B. | Creature | N/A | Person | SOUL | Anyone | Creature | People | Thing |
| Schonfield | N/A | N/A | N/A | SOUL | N/A | SOUL | Persons | Everything |
| Wuest | N/A | N/A | N/A | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | SOUL | Creature |
As we can see from the above, a SOUL is simply...YOU!! It is
not a separate being outside of you. Even animals are souls-Revelation
16:3
While doing a hand-count in the 80's, of the 858* instances of the
Hebrew word for SOUL [NEPHESH] and the Greek equivalent [PSYKHE] that I
looked at, only the New World Translation (Reference Edition) translated it SOUL every time.
The New American Standard Bible (considered to be the most literal Bible)
only did so 297 times. Other versions are as follows:
Darby Bible: 575 times
Douay Bible: 551 times
King James Bible: 534 times
Young's Literal Version: 533 times
English Revised Version: 504 times
American Standard Version: 503 times
Rotherham Bible: 493 times
Revised Standard Version: 242 times
New International Version: 138 times
*I realize that hand-counting might not be the most accurate way
to do this, especially now with software making this much easier, but this
does give an overall view of the ways this word was translated..
SOUL; SELF; LIFE
nepesh-"The noun refers to the essence of life, the act of breathing,
taking a breath." W.E. Vine
psyche-"denotes the breath, the breath of life." W.E. Vine
The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (edited
by C. Brown, 1978, Vol. 3, p. 304) states: "Matt. 10:28 teaches not the
potential immortality of the soul but the irreversibility of divine judgment
on the unrepentant."
"However much God may give his spirit to frail man, and however exalted the resurrected Jesus has become, man, from the biblical point of view, is dust animated by spirit, and not body and separable soul,which is a Greek idea. 'Human Being' by definition denoted mortality, subject to frailty and death. 'It is appointed unto man once to die...' (Heb 9:27)." The Doctrine of the Trinity-Christianity's Self-Inflicted Wound by Anthony Buzzard/Charles F. Hunting
D.R.G. Owen, "Body and Soul in the New Testament," In Readings and Christian Theology, ed. M.J. Erickson (Baker Book House, 1967), 86: "In Hebrew thought, as we have seen, the word translated 'Soul' regularly stands simply for the personal pronoun and means the self, and the phrase 'body and soul'...stands for the Hebrew idea that man is an 'animated body' and not for the Greek view that he is an 'incarnated soul.' "
"Many people today, even believing people. are far from understanding the basis of their faith...Quite unwittingly they depend upon the philosophy of the Greeks rather than upon the word of God for an understanding of the world they live in. An instance of this is the prevailing belief amongst Christians in the immortality of the soul. Many beleivers despair of this world; they despair of any meaning in a world where suffering and frustration seem to rule. And so they look for a release for their souls from the weight of the flesh, and they hope for an entry into the 'world of the spirit,' as they call it, a place where their souls will find a blessedness they cannot discover in the flesh. The Old Testament, which was of course the Scriptures of the early Church, has no word at all for the modern (or ancient Greek) idea of "soul". We have no right to read this modern word into St. Paul's word "psyche", for by it he was not expounding what Plato had meant by the word; he was expressing what Isaiah and what Jesus meant by it...There is one thing sure we can say at this point and that is that the popular doctrine of the soul's immortality cannot be traced back to the biblical teaching." -G.A.T. Knight, Law and Grace (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1962), 78, 79.
"Both man and animals are souls, they are not bipartite creatures consisting of a soul and a body which can be separate and go on subsisting. Their soul is the whole of them and comprises their their body as well as their mental powers. They are spoken of as having soul, that is, conscious being" (Life and Immortality, B. F. C. Atkinson, M.A., PhD., p.2).
"Although Heb. nepes has a wide range of usage, it most frequently designates
the life force of living creatures.
Thus, all the earth is full of "living creatures" that have the "breath
of life" (Gen. 1:20-21,24,30). When God creates Adam, God breathes the
breath of life into Adam's nostrils, and Adam becomes a "living being"
(Gen. 2:7). Far from referring simply to one aspect of a person, "soul"
refers to the whole person. Thus, a corpse is referred to as a "dead soul,"
even though the word is usually translated "dead body" (Lev. 21:11; Num.
6:6). "Soul" can also refer to a person's very life itself (1 kings 19:4;
Ezek. 32:10).
"Soul" often refers by extension to the whole person. Thus, Leah bears Jacob 16 souls (Gen. 46:18), and when Jacob moves into Egypt, there were "70 persons ('souls') in his house". In the Shema (Deut. 6:4-9) Israelites are commanded to love their God with all their heart, soul, and strength. Although "soul" appears in the translation to be a separate faculty of the body, the verse is an exhortation to love God with ones entire self.
The soul is also the seat of the emotions. It is both the center of joy in God (Ps. 86:4; cf. 62:1[MT2]) and the seat of the desire of evil in the wicked (Prov. 21:10)
In the NT “soul” (Gk.psyche) refers to the living being of the whole person (Acts 2:41; 3:23) and to a person’s life. After Herod’s death, the angel commands Joseph to take his wife and child (Jesus) back to Israel, for “ those who were seeking the child’s life (soul) are dead” (Matt. 2:20). Before he heals the man with the withered hand, Jesus asks the synagogue authorities whether it is lawful on the Sabbath to “save life (soul) or to kill” (Mark 3:4). In the parable of the rich young fool (Luke 12: 13-20), the young man says to his soul that he has ample goods laid up for many years; Jesus then tells him, “ This very night your soul (‘life force’) is being demanded of you.”
Although the NT contains little evidence of the body-soul dualism
that is apparent in Hellenistic philosophy, some passages indicate that
the soul lives on after death (Luke 9:25; 12:4; 21:19)."
Eerdman's Dictionary of the Bible
[Let us see if this is really so. Luke 9:25, “ What benefit
is it to anyone to win the whole world and forfeit or lose his very self.”
Luke 12:4, “ To my friends I say: Do not be afraid of those who
kill the body and after that can do no more.”
Luke 21:19, “ Your perseverance will win you your lives.”
New Jerusalem Bible
As you can see, the scriptures mentioned do not point to an immortal
soul or life after death. As Ecclesiastes says, “for the living are
at least aware that they are going to die, but the dead know nothing whatever.
No more wages for them, since their memory is forgotten…Whatever work you
find to do, do it with all your might, for theirs in neither achievement,
nor planning, nor science, nor wisdom in Sheol where you are going.” New
Jerusalem Bible]
Can souls die? Yes, according to the following scriptures:
(Job 36:14 [KJV margin]; Psalm 56:13; 78:50;
116:8; Ezekiel
18:4, 20; James 5:20; Psalm 22:29; 30:3; 33:18, 19; Isaiah
55:3; Ezekiel
13:19; 18:27; Psalm 49:8; Psalm 35:17; 40:14; Proverbs 6:32;
Ezekiel 22:27;
Acts 3:23; James 4:12; Ezekiel 22:25; Matthew 16:25, 26 [the
Greek word for soul is here translated life in many translations]; Leviticus 22:3; Numbers 15:30) The body is not the soul, but it is a component of the soul. The soul is made up the body and the spirit (or breath) of life from God. (Genesis 2:7) When one dies the soul dies [ceases to be a living sentiency] and the original life process is reversed. (Ecclesiastes 12:7) With the life-giving source departed from the body, the soul [sentiency] ceases to exist.
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