SOUL
The hebrew word
ne'phesh and the greek word
Psy•khe are the two words which must be considered in the scriptures how they are used so we can get the true meaning from the Bible, instead of how they are used in the religious organizations such as Catholic or protestant Churches. When we do consider how the Bible uses these two words it becomes evident that they basically refer to a person or people, to animals, or to the life of that person or animal has. Genesis 1:20; Genesis 2:7; Numbers 31:28; 1Peter 3:20.
Both words, ne'phesh and psy•khe, when used in connection to earthly creatures refer to that which is material, tangible, visible, and mortal.
When referring to doing something with one’s whole soul, it means to do it with one’s whole being, or wholeheartedly, or with one’s whole life. Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22:37. In some contexts, these words can be used to refer to the desire or appetite of a living creature. They can also refer to a dead person or a dead body. Numbers 6:6; Proverbs 23:2; Isaiah 56:11; Haggai 2:13. But the scriptures don't use the word Soul as being something that separates from the body at death.
The idea that the English word Soul carries in most people's minds today
are not in agreement with the meaning of the Hebrew and Greek words as used by the inspired Bible writers.
In the scriptures the word Soul doesn't mean we have a soul in our bodies that separate at death.
I quote the
Journal of Biblical Literature 1897 (Vol. XVI, p. 30), which
Professor C. A. Briggs, as a result of detailed analysis of the use of
neʹphesh, observed: “Soul in English usage at the present time conveys usually a very different meaning from נפש [
neʹphesh] in Hebrew, and it
is easy for the incautious reader to misinterpret.”
Also I quote the Jewish Publication Society of America when it issued a new translation of the Torah, or first five books of the Bible, the editor-in-chief, H. M. Orlinsky of Hebrew Union College, stated that the word “soul” had been virtually eliminated from this translation because, “the Hebrew word in question here is ‘Nefesh.’” He added: “Other translators have interpreted it to mean ‘soul,’ which is completely inaccurate. The Bible does not say we have a soul. ‘Nefesh’ is the person himself, his need for food, the very blood in his veins, his being.”—
The New York Times, October 12, 1962.
The point that's being made here by other religious scholar's who are not JW is that the scriptures don't say humans have souls but that humans are souls.
The problem why most people today have the wrong idea of what the word Soul means is that the meaning or definition most people go by comes from philosophical thought and not how the scriptures use the word Soul.
For instance Greek philosopher Plato, for example, quotes Socrates as saying: “The soul, . . . if it departs pure, dragging with it nothing of the body, . . . goes away into that which is like itself, into the invisible, divine, immortal, and wise, and when it arrives there it is happy, freed from error and folly and fear . . . and all the other human ills, and . . . lives in truth through all after time with the gods.”
This is in direct contrast with the Greek teaching of the
psy·kheʹ (soul)in the scriptures. Plato and Socrates are saying the Soul is immaterial, intangible, invisible, and immortal, when the Scriptures show that both
psy·kheʹ and
neʹphesh, as used with reference to earthly creatures, and refer to that which is material, tangible, visible, and mortal.
The
New Catholic Encyclopedia says: “Nepes [neʹphesh] is a term of far greater extension than our word ‘soul,’ signifying life (Ex 21.23; Dt 19.21) and its various vital manifestations: breathing (Gn 35.18; Jb 41.13[21]), blood [Gn 9.4; Dt 12.23; Ps 140(141).8], desire (2 Sm 3.21; Prv 23.2). The soul in the O[ld] T[estament] means not a part of man, but the whole man—man as a living being. Similarly, in the N[ew] T[estament] it signifies human life: the life of an individual, conscious subject (Mt 2.20; 6.25; Lk 12.22-23; 14.26; Jn 10.11, 15, 17; 13.37).”—1967, Vol. XIII, p. 467.
The Roman Catholic translation, The New American Bible, in its “Glossary of Biblical Theology Terms” (pp. 27, 28), says: “In the New Testament, to ‘save one’s soul’ (Mk 8:35) does not mean to save some ‘spiritual’ part of man, as opposed to his ‘body’ (in the Platonic sense) but the whole person with emphasis on the fact that the person is living, desiring, loving and willing, etc., in addition to being concrete and physical.”—Edition published by P. J. Kenedy & Sons, New York, 1970.
