The word soul in Hebrew is nephesh which is also translated as mind, person, heart, creature, body, himself, yourself, will, desire, appetite.
The word soul in Greek is psychē which is also translated as mind, heart, life.
We get our English words psychiatry, psychiatric, psychiatrist from the word psyche. It has to do with the mind heart and emotions of people. This is not a separate part of a person than the spirit and body but is a combination or a unity of the spirit and body.
Some religions teach about a "soul sleep" There is no such term as "soul sleep" in the bible. That is a man made false doctrine which is not taught in the bible at all when you study the word death in the bible and understand what it means both spiritually as well as physically.
What the bible refers to as "sleep" or "rest" is actually death in a physical sense and a state of spiritual unawareness in a spiritual sense. ( Luke 8:52-53, John11:11-14 ) Jesus used the terms dead and asleep interchangeably.
To understand what a soul really is, we can find a description of what a soul is made of and how it is made in Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Now read it carefully and study this. God formed man from dust. Stop there and you have a lump of dust or clay which has some form.
That clay body is lying lifeless on the ground. It began from dust and returns to dust. ( Ecc 12:7 )
That lifeless dust had no Spirit in it till God BREATHED a Spirit into the body of clay. and man became a living soul as opposed to a dead body.
DUST ( body ) + BREATH ( the Spirit of God ) = SOUL. ( A living thinking mortal )
When the Spirit is separated from the body, the soul is destroyed. It no longer exists because a soul is a combination of the body and Spirit or a unity of the flesh and the spirit which makes the flesh come alive. The soul is not something separate from a spirit or a body. It is a combination of the two as you can see from the "recipe" of a soul in Gen2:7.
The Body and the Spirit can be separate but when they are, the body is dead, lifeless, is not a soul at all. Therefore "soul sleep" is an imaginary fictional construct of the deceived carnal mind of man.
Ecc 12:7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.
There is the body which returns to dust and there is the Spirit which returns to God. There is no soul that goes any place or sleeps anywhere because it simply disappears and is no more when the Spirit leaves the body.
As a visual example,
Imagine you have two ingredients.... flour and water. They are two completely different things alone. Mix them together and you get a dough. You do not end up with flour, water and dough. You end up with dough which is made of water and flour. If you begin with the dough ( soul ) and then separate the dough ( soul ) from the water ( Spirit ), you do not end up with flour ( body ) water (Spirit ) and dough (soul ) but the dough ( soul ) disappears completely and is no longer dough but goes back to where it started as flour ( dust) and water ( Spirit )
The word soul is referring to the flesh of man ( body ) in a literal as well as a spiritual sense.
The Spirit is referring to the Spirit of God ( breath ) which is the LIFE of God inside the body of flesh or the literal air that we breathe which enables us to think and move and do as the Father tells us to do.
When you read the word soul in the bible, do not think of something that is separate from the spirit but rather think of a combination of flesh and spirit. A soul does not exist without flesh or without spirit. A soul IS a mortal living being not something separate from a mortal living being.
The only scripture in the bible which refers to body soul and spirit is..... 1 Thess 5: 23 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and [I pray God] your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Many religions tend to teach and imply by using that scripture, that the body is made up of three parts and is an example of a "trinity" concept but it is not.
What Paul is saying or praying is that the Spirit and the body be preserved together as a soul and the Spirit will be preserved together with the body to complete a blameless soul.
The little word "and" between body, soul, spirit, in 1 Thess 5:23, is the word "kai" in Greek which is a correlative conjuction which coordinates things and brings them together as a parallelism rather than separating them as two or three different things. They are merely different words describing the same thing which is the soul. It is like saying Father and God and Creator. These three words are not referring to three different gods or three "persons" or even three parts of one being but are merely different words describing the very same being or same Spirit.
The word soul in Greek is psychē which is also translated as mind, heart, life.
We get our English words psychiatry, psychiatric, psychiatrist from the word psyche. It has to do with the mind heart and emotions of people. This is not a separate part of a person than the spirit and body but is a combination or a unity of the spirit and body.
Some religions teach about a "soul sleep" There is no such term as "soul sleep" in the bible. That is a man made false doctrine which is not taught in the bible at all when you study the word death in the bible and understand what it means both spiritually as well as physically.
What the bible refers to as "sleep" or "rest" is actually death in a physical sense and a state of spiritual unawareness in a spiritual sense. ( Luke 8:52-53, John11:11-14 ) Jesus used the terms dead and asleep interchangeably.
To understand what a soul really is, we can find a description of what a soul is made of and how it is made in Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Now read it carefully and study this. God formed man from dust. Stop there and you have a lump of dust or clay which has some form.
That clay body is lying lifeless on the ground. It began from dust and returns to dust. ( Ecc 12:7 )
That lifeless dust had no Spirit in it till God BREATHED a Spirit into the body of clay. and man became a living soul as opposed to a dead body.
DUST ( body ) + BREATH ( the Spirit of God ) = SOUL. ( A living thinking mortal )
When the Spirit is separated from the body, the soul is destroyed. It no longer exists because a soul is a combination of the body and Spirit or a unity of the flesh and the spirit which makes the flesh come alive. The soul is not something separate from a spirit or a body. It is a combination of the two as you can see from the "recipe" of a soul in Gen2:7.
The Body and the Spirit can be separate but when they are, the body is dead, lifeless, is not a soul at all. Therefore "soul sleep" is an imaginary fictional construct of the deceived carnal mind of man.
Ecc 12:7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.
There is the body which returns to dust and there is the Spirit which returns to God. There is no soul that goes any place or sleeps anywhere because it simply disappears and is no more when the Spirit leaves the body.
As a visual example,
Imagine you have two ingredients.... flour and water. They are two completely different things alone. Mix them together and you get a dough. You do not end up with flour, water and dough. You end up with dough which is made of water and flour. If you begin with the dough ( soul ) and then separate the dough ( soul ) from the water ( Spirit ), you do not end up with flour ( body ) water (Spirit ) and dough (soul ) but the dough ( soul ) disappears completely and is no longer dough but goes back to where it started as flour ( dust) and water ( Spirit )
The word soul is referring to the flesh of man ( body ) in a literal as well as a spiritual sense.
The Spirit is referring to the Spirit of God ( breath ) which is the LIFE of God inside the body of flesh or the literal air that we breathe which enables us to think and move and do as the Father tells us to do.
When you read the word soul in the bible, do not think of something that is separate from the spirit but rather think of a combination of flesh and spirit. A soul does not exist without flesh or without spirit. A soul IS a mortal living being not something separate from a mortal living being.
The only scripture in the bible which refers to body soul and spirit is..... 1 Thess 5: 23 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and [I pray God] your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Many religions tend to teach and imply by using that scripture, that the body is made up of three parts and is an example of a "trinity" concept but it is not.
What Paul is saying or praying is that the Spirit and the body be preserved together as a soul and the Spirit will be preserved together with the body to complete a blameless soul.
The little word "and" between body, soul, spirit, in 1 Thess 5:23, is the word "kai" in Greek which is a correlative conjuction which coordinates things and brings them together as a parallelism rather than separating them as two or three different things. They are merely different words describing the same thing which is the soul. It is like saying Father and God and Creator. These three words are not referring to three different gods or three "persons" or even three parts of one being but are merely different words describing the very same being or same Spirit.