Thursday, March 14, 2024
David Bentley Hart's New Testament on This Day in History
Sunday, February 4, 2024
Bible Versions and the Word SOUL
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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Sunday, January 28, 2024
The Name IEHOVAH in Early America on This Day in History
A Portion of the Bay Psalm Book with the Divine Name Iehovah
Thursday, January 18, 2024
Michael Behe (and Evolution) on This Day in History
Buy at Barnes and Noble - Buy at Amazon - Buy on Ebay
Saturday, January 13, 2024
Goodspeed: The Greatest Bible Translator on This Day in History
This day in history: Edgar J. Goodspeed died on this day in 1962. Goodspeed was an American theologian and scholar of Greek and the New Testament, and Ernest DeWitt Burton Distinguished Service Professor of the University of Chicago until his retirement. He taught for many years at the University of Chicago, whose collection of New Testament manuscripts he enriched by his searches. The University's collection is now named in his honor.
He earned a B.A. from Denison University in Granville, Ohio 1890, and he then studied Semitics at Yale for one year under William Rainey Harper. A little later, Harper was appointed as the first president of the University of Chicago, and Goodspeed moved to Chicago and continued his graduate studies at this new institution, where Goodspeed's father was one of the founders and secretary of the Board of Trustees. He was a post-graduate fellow at the University of Chicago from 1892, and he received his Doctor of Biblical Studies degree in 1897.
Goodspeed received his Ph.D. in 1898 at The University of Chicago. He spent the following two years abroad, traveling and studying in Germany, England, the Netherlands, Egypt, Palestine, and Greece.
Later, in 1928, Goodspeed later he also received a doctorate in Divinity from the Denison University (Doctor honoris causa).
With such learning under his belt, The book "So Many Versions" stated in regards to Bible translation: "No man in America was better equipped by background by background and training for such a task."
His New Testament was published in 1923 and can be downloaded for free at archive.org.
Professor Jason Beduhn declared that Goodspeed was one of the three greats in Bible Translation history (the other two being James Moffatt and Brooke Foss Westcott).
Here are some samples of his translation:
Professor Jason Beduhn declared that Goodspeed was one of the three greats in Bible Translation history (the other two being James Moffatt and Brooke Foss Westcott).
John 1:1 "In the beginning the Word existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was divine."
Mat 5:3 "Blessed are those who feel their spiritual need, for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to them!"
John 10:38 "But if I am doing them, then even if you will not believe me, believe the things I do, in order that you may realize and learn that the Father is in union with me, and I am in union with the Father."
Heb 1:6-8 "But of the time when he is to bring his firstborn Son back to the world he says, "And let all God's angels bow before him." In speaking of the angels he says, "He who changes his angels into winds, And his attendants into blazing fire!" But of the Son he says, "God is your throne forever and ever! And a righteous scepter is the scepter of his kingdom!"
John 14:17 "It is the Spirit of Truth. The world cannot obtain that Spirit, because it does not see it or recognize it; you recognize it because it stays with you and is within you."
John 8:57, 58 "The Jews said to him, 'You are not fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?' Jesus said to them, 'I tell you, I existed before Abraham was born!'"
Acts 19:4 "John's baptism was a baptism in token of repentance."
Col 2:9 "For it is in him that all the fulness of God's nature lives embodied, and in union with him you too are filled with it."
Php 2:5,6 "Have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though he possessed the nature of God, he did not grasp at equality with God."
Rev 5:9, 10 "Then they sang a new song: 'You deserve to take the roll and open its seals, for you have been slaughtered, and with your blood have bought for God men from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation, and have made them a kingdom of priests for our God, and they are to reign over the earth.'"
2Tim 3:16, 17 "All Scripture is divinely inspired, and useful in teaching, in reproof, in correcting faults, and in training in uprightness, so that the man of God will be adequate, and equipped for any good work."
1 Cor 13:4-13 "Love is patient and kind. Love is not envious or boastful. It does not put on airs. It is not rude. It does not insist on its rights. It does not become angry. It is not resentful. It is not happy over injustice, it is only happy with truth. It will bear anything, believe anything, hope for anything, endure anything. Love will never die out. If there is inspired preaching, it will pass away. If there is ecstatic speaking, it will cease. If there is knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect and our preaching is imperfect. But when perfection comes, what is imperfect will pass away. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put aside my childish ways. For now we are looking at a dim reflection in a mirror, but then we shall see face to face. Now my knowledge is imperfect, but then I shall know as fully as God knows me. So faith, hope, and love endure. These are the great three, and the greatest of them is love."
About 70 years ago, E.C. Colwell created an apparatus to determine the best New Testament, in his book "What Is The Best New Testament" [University of Chicage Press, 1951.] Colwell chose 64 Scriptures in the Gospel of John where there were slight differences between the weaker (later) Greek Text (Textus Receptus) and the better Greek Text based on older manuscripts. For instance, at John 5:2, the weaker texts have "Bethasda" while the texts based on older manuscripts have "Bethzatha." Colwell wanted to determine which Bible was the most faithful to the best Greek text. His conclusion was that Goodspeed's New Testament was the best New Testament, as it translated all 64 verses correctly. I then tested other Bible Versions that came out since then, and I discovered 2 other Bibles that did as well as Goodspeed's: The New World Translation, and the 21st Century New Testament (Vivial Capel). The New International Version only scored 51 out of 64, and the English Standard Version only got 52 out of 64 correct. Rotherham's Emphasized Bible and Byington's Bible in Living English were quite accurate as well.
Goodspeed was so respected in his time that he was invited to help translate the Revised Standard Version.
Smith & Goodspeed's An American Translation is no longer in print, but a search on Ebay will usually help you find a copy.
Friday, December 1, 2023
Bible Scholar N.T. Wright on This Day in History
Saturday, November 18, 2023
Meatless Fridays on This Day in History