The Biblical Concept of “Soul”
We proceed now to an examination of the Biblical concept of “soul.” It is our understanding of this term which will condition our understanding of the state of man in death.
The foundation of the Biblical anthropology is laid in Genesis 2:7: “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.”
The creation of man is thus described in two stages. The organized body, while still lifeless, is nevertheless “man”— man produced from the dust of the ground. We emphasize that while yet without animation, the creature is nonetheless man, the first Adam who is, as Paul puts it, “out of the earth, made of dust” (1 Corinthians 15:47). When the breath of life is breathed into his nostrils, the man becomes an animated soul (nephesh). We meet here the fundamentally important Hebrew word nephesh— “soul”—as descriptive of man, “the living soul.” But we must note at once that nephesh in Genesis 1:20, 21, 24, 30 had already referred also to animals.The translators of our English versions have rendered us a disservice by concealing this fact. They were apparently so tied to the notion that the word “soul” must mean “immortal soul,” the possession of man alone, that they were unwilling to reveal that “soul” is the common attribute of man and animal alike.
Genesis 1:20 Then God said, “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures (nephesh = soul), and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.”
Genesis 1:21 So God created great sea creatures and every living creature (nephesh = soul) that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1:24 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature (nephesh = soul) according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind”; and it was so.
Genesis 1:30 Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which has the breath of life (nephesh = soul), I have given every green herb for food”; and it was so.
In Genesis 1:20 we find “the moving creature, even living soul” (nephesh). In verse 21, “every living soul [nephesh] that moves.” In verse 24, “let the earth bring forth the living soul [nephesh] after his kind”; and in verse 30, “and to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is living soul [nephesh].”
The Crucial Point
The crucial point we establish here is that neither man nor animals are bipartite creatures consisting of a body and a soul which can be separated and continue to exist. Both man and animals are souls, that is, conscious beings animated by the infusion of the divine breath of life. As living souls they may also be described as “having souls,” just as in English we may describe both man and animal as conscious beings or as having conscious being.
In 23 passages of the Old Testament and one in the New Testament (Revelation 16:3), the Hebrew word nephesh, soul, or its equivalent Greek psuche, is used of animals. In every case “soul” is closely allied to the idea of animation, life. Thus in Leviticus 17:11, “the life [nephesh] of the flesh is in the blood,” literally, “the soul of the flesh is in the blood.”
The significant fact which emerges from this examination of the Hebrew concept of “soul” is that immortality is never for one moment associated with it. The creation of man in the image of God lifts him far above the animal in intelligence and moral discernment; but what he shares with the animal kingdom renders him prone to a similar death, for “man is like the beasts that perish” (Psalm 49:12); “a man has no preeminence over a beast: as the one dies, so dies the other. All are of the dust, and all turn to dust again” (Ecclesiastes 3:19, 20).
The writer of Ecclesiastes echoes the words of God to Adam: “Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return.” We should not be surprised, therefore, to find that the Hebrews speak quite naturally of a dead soul. “The soul that sins, it shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4,20). “There were souls who were defiled by the dead body [nephesh] of a man” (Leviticus 21:11).
We arrive here at a most useful definition of soul (nephesh), one which can be safely applied in a very large number of cases from Genesis to Revelation. For nephesh and its Greek equivalent psuche when applied to man translate easily as “person.” Note both together are a soul or we would also say a person.
The Biblical “soul” is essentially the individual, either a living person (soul) or a dead person (soul). In confirmation of this central fact of the Biblical languages we appeal to the distinguished British scholar Nigel Turner, author of Christian Words (T&T Clark). He deals with the New Testament Greek equivalent of the Hebrew nephesh:
We must concede that the Biblical Greek psuche means “physical life” Alongside this conception…there appears in Biblical Greek the meaning “person”…the life of man, his will, emotions, and above all the man as “self.” If a man gained all the world only to lose his psuche (soul), it represents a loss of himself—not a part of him. When there were added to the church about 3000 psuchai (Acts 2:41), whole men were added. The fear coming upon every psuche was upon every person (Acts 2:43). Every psuche must be subject to the state (Romans 13:1), and so throughout the New Testament (Acts 3:23; Romans 2:9; 16:3; 1 Corinthians 15:45; 1 Peter 3:20; 2 Peter 2:14; Revelation 16:3).
We may add to these texts Revelation 20:4 which speaks of the “souls” of those who had been beheaded. “Souls” in this passage does not mean “disembodied souls” as so often misread, but those persons who had been beheaded.
In Revelation 20:4 they are seen being raised to life to serve with Christ in the millennial reign. “Psuche (soul) in Biblical Greek signifies what is characteristically human, the self…it is the personality, what we often call the ego…Emphasis is on the whole self…Mary’s psuche was the human personality of Mary…Jesus wants me to repose upon him the whole of my weary personality, the ego, the entire me (Matthew 11:29). Jesus gave his very self (psuche) for the sheep” (Christian Words, pp. 418-420). We are reminded here of the Old Testament prophecy that he would pour out his soul (nephesh)—himself—unto death.
Nigel Turner provides a gentle warning about the medieval and modern Christian misuse of the term “soul” to mean a separate faculty within us. He points out that this new definition owes its origin to pagan Greece and not to the Hebrew Old Testament. Dr. Turner has this to say: “The soul is often conceived by Christians as if it were imprisoned in the body, as Plato conceived it, and it is said by Christians to fly to God at death in much the same way that Jesus gave up his pneuma (spirit) when he died” (Christian Words, p. 421). Dr. Turner concludes by quoting Norman Snaith (Interpretation 1, 1947, p. 324): “Nowhere in the Bible is there any suggestion of an immortal soul which survives death.”
To approach the Scriptures with the foregone conclusion that the term “soul” is to be understood with Plato as an immortal part of man which sheds its physical home at death creates a fundamental confusion. It is not widely known that distinguished scholars have constantly protested against the quite unwarranted assumptions about the meaning of “soul” which continue to make a nonsense of the Biblical Christian definition of that term.
Living as a Christian in this World 