Nephesh, the word that is usually translated soul, is also translated living thing. So any being with breath and blood in the Old Testament is distinguished from the plants. It has life. The Old Testament didn’t even think about plants having life because they have no breath. They had no blood in that sense. So breathing and blood-coursing things had nephesh, which is usually translated soul.
Nice bit of research.
Exactly, every living breathing creature is a nephesh and has nephesh, (is a life and has life. And yet, "Life=Nephesh=Soul" is not some shadowy thing we possess with a consciousness of its own is it.
It doesn’t mean soul like we usually mean it for the human being who has a soul in the image of God.
No it doesn't, it means soul as the bible means it, a living breathing creature, "a soul/nephesh/life with soul/nephesh life. It means the whole person or creature along with the life that the person or creature enjoys. For example renniks, you are a soul/nephesh/life therefore you possess soul/nephesh/life.
When God created the world, the creation of man was set apart as unique from the animals on day six.
God created us in his image (
Genesis 1:26–27). So
the soul of man is different from the coursing of blood and the breathing of life found in animals.
That's not what you stated earlier.
Quote: rennicks> "
Nephesh, the word that is usually translated soul, is also translated living thing. So any being with breath and blood in the Old Testament is distinguished from the plants."
Here you state that "any" being, that would include man. is distinguished only from plants with regards to soul/nephesh. And you were is correct. Any living thing which breaths and has blood is a soul/nephesh/life and therefore has soul/nephesh/life. There is absolutely no difference with regards the soul/nephesh/life of Man that distinguishes him from any other living breathing creature.
When the Jesus enters history, he comes as a human being, not as an animal. And he saves humans.
Jesus came as a human soul/nephesh/life not as an animal soul/nephesh/life. And as such, he poured out his human soul/life to death, and Jesus'.
Isa 53:12 "For that reason I shall deal him a portion among the many, and it will be with the mighty ones that he will apportion the spoil, due to the fact that
he poured out his soul to the very death, and it was with the transgressors that he was counted in; and he himself carried the very sin of many people, and for the transgressors he proceeded to interpose."
Yes, here too we have another dead soul.
Animals are unlike man in that they simply perish. There is no mention of them being in the realm of the dead — in Sheol, like humans — awaiting the new earth.
So do very wicked humans.
Here, the Apostle Peter likens the end for wicked men as that of animals who at death, as you correctly state, perish or are destroyed.
(KJV)
2 Pet 2:12 "But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not;
and shall utterly perish in their own corruption;"
2 Pet 2:12 "But these [men], like unreasoning animals born naturally to be caught and destroyed, will, in the things of which they are ignorant and speak abusively, even
suffer destruction in their own [course of] destruction'"
Yes, they will go the same way as animals naturally go.
In Genesis 9, God says to Noah after the flood: “The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens and upon all that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered.
Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you” (
Genesis 9:2–3)
Would you eat creatures just like yourself with souls that live for eternity? Would God tell you to do that? Isn't cannibalism a terrible sin?
Again, you just stated above that they don't, you stated they "perish"
Quote: rennicks>"Animals are unlike man in that they simply perish. There is no mention of them being in the realm of the dead — in Sheol, like humans — awaiting the new earth.
Plus the bible fact that all souls, human or animal, die. Animals because it the natural way of things, when they die they perish. Human because of sin. When humans die they, as you say, go to Sheol, the common grave awaiting the resurrection, unless they were extremely wicked, then they go to Gehenna, and like the animals perish or are destroyed.
And cannibalism is eating the flesh of human souls, eating the flesh of animal souls is permissible. In chapter 9 which you reference this distinction is made, we may shed the blood of animals for food or whatever, but we may not do likewise with Man.
Solomon wrote that when we die, "the spirit will return to God who gave it" (Ecclesiastes 12:7). So at death, one's spirit returns to God, while the body on earth decays or is destroyed.
I thought we were discussing "Soul" not spirit. Two different things.
Heb 4:12 "For the word of God is alive and exerts power and is sharper than any two-edged sword and pierces even to the
dividing of soul and spirit, and of joints from the marrow, and is able to discern thoughts and intentions of the heart."
The soul of men and women depart at death.
Genesis 35:18. The passage concerns Jacob’s wife Rachel, who died giving birth to Benjamin. The verse reads, “And as her soul was departing (for she was dying),
As you stated at the beginning, Soul/Nephesh can stand for life.
Quote: renniks>
"Nephesh, the word that is usually translated soul, is also translated living thing. So any being with breath and blood in the Old Testament is distinguished from the plants.
It has life."
The passage is simply saying that her "Life" was departing from her. (Soul/Nephesh/Life) one of the meanings of the original language word.
Other bible translators recognise this meaning of the word Nephesh/Soul.
(BBE)
Genesis 35:18 "And in the hour when
her life (nephesh/soul) went from her for death came to her, she gave the child the name Ben-oni: but his father gave him the name of Benjamin."
(LEB)
Genesis 35:18 "And it happened that
when her life (Nephesh/Soul) was departing (for she was dying), she called his name Ben-Oni. But his father called him Benjamin."
(TS2009)
Genesis 35:18 "And it came to be,
as her life (Nephesh/Soul) was going out – for she died – that she called his name Ben-Oni. But his father called him Binyamin."
Also Luke 16:22 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. ...
What happened at death? His soul didn't cease to exist or go to sleep... it went to paradise and the Rich man's soul at death went to hell.
These aren't real events, they are parables, a comparison or similitude, a short, usually fictitious, narrative from which a moral or spiritual truth is drawn.
Take care renniks and stay well.
