I'm not JUST asking 'when'. I'm asking the Hebrew 'definition of' soul.
It seems you give the definition from the Lexicon below, so will continue until then.
Also, since you never answered...why???. A 'man' is debateably either a dichotomy or tricotomy being. I believe we are a trinity; We are a spirit we have a soul and we live in a body.
The Pauline epistles give evidence that we have a material aspect and an immaterial aspect.
The outer man or flesh/body being the material and the inner man or soul/spirit being the immaterial.
2 Corinthians 4:16
Ephesians 3:16
Romans 7:22–23
Given the contrast is always between the material and immaterial I come to the dicohtomist view, although recognize the trichotomist view as orthodox and historic as well.
I did not address the issue as this is not a thread about the soul.
1TH 5:23 May the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Strong's definition of soul/nephesh in the OT is that of "a breathing creature".
5315 nephesh: prop. a breathing creature,i.e. animal or (abstr.) vitality; used very widely in a lit. accommodated or fig. sense (bodily or mental).
More you are leaving out. Nephesh as well as pneuma (Greek) heavily depends on the context of the passage. To apply 'breath' as in breathing to all instances is error. Here's why.
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. (Genesis 1:26-27 NASB)
Since God created humans in His image and according to His likeness, it begs the question is God some sort of human form? Of course after the Incarnation one sees the Son of God, God the Son comes in the flesh. However, at that instance in Genesis 1 when Adam and Eve are created and called in the image and according to the likeness of God, what does that imply?
But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:23-24 NASB)
God is spirit. Our immaterial aspect is spirit according to the image and likeness of God. In this verse where Jesus says God is spirit, I don't think anyone would conclude that means God is "breath" or 'air.' The context matters as the Vine's Expository details:
A. Noun.
nepesh (5315), “soul; self; life; person; heart.” This is a very common term in both ancient and modern Semitic languages. It occurs over 780 times in the Old Testament and is evenly distributed in all periods of the text with a particularly high frequency in poetic passages.
The basic meaning is apparently related to the rare verbal form, napash. The noun refers to the essence of life, the act of breathing, taking breath. However, from that concrete concept, a number of more abstract meanings were developed. In its primary sense the noun appears in its first occurrence in Gen. 1:20: “the moving creature that hath life,” and in its second occurrence in Gen. 2:7: “living soul.” However, in over 400 later occurrences it is translated “soul.”
While this serves to make sense in most passages, it is an unfortunate mistranslation of the term. The real difficulty of the term is seen in the inability of almost all English translations to find a consistent equivalent or even a small group of high-frequency equivalents for the term. The KJV alone uses over 28 different English terms for this one Hebrew word. The problem with the English term “soul” is that no actual equivalent of the term or the idea behind it is represented in the Hebrew language.
The Hebrew system of thought does not include the combination or opposition of the terms “body” and “soul,” which are really Greek and Latin in origin. The Hebrew contrasts two other concepts which are not found in the Greek and Latin tradition: “the inner self” and “the outer appearance” or, as viewed in a different context, “what one is to oneself” as opposed to “what one appears to be to one’s observers.” The inner person is nepesh, while the outer person, or reputation, is shem, most commonly translated “name.” In narrative or historical passages of the Old Testament, nepesh can be translated as “life” or “self,” as in Lev. 17:11: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for [yourselves].…” Needless to say, the reading “soul” is meaningless in such a text. (Vines Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, location 12557 digital copy, W.E Vine, Merrill F. Unger, William White Jr.) (Also found at: Google Books)
As clearly delineated above from Vines, the Hebrews did have a concept of an ‘outer appearance/outer person’ (shem) and an ‘inner self’ (nepesh). The apostles were Hebrews and rooted in the understanding of the Old Testament (OT) word meanings and concepts. The inner self vs. outer person was used often by the apostle Paul in his epistles (2 Corinthians 4:16; Ephesians 3:16; Romans 7:22–23). Therefore, we can
at the very minimum look to the Hebrews of the OT and NT church having a dichotomist view of the nature of mankind. A material outer person and immaterial inner person or self.
The Strongs definition of nepesh you gave was limited. Here's the full one FYI:
Strong's Concordance
nephesh: a soul, living being, life, self, person, desire, passion, appetite, emotion
Original Word: נָ֫פֶשׁ
Part of Speech: Noun Feminine
Transliteration: nephesh
Phonetic Spelling: (neh'-fesh)
Short Definition: soul
NAS Exhaustive Concordance
Word Origin
from an unused word
Definition
a soul, living being, life, self, person, desire, passion, appetite, emotion
NASB Translation
any (1), anyone (2), anyone* (1), appetite (7), being (1), beings (3), body (1), breath (1), corpse (2), creature (6), creatures (3), dead (1), dead person (2), deadly (1), death (1), defenseless* (1), desire (12), desire* (2), discontented* (1), endure* (1), feelings (1), fierce* (2), greedy* (1), heart (5), heart's (2), herself (12), Himself (4), himself (19), human (1), human being (1), hunger (1), life (146), life* (1), lifeblood* (2), lives (34), living creature (1), longing* (1), man (4), man's (1), men* (2), mind (2), Myself (3), myself (2), number (1), ones (1), others (1), ourselves (3), own (1), passion* (1), people (2), people* (1), perfume* (1), person (68), person* (1), persons (19), slave (1), some (1), soul (238), soul's (1), souls (12), strength (1), themselves (6), thirst (1), throat (2), will (1), wish (1), wishes (1), yourself (11), yourselves (13).
http://biblehub.com/hebrew/5315.htm
Context matters always. So the above is evidence we have a material aspect and an immaterial aspect. But what you are getting at is 'when' are we "endued" with the immaterial which goes back to God after we die (Ecclesiastes 12:7; 2 Corinthians 5:6-8; Philippians 1:23). Brings us to your next quote below I believe:
A fetus is not a 'breathing creature', he/she is a cellular respiration creature, but his/her oxygen does not come from their breathing lungs, it comes from the mother's breathing. For millenia death was determined by when one 'expired' or 'breathed their last'...just like Jesus on the cross. Thanks to modern medicine, we now can play God and keep a 'lot' of people alive that would have died if it was really left up to God. And that's where I think the religious and political football game is still at today. There's still unanswered questions.
Based on what I presented up post, your quote above assumes every instance of nepesh or pneuma must mean 'breathing' or 'breath.' This is not true as context matters on what words mean in the Hebrew and Greek.
If we follow your model we would conclude that God is breath. Makes no sense.
However, if you truly want to get technical you would have to look to the blood and not the breath:
'For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement.' (Leviticus 17:11 NASB)
Interesting here in verse 11 'the life' by the lexicon is nepesh Stongs 5315.
Which is just another piece of evidence we can't call nepesh 'breath' in every verse. Context matters.
Just some general information on when there is a first sign of blood in the embryotic stage:
That is about at 23 days of development.
As Christians, once again, we know our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was truly God and truly man. Truly man (human) as he shared every stage of life that we did or do.
Ask the question....Was there ever a point in the development of Jesus of Nazareth where his truly human nature was 'soulless' or lacking the 'inner man?'