RESURRECTION
OR
IMMORTALITY
LIFE ONLY IN CHRIST
The Resurrection, Our Only
Hope Of Life After Death
William
Robert West
Author of ÒThe Rapture And
IsraelÓ
"The Wages Of Sin Is Death"
OR IS
"The Wages Of Sin Is Eternal
Life With Torment In Hell"
An Immortal
Soul And The Doctrine Of Hell
Is There A
Soul In You That Will Live After You Are Dead?
Updated 1/23/2021
Over 1,595,000
download
RESURRECTION
OR
IMMORTALITY
LIFE IN
CHRIST
The
Resurrection, Our Only Hope Of Life After Death
William
Robert West
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: ÒThe nature of man–what is man?Ó
Chapter 2: ÒLife or DeathÓ
Chapter 3: ÒThe great doctrines of the BibleÓ
Chapter 4: ÒFrom where came Hell, from man or God?Ó
1. Unquenchable fire, weeping, gnashing
of teeth
2. Old Testament history of Gehanna
3. Gehenna used by Christ on four
occasions
4. The vanishing Hell
5. Thirty-one plus version of Hell
Three
Catholic versions of Hell
Nineteen
plus Protestant versions of Hell
Nine
other versions of Hell
Chapter 5: Sheol, Hades, and Tartarus
Chapter 6: The thirty-one Hell passages
Chapter 7: A strange and unexplainable silence of the Old
Testament on punishment and life after death, life, death, torment,
destruction, destroy, perish, die, and end
Chapter 8: Figurative language, metaphors, and symbolical
passage
Part one, the rich man
Part two, the symbolic pictures in
Revelation
Part three, the forever and ever of
the King James Version
Chapter 9: Universalist, The "age lasting" Hell
Chapter 10: The results of attributing evil Pagan
teachings to God
Chapter 11: Historical proof of the
changing of the teaching of the Bible
Chapter 12: IsraelÕs destruction, scripture
about the destruction of Israel that are misapplied to Hell
1. IsraelÕs weeping, gnashing of teeth
2. Outer darkness
3. Matthew 24, Preterits Eschatology, Realized Eschatology
4. A D 70 Doctrine
5. The day of the Lord
6. 2 Peter 3
Chapter 13: After the Resurrection
The fate of those who not are in Christ
The fate of those who are in Christ
Appendix one
All 13 chapters on one site at: http://robertwr.com/resurrection.pdf
http://robertwr.com/resurrection.html
-————————————————-—————————
FOREWORD
What do you believe about souls?
There are many very different doctrines taught in the world today concerning
souls that are believed to be in all humans. By most a soul is believed to be
something that is wholly apart from the person that they believe a soul to be
in; most believe that a soul will exist forever without the person; it will
never be dead, therefore, a soul cannot be resurrected from the dead; most believe
it will always live either in Heaven or Hell even if there is no resurrection.
A deathless soul leaving a
person at the death of the person makes it impossible for Christ to have give
His life to save that soul from death; if a soul had immortality it would
already have life and could never not have life; all Christ could do is give it
a reward or punish it.
MANY BELIEVE
(1). At the death of a saved person
a bodiless deathless soul that had been in that person will fly immediately to
Heaven to the very presents of Jesus and God, and souls that are now in Heaven
are now looking down on loved ones of the dead persons a souls had been in.
(2). Many believe at the death
of a lost person, a soul that had been in that person will immediately be
carried to Hell where that soul will forever be alive, suffering and screaming
while it is being eternally tormented by God the endless tormenter because of
the sins of the dead person it had been in with no hope that God will ever stop
tormenting it.
(3). In the AbrahamÕs bosom
version souls that had been in the saved will go immediately at the death of
the person to be rewarded in AbrahamÕs bosom, the good side of hades, unto the
coming of Christ while souls that had been in the lost are tormented in the bad
side of hades unto the coming of Christ; after the judgment souls that had been
in the lost persons that were being tormented in hades will then be moved from
hades to Hell, and they will be endlessly tormented by God in an endless
burning Hell.
(4). A view of a soul now
believed by some Protestants, called Rephaim, is that after the death of the
person, a soul leaves the person and it is a shadowy something that has no
substance, that a soul is nothing more than mental thoughts without any kind of
substance or body.
(5). Catholic believe that at
death most souls that were in dead Catholics goes immediately to Purgatory
where souls will suffer unto souls have suffered enough to pay for the sins of
the persons a souls had been in, then these souls will be saved by their own
suffering, or saved by money given by others to get the souls out Purgatory.
(6). Spiritualism, After the
death of the person, a spirit that had been in a person becomes a ghost that
sometimes haunts the house of the person it had been in, it is a ghostly spook
that can sometimes be seen at night among graves and tombstones in a cemetery.
According to Spiritualism, some people can and do call them back, but usually
only after they are paid to do the calling; Spiritualist say these ghosts or
spooks roam the earth and are seen by people, and even live in the house with
people; that a ghost that had left the persons they were dwelling in can come
back, and these ghost can do both good and evil to living persons that still
have ghosts (souls) dwelling in them. Many who do not think of themselves as
being a Spiritualist and even deny that they are a Spiritualist believe much of
the Spiritualist belief; most funerals that I have attended the preacher has a
soul that had been dwelling in the dead person dwelling in Heaven, and that
soul was looking down on the funeral of the dead person it had been freed from;
have you ever been to a funeral where the preacher said a soul that had been in
the dead person was alive in Hell and looking up from Hell at the dead person
it had been in?
(7). The teaching of souls
going to Heaven or Hell at death without a resurrection is from Greek
philosophy, that immortal, deathless souls are imprisoned in a person and freed
at the death of the person; in no way can it be call Christian; it is a
complete denial of Christianly. If this Dark Age Pagan Roman Catholic
teaching that they brought into the church from Greek paganism were true, the
second coming of Christ, the Resurrection of the dead, and the Judgment would
all be useless and meaningless. The whole person, not a soul that
had been in a person, sleeps from death unto the resurrection, the whole person
is resurrected and judged, the person is given endless life, or endless death.
(8). There are many other
beliefs about what a soul is and what a soul can and cannot do, far too many to
list here.
Two of the views that are commonly
believed about what will happen to souls that leave mankind after their death
are the subject of this book.
VIEW ONE. You,
the person you now are, will put on immortality at the resurrection, and it
is you, not just some immaterial something that many believe is you
that will live forever in Heaven; we, not immaterial souls, are now
in the image of Adam; we, not an immaterial soul, will have the image
of Christ after the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:49). ÒThe wages of sin is
death,Ó and after the resurrection and judgment, lost persons, not souls,
will die the second death; the lost do not now have immortality and never will
be immortal; those who do not belong to Christ will forever be destroyed by the
second death after their judgment. Only saved persons will be changed
from mortal persons to immortal persons at the resurrection (1
Corinthians 15:42-46); it will be you, the person, that will be immortal
and live in the place Christ has gone to prepare for you, not a
place for whatever the something is that anyone believes a soul to be.
VIEW TWO is the
belief that there is a deathless ÒsoulÓ in all persons. W. E. Vine says a
soul has no substance (ÒVineÕs Complete Expository Dictionary Of Old
And New Testament Words,Ó page 588), and Robert A. Morey says, that after
the death of the body a soul is nothing but Òmental thoughtsÓ (ÒDeath
And The Afterlife,Ó page 79). According to John Calvin the dualistic view that
is believed by many Protestants, ÒThe soul is an incorporeal substanceÉset
in the body it dwells there as in a houseÓ (Institutes 1, xv, 2, 6).
According to those that believe as Vine, Calvin, Morey, many Protestants, and
most Roman Catholics, an immaterial something that had been in a person that is
nothing but mental thoughts is all that will be in Heaven or Hell; the person
(you) will be gone and there will be nothing but a soul that had been in you
that is nothing but thoughts, then all of the ÒyouÓ that you now know anything
about will be forever be gone when you die. Most that believe all persons are
born with an immortal ÒsoulÓ that is dwelling in them have only a vague unclear
understanding, or even no idea of what they believe this unknown immaterial
something they believe to be in them really is, but ÒitÓ (not themselves) is
what they believe must be saved, and only ÒitÓ will be in Heaven if they save
Òit,Ó or in Hell if they do not save Òit.Ó The belief that everyone has an immaterial
something in them and this something, whatever this nothing but Òmental
thoughtsÓ could be, it will live forever and it cannot die makes it not
possible for death to be the wages of sin, Romans 6:23; if a person has
something in them that is deathless; this something would not be subject to
death, to the wages of sin, and this deathless nothing could never be
destroyed; that this it, whatever a soul is believed to be, it is
believed to have endless life from the birth of the person, and it cannot die
when the person it is in dies, it will never die, will never be dead;
therefore, it cannot be resurrected from the dead.
VIEW TWO HAS
MAJOR DIVISIONS
(1). That there is a
"soul" in each person that cannot ever die or be destroyed, but most
of these immaterial nothing but mental thoughts beings will forever be
tormented by God for the sins of the persons they had been in. I know of no one
that believes there is a soul that is in a person that knows what a soul is.
They tell me what a soul is not, but not what they believe a soul to be. In the
many books I have read, the nearest anyone has came is to say that after a soul
departs from the person it had been in is VineÕs definitions that a soul is nothing
but thoughts without any kind of substance or body.
(2). Universalism, believe that
in all mankind there is a "soul" in them that cannot ever die or be
destroyed; everyone has this something in them that will live forever without
the dead person it had been in. If it, an immaterial bodiless beings is
not saved by the person it is in during the lifetime of the person, then it
will be saved after the death of the person it had been in.
(3). Protestant
Premillennialists. Many Protestant Premillennialists believe the
lost will be totally destroyed, but there are three, probably more,
Premillennial views that are common in Protestant churches on how or where the
lost will be destroyed.
1. A common
Protestant Premillennialists belief is that the complete destruction of the
lost will be on this earth and the saved will forever live on this earth; no
person will ever be in Heaven. Many Premillennialists that are mixed in many
Protestant churches believe the Valley of Gehenna will be restored at the
second coming of Christ and the lost will literally be burned to ashes in it.
2. Some
Protestant Premillennialists believe that the saved will be with Christ in
Heaven, not on earth after the thousand years, the second death will be the end
of the lost, but their death will not be by literally being burned to ashes on
this earth in the restored Valley of Gehenna.
3. Some
Protestant Premillennialists believe the wages of sin will be an endless life
with endless torment by God for souls that cannot die, which puts them in the
camp of those that believe that souls now have endless life and will be endlessly
tormented by God because these souls had been in unsaved persons, they do not
believe death is Òthe wages of sin.Ó
If there were a soul in us that is
now immortal and it can never die, or never be dead, how could there be a
resurrection of the undead souls? Do you believe in the resurrection of the
dead? If yes, what do you believe will be resurrected; will you be raised from
the dead, or do you believe as many that only a soul that can never be dead,
and that this deathless soul is the only thing that will be raised from the
dead even though it is not dead, and after you are dead it is the only thing
that will ever have life? When I first begin this study I was surprised and
made to tremble at how few really believed in the resurrection, and how many
there are that do not really know what they believe about it. Many believe some
deathless something that they believe to be in themselves will instantly be
translated from this world to Heaven or Hell at the death of the persons the
souls had been in, (1) but without souls ever being dead, (2) without a
resurrection, (3) before the resurrection, (3) before the Judgment Day, (5) and
before the second coming of Christ, but when they are asked what is the
reason for the resurrection, many not only do not know, but most have never
really thought about it. Death is looked at as being a doorway to life
in another form, that death is not really death, and there is nowhere in their
thoughts or in their faith for a resurrection for their man made theology says
no soul is ever dead. The resurrection has been removed from the faith of many
by today's theology that says it is only some immortal something that is
believed to be in a person that will go to Heaven at the moment of the death of
the person. But is there any life after death before the second coming of Christ,
before the resurrection of the dead? Paul said life after death will
be only at the resurrection when, "This mortal must put on
immortalityÓ (1 Corinthians 15:53), but if there is a soul that is now
immortal in us, then what is it that is now mortal that will put on immortality
at the resurrection? It is the mortal person (you), not a soul that will be
raised from the dead; the mortal person (you) will put on immortality at the
resurrection; it will be YOU, the mortal YOU changed to an immortal YOU that
will be in Heaven.
WHAT DOES
THE BIBLE SAY
ABOUT AN
IMMORTAL SOUL AND/OR SPIRIT?
Together soul and spirit are used
about 1,600 times in the Bible, but not one time is immortal ever used in the
same verse with soul or spirit; Òimmortal soul,Ó or an Òimmortal spirit,Ó
Òdeathless or never dying soul or a never dying spiritÓ are not in the Bible,
not even in the King James Version. Neither immortal nor immortality is not in
the Old Testament; the promise of immortality is given to no one. In the New Testament,
immortal is used only one time, immortality is used five times, all six by
Paul. What does he say?
1. "Now
unto the King eternal, immortal" (1 Timothy 1:17).
2. Only God has
immortality (1 Timothy 6:16).
3. Christ "abolished
death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel" (2
Timothy 1:10).
4. "To
them (Christians persons, not souls) that...seek for glory and
honor and immortality" (Romans 2:7).
5. "This
MORTAL must put on immortality" (1
Corinthians 15:53) this mortal person will be changed to an immortal person at
the resurrection, not this already immortal soul will put on immortality at the
resurrection.
6. "This
MORTAL shall have put on immortality" (1
Corinthians 15:54). After the resurrection this mortal person shall have put on
immortality, not this soul that many believe it is already immortal shall have
put on more immortality.
Why
are we to "seek for immortality" if we
are born immortal? Why will we "put on immortality" if
the only the something that is in us that will ever be immortal has been
immortal from our birth, or as most of the religions of the world believes–before
our birth? The fact that a person must "seek
for...immortality," (Romans 2:7) and
immortality must be "put on" (1 Corinthians
15:53) at the resurrection is conclusive proof that a person does not
now have immortality, nor does a person have some immaterial, immortal
something in them that is now immortal and whatever ÒitÓ is ÒitÓ cannot
die. Romans 2:7 and 1 Corinthians 15:53 teaches that no part of a
person now possess immortality. Not one passage in the Bible says anyone is
now immortal. The immortal soul man made theology is from pagan philosophy
and was brought into the church by Roman Catholicism in the Dark Age. If all
have a deathless soul as most of the worlds religions, most Greek and
oriental religions of the ancient world religions believe, and we are told
that this deathless soul is the only thing that will ever be immortal, and it
is already immortal, the resurrection is made to be useless. The
question is, resurrection or immortality? Will YOU be saved from death, or is
there a deathless soul in you that cannot be dead, and it cannot be resurrected
from the dead, and only that soul, not you, will live in Heaven; or will it be
YOU that will be in Heaven? Do you want ÒYOUÓ or whatever ÒITÓ is to live
forever?
====================================================
CHAPTER ONE
What Is Man?
What is a man? Are all
persons born with immortal souls in them, or do the saved persons put on
immortality at the resurrection? Is a person a three part being, an animal
body with both a soul and a spirit that one or both will live after the person
is dead? This is one of the most important questions of all time. It has more
influence on our conception of our nature, our view of life in this world, and
our view of life after death than any other question.
Soul in the
Old Testament is translated from nehphesh
StrongÕs Hebrew word
#5315–Òa breathing creature.Ó A study of the way it is translated in the
King James Version, and how other translations differ greatly from the King
James reveals facts that show there are many differences in the belief about
what a soul is; facts that many will find upsetting. The Hebrew word ÒnehpheshÓ
is used in the Old Testament about 870 times and is translated soul only about
473 times in the King James Version, but in the New International
Version (2011 updated version) nehphesh is translated soul it only 72 out
of about 870 times.
1. Of the 870 times Nehphesh is in
the Bible, in the New International Version nehphesh is translated soul only 72
times; it is translated something other than soul 798 times.
2. Of the 473 times nehphesh is
translated ÒsoulÓ in the King James Version; ÒsoulÓ was taken out of the New
International Version 401 times.
Nehphesh is translated in the King
James Version into about 40 words; this one Hebrew word is translated (or
mistranslated) changed into nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs,
etc. Of 870 times nehphesh is used in the Hebrew this one word was
changed into many words by the translators of many versions, changed as they
chose to, and all choosing many times to translate the same word difference,
even when this word is used two or more times in the same sentence the same
Hebrew word is translated into two English words in the same sentence with the
two words that definitely are nothing alike. By todayÕs meaning of ÒsoulÓ and
Òlife,Ó the two words means two completely difference things, ÒsoulÓ and ÒlifeÓ
are not synonymous, they are not even close to being the same thing, but they
are both repeatedly translated from the same Hebrew word.
IN THE KING
JAMES VERSION
NEHPHESH IS
(1). TRANSALTED NOUNS, soul about
473 times; Life about 122 times; Person about
26 times; Mind about 15 times; Heart about 15
times.
(2). CHANGED TO PERSONAL PRONOUNS, the noun,
nehphesh is changed into over 44 different pronouns, – yourselves,
themselves, her, me, he, his, himself, and many other pronouns.
(3). ALL OTHERS, changed about 200 times, (1) a noun
is changed to many verbs, (2) changed to many adjectives, (3) changed to many
adverbs, etc. (4) Changed to: man, creature, living being, own, any, living
thing, living creatures, lives, the dead, dead body, kills, slays, slay
him, mortally, discontented, ghost, breath, will, appetite, hearty desire,
desire, pleasure, lust, and deadly, all translated from the same
Hebrew word that is a noun.
Can one word have this many totally
difference meaning; can one word be a noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb,
etc.? If it did could anyone know which one was being used? Is evidence that
the translators of many translations changed ÒnehpheshÓ into whatever they
wanted to, and that the translators of the different translations did not agree
with each other.
In all 870 times that nehphesh is
used it is always associated with the activity of a living being including
dying (both persons dying and animals dying), and it never implies
anything about life after the death of the living being. In none of
the 870 times that nehphesh is in the Old Testament it is not once an immortal,
immaterial, deathless inter something in a person that has no
substance (W. E. Vine, Expository Dictionary Of Old And New Testament
Words, page 588). Souls (nehpheshs) are the living beings (persons, animals, or
any living being) that can die, be killed, or is already dead; although
this is often hid from the English readers by the way it was translated or
mistranslated.
SOUL
(NEHPHESH)
AS IT IS
TRANSLATED
AND
MISTRANSLATED IN THE BIBLE
(1). Genesis 1:20, "THE
MOVING CREATURE THAT HAS LIFEÓ (nehpheshs–mortal
beings, used referring to animals, StrongÕs Hebrew word
#5315–Òa breathing creatureÓ). American Standard Version–"Let
the waters swarm with swarms of living creaturesÓ (nehpheshs–all
mortal beings that breathes, including all animals and mankind).
If ÒsoulÓ were
an immortal "immaterial, invisible part of man" (W.
E. Vine, Expository Dictionary Of Old And New Testament Words), why is this
Hebrew word that is translated soul also translated "living
creatureÓ when it is speaking of animals in Genesis 1:21; 1:24; 2:19; 9:10;
9:12; 9:15; 9:16 when the same Hebrew word (nehphesh) is changed to "living
soul" in Genesis 2:7 when it is speaking of a person? According
to those that believe there is an immortal soul in a person, a Òliving
creatureÓ and a Òliving soulÓ are two completely
difference beings. If this Hebrew word (nehphesh) were an immaterial,
immortal living something that is in a person, it would also be an immaterial,
immortal living something that is in animals.
(2). Genesis 1:21, "LIVING
CREATURE," living nehpheshs–mortal living beings, used
referring to all life in the water, "And God
created the great sea-monsters, and every living creature (nehpheshs–mortal
living beings) that moves wherewith the water swarmed.Ó
(3). Genesis
1:24, "LIVING CREATURE" (living
nehpheshs–mortal living beings, used referring to animals, all
life on the land), "And God said, Let the earth bring
forth living creatures (nehphesh–soul) after
their kind, cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth." In
Genesis 1:21-24 every living thing on earth, whether in the water or on land,
every thing that has life is a nehphesh, is a living being.
1. All sea life are nehpheshs, are living beings
(not souls).
2. All land life are nehpheshs, are living
beings (not souls).
3. And mankind are nehpheshs, are living beings
(not souls).
None of the three
are inherent indestructible immortality beings; none have an immortal deathless
ÒsoulÓ that cannot die dwelling in them.
(4). Genesis 1:30, "LIFE" (nehpheshs–mortal
living beings, used referring to animals), "And to every
beast of the earth, and to every bird of the heavens, and to everything that
creeps upon the earth, wherein there is life" (nehpheshs–mortal
living beings); all animals, all sea life, all birds are "living
souls."
All four times
that soul (nehphesh) is used in chapter one of Genesis it is
used referring to animals StrongÕs Hebrew word #5315 Òa breathing
creature, i.e., animal;Ó not to a person. Animals were souls, living
beings, before any man existed; why did the translators deliberately hide the
fact that it is the same word that they sometimes translated soul?
1. They
translated it living creatures when it is speaking of animals.
2. They changed
it to souls when the same word is speaking of people.
3. How could
the translators possibly know when the same word is speaking of mortal beings, or
when it is speaking of immortal souls that are in mortal persons? Just as ÒupÓ
cannot mean Òdown,Ó ÒMortalÓ cannot mean ÒImmortal.Ó
4. Although it
is clear that the translators attempted to hide this from their readers, every
breathing creature are ÒsoulsÓ (a living being–nehphesh) the same as
persons.
"Then God
said, 'Let the waters teem with swarms of living souls
(nehpheshs–mortal
living beings), and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse
of the heavens.' And God created the great sea monsters, and every living
soul (nehphesh–mortal living beings) that
moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird
after its kind; and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, 'Be
fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply
on the earth.' And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day. Then
God said, 'Let the earth bring forth living souls (nehpheshs–mortal
living beings) after their kind: cattle and creeping thing and beasts
of the earth after their kind'; and it was so...and to every beast of the
earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creeps upon the
earth, wherein there is life (nehphesh–mortal
living beings) I have given every green herb for meatÓ (Genesis
1:20-30). ÒLiving creatures" (nehpheshs–mortal
living beings) is used to describe all living things on earth, people, animals,
birds, and fish; not some immortal, immaterial, invisible living something that
is in a mortal person that is now eternal. If a person being a soul
(nehphesh–a living being) makes that person be either immortal or in the
image of God, then it makes animals, birds, and fish have a deathless soul in
them.
HENRY CONSTABLE,
A. M., ÒThe Hebrew scholars knows that when Moses, in Genesis I. 20, 29, speaks
of the nature of the lower order of animals, and when in Genesis ii, 7, he speaks
of the nature of man, the inspired writer used the very same Hebrew
terms of both one and the other. Each fish, and fowl, and creeping thing,
and beast is called in the Hebrew a nephesh chajah as much as
man who was given the rule over them. But this was in its apparent bearing
wholly inconsistent with the philosophical ideas of the translators. They
considered it dangerous that the similarity of description should appear in the
English version, which Moses did not consider it dangerous to exhibit in the
Hebrew original. Hence they must guard GodÕs Word from its supposed dangerous
language by translating nephesh chajah very differently in the
first chapter of Genesis, where it is applied to the lower creatures, from what
they translated it in the second chapter, where it is applied to manÉA gross,
through unintentional fraud has been committed against the English reader. He
is mislead in his searching of the Scriptures He is put on a false scentÉOur
English translators have supplied us with a commentary of their own instead of
a translation, a comment we will here add, utterly alien to truth. But
the result of this mistranslation is to lead astray the English reader who
trusts in it. This is not the only instance, which occurs of the thing in
reference to this question. The same Hebrew word is throughout the Old
Testament translated according as the Platonic notions of the translator led
him to think it ought to be translated. Plato had a considerable hand in the
translation of King JamesÕ Bible. The Hebrew word nephesh is
translated Ôcreature,Õ ÔsoulÕ ÔlifeÕ &c., just as squared with the notions
of men who carried PlatoÕs philosophy into their noble work of the translation
of Scripture. We affirm that a grave injury has been done to the English
reader, and a gross wrong to GodÕs word.Ó ÒHades or The Intermediate State
of Man,Ó page 31–32, 1873.
A. CAMPBELL, ÒIt (soul-nehphesh) is employed in
Genesis, first and second chapters, to indicate animal life or a living
creature.Ó Life And DeathÓ in Millennial Harbinger, Vol. 15, pages
529-574, 1844.
(5). Genesis 2:7, "Man BECAME A LIVING
SOUL" (nehphesh–a living being, used referring to a
person, StrongÕs Hebrew word #5315–Òa breathing creatureÓ). The
first time the King James Version translated nehphesh into "soul,"
most other translations did not agree with it, not even the New King James
Version. "Man became a living being,"
Genesis 2:7, New King James Version; Òman became a living
beingÓ cannot be changed to Òman had another living being put in
him.Ó Adam was not ÒgivenÓ a soul, he did not have a soul put in him,
Adam ÒbecomeÓ a soul – Adam became a living being
(nehphesh).
1. ÒLiving
creatures" (nehpheshs–mortal living beings) Genesis
1:20.
2. ÒLiving things" (nehpheshs–mortal
living beings) Genesis 1:21.
3. ÒLiving
creature" (nehpheshs–a mortal living being) Genesis
1:24.
4. ÒIn which there
is life" (nehpheshs–mortal living beings)
Genesis 1:30.
5. "Man became
a living being" (nehphesh–a mortal living
being) Genesis 2:7.
It was the Òman,Ó Adam
that became a Òliving being,Ó not the ÒmanÓ that had a deathless never dying
living being put into him. Nothing is said about the creation of two being, a
living man, and then the creation of another deathless living soul that was put
in the first mortal living being.
It is obvious that
the translators of the King James Version translated according to their
preconceived opinion in an attempt to make persons have immortal souls dwelling
in them, but to keep animals from also having souls that are dwelling in them;
they made a distinction in animals and men, a distinction that dose not exist
in the Hebrew Bible, but they changed GodÕs word to make it say what Plato
said, what they believed and wanted it to say.
Genesis 2:7,
Man became,
ÒA living
soul" (a nehphesh) (1) King James Version.
"A living
being" (a nehphesh) (1) New King James Version,
(2) American Standard Version, (3) New American Standard Version, (4) Revised
Standard Version, (5) New Revised Standard Version, (6) New International
Version, (7) Amplified Version, (8) New American Bible.
"A living
creature" (a nehphesh) (1) The Revised English
Bible, (2) Young's Literal Translation.
"A living
person" (a nehphesh) (1) New Century Version, (2)
The Living Bible, (3) New Living Translation.
"Life" (nehphesh) (1)
Contemporary English Version.
Of these many
translations, none would go along with the change that was made by the
translators of the King James Version to add PlatoÕs immortal soul, not even
the New King James Version.
According to
chapter one to three of Genesis man was created a mortal living being just as
the animals were. ÒBehold, the MANÉlest HE stretch
out HIS hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat,
and live forever, therefore the Lord sent HIM out from the
garden of EdenÓ (Genesis 3:22-23) is speaking of the physical person
eating of the tree of life, of the man living forever physically, it says
nothing about an immortal something that was dwelling in a mortal person,
nothing about PlatoÕs soul that was already believed to be deathless, was already
believed to be immortal, and it would live forever without eating of the tree
of life. It was the physical person (Adam) that would have eaten from a
physical tree, and the physical person (Adam) that would have physically lived
forever. Without the tree of life Adam was not immortal, without the tree of
life Adam died. What reason would there have been to keep Adam from eating
of the tree of life if Adam was already immortal?
1. THREE
THINGS ABOUT ÒMANÓ IN GENESIS 2:7
1. The
body. ÒGod formed MAN out of the dust of the earth.Ó
2. God Òbreathed
into HIS nostrils the breath of life (nehphesh).Ó God
breathing into the nostrils of the lifeless body give the body life; breathing
into the nostrils of the lifeless body did not put a deathless soul into the
lifeless body, it was the breath of life breathed into Adam that gives life to
the body, not another living being put in Adam.
3. ÒMAN became
a living being (nehphesh).Ó
MAN AND ANIMALS
ARE BOTH MADE OF THE DUST OF THE EARTH. Both man and
animals are a nehphesh, both are a living being; both man and animals have Òthe
breath of life.Ó Neither one became a living being with another living
being living in them. There is absolutely nothing about PlatoÕs immortal,
deathless soul in this passage, not one word.
Job said, ÒThe
breath of the Almighty gives ME life,Ó (Job
33:4); he did not say, ÒThe breath of the Almighty put a soul in me that give
my body life.Ó
Paul quoted
Genesis 2:7 showing that the Ònatural bodyÓ of Genesis 2:7
that was given to Adam was not the Òspiritual bodyÓ that will
be given only to the saved by Christ at the resurrection. ÒSo also it is
written, the first man Adam became a living soul (nehphesh
– soul). The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
Howbeit that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; THEN that
which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy, the second man is of
heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy, and as is the
heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. As WE have born the image of
the earthly, WE shall also bear the image of the heavenlyÓ (1
Corinthians 15:45-49).
ÒIn the day
that YOU eat from it YOU shall surely dieÓ (Genesis
2:17); for Adam to be told HE would die is very different from
Adam being told that there was something in him that could not die, but it
would live forever in endless torment. In Genesis 3:19 there is a clear
statement on what dies, ÒBy the sweat of YOUR face YOU shall
eat bread, till YOU return to the ground, because from
it YOU were taken; for YOU are dust, and to
dust YOU shall return,Ó (Also Genesis 18:27; Psalms 103:14; Job
10:9).
1. ÒIt is appointed for MEN to
die once and after this comes judgmentÓ (Hebrews 9:27).
2. It is the PERSON that will die.
3. It is the PERSON that returns to dust.
4. It is the PERSON, not a soul that will be
resurrected from the dead.
5. It is the PERSON, not a soul that will come
into judgment.
6. It is the PERSON, not a soul that will put on
immortality, not a soul that cannot die; therefore, it could not be resurrected
from the dead.
If, as some teach,
Adam was not one being, but two being, an earthly mortal being and an immortal
being living in the earthly mortal being, which of the two being was addressed
in the singular pronoun ÒYOU shall surely dieÓ? We
are repeatedly told that an immortal soul is deathless and cannot be the ÒYOUÓ
that shall die.
1. It was Adam, not a soul
that was made from the dust.
2. It was Adam, not a soul
that ate.
3. It was Adam, not a soul
that was told, Òdying YOU shall die.Ó
4. It was Adam, not a soul
that was put out and kept out of the garden away from the tree of life.
5. It was Adam, not a soul
that died and returned to dust.
Not one word is
said about a soul. If there were a deathless soul living in Adam, it
suffered nothing from what Adam did. ÒIn the day that you eat from it YOU shall surely dieÓ is made to be
not real death, but a Òspiritual deathÓ it is changed to be saying, ÒIn
the day you eat you will be a deathless sinner that cannot die.Ó ÒSurely dieÓ is used many times and it
always means a real death of a real person, Genesis 20:7; 1 Samuel 14:44;
22:16; 1 Kings 2:37; 2:42; Jeremiah 26:8; Ezekiel 3:18; 33:8; 33:14; Numbers
26:65; and many more.
DR. BERT THOMPSON,
PH. D. says Genesis 2:7 is teaching that Adam was given Òphysical
life.Ó Then he said it is not teaching that Adam had instilled in
him Òan immortal nature.Ó ÒThe Origin, Nature, and Destiny of
the Soul,Ó page 19, Apologetics Press, Inc. 2001.
MIKE WILLIS said
expositors have generally appealed to Genesis 2:7 to prove that all men are
born with and now have immortal spirits. However, in 1 Corinthians 15:45, Paul
has clearly expounded the meaning of the Hebrew words nehphesh, chayyah. "The
living soul" of Genesis 2:7 is the natural body of this passage.
He said this corresponds with the book of Genesis itself because the same
construction is used in Genesis 1:24 to describe animals. When Moses recorded
that God breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life and he became a living
soul, what the writer of Genesis was saying was that the dust of the earth
began to have animal life, and it does not prove that a person has an immortal
spirit (soul); rather it states that a person has animal life. All men possess
animal life through Adam. ÒA Commentary On Paul's First Epistle To the
Corinthians,Ó page 578, Guardian Of Truth Foundation, 1979. ÒThe first man
Adam became a living soulÉthe first man is of the earth, earthyÓ (1
Corinthians 15:45-49).
GUY N. WOODS said
the first time the word soul is used in Genesis 1:20 it is from the Hebrew
nehphesh where it is assigned to fish, birds, and creeping things. He said, ÒIt
is clear that the soul in these passages does not refer to anything peculiar to
the constitution of man, but it signifies, as its usage denotes, and the
lexicons affirm, any creature that breathes.Ó "What Is The Soul Of
Man," Gospel Advocate, 1985, Number 21.
JOHN T. WILLIS,
ÒThe last two lines of verse 7 affirm that manÕs life is God Given. God enables
man to breathe, and thus to be alive, as he does all other creatures (see Gen.
7:22). Some have tried to justify a threefold division of man into flesh (or
body), soul, and spirit from Genesis 2:7. They equate dust with
flesh or body, breath with spirit, and insist that the last
phrase of the verse must be translated as Ôa living soul.Õ However, this
understanding reads much more into the biblical text than it really says. (1)
The Hebrew words for ÔfleshÕ or ÔbodyÕ and ÔspiritÕ do not occur in this
passage. (2) The Hebrew expression nephesh chayyah, which some
insist on translating Ôa living soul,Õ is used of fish and marine life in
Genesis 1:20, 21; land animals in 1:24; beasts, birds, and reptiles in 1:30;
and beasts and birds in 2:19. If ÔsoulÕ means the eternal part of man
or the sum total of manÕs ÔbodyÕ and ÔspiritÕ in Genesis 2:7, it must mean the
eternal part of a fish or the sum total of a fishÕs ÔbodyÕ and ÔspiritÕ in
Genesis 1:20, 21; etc. (3) The flow of the context in Genesis 2:7 indicates
that the word translated being in the RSV (nephesh) means
the whole person. The authorÕs emphasis is on the gift of life.Ó The Living
Word Commentary, ÒGenesis,Ó page 103–104, 1979, Sweet Publishing Company.
ADAM CLARKE, "Nephesh
chayyah; a general term to express all creatures endued with animal
life, in any of its infinitely varied gradations, from the half reasoning
elephant down to the stupid potto, or lower still, to the polype, which seems
equally to share the vegetable and animal life."
2. BOTH MAN
AND ANIMALS
HAD THE SAME
BREATH OF LIFE (NSHAHMAH)
BREATHED
INTO THEM
1. ÒThen the
Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life (nshahmah),
and the man became a living beingÓ (Genesis 2:7). ÒLIFEÓ WAS
THE ONLY THING ADDED TO ÒTHE MANÓ TO MAKE ÒTHE MAN
BECOME A LIVING BEING.Ó It could not be said any clearer that man
is a living being; it does not say that man had another living being put into
him. ÒThe breath of lifeÓ from God made Adam become a living being,
as long as that breath of life from God was in him he was a living being, when
the life returned to God (Ecclesiastes 12:7); Adam had no life, and he
will not have life unto life again comes to him from God at the resurrection.
2. ÒAnd
the breath (nshahmah) of the Almighty GIVES
ME LIFEÓ(Job 33:4).
3. ÒAnd all
flesh that moved on the earth perished, birds and cattle and beasts and every
swarming thing that swarms upon the earth, and all mankind; of all that was on
the dry land, all in whose nostrils was the breath of life (nshahmah) died.Ó
Both man and animals have the same Òbreath of life (nshahmah)Ó
both ÒdiedÓ (Genesis 7:21-22).
4. ÒSaved alive
nothing that breaths (nshahmah–breath of life)Ó
both men and animals (Deuteronomy 20:16). ÒBreath of lifeÓ and ÒbreathsÓ are
the same in the Hebrew, both are translated from Ònshahmah,Ó but
who knows why the translators choose to make them different in the English
Bible, and make their readers understand something that is totally different
from what God said.
5. ÒUtterly
destroyed all that breaths (nshahmah–breath of
life)Ó both men and animals died (Joshua 10:40).
6. There was
not any left to breaths (nshahmah–breath of
life)Ó not a man or a animal left to breath, both died (Joshua 11:11).
7. ÒNeither
left they any to breaths (nshahmah–breath of
life)Ó both men and animals died (Joshua 11:14).
Does an immortal immaterial
deathless soul or a spirit breathe, or dose a soul die when it stops
breathing? It is the breath (nshahmah) of life that God puts into the
bodies of both man and animals that gives life (Genesis 2:7),
nshahmah–breath is not an immortal deathless soul that has an endless
life of its own. If the breath of life (nshahmah) gives immortality to a
person, then the same breath of life (nshahmah) would give immortality to all
living being, all are given the same nshahmah, the same breath of life. The
Òbreath of lifeÓ is as much the possession of all living creatures
as it is the possession of man. The Òbreath of lifeÓ does not
make any living creature immortal, not animals, not fish, or not persons. All
living being depend on this breath from God for life, and all die when
the Òbreath of lifeÓ from God returns to God, and if there
were no resurrection no person would ever again have any life.
Question, What effect did the Òbreath
of lifeÓ (nshahmah) in the nostrils of animals have on them? Most all
would answer that it made them a living being, not that it put another living
being in them, not put an immortal deathless soul in them that will live after
the death of the living being that a soul was put in. Then what effect did the
same Òbreath of lifeÓ (nshahmah) have on mankind? It made them
a living being just as it did animals; the Òbreath of lifeÓ (nshahmah)
did not put a deathless soul in mankind that the same Òbreath of lifeÓ (nshahmah)
did not put in animals.
JAMES HERMAN WHITMORE, ÒWhat is more
evident than anything else is that the Lord did not address an
unconscious body, but a conscious and intelligent man.
Whoever or whatever was addressed, the same died. According to the
popular notion, the soul is the only part of man that possesses
intelligence. The conclusion then is unavoidable, that it was the
ÔsoulÕ that was addressed as Ôthou,Õ and sentenced to return to dust. Hence,
the soul must not only be mortal, but material. It
is further evident that whatever or whoever sinned, the same died.Ó ÒThe
Doctrine Of Immortality,Ó page 118, Kellaway and Co.
THE BREATH OF LIFE. Many have
now switched from a soul being an immortal living being in a person to a spirit
being the immortal living being that is in a person; a living being that
animals do not have in them; many now believe ÒspiritÓ is now the same thing
that ÒsoulÓ has been believed to be for hundreds of years. ÒThen the
Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathe into his nostrils
the breath of life; and man became a living being.Ó The
phrase Òbreath of lifeÓ that was breathed into man in Genesis
2:7 is the same Hebrew Òbreath of lifeÓ in Genesis 7:21-22
that is in the nostrils of birds, cattle, men and beasts; the Òbreath
of lifeÓ in animals is the same Òbreath of lifeÓ that
is in persons. The Òbreath of lifeÓ (1) is not an immortal
spirit, (2) is not an immortal soul that mankind now have in them
that animals do not have it in them; the Bible does not say that the Òbreath
of lifeÓ that God breathed into Adam was an immortal deathless spirit
or soul that God breathed into him, and the Bible does not say all persons now
have a deathless being living in them; the breathless body that God made from
the earth is what became a living breathing being when the Òbreath of
lifeÓ was breathed into the breathless body. God did not tell Adam he
had a body that was made from the earth, but the real Adam was made of
something not from the earth.
3. BOTH MAN
AND ANIMALS BECAME
ÒA LIVING
BEING.Ó
Nehphesh–a living
being, Genesis 2:7
The body of dust plus the
breath of life = a living breathing being. ÒThe Lord
God formed man of the dust from the ground.Ó
1. The life of
the body. ÒAnd breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.Ó
2. The result.
ÒAnd man became a living being.Ó The lifeless earthly body became
alive; the body became a living breathing being.
Both man and animals became Òa
living being,Ó when they received the Òbreath of lifeÓ from
God; neither man nor animals had another living being put into them.
ÒYou take away their breath, they dieÓ (Psalms
104:29). The breath of life gives life to the person; it does not put a soul in
the person that already had itÕs own life. The breath of life that God breathed
into the body gives life to the body, whither it is a person or animal; it
makes both the person and animal into Òa living being.Ó There
is life in the body only as long as the breath of life is in the body.
It was the lifeless body that
God made from the earth that became a living being, a living person. Most
believe as Plato did, that a living deathless soul is imprisoned in the body
unto the living soul is able to escape the body, and then the lifeless body
goes back to the earth.
Although this passage is
repeatedly used to prove that a immortal, deathless souls that was put in
persons that was not put in animals, most translations other than the King
James apply nehphesh to the living breathing being or person, not to an
invisible, deathless, immaterial something that does not have breath. Adam
being spoken of as a "living being" (nehphesh
StrongÕs Hebrew word #5315–Òa breathing creatureÓ) proves he was mortal,
not immortal, just as all "living beingsÓ (nehphesh)
fish, birds, animals, are mortal, not immortal. How can this be one of the most
used proof texts used to prove Adam had an immortal soul put in him? If it
proves Adam had an immortal soul, then it proves that fish have an immortal
soul that cannot die.
ÒThe body without the spirit is
deadÓ James 2:36. Just as the body when God made the body it had
no life unto God Òbreathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the
man became a living beingÓ (Genesis 2:7), when ÒThe dust will
return to the earth as it was, and the spirit (ruach) will
return to God who gave itÓ (Ecclesiastes 12:7); after death there is
no living being and will not be a living being unto the resurrection when life
will again come from God. ÒSoulÓ with the meaning it has today (an immortal
being that is in a person) is a total mistranslation. If the Òbreath of
lifeÓ that returns to God at the death of the person
is a conscious living being that returns to God in Heaven, that soul (living
being) could not return to God in Heaven if it had not
previously existed with God; it is life (the breath of life) that came
from God that makes all mankind alive, and the life that was breathed into all
mankind and breathed into all living beings that returns to God. ÒHis
breath (ruach) goes forth, he returns to his earthÓ (Psalms
146:4).
Both Òa living beingÓ and Òbreath
of lifeÓ are used by most that call themselves orthodox to prove
mankind has an immortal soul in them that no animal has. Both mankind and all
animals are Òa living beingÓ and both have the Òbreath
of life,Ó both can and do die. Having the Òbreath of lifeÓ makes both a person and an animal have life,
it does not make mankind or animals have an immortal soul in
them.
It is importance to understand that
it is being said by Moses that both animals and mankind ARE A SOUL, both are a
living being, both have the same breath of life that came from God, not that
animals or mankind HAVE A SOUL IN THEM; they do not have something in them that
is now immortal and invisible; there is not a no substitute something in a
person that will not die when the person it is in dies; there is a world of
different in a person or animal being a soul, then them having another living
immortal soul being that was put into the person or the animal. Many assume,
with much help from the translators and their theology that Genesis is saying
only mankind have souls, but animals do not. Because of what most have been
taught, without realizing it they read into this that only mankind had souls
put in them that are invisible, no substitutes something that cannot die. This causes
them to believe that only this deathless something that is in them, whatever
they think this something is, will be saved (more on this near the end of this
chapter). A soul is not a second living being, an unearthly living being
that exist within the earthly person any more than a soul is a second entity
existing in beast. Both man and animals are souls, both are living
beings. We are a soul, a living being; we do not have a soul that is living in
us that is not us, that is not the person, that will live after we are
dead. If we have a soul that is a living being in us, then we are one
living being with another, a second living being living in us. According to the
doctrine that we have a soul living in us, one living being is living in
another living being, and it is only this immortal deathless being that is us
that will be saved or tormented forever is the foundation of many of the errors
that have divided the churches. That we are a soul, a living
being, not we have a soul; not that we have another living being
living in us; this is one of the most fundamental and most misunderstood
teaching in the Bible.
(6). Genesis 2:19, "LIVING
CREATURE" (nehpheshs–mortal beings, used referring
to animals), "Every beast...every
bird...whatsoever the man called every living creature (nehpheshs–mortal
living beings), that was the name thereof."
(7). Genesis 9:4, "LIFE" (nehpheshs–mortal
living beings, used referring to animals).
(8). Genesis 9:5, "LIVES" (nehpheshs–mortal
living beings, used referring to man).
(9). Genesis 9:5, "LIFE" (nehpheshs–mortal
living beings, used referring to man).
(10). Genesis 9:10, "LIVING
CREATURE" (nehpheshs–mortal living beings, used
referring to animals).
(11). Genesis 9:12,"LIVING
CREATURE" (nehpheshs–mortal living beings, used
referring to animals).
(12). Genesis 9:15, "LIVING
CREATURE" (nehpheshs–mortal living beings, used referring
to both man and animals).
(13). Genesis 9:16, "LIVING
CREATURE" (nehpheshs–mortal living beings, used
referring to both man and animals).
Genesis
9:4-16
In Genesis 9:4-16 the same word is
used for both man and animals seven times in the same passage; to
animals five times, to man four times, none of the seven was translated ÒsoulÓ
not even in the King James Version.
1. Three times to animals alone, translated
(1) life, (2) creature, (3) and creature.
2. Two times to man alone, nehphesh translated
(1) lives, (2) and life.
3. Two times to both animals and man, nehphesh
translated creature both times.
"But flesh with the (1) LIFE (Nehphesh used
referring to animals) thereof,
which is the blood thereof, shall you not eat. And surely your blood, the blood
of your (2) LIVES (nehphesh,
used referring to man), will I require; at the hand of every beast will
I require it, and at the hand of men, even at the hand of every man's brother,
will I require the (3) LIFE
(nehphesh, used referring to man) of man. Whoso
sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made
He-men. And you, be you fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the
earth, and multiply therein. And God spoke unto Noah, and to his sons with him,
saying, and I, behold, I establish my covenant with you and with your seed
after you; and every (4) LIVING CREATURE (nehphesh, used
referring to animals) that is with you, of the fowl, and
the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of
the ark, to every beast of the earth. And I will establish my covenant with
you; neither shall the waters of a flood cut off all flesh be any more; neither
shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. And God said, This is the
token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every (5) LIVING
CREATIRE (nehphesh, used referring to animals) that
is with you, for perpetual generation, I do set my bow in the cloud, and it
shall be a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to
pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the
cloud, and I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and
ever (6) LIVING CREATURE (nehphesh, used
referring to man and animals) of all flesh; and the waters
shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in the
cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant
between God and every (7) LIVING CREATURE (nehphesh,
used referring to man and animals) of all flesh that is
upon the earth."
All four times that soul
(nehphesh) is used in Genesis 1; it is referring to animals, not to a person.
IN TEN OF THE FIRST THIRTEEN TIMES NEHPHESH (soul) IS USED IT IS USED REFERRING
TO ANIMALS, but the King James Version delicately hid this by using different
words, and most who read the King James Version never know what was delicately
hid from them. Mankind is the same soul (life–nehphesh) as all
other "living creatures." He does not differ from
other living creatures (soul–nehphesh) by having a soul (nehphesh) living
in him that cannot die. His dominion over other living creatures
(other nehpheshs–souls) is not his nehphesh. In the first nine
chapters of Genesis soul (nehphesh–StrongÕs Hebrew word
#5315–Òa breathing creatureÓ) nehphesh used more often with
reference to animals than it is with reference to persons; nehphesh is the
animal life, which both a person and animals have in common. How did
the translators think they had the right to change this word to an invisible
immortal something that is in a person, which animals do not have?
This is an example of men attempting
to cover up the truth when it is contradictory to their pagan theology. It
takes a lot of preconceived man made theology to make nehphesh be an immaterial
invisible no substance soul that is now immortal existing in a man that dose
not exist in animals when it is not deliberately hid as it is in the King James
Version. Moses applies nehphesh four times to lower creatures before he applied
it to man, then immediately after he has applied it to man he again applied the
same word to animals a fifth and sixth time with no hint that he uses the same
word with a different meaning. When the translators give it a different meaning
in only one of the six times it is used in the first two chapters of Genesis it
is nothing more than a deliberate change to add PlatoÕs Greek pagan immortal
soul to God word.
———————————————————————
A birdÕs eye view of the translation of nehphesh in the first nine
chapters, King James Version.
1. ÒMoving creature that has life" (nehphesh)
Genesis 1:20 – animals
2. ÒA living creature" (nehphesh)
Genesis 1:21 – animals
3. ÒA living creature" (nehphesh)
Genesis 1:24 – animals
4. ÒWherein there is life" (nehphesh)
Genesis 1:30 – animals
5. ÒA living soul" (nehphesh)
Genesis 2:7 – man
6. ÒA living creature" (nehphesh)
Genesis 2:19 – animals
7. ÒLife" (nehphesh) Genesis 9:4
– animals
8. ÒLivesÓ (nehphesh) Genesis 9:5 –
man
9. ÒLife" (nehphesh) Genesis 9:5
– man
10. ÒLiving creature" (nehphesh)
Genesis 9:10 – animals
11. ÒLiving creature" (nehphesh)
Genesis 9:12 – animals
12. ÒLiving creature" (nehphesh)
Genesis 9:15 – man and animals
13. ÒLiving creature" (nehphesh)
Genesis 9:16 – man and animals.
Nehphesh is translated "soul" only one
time of the first thirteen times it is used in the King James Version, but it
is not translated "soul" in any of the first
thirteen times it is used in the New King James Version, New American Standard
Version, New Revised Standard Version, New International Version, or most other
translations.
———————————————————————
(14). Genesis 12:5, "And the PEOPLE (nehpheshs–"living
beings") whom they had acquired" New King James
Version ("soul" in King James Version). Why did
the New King James change this from ÒsoulsÓ
to Òpeople;Ó was it that the
translators did not believe invisible souls could be bought, but people could
be bought, and that as it is translated in the King James Version it did not
say anything close to todays theology?
(15). Genesis 12:13, "That I (nehphesh–a "living
being") may live because of you" New King James
Version ("soul" in King James Version.) Do
you wonder why, ÒThat a soul may liveÓ was changed to ÒThat
I may liveÓ when in todayÕs man made theology ÒIÓ and
ÒsoulÓ are not even close to being the same
thing? THAT A SOUL THAT CANNOT DIE ÒMAY LIVEÓ!
(16). Genesis 14:21, "Give
me the PERSONS (nehphesh–"living beingsÓ) and
take the goods," Can anyone give immortal souls to another
person? Is there anyone that cannot see why even the King James translators did
not changed nehphesh to ÒsoulÓ in this passage?
(17). Genesis 17:14, "That PERSON (nehphesh–a "living
being") shall be cut off" New King James
Version.
(18). Genesis 19:17, ÒEscape
for your LIFEÓ (nehphesh–a "living
being") King James Version.
(19). Genesis 19:19, ÒSaving
my LIFEÓ (nehphesh–a "living
being") King James Version. Save a persons life, not the life of a
deathless soul.
In the first nineteen times nehphesh is used it is
translated Òsoul.Ó
Only three
times in the King James Version.
None in the New King James Version.
None in the New American Standard Version.
None in the New Revised Standard Version.
None in the New International Version.
(20). Genesis 19:20, "That
my LIFE (nehphesh–a "living being") may
be saved" New American Standard Version (Translated soul for the
fourth time in the King James Version, but only for the first time in the New
King James Version). Do you wonder why the translators of the New King James
Version did not think this word means ÒsoulÓ in the nineteen times it was used
before this, but changed their minds this time? But the New American Standard
translators said both King James Versions translators are wrong.
(21). Genesis 23:8, ÒIf it
be your MINDÓ (nehphesh–a "living being")
King James Version.
(22). Genesis 27:4, "So
that I (nehphesh–a "living being") may
bless you before I die"
1. "That
my soul (nehphesh–a "living being") may
bless thee before I dieÓ King James Version. How would Isaac's son know if
he were blessed by an "immaterial invisible" no
substance something that he could not see? By this time, hundreds of years
after Genesis 1:1, the King James translators must have been desperate to be
able to put "soul" into the Bible.
2. "So
that I (nehphesh–a "living being") may
bless you before I dieÓ Revised Standard Version, New Revised Standard
Version.
3. "So
that I (nehphesh–a "living being") may
give you my blessing before I die" New International Version.
4. "So
that I (nehphesh–a "living being") may
give you my blessing before I dieÓ Revised English Bible.
5. "To
give you my (nehphesh–a "living
being") blessing before I die"
Amplified Bible.
6. "That I (nehphesh–a "living
being") may give you my special blessing before I dieÓ New
American Bible.
7. "Then I (nehphesh–a "living
being") will bless you before I die" New Century
Version.
8. "Then I (nehphesh–a "living
being") will pronounce the blessing that belongs to you, my
firstborn son, before I die" New Living Translation.
9. "I (nehphesh–a "living
being") want to eat it once more and give you my blessing
before I die" Contemporary English Version.
10."That I (nehphesh–a "living
being") may eat of it, (preparatory) to giving you (as my
first–born) my blessing before I die" Amplified
Bible.
Up to Genesis 27:4 for hundreds of years nehphesh is
translated soul
1. Only five times out of twenty-two
in the King James Version.
2. Only one time out of twenty-two
in the New King James Version.
3. None in The American Standard
Version and most others.
Nehphesh has been used 22 times
before the New King James Version translated it "soul" for the first
time, but even then the translators of many versions have chosen not to change
the way they were translating nehphesh from a breathing being to a
non-breathing "soul." In Genesis "nehphesh" is not
an immortal "immaterial, invisible part of man,Ó but it
is the life of living creatures, living beings, any living breathing things
whether animals, fish, or man; all mortal breathing beings are a nehphesh. If
the translators had continued to translate nehphesh as life, living creatures,
living beings, animals, or persons, as they did in most of the first twenty-two
times it is used, there may not be the divisions there are today. Why did they
not translate nehphesh into soul in the first part of the Bible that covers
hundreds of years? Maybe because they thought it would have made animals have
souls, and they did not believe animals could have souls. I find it
difficult to see how anyone could not call their honesty into question for it
is undeniable that they put their belief over the word of God, and they
deliberately hid the truth from their readers; they deliberately hid the truth
from you.
(23). Genesis 32:30, "My LIFE (nehphesh–"living
beings") is preservedÓ King James Version. Most
translations use "life," not ÒsoulÓ in this passage for the
translators believed an immortal soul could not perish and would not need to be
preserved; therefore, they did not change nehphesh to soul.
(24). Genesis 34:3, "His soul (nehphesh) clave
unto Dinah" King James Version. With the meaning ÒsoulÓ now has,
if the King James translation is not saying an immaterial immortal soul clave
unto a material mortal being, then what is it saying?
1. "He (nehphesh) was
deeply attracted to Dinah" New American Standard
Version.
2.
"His HEART (nehphesh) was drawn to Dinah" New
International Version.
(25). Genesis 34:8 "The soul (nehphesh) of
my son Shechem longeth for your daughter" King James Version. How
did the translators think the father could know what an invisible, immaterial
something that was in his son was longing for? Did they think an immortal no
substance soul was in love with a mortal person? Or were they just desperate to
be able to put the pagan ÒsoulÓ into the Bible?
1. "He (nehphesh) was
deeply attracted to Dinah" New American Standard
Version.
2.
"His HEART (nehphesh) was drawn to Dinah" New
International Version.
(26). Genesis 35:18, "As
her SOUL (nehphesh) was departing (for she
died)" King James Version.
1. "Then with her last breath, (nehphesh) as
she was dying" Revised English Bible.
2. ÓWith RachelÕs last breath (nehphesh) (for
she died)Ó The Living Bible.
3. ÒWith her last breath (nehphesh) for she was
at the point of deathÓ New American Bible.
4. ÒRachel was about to die, but with her
last breath (nehphesh)Ó New Living Bible.
5. "As she breathed (nehphesh) her
last–for she was dying" New International Version.
(27). Genesis 36:6, "All
the PERSONS (nehpheshs–mortal beings) of his
house" King James Version.
(28). Genesis 37:21, "Let
us not kill HIM (nehphesh–a mortal being)" King
James Version. It was obvious to the translators that they could not translate
this nehphesh into soul, after all they tell us an immortal soul cannot be
killed, but a person (ÒhimÓ) can be killed.
(29). Exodus 12:16, ÒExcept
what must be eaten by ever PERSON (nehpheshs–mortal
beings).Ó A soul as was believed in by the translators could not eat,
therefore; they would not change this nehphesh into a soul.
(30). Job 12:10, "In
whose hand is the SOUL (nehpheshs–mortal being, used
referring to animals) of every living thing, and the breath
of all mankind." Is it not strange that the King James Version
gives animals souls, but most other translations took their souls away from
them?
ÒThe life of
every living thing," New American Standard Bible.
(31).
Job 41:21, ÒHis breathÓ (nehphesh–a mortal
being, used referring to an animal, possibly a crocodile).
(32). Isaiah 19:10, "All
that make sluices and ponds for FISH
(nehpheshs–mortal beings, used referring to fish)"
King James Version. Although nehphesh is in the Hebrew, many translations seems
not to know what to do with it, and just took it out, or completely changed it
for they did not want a soul to be in a pond.
(33).
Jeremiah 2:24, "A wild ass used to the wilderness, that snuffed up
the wind in HER (nehphesh–a mortal being, used referring
to an animal)
desire."
(34). -- (35). Proverbs 27:7, ÒThe
full SOUL (nehphesh–a mortal being) loathes an
honeycomb; but to the hungry SOUL (nehphesh–a mortal
being) ever bitter thing is sweet.Ó How could it to have been
possible for the translators think an immaterial something could be full, or
that a soul could be hungry for honey or any kind of food?
1. ÒA sated MAN (nehphesh) loathes
honey, but to a famished MAN
(nehphesh) any bitter thing is
sweetÓ New American Standard Bible.
2. ÒHE (nehphesh) who
is full loathes honey, but to the hungry even what is bitter tastes
sweetÓ New International Version. ÒNehpheshÓ is in the Hebrew two
times, but one of the two times nehphesh was left out
in the New International Version.
(36). Numbers 31:28, "And
levy a tribute unto the Lord of the men of war which went out to battle: one SOUL (nehphesh–mortal
being–used referring to both persons and animals) of
five hundred, both of the persons, and of the beeves, and of the asses and of
the sheep." Of about 870 times ÒnehpheshÓ is in the Old Testament
Numbers 31:28 and Job 12:10 are the only two passages where the King James
translators translated ÒnehpheshÓ as ÒsoulÓ when it has reference to animals,
and it maybe that the only reason they did these two times is that it has equal
reference to people as it does to animals and they had no choice. Their usual
substitutes failed to work; Òliving creaturesÓ or ÒpersonÓ would
not work for them in these two passages as nehphesh has reference to both man
and animals.
DAVID J. HEINIZMAN, "So
carefully has the translation of nehphesh been guarded in relation to animals
as 'souls,' that we can't help but wonder if it were not done intentionally to
conceal the fact that animals are souls as well as men." "Man Became
A Living Soul."
(37). Proverbs 12:10: ÒA
righteous man has regard for the LIFE
(nehphesh) of his beast.Ó
(38 to 870) It would be to long to
quote all the 870 times the Hebrew word nehphesh is in the Old Testament with
just over one-half being translated "soul," about 473
times in King James Version. Not once dose any of the 870 imply anything
about any life beyond a grave, or about there being a deathless soul that is a
living being living in a mortal person.
The translators made this one word
(nehphesh) to be,
1. Any earthly
being.
a. Any earthly
being before God breathed the breath of life into the body of a person or a
beast.
b. Any earthly
being while they had the breath of life.
c. And any dead
body after the breath of life of the person or beast was gone.
2. The life in
any earthly being only while they have the breath of life in them.
3. The pagan
immaterial, invisible, no substance, deathless being that many believe lives
after the person that a soul was in is dead, but this deathless being is not
believed to be in any beast.
Do you wonder, as I do, how they
came up all with these meaning of this one word, meaning that are nothing
alike, (1) how they knew when this word was a mortal living being that could
not keep from dying, (2) and when the same word was a immortal living being
that could not die?
A nehphesh
could be
1. Saved (Genesis 19:19; 1 Samuel 19:11; 2 Samuel 19:5)
2. Killed (Numbers 35:11; 35:15; 35:30)
3. Ransomed (Exodus 21:30)
4. Destroyed (Leviticus 23:30; Joshua 11:11)
5. Delivered (Joshua 2:13)
6. Sought to be killed (Judges 18:25)
7. Taken (Deuteronomy 19:21)
8. Forfeited (Joshua 2:14)
9. Risked (Judges 12:3; 1 Samuel 28:21)
10. Lost (Judges 1:25)
11. Jeopardized (Judges 5:18; 1 Samuel 19:50)
All 870 times have one thing in
common, all of the ways nehphesh is translated are all associated with the
activity of living beings including dying, and nehphesh never implies anything
about any life after the death of living beings, all the 870 are all speaking
of living beings of both persons and animals that will die, or that are already
dead. None of the 870 times are an immortal deathless being that is in a
person; they are all speaking of mortal living beings that can die, be killed,
or be dead, whether the living being is a person, animal, bird, or fish. Nehphesh
never implies anything about any kind of life beyond a grave. IT IS NEVER
TRANSLATED "SPIRIT" Although nehphesh–StrongÕs
Hebrew word #5315–Òa breathing creatureÓ is translated into about
forty words, thirty-nine of the forty all have reference only to mortal beings
that will die; it was changed by the translators in only one of the forty words
(souls) into a something that does not have breath, and that will not
die. Is was because this is the only word that they could use to put
the Pagan immortal soul into the Bible by mistranslating, but were not able to
mistranslate it into an immortal invisible deathless something most of the
times it was used?
Can one word be rightly translated
this way? No one reading some of the English translations of the Bible
would not have any way of knowing that all the about forty or more words which
nehphesh is translated into are translations, or mistranslations of only one
word. Did the translators do so because they wanted to make a person
be an "immortal being," and more than a "living creatures?"
In almost one half of the times nehphesh is used in the Old Testament, even the
King James translators could not translate it "soul." When the all-knowing
God used just one word, why did the translators used about forty words and
change it as they wished to, (1) changed it from a noun to many pronouns, (2)
changed from a noun to many verbs, (3) changed from a noun to many adjectives, (4)
changed from a noun to many adverbs, (5) etc.? Did they think that for all the
years from Adam unto Christ people could understand the one word God used,
which was always a noun, but now many words that are not a noun are needed to
translate that one word? If one word were all that was needed from Adam unto
the translation of the King James Version in 1611, why would God's one word not
be enough today? Do the translators think they have improved the Hebrew Old
Testament by changing the one word that God used into about forty words, and
changing this noun into about all parts of speech? The use of many words came
when the Roman Catholic Church brought in unconditional immortality, and they
had to get it into their Latin Bible, and the first English translations were
translated mostly from their Latin Bible. The Hebrew manuscripts still have
just one word–nehphesh, which was the one word God inspired.
Nehphesh is translated soul far
fewer times in the New American Standard Version, and in most other
translations, including the New King James Version, than it is in the King
James Version. Were they going as far as they dared to in correcting the King
James Version?
The way soul is
understood and used today in English (an undying living something that is in a person)
makes putting the word soul in a translation for the English
people today be a false and deliberately misleading translation, for it makes
it where today's English reader cannot know what God said, and will
understand only what the prejudiced outlook the translators wanted their
readers to understand when they knew that most that read it would understand
the word soul only as it was used by Plato, or as it is used in todayÕs
English. Without much study of Bible words, which most Bible reader
will never do, they cannot know what God said to them when they read the word soul, and
they will think that the prejudice outlook of the translator is the word of
God. GOD'S WORD WAS DELIBERATELY REPLACED WITH THE TEACHING OF MAN
(MATTHEW 15:9) IN A WAY THAT WILL HAVE MORE INFLUENCE ON OUR CONCEPTION OF WHAT
OUR NATURE IS AND THE NATURE OF ALL LIVING BEINGS THAN ANY OTHER QUESTION.
THE ÒSOULÓ AND ÒEATING
OF BLOODÓ
Is the
immortal "soul" (nehphesh) in the blood? Is a
part of a person that many say it lives after the death of the body, is a
deathless soul in the blood of both men and animals? In Leviticus 17:10-15; in
only six verses nehphesh is used ten times but the translators concealed this
from their readers by translating nehphesh as both life and soul, always life
the four times it was speaking of animals, and soul the six times it was
speaking of a person; does this not show their reluctance to let us see what
God said to us?
The
vanishing use of soul in Leviticus 17:10-15
1. In the King James Version nehphesh is translated
"soul" six of the ten times it is used.
2. The New King James Version used "soul" only two of
the ten times.
3. "Soul" is not used in the (1) New Revised Standard
Version, (2) New International Version, (3) The New American Bible, (4) and
many others.
Leviticus
17:10-15 King James Version
1. Used referring to animals four times–nehphesh translated
life four times.
2. Used referring to man six times–nehphesh translated soul
six times.
"I will even set my face
against that SOUL (person–nehphesh,
used referring to man) that eats blood, and will cut him off from among
his people. For the LIFE (soul–nehphesh, used
referring to animals that are being eat) of the flesh is in the
blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an
atonement for your SOULS, (nehphesh, used referring
to man) for it is the blood that makes an atonement for a SOUL (nehphesh,
used referring to man). Therefore I said unto the children of Israel,
no SOUL (nehphesh, used referring to man) of you shall
eat blood...For it is the LIFE (soul–nehphesh,
used referring to animals) of all flesh; the blood of it is for
the LIFE (soul–nehphesh, used referring to
animals) thereof; therefore I said unto the children of Israel, no SOUL (nehphesh,
used referring to man) shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh: for
the
LIFE (soul-nehphesh, used referring to
animals) of all flesh is the blood thereof; whosoever eats it
shall be cut off. And every SOUL (nehphesh, used referring
to man) that eats that which died of itself...he shall wash his
clothes, and bath himself in water." In this passage, the King
James Version translated the same word "soul" all six times when it
used referring to man TO A MORTAL LIVING PERSON THAT COULD EAT BLOOD, but
changed it to "life" all four times when the same word is used
referring to animals. Can anyone not see how the translators
picked when they wanted "nehphesh" to be an immortal
"soul," and when they wanted "nehphesh" to be only mortal
"life"? They could not let an immortal soul be in the blood, nor
could they let animals have an immortal soul in them. Their theology said a man
had to have a soul in him, but an animal could not have one, and they were not willing
that their reader see that the word "nehphesh" is used referring to
both, and that both man or animals do not have a soul, that
both are a soul – a living being.
Leviticus
17:10-15 New Revised Standard Version
1. Used referring to mortal animals five
times–nehphesh translated life five times.
2. Used referring to living mortal man five times–nehphesh
translated lives one time, translated person four times. A soul could not eat
blood; therefore, none of the five are mistranslated soul. No soul in
this translation.
"If anyone of the house of
Israel or of the aliens who reside among them eats any blood, I will set my
face against that PERSON (nehphesh) who eats
blood, and will cut that PERSON (nehphesh) off
from the people. For the LIFE (nehphesh-animals) of
the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you for making atonement for
your LIVES (nehphesh-persons) on the altar, for,
as LIFE, (nehphesh-animals) it is the blood
that makes atonement. Therefore I have said to the people of Israel, No PERSON (nehphesh)
among you shall eat blood...For the LIFE (nehphesh-animals) of every
creature–its blood is its LIFE; (nehphesh-animals) therefore
I have said to the people of Israel, You shall not eat the blood of any
creature, for the LIFE (nehphesh-animals) of
every creature is its blood; whoever eats it shall be cut off. ALL PERSONS, (nehphesh) citizens
or aliens, who eat what dies of itself...shall wash their clothes, and bathe
themselves in water."
Leviticus
17:10-15 New International Version
1. Used referring to animals three
times–nehphesh translated life three times.
2. Used referring to man six times–nehphesh translated
person, him, yourselves, life, you, and anyone. No soul in this
translation.
"Any Israelite or any alien
living among them who eats any blood–I will set my face against
that PERSON (nehphesh) who eats blood and will cut
HIM (nehphesh person) off from his people. For
the LIFE (nehphesh-animals) of a creature
is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for YOURSELVES (nehphesh-persons) on
the altar; it is the blood that makes atonements for one's LIFE (nehphesh-person).
Therefore I say to the Israelites, 'None of YOU (nehphesh-persons) may
eat blood, nor may an alien living among you eat blood'...because the Life (nehphesh-animals) of
every creature is its blood. That is why I have said to the Israelites, You
must not eat the blood of any creature, because the LIFE (nehphesh-animals) of every creature is
its blood; anyone who eats it must be cut off. ANYONE (nehphesh-persons),
whether native-born or alien, who eats anything found dead or torn by
wild animals must wash his clothes and bathe with water.Ó
1. "No soul (nehphesh) shall
eat blood" Leviticus 17:12. No person shall eat blood–can
an immortal, immaterial soul eat material blood?
2. "The life (nehphesh) of
all flesh is the blood" Leviticus 17:11. They would not translate
it to say, ÒThe soul of all flesh is in the blood.Ó
3. "No dead
body (nehphesh)" A dead immortal soul? The same word that is
translated soul and life is translated dead
body (Numbers 6:6, also Numbers 5:2; 6:11; 9:6; 9:10). These passages
would make no sense if nehphesh were a no substance, immortal something in a
person that cannot be dead. It would also make animals have the same no
substance, immortal something in them that cannot be dead. It is the life of a
parson or animal that is in the blood, not a deathless, immaterial, invisible
soul in the blood as the word "soul" is used today. Nehphesh is
translated dead body thirteen times in the King James Version, not a dead soul.
THE DYING
USE OF "SOUL"
IN THE OLD
TESTAMENT
In translations that were mostly made
by those who believed a person has an immortal soul, why is the use of the word
"soul" becoming used less? The dying use of ÒsoulÓ in the newer
translations and the growing use of ÒlifeÓ "person,"
"heart," or pronouns that are related to a person in the place
of ÒsoulÓ is strongly objected to by many that believe there is an immortal
soul that will live on after the person is dead; that believe SatanÕs
lie, ÒYou surely shall not dieÉyou will be like GodÓ (Genesis
3:5), but only after they change the ÒYOUÓ
to Òa soul that is in you surely shall not die when you die,Ó and made a soul
be as immortal as God is.
Nehphesh is
used in the Old Testament 870 times
NEHPHESH TRANSLATED
SOUL
á Only 443 times out of 870
times–King James Version in 1611.
á Only 289 times out of 870 times–New
King James Version in 1982. Soul is used 154 times less in the Old Testament
than it is in the King James Version.
á Only 188 times out of 870
times–Revised Standard Version in 1946.
á Only 144 times out of 870
times–New Revised Standard Version in 1989.
á Only 142 times out of 870
times–The Message in 1993.
á Only 115 times out of 870
times–New International Version in 1973.
á Only 72 times out of 870 times– New
International Version in 2011 update.
á Only 111 times out of 870
times–Amplified Bible in 1954.
á Only 111 times out of 870
times–New American Standard Bible in 1960.
á Only 96 times out of 870
times–New International Reader's Version in 1996.
á Only 44 times out of 870
times–New Living Translation in 1996.
á Only 5 times out of 878
times–Common English Bible in 2011.
á 0
times out of 870 times–New Century Version in 2005.
When nehphesh was not translated
"soul" it was translated "life," "person,"
"heart," or the noun was changed to many pronouns (he, him, she, her,
etc.) that are related to a person or animal, and has no reference to an
immortal being that some believe is in a person.
THE DYING
USE OF "SOUL"
IN THE NEW
TESTAMENT
The Greek word translated soul
(psukee) is used 106 times. PSUKEE IS TRANSLATED SOUL,
á Only 55 times out of 106
times in the King James Version in 1611.
á Only 52 times out of 106 times in the
New King James Version in 1982.
á Only 41 times out of 106
times–Revised Standard Version in 1946.
á Only 31 times out of 106
times–New Revised Standard Version in1989.
á Only 41 times out of 106
times–New International Version in 1971.
á Only 23 times out of 106
times–New International Version in 2011 update.
á Only 29 times out of 106
times–New Living Translation in 1996.
á Only 25 times out of 106
times–New Century Version in 2005.
á Only 21 times out of 106
times–NeEnglish Bible in 2011.
á Only 0 times out of 106
times–Christian Bible in 1991.
THE DYING USE
OF "SOUL" IN BOTH
THE OLD AND
NEW TESTAMENT
The Hebrew word nehphesh that some
of the time is translated soul is used over 870 times in the Old Treatment, and
the Greek word psukee, sometimes translated soul is used 106 times, both
together about 976 times.
TOGETHER BOTH
NEHPHESH AND PSUKEE
ARE
TRANSLATED SOUL
á Only 498 times out of 976
times–King James Version in 1611.
á Only 341 times out of 976
times–New King James Version in 1982. Soul is used 157 times less
in the New King James Version than it is in the King James Version.
á Only 111 times out of 976
times–Amplified Bible in 1954.
á Only 190 times out of 976
times–New American Standard Bible in 1960.
á Only 229 times out of 976
times–Revised Standard Version in 1946.
á Only 175 times out of 976
times–New Revised Standard Version in 1989.
á Only 229 times out of 976
times–New International Version in 1971.
á Only 136 times out of 976
times–New International Version in 1984.
á Only 118 times out of 976 times–New
International Version in 2011 update.
á Only 41 times out of 976
times–New International Reader's Version in 1996.
á Only 177 times out of 976
times–The Message in 1993.
á Only 73 times out of 976
times–New Living Translation in 1996.
á Only 35 times out of 976
times–New Century Version in 2005.
á Only 8 times out of 976
times–Common English Bible in 2011.
á 0
times New Testament–Christian Bible in 1991.
Most, if not all these translators
believe in an immortal soul, but have been reducing the times this Hebrew word
nehphesh, and the Greek word psukee are translated "soul" and
replacing then with "life," "person," "heart," or
changed them to pronouns that are related to a person. The way soul has
been mostly removed in most translations, and replaced with life or person, the
translators are saying soul is not a true translation of neither
the Hebrew Old Testament, nor the Greek New Testament.
WHY THE USE
OF SOUL IS DYING?
In many passages the psukee does
thing that only this earthly body can do, things that an immortal soul that has
no substance could not do. ÒAnd He told them a parable, saying,
"The land of a rich man was very productive. And he began reasoning
to himself, saying, 'What shall I do, since I have no place to store my
crops?' Then he said, 'this is what I will do, I will tear down my barns
and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my
goods. And I will say to my soul (psukee), soul (psukee), you
have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and
be merry.Õ But God said to him, ÔYou fool! This very night your soul (psukee-life) is
required of you'" Luke 12:19-21. That which the rich man
laid up for his ÒsoulÓ(psukee) in verse 19 is said to be laid up
for ÒhimselfÓ in verse 21 making both
psukee and himself be the same thing. The New International Version removed
Òsoul.Ó ÒAnd I'll say to myself (Greek psukee–life), Ôyou (Greek
psukee–life) have plenty of good things laid up for
many years. Take life easy; eat drink and be merry.Õ But, God said to him,
ÔYou fool! This very night your life (Greek–psukee) will
be demanded from you;ÕÓ in this passage the same word, ÒpsukeeÓ is
translated Òmyself,Ó Òyou,Ó and Òlife.Ó It is
obvious that an immaterial, invisible, no substance soul would have no use for
the things the rich man stored in his barns, a soul would not be able to eat
and drink the thing stored in barns, that this was not speaking of an
immaterial soul without any substance, but was speaking of an earthly person that
can eat and drink of the things he had stored, but could not use them after he
was dead; it was life that would be required of the earthly person, not life of
an immortal soul that cannot die; when a persons life was required who would
use the things he had stored?
It is those who are members of
churches that believe a person has an immortal soul that are little by little
taking the word "soul" out of the Bible in their translations. Why
is soul being used less in the newer translations? These translators knew soul
is not a translation of nehphesh or psukee as they were used at
the time the Old or New Testament was written, neither nehphesh nor psukee had
the meaning that the English word ÒsoulÓ has today.
A few of the many examples that show
why the numbers above are difficult in difficult translations.
Numbers
29:7
"Ye
shall afflict your souls (nehphesh)" King James Version.
"You
shall humble yourselves (nehphesh)" New American Standard.
Joshua
11:11
"They
smote all the souls (nehphesh)" King James Version.
"Not
sparing anything that breathed (nehphesh)" New International Version.
Judges
16:16
"His soul (nehphesh) was vexed
unto death" King James Version.
"Unto he (nehphesh) was tired
to death" New International Version.
Numbers
30:2
"To
bind his soul (nehphesh) with a bond" King James Version.
"To
bind himself (nehphesh) with a binding obligation" New
American Standard.
Numbers
15:30
"That soul (nehphesh) shall
be cut off" King James Version.
"That person (nehphesh) shall be
cut off" New American Standard Version.
Acts 15:24-26 is an example of how
the translation of psukee was changed even in the same passage by the
translators when it would not fit in with their pagan belief about an immortal
soul. ÒSince we have heard that some of our number to whom we gave no
instruction have disturbed you with their words, unsettling your souls (psukee), it
seemed good to us, having become of one mind, to select men to send to you with
our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives (psukee) for
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.Ó The psukee–life they risked
was their earthly life, not a deathless soul, it was living persons that was
disturbed, not souls.
1. ÒCertain
persons who have gone out from us, though with no instruction from us, have
said things to disturb you and have unsettled your minds
(psukee)Éwho has
risked their lives (psukee)Ó New Revised Standard
Version.
2. ÒAnd
disturbed you, troubling your minds (psukee) by what they
saidÉmen who have risked their lives (psukee) for
the name of our Lord Jesus ChristÓ New International Version.
3. ÒWe have
heard that some of our group have come to you and said things that trouble and
upset you (psukee)Épeople who
have given their lives (psukee) to serve our
LordÓ New Century Version.
AARON ELLIS, ÒIt is plain from
history, that our first transcribers and translators were Romanish priests, who
were interested in sustaining the profitable corruptions of the separate
existence of the soul in purgatory, and the endless misery of the wicked. Every English translation made prior to the
18th century, has but too clearly copied from the Vulgate,
and the translators were not able, as McKnight has fully prove, to translate
the whole Bible from the original tongues, and the various editions only
profess to be compared with the original. King James, who died a
Papist, gave strict orders to translators of our common version, not to deviate
widely from the BishopÕs Bible, to be followed, and as little altered as the
original will permit.Ó ÒBible Vs. Tradition,Ó page 6, 1853.
The Hebrew noun,
nehphesh, has been changed by the translators into many different pronouns, but
all the pronouns they changed it to have a reference to an earthly being, none
to the Greek no substance soul that Plato beloved in and was brought into the
church by the Catholics in the Dark Age. Nehphesh did not mean an
immaterial invisible something in a person that was not the person in the Old
Testament; how could the translators think it was right to change one noun into
many pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc.?
The Hebrew people in the Old
Testament that were reading their Scriptures would have had no way to make a
distinction in the life (soul–nehphesh) of animals or men for Moses made
no distinction. Even today in the Hebrew Old Testament there is no distinction
between a person or an animal being a living creature, but
translators have changed this. Only in the English translations, not in the
Hebrew, is there a distinction, and this distinction is because men
have changed God's word. God used the same word to describe both
persons and animals. If this one word proves anyone now has a deathless soul in
them, it would prove both man and animals now have a deathless soul in
them. Man says animals do not have a soul that lives in
them unto their death, but there are souls that are living in people that will
live after the people that they were in are dead. God says both people and
animals are a soul, not have a soul in them.
In many passages nehphesh is rightly
translated persons, not souls. ÒSoulÓ as it is used today is a completely
difference thing than Òperson,Ó but the translators in trying to put ÒsoulÓ
into the Bible translated both from the same Hebrew word just as they also translated
the same word into ÒlifeÓ and many other words in many passages where
the translators did not think they could change ÒnehpheshÓ a mortal being into
an immortal soul.
1. ÒGive me the persons (nehphesh)Ó
(Genesis 17:14)
2.ÒAll the persons (nehphesh)Ó (Genesis
37:31)
3. ÒThe persons (nehphesh) shall
be for the LordÓ (Leviticus 26:29)
4. ÒAnd that person (nehphesh) be
guiltyÓ (Numbers 5:2)
5. ÒBody of any man (nehphesh)Ó (Numbers
19:11)
6. ÒThe dead body of any man (nehphesh)Ó
(Numbers 19:13)
7. ÒThe person (nehphesh) that
was thereÓ (Numbers 19:18)
8. ÒKilled any person (nehphesh)Ó (Numbers
31:19)
9. ÒTwo thousand persons (nehphesh)Ó
(Numbers 31:35)
10. ÒAnd sixteen thousands persons (nehphesh)Ó
(Numbers 31:46)
11. ÒWhich killed any person (nehphesh)Ó
(Numbers 35:11)
12. ÒThat killed any person (nehphesh)Ó
(Numbers 35:30)
13. ÒAn innocent person (nehphesh)Ó
(Deuteronomy 27:25)
14. ÒThat killeth any person (nehphesh)Ó
(Joshua 20:3)
15. ÒGod respect any person (nehphesh)Ó
(2 Samuel 14:14)
16. ÒThey had decreed for themselves (nehphesh)Ó (Esther
9:31)
17. ÒHe teareth himself (nehphesh)Ó
(Job 18:4)
18. ÒHe justified himself (nehphesh)Ó
(Job 32:2)
19. ÒI have behaved and quieted myself (nehphesh)Ó
(Psalms 132:2)
20. ÒThe blood of any person (nehphesh)Ó
(Proverbs 28:17)
21. ÒHas enlarged herself (nehphesh)Ó
(Isaiah 5:14)
22. ÒShall not deliver themselves (nehphesh)Ó
(Isaiah 47:14)
23. ÒWhom any man (nehphesh) despisethÓ (Isaiah
49:7)
24. ÒHas justified herself (nehphesh)Ó
(Jeremiah 3:11)
25. ÒTake heed to yourselves (nehphesh)Ó (Jeremiah
17:21)
26. ÒDeceive not yourselves (nehphesh)Ó
(Jeremiah 37:9)
27. ÒEvery person (nehphesh)Ó
(Jeremiah 43:6)
28. ÒSworn by himself (nehphesh)Ó
(Jeremiah 51:14)
29. ÒTwo persons (nehphesh)Ó (Jeremiah
52:29)
30. ÒAnd five persons (nehphesh)Ó
(Jeremiah 52:30)
31. ÒThe loathing of thy person (nehphesh)Ó (Ezekiel
16:5)
32. ÒCut off many persons (nehphesh)
(Ezekiel 17:17)
33. ÒThey traded the persons (nehphesh) of
manÓ (Ezekiel 27:13)
34. ÒTake any person (nehphesh)Ó
(Ezekiel 33:6)
35. ÒThe mighty deliver himself (nehphesh)Ó
(Amos 2:14)
36. ÒDeliver himself (nehphesh)Ó
(Amos 2:15)
37. ÒGod hath sworn by himself (nehphesh)Ó
(Amos 6:8)
38. ÒA dead body (nehphesh)Ó (Haggai
2:13)
39. ÒIf any one (nehphesh)Ó (Leviticus
4:27)
40. ÒAny living thing (nehphesh)Ó
(Leviticus 11:10)
41. ÒAnd slayeth him (nehphesh)Ó
(Deuteronomy 22:26)
42. ÒSetteth his (nehphesh) heartÓ (Deuteronomy
24:15)
43. ÒAt thine (nehphesh) own pleasureÓ (Deuteronomy
23:24)
44. ÒWhosoever killeth any person (nehphesh)Ó (Joshua
20:9)
45. ÒAll the persons (nehphesh)Ó (I
Samuel 23:22)
46. ÒAll that thine (nehphesh) heartÓ (2
Samuel 3:21)
47. ÒEvery man (nehphesh)Ó (2 Kings 12:4)
48. ÒThey (nehphesh) die in youthÓ (Job
36:14)
49. ÒOf his (nehphesh) heartÕs desireÓ (Psalms
10:3)
50. ÒMy deadly (nehphesh) enemiesÓ (Psalms
17:9)
51. ÒUnto to the will (nehphesh) ofÓ (Psalms
27:12)
52. ÒSo would we (nehphesh) have
itÓ (Psalms 35:25)
53. ÒUnto to the will (nehphesh) of
his enemiesÓ (Psalms 35:41)
54. ÒWhy are you (nehphesh) cast
downÓ (Psalms 42:5, 42:11, 45:5)
55. ÒAsking meat for their (nehphesh) lustÓ (Psalms
78:18)
56. ÒHe (nehphesh) was laid in
ironÓ (Psalms105: 18)
57. ÒI have behaved and quieted myself (nehphesh)Ó
(Psalms 131:2)
58. ÒKnows his (nehphesh) own
bitternessÓ (Proverbs 14:10)
59. ÒAs he thinketh in his (nehphesh) heartÓ (Proverbs
23:7)
60. ÒAt her (nehphesh) pleasureÓ
(Jeremiah 2:24)
61. ÒAt their (nehphesh) pleasureÓ
(Jeremiah 34:16)
62. ÒShould he slay you (nehphesh)Ó
(Jeremiah 40:15)
63. ÒWith a despiteful heart (nehphesh)Ó
(Ezekiel 25:15)
64. ÒWith a bitterness of heart (nehphesh)Ó
(Ezekiel 27:31)
Nehphesh
is translated ÒmindÓ 15 times. Nehphesh is translate ÒlifeÓ
and ÒlivesÓ many times referring to living and dead mortal
being, both to persons and to animals.
Summary. About one-third of
the times nehphesh in the Old Testament is translated soul, and psukee is
translated soul in the New Testament, are both associated with the
destruction and death of a soul (nehphesh). This is an insoluble problem for
those that believe today's theology, which says a soul cannot die.
Since the word ÒsoulÓ has a meaning
in todays English that is not in the Hebrew word Ònehphesh,Ó or the Greek word
ÒpsucheÓ the question is, Òis soul a true translation, or was it the
translators changing the Bible by putting their Platonic and Hellenized
philosophy into the Bible?Ó The doctrine of an immortal soul did not exist when
the Old Testament was written, and nehphesh would not have been understood to
be a Òsoul,Ó not unto the Greek doctrine was brought into the church by some of
the so called Òchurch fathers,Ó and by the Dark Age Catholic Church; they were
not called Òchurch fathersÓ in their day, but were called this by the Catholic
Church, probably to justify the use of ÒfatherÓ the way Catholics use it, and
to make the writing of the Òchurch fathersÓ have more authority. The
translators of the King James Version still believed this pagan doctrine and
they changed the word of God in many places, but think goodness most
translations have now partly corrected many of the changes that they made.
NEW KING JAMES VERSION STUDY EDITION
1990, page 955. ÒThe Hebrew word for soul has many meanings and seldom (some
would say never) equals what English-speaking Christians man mean by the term.Ó Most
English speaking Christians understand ÒsoulÓ to be an immaterial, deathless
something in a person that will forever fly away from the person it was in at
the death of the person it had been in.
INTERNATIONAL STANDARD BIBLE ENCYCLOPEDIA, "Not,
however, to dwell on the fact that many peoples have no clear conception of an
immaterial 'soul' in the modern sense (the Egyptians, e. g.
distinguished several parts, the Ka, the Ba, etc., which survived death; often
the surviving self is simply a ghostly resemblance of the earthly self,
nourished with food, offerings, etc.), there is the more serious consideration
that the state into which the surviving part is supposed to enter at death is
anything but a state which can be described as 'life,' or worthy to be
dignified with the name 'immortality.' It is a state peculiar to 'death;' in
most cases, shadowy, inert, feeble, dependent, joyless; a state to be dreaded
and shrunk from, not one to be hoped for. If, on the other hand, as in the hope
of immortality among the nobler heathen, it is conceived of, as for some, a
state of happiness–the clog of the body being shaken off–this
yields the idea, which has passed into so much of our modern thinking, of an
'immortality of the soul,' of an imperishableness of the spiritual part,
sometimes supposed to extend backward as well as forward; an inherent
indestructibility." From the article "Immortal; Immortality."
Also from the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, "We are
influenced always more or less by the Greek, Platonic idea that the body dies,
yet the soul is immortal. Such an idea is utterly contrary to the Israelite
consciousness and is nowhere found in the Old Testament." From
the article "Death," page 812. "Soul, like spirit, has various
shades of meaning in the O.T., which may be summarized as follows, 'Soul,'
'living being,' 'life,' 'self,' 'person,' 'desire,' 'appetite,' 'emotion' and
'passion'... NEHPHESH OR SOUL CAN ONLY DENOTE THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE WITH A MATERIAL
ORGANIZATION OR BODY." Page 2837. "For the Hebrews a
person was a unity, not to be divided into body, soul, and spirit as the Greeks
did." Page 592.
JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA, "The
belief that the soul continues its existence after the dissolution of the body
is a matter of philosophical or theological speculation rather than of simple
faith, AND IS ACCORDINGLY, NOWHERE TAUGHT IN THE HOLY SCRIPTURE...The belief in
the immortality of the soul came to the Jews from contact with Greek thought
and chiefly through the philosophy of Plato, its principal exponent, who was
led to it through Orphic and Dleusinian mysteries in which Babylonian and
Egyptian views were strangely blended." Article-"Immortality
of the Soul," 1925.
The concept of punishment after
death is not in the Old Testament. The Law given through Moses deals only with
punishment in this life and has no provisions for punishment after death. From
their contact with pagan philosophy, the pagan immortal soul teaching had made
some inroads with some Jews by the time of Christ. Paul warned about this
Philosophy (Colossians 2:8).
C. R. GRESHAM commenting on 1
Corinthians 15:51-52. "Paul is pointing out that the resurrection
truth which he is revealing was partially, if not wholly, hidden to past
generations. We must take this seriously and not read New Testament revelation
back into the Old Testament accountsÉIt is generally conceived that there is
little about resurrection or after-life in what the Jews called the Torah...and
the Former Prophets...Death is seen as the end, the destruction of human
existence," page 25. "Man's soul is primarily his vitality,
his life, not some separate part of a person that has independent existence and
an immortal nature, God's spirit (His breath, His power) creates and sustains
all living things (Ps 33:6; 104:29-30), even the human spirit (Zech
12:1), but never is man's soul or spirit seen as an immortal part of
man surviving death.Ó Page 40. "The widespread misunderstanding that
the New Testament teaches the immortality of the soul...If one recognizes that
death and eternal life in the New Testament are always bound up the
Christ-event, then it becomes clear that for the first Christians the soul is
not intrinsically immortal, but rather became so only through the resurrection
of Jesus Christ," page 275, "What The Bible Says About
Resurrection," The College Press, 1983, (Christian Church).
INTERPRETERÕS DICTIONARY OF THE
BIBLE, ÒNo biblical text authorizes the statement that the soul is separated
from the body at the moment of death.Ó Volume 1, Article ÒDeath,Ó page 802,
1960. ÒThe word ÔsoulÕ in EnglishÉcoming from philosophical Greek (Platonism)ÉIn
the OT it never means the immortal soul, but it is essentially the life
principle, or the living being, or the self as the subject of appetite, and
emotion.Ó Volume 4, Article ÒSoul,Ó 1960.
The belief of Socrates, Plato, and
the Greeks was that when a soul is freed from the person it was in, that freed
soul would live forever without the dead person that it had been imprisoned in.
If, as Plato, the Greeks, etc. taught, that a soul is a separate
being from the person it is in, then it would make it unjust for a soul to be
endlessly tormented for what the dead person had did. It would be like making
Bill be judged and punished for what John did.
This Greek philosophy that says a
soul is imprisoned in the body of a person unto the death of the person was
what some of the Òchurch fathersÓ had been taught and believed, the background
from which they came. Tertullian, one of the first of the Òchurch fathersÓ to
teach this philosophy was truthful about from where he had learned it. He said,
"For some things are known even by nature, the immortality of the soul,
for instance, is held by many...I may use, therefore, the opinion of a Plato,
when he declares, 'Every soul is immortal.'" Ante–Nicene Fathers,
Volume 3, page 1916. By the time of the translation of the King James Version
this heathen doctrine was believed by the Roman Catholic Church and by most
Protestants, but had been changed from PlatoÕs belief that all souls are freed
and go on to a much better place changed to only a few souls go to a better
place, but most souls, after being freed from the persons they were in by the
death of the persons will go to endless torment in Hell; the ÒHellÓ part was
added by the Catholic Church to what was taught by Plato, it was changed from
what was believed by Plato that after the death of the persons all souls that
was trapped in then would be in the same shadowy place unto reincarnated; Hell
had not been invented by the Catholic Church in PlatoÕs time.
Neither ÒnehpheshÓ nor ÒpsucheÓ are
used with the qualifying words aionios, immoral, undying, endless, or
everlasting, but in todayÕs preaching these words are continually added to
Òsoul.Ó
The Egyptians might have been the
first to believe in a dual nature of a person. They believed that death was a
door to a new form of life for a soul, which may be higher or lower life, depending
on how good or bad a person was that a soul had been in. They believed the body
was evil and a prison to a soul. They built the pyramids and other tombs and
put the things in them they thought would be needed by a soul after the death
of the person. The death of the parson was a friend to them that freed a soul
from the evil body it was in; but it was the Greeks (Pythagoras, Socrates,
Plato) who adopted this Egyptian belief of the dual nature of a person and
father developed the philosophy of the immortal soul. Some of the church
fathers were schooled in and believed in this Greek philosophy, and were only
partly converted. They, after greatly expanding on the teaching of Plato,
brought the Greek philosophy into the church, which led to the apostasy in the
Dark Age. Unconditional immortality is the foundation of the doctrine of Hell.
If a person had an unseen immortal soul in them that would not die when the
person died, there had to be a place to put the deathless souls after they were
freed from the evil persons they had been imprisoned in for in the Dark Age it
was no longer believed that souls would be reincarnated into another living
being; therefore, a place for souls to go came into being without a
resurrection or a judgment. The New Testament teaching of the resurrection of
the dead became unneeded and of little or no importance.
In the Greek philosophy a soul never
dies; only the person dies, freeing a deathless soul from the dead person to
live a higher life. Christ taught the resurrection of mankind from their graves,
not the Greek "immaterial, invisible part of man" (W. E.
Vine) that never dies. The Greeks did not believe in or need a resurrection, or
a savior, or a redeemer; these would not fit into their belief. They believed
in an immortal soul; therefore, there could be no death for any soul. The Greek
philosophy of an immortal soul is opposed to the teaching of Christ on the
resurrection. The immortal soul doctrine was believed by most
pagan religions in the time of Paul, and when he was before Agrippa, he
asked, "Why is it considered incredible among you people if God
does raise the dead?" (Acts 26:8). To Plato and Agrippa, the
resurrection of the dead would have been a step backward. It would put a soul
that had been freed from its imprisonment in a person back into the prison it
had been freed from.
1. The Greek and heathen belief that the immortal soul
indestructible demands that a soul cannot die, but must be alive forever
somewhere.
2. The resurrection as taught by Christ demands that a person be
dead, if not, there cannot be a resurrection.
The resurrection is a calling back
to life of the whole person God created, not a calling back to life of a
deathless something that is a difference being than the dead person that it had
been imprisoned in. If the Greek doctrine of an immortal soul that cannot die,
which is believed by many today were true, then the resurrection of Christ and
our resurrection would be pointless even if it were possible to raise a dead
soul that is not dead.
SOCRATES and PLATO --
versus - CHRIST
Immortality ---------
versus - A resurrection to life
Death a friend ------
versus - Death is "the last enemy"
Plato, A soul is immortal| If there is no
resurrection
therefore only
ÒitÓ | death is the end of all
is alive after
death | life 1 Corinthians 15:14-23
Plato, Only the body dies| "Then
they also that are
freeing a soul to higher | fallen
asleep in Christ
life without a
body | have perished" 1
Cor. 15:18
Only some inter something| A person who in
Christ
that is in person
is | will put on immortality,
immortal, not the person |
not something in a person
Souls that were in all | Christ
is "the first
the dead are now alive | born from the dead"
Souls cannot
perish | Souls (psukee) will perish
Souls cannot be destroyed|
in Gehenna Matthew 10:28
Plato's deathless immortal soul and
Christ's resurrection of the dead are not compatible, both cannot be. One can
be true, but not both; they are alien and complete opposite to each other. The
immortal soul doctrine of Plato is a total rejection of the teaching of Christ
on the resurrection of a person to life at the second coming of Christ. To
believe Plato is to reject Christ.
1. Plato taught an immortal, immaterial soul that was better off
after the death of the person it had been imprisoned in.
2. Paul taught there is no life after death without the
resurrection of the dead person.
The two are completely incompatible;
it is difficult to understand why many say they believe the Bible when they
choose pagan Greek philosophy over the Bible.
Paul and Plato
used the same Greek words, but not in the same way. Immortal, immortality,
indestructible, never dying was used by Plato, and are used by many today to
describe a soul that exist after the death of the person it once was in, but in
the Old or New Testament these words are never used referring to any lost
person, or to anything that had been in a person. The expression "immortal
soul" is very common in the writing of the pagan philosophers and by
today's preachers, but is not found in the Bible.
PAUL |PLATO
AND MANY TODAY SAY
Persons can
die |an immortal
soul cannot die
Persons can be
dead |no death for a immortal soul
Persons can be
destroyed |an immortal soul cannot be destroyed
Persons are
corruptible |all souls are now incorruptible
Persons are
mortal |all souls are now immortal
Persons can perish |a
soul cannot ever perish
What Plato and the
Greeks thought about there being a soul in a person, and that soul would exist
with some kind of life after the person it was in had died is not the word of
God; to those that believe the Bible, the Greek immortal soul that has some
kind of life after the death of the person it had been in is not any part of
the Christian faith.
HENRY CONSTABLE,
"In the very terms in which the punishment of the wicked is asserted in
the New Testament. (1) Where the latter says a soul shall die, Plato says
it shall not die. (2) Where the latter says it shall be destroyed, Plato
says it shall not be destroyed. (3) Where the latter says it shall perish
and suffer corruption, Plato says it shall not perish and is incorruptibleÉBut
the discussion of the question was not confined to the school of Plato or to
his times. Every school of philosophy took it up, whether to confirm Plato's
view, or to deny it, or to heap ridicule upon it. All the phrases we have been
discussing from the New Testament had been explained, turned over and over,
handled with all the power of the masters of language, presented in every
phase, so that of their sense there could be no doubt, nor could there be any
one ignorant of their sense before Jesus spoke, or an Evangelist or Apostle
wrote. The subject had not died out before the days of Christ. It never could
and never will die out. In every city of the Roman world were schools of
Grecian taught in the days of the Apostles. In every school the question before
us was discussed in the phrases and language of the New Testament.Ó "Duration
and Nature of Future Punishment," 1871.
CATHOLIC
ENCYCLOPEDIA, "Plato established the basic Western tradition on this
topic by defining the soul as the spiritual part of the human that survived
death." 1991.
OSCR CULLMANN, ÒHe
(Christ) must indeed be the very one who in His death conquers death itself. He
cannot obtain this victory by simply living on as an immortal soul, thus
fundamentally not dying. He can conquer death only by actually dying, by
betaking Himself to the sphere of death, the destroyer of lifeÉWhoever wants to
conquer death must die, he must really cease to live–not simply live on
as an immortal soulÉFor Socrates and PlatoÉthe body is indeed bad and should
not live on. And that part, which is to live on, the soul, does not die at all
Étherefore it is deathÉthat must be conquered by the resurrection Éthe
whole thinking of the New Testament is governed by the belief in the
resurrection. Belief in the immortality of the soul is not belief in a
revolutionary event. Immortality, in fact, is only a negative assertion; the
soul does not die, but simply lives on. Resurrection is a positive assertion,
the whole man, who has really died, is recalled to lifeÉThe Greek doctrine
of immortality and the Christian hope in the resurrection differ so radically
because Greek thought has such an entirely different interpretation of creation.Ó
ÒImmortality Of The Soul Or Resurrection Of The Dead?Ó 1958.
Many believe that in the afterlife
there will be nothing more than a collection of disembodied spirits or souls
that will be just as alive and just the same from the day of birth of the
persons these soul were in as these souls will be after they leave the persons
after their death. Death and the resurrection are out of step with the belief
of Plato and Greek philosophy.
That there is something in a person
and that something being deathless is a philosophy of man that Paul warned
about (Colossians 2:8). An immortal soul was copied from heathen philosophy and
superstition. Those who believe we now have "an immortal soul" get
their belief from Greek philosophy, but are inconstant and self-contradicting;
they say a soul cannot die, but it needs a Savior to save it from Òthe wages
of sin is deathÓ (Romans 6:23). If we were born with an immortal soul, it
would have no need for Christ to save it from the death it cannot die. Christianity
did not destroy the pagan doctrine of Egypt and Greece; in the Dark Age it
adopted it and made it the teaching of the Roman Church.
IF THERE IS
NO RESURRECTION
1. If a soul is
immortal (deathless) then Christ has not been raised, 1 Corinthians 15:13-15.
2. If a soul is
immortal (deathless) we are false witnesses, the dead have not been raised, 1
Corinthians 15:15.
3. If a soul is
immortal (deathless) our faith is vain and we are yet in our sins, 1
Corinthians 15:17.
4. If a soul is
immortal (deathless) and it will live without the person, no Christians will be
raised from the dead, dead persons are dead forever, 1
Corinthians 15:18-19. The immortal soul doctrine leaves the person forever with
no life after their death.
Death is the enemy (1 Corinthians
15:26). It is the destruction of the life given by God. It is not the liberator
of an immortal soul, as Plato believed it to be. It is death that must be
conquered by the resurrection. When we understand that death is really
death, not another kind of life for an immortal living something that has no
substance that is in a person, the resurrection is all-important. Without a
resurrection we can do any thing that we want to do for this life is all there
is (1 Corinthians 15:32). Our only hope is the resurrection, and without it
there will be no life of any kind for us after our death. Plato's immortal,
deathless soul needs no resurrection; DEATHLESS SOULS CANNOT BE RESURRECTED
FROM THE DEAD.
1. "Set
your hope perfectly on the grace that is to be brought unto you at the
revelation of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 1:12). It is at the
resurrection that we "shall receive the crown of glory that fades
not away" (1 Peter 5:4).
2. "Be
patient; therefore, brethren, until the coming of the LordÓ (James
4:7-8). As the farmer is patient unto the harvest to receive his reward, the
believers are to be patient unto the coming of Christ to receive their reward.
3. "It is
sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body" (1
Corinthians 15:43), it is not the natural body that will be raised. "We (persons,
not souls) shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an
eye, at the last trump, for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be
raised incorruptible.Ó Dead persons will be raised from the dead with
a completely new spiritual body, not already living souls that have no bodies
raised from the dead still with no bodies (1 Corinthians 15:52).
4. "Beloved,
now are we children of God, and it is not yet made manifest
what we shall be. We know that, when he shall
be manifested, we shall be like him; for we shall
see him even as he is" (1 John 3:2). Every one knows what kind of
body we now have, but no one knows what we shall be after the resurrection; it
is ÒweÓ (persons) that do not know what ÒweÓ (our bodies) shall be after ÒweÓ are
resurrected; if there were a soul now in a person, that soul would be the same
bodiless being while the person was alive, the same after the person was dead,
the same after the coming of Christ; if there were a deathless soul, how could
a deathless soul that we are told it is thoughts only not know what it now is
and what it shall continue to be after the death of the person it had been in?
Dose it not know what its own thoughts are?
The wrath of God will be "in
the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God" (Romans
2:5), not wrath at death before the Judgment Day, and not eternal wrath after
the Judgment Day is over. On that day, it will be rendered "to them that
by patience in well doing seek for glory and honor and incorruption, eternal
lifeÓ (Romans 2:8), not to souls that now have endless life that are
believed to be in all that will be given endless life. The judgment will be
"in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men" (Romans
2:16), not at death. It is the Judgment Day when "we (not
souls) shall all stand before the judgment-seat of GodÓ (Romans
14:10). It is the day that the Lord will judge all. "Wherefore
judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes who will both bring to
light the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest the counsels of the
hearts" (1 Corinthians 4:5, also, Ephesians 4:30).
1. "And to
wait for his Son from heaven" (1 Thessalonians 1:10). Death
will not take anyone to Heaven without waiting for the Resurrection of the dead
at the second coming of Jesus.
2. When the
Lord shall descend from Heaven, them that have fallen asleep in Jesus, "the
dead in Christ shall rise first; then WE that are
alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in
the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall WE ever
be with the Lord" (1 Thessalonians 4:17). Our hope is to be
raised from our sleep at the coming of Christ, not come back from living in
Heaven, or in Abraham's bosom.
3. Paul says he
will receive a "crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the
righteous judge, shall give to ME at that day; and not to ME only,
but also to all them that have loved his
appearing." (2 Timothy 4:8).
The Bible speaks of Òus,Ó Òwe,Ó and
ÒyouÓ that shall be with the Lord after the Judgment Day, the person will be
resurrected, not a soul that once had been in a person that is dead, not a soul
that has already gone on to be with the Lord, both without the dead person, and
without the resurrection.
The Bible teaching, "The
wages of sin is death" leaves no lost person or souls alive to be
put anywhere after the judgment and second death. The teaching of Christ,
that life (everlasting life or immortality) will be given only to those who
obey Him makes Hell impossible. Unless Christ gives endless life (immortality)
to the lost, they cannot live forever anywhere. The Greek teaching of an
immortal soul must be made to stand, and the teaching of Christ that He will
give life only to those who come to Him must be removed from the Bible, or
there cannot be a Hell.
Socrates drinks hemlock and died
with a smile on his face because he thought he was freeing a soul to leave his
dead body and live with the gods, for a soul that was in him to live free of
being in him. Christ "sweats as it was great drops of blood" (Luke
22:44). Death is the enemy of man; it destroys him by taking life away, and
only the resurrection will free us from death, and it will give us back the
life death takes. In death there is no life any place for anyone before the
resurrection. The resurrection is not deathless souls coming back from Heaven
or Hell to be judged and then going back to Heaven or Hell; the resurrection of
dead persons is our only hope of life after our death. Without the
resurrection "then they also that are fallen asleep in Christ have
perished" (1 Corinthians 15:18). The Greek philosophy that found
its way into the Church in the Dark Age says souls that have left the dead
persons they were in have not perished, but that souls have life without the
need of the resurrection of dead persons; if there were an immortal soul that
is the only thing that cannot perish, then the persons who Òare fallen
asleep in ChristÓ have forever perished; how could Paul have been so
wrong?
ÒFor since by MAN came death, by
a MAN also came the resurrection of the
dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made aliveÓ (1 Corinthians
15:Ó21-22); from Adam to the second coming of Christ all persons die, the same
all persons that die will be resurrected at the coming of Christ. If, as we are
told, a soul is the only thing that will ever be immortal, and that a soul is
already immortal and cannot die, it cannot be Òmade alive.Ó The
pagan deathless soul doctrine makes this passage be nonsense.
1. ÒBy man came deathÉin Adam all dieÓ (1
Corinthians 15:21-22).
2. ÒBy man came the resurrection of the deadÉin Christ all
shall be made aliveÓ (1 Corinthians 15:21-22).
By Adam death came to all
persons; all persons literally die. By Christ the same all persons that
are dead will be Òmade aliveÓ by the resurrection of the dead persons; neither
persons nor souls that are not dead could not be resurrected; the undead cannot
be resurrected from the dead.
As the results of the pagan immortal
soul doctrine there came into existent many other false doctrines, Hellfire,
Purgatory, worship of Mary and saints, etc. The Protestant Reformation was largely
a reaction to medieval superstitious beliefs, and to Purgatory that is a
Catholic intermediate state of temporal punishment where they thought the souls
that were not good enough to go to Heaven, and not bad enough to go to Hell; in
the Church in the Dark Age this was believed to be almost all souls that had
left the dead persons that they had been in. The priests would have the loved
ones pay to have him shorten the time souls were in the Catholic Purgatory.
Selling indulgences and paying to reduce the time deathless souls that had left
the dead loved ones would spend in Purgatory was rejected by the Reformation,
as was many other beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church; but both the Greek dual
nature of a person and the doctrine of Hell that were brought in by the
Catholic Church were both retained in the Protestant Reformation. Calvin
believed that a soul did not sleep, and that a soul goes to Heaven or Hell as
soon as it leaves the person it had been in; therefore, a soul that is not dead
could not be resurrection from the dead.
The Westminster Confession says,
"Souls of the righteous...are received unto the highest heavens...soul of
the wicked are cast into Hell."
Different characteristics of
a person, not different parts of a person that one part can live without any
other part; a person looked at from different points of view.
1. BODY, Flesh and
blood.
2. SOUL, A person
is a living being, the body plus the breath of life is a living being.
3. MIND, If the
intellectual part of a person is his mind, does a ÒsoulÓ as it is used in
today's theology have its own mind? Does a soul have any thoughts that our mind
does not have? If not, according to today's theology, the only thing that will
be in Heaven will have no thoughts.
4. HEART, The most
commonly used characteristic of a person. (Genesis 6:5; Judges; 16:15, 17, 18,
20; Matthew 5:8; Luke 12:34; Romans 10:10; Hebrews 3:10). The heart is used in
the place of the mind for the thing that the mind does, the seat of intellect,
affection, understanding, and will; not the part of the body that pumps blood.
(Matthew 13:15; 15:19; Mark 7:19; Luke 6:45; 9:47; Acts 8:21; 8:37; 28:27;
Romans 10:9; 10:10; 1 Corinthians 2:9; 7:37; Hebrews 3:10; 4:12; 1 John
3:20-21). Has not the things said about the heart been transferred to a soul by
those who believe a soul is an immaterial, immortal being that has no
substance?
The whole person dies, the whole
person is buried, the whole person is resurrected for judgment, and the whole
resurrected person that is in Christ will live with Christ.
(1). The whole person dies and the
whole person is buried.
1. ÒAaron died and there he was buriedÓ (Deuteronomy
10:6).
2. ÒThere they buried Abraham and his wife Sarah, there
they buried IsaacÓ (Genesis 49:31).
3. ÒDavid that he both died and was buried and his tomb is
with us to this dayÓ (Acts 2:29). David died and is still in his
tomb, not just a part of David died.
(2). It is because the whole person
is asleep, because the whole person is actually dead that the whole person must
be resurrected and judged, not just an undead, immaterial, deathless something
that had been in a person unto the death of the person.
1. Stephen Òfell asleepÓ (Acts
7:59).
2. ÒDavid slept with his fathers and was
buriedÓ (1 Kings 2:10).
(3). The whole saved person will be
raised and live with Christ, not PlatoÕs Greek pagan soul that was believed
will never be dead, that it will never be in the tombs or graves, or that it
will never be raised from the dead.
1. ÒALL that are in the TOMBS shall
hear his voice, and shall come forthÓ (John 6:28-29). ÒGravesÓ (plural,
many graves) in King James Version, but we are told by those that believe in
souls that souls are never in Ògraves.Ó
2. ÒAnd I will raise HIM up at
the last dayÓ (John 6:54), will raise ÒHIM,Ó the person, not will raise ÒitÓ from a deathless dead.
ASHLEY S. JOHNSON, founder and
president of the Johnson Bible College, ÒGenerally the word ÔsoulÕ in the
ordinary version should be life.Ó ÒThe Resurrection And The Future Life,Ó page
336, Knoxville, Lithographing Company, 1913.
"MAN BECAME A LIVING
BEING" Genesis 1:26. "Then God said, 'Let Us
make MAN in Our image,'" not, "Let Us make
a soul in Our Image and put this soul in MAN unto the death of
the MAN that We put it in;" it is MAN that
is in the image of God, nothing is said about the image of a soul, nothing
about there being a soul. Genesis 2:7 "Then the Lord formed MAN of
dust from the ground and breathed into HIS nostrils the breath
of life; and MAN became a living being.Ó Not breathed into
the body an immortal, undying, deathless, no substance soul, but breathed into
ÒmanÓ the breath of life, which both
men and animals have. Not a body plus an immortal deathless
soul, but it was the man himself that became "a living
being," not two living beings, not a body being (a person) with
an invisible soul living being that is living in the person. How can the breath
of life in your nose (breathing) be an immortal something that dose not
breathe? The same ÒmanÓ that was created Òin the image
of GodÓ is the same ÒmanÓ that breathes.Ó It
is not an immaterial something in ÒmanÓ that does not breathe that
is in the image of God.
The body of dust plus the breath of
life = a living soul (nehphesh–a living being, either man or animal),
Genesis 2:7. The breath of life without the body would not be a person or
animal; it would not be an immortal living being, not a nehphesh. ALL living creatures, whether
they are animals or sea-dwelling creatures are souls (nehpheshs–living
beings). All life comes from God and all life returns to God. The body plus the
breath of life makes a living being (a nehpheshs), makes a living person or
animal.
DEATH OF
MANKIND–CREATION IN REVERSE
Creation–body made of dust–breath of life from God = a living
person (a nehpheshs) (Genesis 2:7).
Death–breath of life returns to God–body returns to dust =
a dead person (a nehpheshs) (Ecclesiastes 12:7).
Genesis 2:7
1. Body formed of the dust from the ground.
2. Breathed into the nostrils of the body the breath of life.
Psalm 104:29
1. God takes away their breath.
2. They return to the earth.
Psalm 146:29
1. God takes away the breath.
2. He returns to the earth.
God formed MAN, not merely the body of
man; it was MAN that was formed from the dust of the ground.
It is MAN, not an invisible something that was put in
the MAN that is not the MAN, not a deathless
something that has no substance that is in the image of God. After Adam was put
out of the garden he was still in the image of God, mankind is still in the
image of God. If Adam was created innate immortal, then what was the purpose of
the tree of life? If there was an immortal soul that was in Adam and that soul
was created not subject to death, then the tree of life could have had no
purpose; an immortal soul that cannot die would live forever with or without
the tree of life, if it did eat, or did not eat of the tree of life. It was
Adam that could and did die for eating of the forbidden fruit, not a deathless
soul that could not die; an immaterial soul could not eat of the forbidden
fruit, or die for eating of the forbidden fruit, which if there were an
immaterial soul it could not eat material fruit.
Summary - The Bible says, ÒMan BECAME a living soulÓ is
changed to, ÒMan had a soul put in him.Ó There is a world of difference in (1)
a person being a BEING a
soul, (2) and a person HAVING a
soul put in them; it is two difference gospels. Both man and animals ARE a living soul; neither
persons nor animals HAVE a
soul that is living in them. If the breath of life in his nostrils in Genesis
2:7 makes a person have something that is immortal (soul) living in him or her
that cannot die, then "all in whose nostrils was the breath of the
spirit of life" in Genesis 7:22 would also prove all beasts,
birds, and fish have the same immortal something in them that cannot die, but
both persons (nehphesh) and beasts (nehphesh) died in the flood.
GOD IS A
LIVING BEING
Not God has a soul living in
Him
ÒMoreover, I will
make My dwelling among you, and My soul (nehphesh) will not reject youÓ (Leviticus 26:11). ÒI
then will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and heap
your remains on the remains of your idols; for My soul (nehphesh) shall
abhor youÓ (Leviticus 26:30).
I know of no one that believes God has Òan
invisible, no substanceÓ something in Him that can exist apart from Himself.
His soul (nehphesh) is His person, His being–life, not
an immortal soul living in the immortal God, just as a nehphesh (mistranslated
soul) of a person or animal is the life (the living being) of the person or
animal, not an immortal being that is in them.
ANIMALS ARE "SOULS"
Nehphesh–a living
creature–animals are a living being, not animals HAVE souls. They
do not HAVE an immaterial, invisible, and no substance, deathless
something living in them; they ARE a living being. In Genesis 1:20;
1:21; 1:24; 1:30, most translations try to hide this. WHY? Why is the same word
translated "living creature" when used referring to
animals, and the same word is changed to "soul" when used
referring to a person? There is no excuse or defense for it; it is a deliberate
attempt by the translators, who did not believe God's word as it is, to mislead
their readers; all Bible teachers should point this out to all they teach
(James 3:1). If a "living soul" (nehphesh) is a deathless
living something that is in a person, then bugs, all sea creatures, all birds,
and all animals have deathless souls. In Genesis "Living soul" is
used much more of these living beings than it is of man.
Passages in which nehphesh is
speaking of animals being souls-living being, but it is deliberately
hid from the English readers that the word nehphesh–the word that they
mistranslated souls is used.
1. Genesis 1:20, ÒThen God said, Let the
waters swarm with swarms of living souls
(nehpheshs, used referring to animals)Ó
2. Genesis 1:21, ÒAnd God created the great
sea-monsters, and every living soul (nehphesh,
used referring to animals) that moved wherewith the waters
swarmed.Ó
3. Genesis 1:24, ÒAnd God said, Let the
earth bring forth living souls (nehpheshs, used referring
to animals) after their kind, cattle, and creeping things,
and beasts of the earth after their kind.Ó
4. Genesis 2:19, ÒAnd out of the ground the
Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought
them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called
a living creature (nehpheshs, used referring to animals),
that was its name.Ó
5. Genesis 1:30, ÒAnd to every beast of the
earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth
which has life (nehphesh, used referring to animals).
6. Genesis 9:10, "And with ever living
creature (nehpheshs, used referring to animals) that
is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with
you."
7. Genesis 9:12, ÒThis
is the covenant which I am making between Me and you and ever living
creature (nehpheshs, used referring to animals) that
is with you.Ó
8. Genesis 9:15, ÒAnd I will
remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and ever living
creature (nehpheshs, used referring to both man and
animals) of all flesh.Ó
9. Genesis 9:16, ÒWhen the bow is in the
cloud, then I will look upon it, to remember the everlasting covenant between
God and ever living creature (nehpheshs, used referring to
both man and animals) of all flesh that is on the earth.Ó
10. Leviticus 11:10, ÒBut whatever is in the seas and in the
rivers, that do not have fins and scales among all the teeming life of the
water, and among all the living creatures (nehpheshs,
referring to animals) that are in the water, they are
detestable things to you.Ó
11. (Leviticus 11:46, ÒThis is the law regarding the animal, and
the bird, and every living thing (nehpheshs, used referring
to animals) that swarms on the earth.Ó
12. Leviticus 17:11, ÒFor the life (nehphesh,
used referring to an animal) of the flesh is in the blood,
and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls (lives–nehpheshs,
used referring to men); for it is the blood by reason of
the life (nehphesh, used referring to animals) that
makes atonement.Ó The exact same word in the same sentence in the
Hebrew (nehphesh) is translated life two times when
referring to animals and is translated soul only when
it is referring to mankind!
13. Leviticus 22:11, ÒBut if the priest buy any souls (nehpheshs,
used referring to animals that are to be used as food) with
his money, he shall eat of it, and he that is born in his house, they shall eat
of his meatÓ King James Version.
14. Leviticus 24:18, ÒAnd the one who takes the life (nehphesh,
used referring to animals) of an animal shall make it
good, life (nehphesh, used referring to animals) for life (soul–nehphesh,
used referring to animals).Ó ÒAnd he that killest a beast (nehphesh) shall
make it good, beast (soul nehphesh) for beast (soul–nehphesh),Ó
King James Version.
15. Numbers 31:28, "One soul (nehphesh
life, used referring to both man and animals) of five hundred,
of the persons and of the beeves, and of the asses, and of the
sheep."
16. Job 41:1, ÒLeviathan,Ó (nehphesh, used
referring to an animal) is used six times in the Bible, probably a
crocodile (Job 41:21). From over 870 times nehphesh is used, this is the only
time nehphesh is translated breath in the Kings James Version.
After all, they could not have a crocodile, a sea monster, or whatever this
nehphesh was having an "immortal soul" for then they would have to
put itÕs soul in Heaven, Hell, or AbrahamÕs bosom for a soul in an immortal
crocodile could never die, and, according to the theology of many, if there
were a soul in a crocodile it would have to be somewhere for all eternity.
17. Ezekiel 47:9, ÒAnd it
will come about that every living creature (nehpheshs,
used referring to animals) which swarms in every place
where the river goes.Ó
18. Leviticus 17:14, Genesis 9:4 "For the life (nehphesh,
used referring to man and to animals) of every creature is
the blood of it."
19. Deuteronomy 12:23, ÒOnly be sure not to eat the
blood, for the blood is the life (nehphesh,
used referring to animals), and you shall not eat the life (soul–nehphesh,
used referring to animals) with the flesh.Ó
20. Job 12:10, "In whose hand is the life (nehphesh,
used referring to man and to animals) of every living thing, and
the breath of all mankind?"
21. Proverbs 12:10, "A righteous man has regard for
the life (nehphesh, used referring to animals) of
his beast."
22. And many more, but if this does not convict anyone that all living
being are a soul nothing will. Notices how the translators tried to hide this
from their readers.
Many believe, "The
living soul" in Genesis 2:7 is the one distinctive thing that
makes a person different from an animal, but if this makes a person have a
deathless soul in them, there is no way around all living things having
deathless souls in them. In the above twenty-one passages bugs, birds,
fish, persons, are all nehpheshs, all are "living beings," but they
are not a deathless, immaterial something.
ERDMANN DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE,
"Far from referring simply to one aspect of a person, 'soul' refers to the
whole person." Page 1245.
HOLMAN BIBLE DICTIONARY, "A
human being is a totality of being, not a combination of various parts and
impulses. According to the Old Testament understanding, a person is not
a body, which happens to possess a soul. Instead, a person is a living soul...Because
of GodÕs breath of life; the man became 'a living being' (Gen. 2:7). A person
thus is a complete totality, made up of human flesh, spirit (best understood as
"the life-force'), and nephesh (best understood as "the total self'
but often translated as 'soul')." Page 61.
INTERNATIONAL STANDARD BIBLE
ENCYCLOPEDIA, "There is not dualism in the sense of separation, as though
there could be full man either as body alone or as soul alone...together they
make up the one man." Volume 1, page 134.
HASTINGS BIBLE DICTIONARY, ÒSoul is
throughout the great part of the Bible simply the equivalent of ÔlifeÕ embodied
in living creature.Ó
PARKHURSTÕS LEXICON, ÒAs a noun
nephesh has been supposed to signify the spiritual part of man, or what we
commonly call his soul. I must for myself confess that I can find no passages
where it has undoubtedly this meaning.Ó Parkhurst was a highly regarded person
that believed in an immortal soul, but confessed that he was unable to find his
belief in the Old Testament.
T. PIERCE BROWN, "A
consideration of EVERY passage in which these terms are used leads us to the
consideration that the term 'soul' is a term that was applied in the
Bible to every being that normally has sensory capacities (life), whether
or not they have that capacity when the term is used referring to them. For
example, one might see a body of a dead person and say, 'That poor soul is
dead.' The Bible uses the term that way, even as we do, and it has nothing at
all to do with the immorality or mortality of a soul. It simply means that the
PERSON (the one who HAD life–soul–sensory capacity) is dead."
ÒSoul and Spirit" Gospel Advocate, June 14, 1979.
(1). Nehphesh, when
nehphesh is used referring only to animals, it is translated
nine different ways in the King James Version.
1). Creature (nehphesh) Genesis 1:21; 1:24; 2:19;
9:10; 2:12; Leviticus 11:46.
2). Thing (nehphesh) Leviticus
11:10. Ezekiel 47:9.
3). Life (nehphesh) Genesis 1:20; 1:30; Leviticus
17:10-14—2 times.
4). The life (nehphesh) Genesis 9:4; Deuteronomy
12:23; Proverbs 12:10.
5). Beast (nehphesh) Leviticus 24:18.
6). Soul (nehphesh) Job 12:10.
7). Breath (nehphesh) Job 41:21.
8). A fish (nehphesh) Isaiah 19:10.
9). Her (nehphesh) Jeremiah 2:24.
(2). Nehphesh, when it
is used referring to BOTH to animals and to man, it
is translated in three different ways.
1). Creature (nehphesh) Genesis 9:15; 9:16.
2). Life (nehphesh) Leviticus 17:11; 17:14.
3). Soul (nehphesh) Numbers 31:28.
(3). Nehphesh, when it has the
animal appetites and desires of man,
when the material nature of a person is being referred to, nehphesh is
translated in five different ways.
1). Pleasure (nehphesh) Deuteronomy 23:24.
2). Lust (nehphesh) Psalm 78:18.
3). Appetite (nehphesh) Proverbs 23:2;
Ecclesiastes 6:7.
4). Greedy (nehphesh) Isaiah 56:11.
5). Soul (Nehphesh).
Fifteen material–physical
things a "nehphesh-person-soul" does.
1. A
soul (nehphesh) dried away Numbers 11:6.
2. A
soul (nehphesh) can be utterly destroyed Joshua 10:28.
3. A
soul (nehphesh) can be saved from physical danger by fleeing (running
away from danger) Jeremiah 51:6.
4. A
soul (nehphesh) can be kept back from the pit–grave (for
a short time) Job 33:18.
5. A
soul (nehphesh) can be deliver from death Psalm 33:10.
6. A
soul (nehphesh) can longs to eat flesh Deuteronomy
12:20; a soul can be hunger Proverbs 19:15; Proverbs
6:30; a soul can eat Leviticus 7:25.
7. A
soul (nehphesh) can lusts Deuteronomy 12:15;
12:21; 14:26. Lusts after Deuteronomy 12:20.
8. A
soul (nehphesh) can desires Deuteronomy 14:26; 1
Samuel 2:16. Can desired figs Micah 7:1.
9. A
soul (nehphesh) can loathes Deuteronomy
21:5; Proverbs 27:7.
10. A soul (nehphesh) can
abhorred Job 33:20; Psalm 107:18.
11. A soul (nehphesh) can
breaths 1 Kings 20:32.
12. A soul (nehphesh) can be
bought and sold with money Leviticus 22:11; Ezekiel 27:13.
13. A soul (nehphesh) can
touch unclean things and be unclean, can touch bodies of dead persons, dead
beast, creeping thing, Leviticus 5:2.
14. A soul (nehphesh) can
refused to touch Job 6:7.
15. A soul (nehphesh) can be
dead, a dead soul can be touched by living souls, can be touched by living
persons Numbers 19:11.
A SOUL
(PERSON–NEHPHESH) CAN BE HUNGRY
CAN HAVE
AN APPETITE, BE THIRSTY, EAT MEAT
"Men do
not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy himself (nehphesh–living
being) when he is hungry" (Proverbs 6:30). This is an
example of how well the translators hid the fact that this is the same word
that they translated soul in other places when they did not want you to see it.
"I will set my face against
that soul (nehphesh–living being) that eats
blood, and will cut him off from among his people"(Leviticus 17:10).
"And you shall say, I will eat
flesh, because your soul (nehphesh–living
being) desires to eat flesh; you may eat flesh, after all the desire of
your soul (nehphesh–living being)" (Deuteronomy 12:20). An
immaterial something is eating material flesh!
"And it shall be as when a
hungry man dreams and, behold, he eats; but he awakes, and his soul (nehphesh–living
being) is empty; or as when a thirsty man dreams, and behold, he
drinks; but he awakes, and, behold, he is faint, and his soul (nehphesh–living
being) has appetite" (Isaiah 29:8).
SOUL IS THE
LIFE, NOT AN IMMORTAL SOMETHING
ÒYou shall not eat flesh with its life (nehphesh–living
being)Ó (Genesis 9:4).
ÒFor the life (nehphesh–living
being) of the fleshÓ (Leviticus 17:11; 17:14).
ÒThose who seek my life (nehphesh–soul-living
being)Ó (Psalm 38:12).
ÒFor those who sought the ChildÕs life (psukee) are
deadÕ (Matthew 2:20).
There are many more passages that
show that both nehphesh and psukee are the life of the person or animal, that
it is not an immortal something that has itÕs own life and lives after the
person or animal it had been in is dead.
SOULS CAN
DIE, SOULS CAN BE DEAD
SOULS CAN BE
KILLED, SOULS CAN BE MURDERED
If there were a soul and it can
die then it cannot be immortal, although this is often hid in many
translations, the Bible says over 320 times that a nehphesh (soul), (1) that
souls (nehpheshs) can die, (2) that
souls can be killed by man, (3) or that
souls are already dead.
If a soul can die, then whatever
"nehphesh" is translated into is something that can die. If
the many words that "nehphesh" is changed into is something that can
die, then a soul cannot be immortal, and a soul can die. To say that
"nehphesh" is a soul that is immortal and it cannot die makes the
Bible be wrong repeatedly. If a nehphesh is something that is immortal and
cannot die, the writers of the Bible did not know it.
An
immortal soul can die, it can be utterly destroy. NOT ONLY DOES THE
BIBLE NOT SAY A NEHPHESH (SOUL) IS IMMORTAL, IT DENIES IT BY SAYING OFTEN THAT
A NEHPHESH (SOUL) CAN DIE, CAN BE KILLED, OR A NEHPHESH (SOUL) IS ALREADY
DEAD.
1. Souls (nehpheshs) can
die Numbers 23:10, Ezekiel 18:4, 20, Joshua 11:11.
a. They
smote (killed) all the souls (nehphesh)Ó
King James Version.
b. ÒAnd they
struck every person (nehpheshs) who was in it
with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them; there was no one left who
breathedÓ New American Standard Bible.
2. Souls (nehpheshs) can
be murdered. Deuteronomy 12:23; Numbers 35:11-15.
3. Souls (nehpheshs) can
be killed Leviticus 24:17. An immortal soul can be killed? "Kills
any person" (soul-nehphesh) Numbers 35:11; 35:15;
35:30-31.
4. Souls (nehpheshs) can
be smote with the sword and utterly destroyed Joshua 11:11. Can a immortal
soul be killed by a sword?
5. Souls (nehpheshs) can
be slain. Can an immortal soul be slain? Deuteronomy 27:25.
6. Souls (nehpheshs) can
be destroyed. Can an immortal soul be destroyed Leviticus 23:30?
7. Souls (nehpheshs) can
be taken away 1 Kings 19:4.
8. Souls (nehpheshs) can
be sought to be killed Jeremiah 44:30.
9. Souls (nehpheshs) cannot
be kept alive. An immortal soul that cannot die, but it cannot be kept
alive? Psalm 22:29.
10. Souls (nehpheshs) have
blood and can bleed. "The blood of the souls (nehpheshes) of
the poor" Jeremiah 2:34.
A FEW OF THE
MANY PASSAGES
IN THE KING JAMES
VERSION
THAT HID THE
FACT THAT A SOUL CAN AND DOES DIE
OR THAT A
SOUL IS ALREADY DEAD
The same word
(nehphesh) that many times was translated life or person that will die, or is
already dead was changed to an immortal, deathless soul (nehphesh)
that many believe is in a person (nehphesh) unto the personÕs (nehphesh)
death, but they tell us that ÒitÓ (nehphesh) is not the person (nehphesh);
nevertheless, according to the King James Version, that deathless,
immortal soul (nehphesh) will die just as the mortal person (nehphesh) will die, or
that it (nehphesh) is already dead.
(1). ÒLet us not kill himÓ (soul–nehphesh). ÒLet
us not take his lifeÓ (soul–nehphesh)
New American Standard, Genesis 37:21.
(2). "Life (soul–nehphesh) for life (soul–nehphesh).Ó
ÒImmortal soul for immortal soul?" Exodus 21:23.
(3). "Any dead body (soul–nehphesh)"
Leviticus 21:11. Any dead soul? Nehphesh is translated Òdead
bodyÓ thirteen times in the King James Version.
(4). And
he that killeth a beast shall make it good beast (soul-nephesh)
for beast (soul–nehphesh)Ó Leviticus
24:17 King James Version, ÒLife (soul–nehphesh) for life (soul–nehphesh)
(soul for soul?)"
(5). ÒWhosoever
is defiled by the dead (soul–nehphesh)"
Numbers 5:2. Defiled by a dead soul?
(6). ÒHe
shall come at no dead body (soul–nehphesh)"
Numbers 6:6 King James Version. "He shall not go near to
a dead person (soul-nehphesh).Ó
(7). ÒAnd
he that killeth any man (soul–nehphesh) shall
surely be put to death. And he that killeth a beast shall make it good beast (soul-
nehphesh) for beast (soul–nehphesh)Ó (soul
for soul?) Leviticus 24:17-18 King James Version. "And if a
man takes the life (soul–nehphesh) of
any human being.Ó Does anyone believe a person can take the life of an
immortal, immaterial, deathless soul?
(8). "Because
of a dead person (soul–nehphesh)"
Numbers 6:11.
(9). "Defiled
by the dead body of a man (soul–nehphesh)"
Numbers 9:6- 7.
(10). "Unclean
by reason of a dead body (soul–nehphesh)"
Numbers 9:10.
(11). "He
that toucheth the dead body of any man (soul–nehphesh)Ó
Numbers 19:11. ÒWhoever touches a human corpse (soul–nehphesh)"
(New International Version).
(12). ÒWhosoever
toucheth the dead body (soul–nehphesh) of
any man that is deadÓ Numbers 19:13 King James Version. "Anyone
who touches a corpse, the body (soul–nehphesh) of
a man who has died.Ó How could anyone touch the corpse of something
that has no substance and cannot die? By todayÕs definition of soul this says
an immaterial deathless something is dead, and this immaterial something is
touched by a living mortal man. Why did they not translate this ÒsoulÓ? If they
had it would have destroyed their pagan belief.
(13). "Whosoever
has killed any person (soul–nehphesh)"
Numbers 31:19.
(14). ÒWhich
killeth any person (soul–nehphesh)" Numbers
35:11.
(15). "Everyone
that kills any person (soul–nehphesh) " Numbers
35:15.
(16). "Whoso
kills any person (soul–nehphesh)" Numbers
35:30.
(17). ÒAnd
slay him (soul–nehphesh)Ó Deuteronomy 19:6
KJV. ÒAnd take his life (soul–nehphesh)."
(18). "And
strikes him so that he (soul–nehphesh) dies" Deuteronomy
19:11.
(19). "Life (soul–nehphesh) for life (soul–nehphesh), eye
for eye, tooth for toothÓ Deuteronomy 19:21.
(20). "A
man rises against his neighbor and murders him (soul–nehphesh)"
Deuteronomy 22:26.
(21). "Cursed
be he who takes a bride to slay an innocent person (soul–nehphesh)"
Deuteronomy 27:25.
(22). "And deliver our lives (souls–nehpheshs) from
death" Joshua 2:13. Not, ÒSave our immortal, deathless
souls from death.Ó
(23). "Who kills any person (soul–nehphesh)"
Joshua 20:9. Not, ÒWho kills any immortal soul that cannot be killed.Ó
(24). "That kills any person (soul–nehphesh)"
Joshua 20:3.
(25). "Let me (soul–nehphesh) die" Judges
16:30. Not "Let my soul that cannot die, die anyway?"
(26). "And
you lose your life (soul–nehphesh), with
the lives (souls–nehpheshs) of your
household" Judges 18:25.
(27). "If
you do not save your life (soul–nehphesh) tonight" 1
Samuel 19:11.
(28). "The death
of all the persons (souls–nehpheshs) of
your father's house" 1 Samuel 22:22.
(29). "He
that seeks my life (soul–nehphesh) seeks
your life (soul–nehphesh)" 1 Samuel 22:23.
(30). "He
is seeking my life (soul–nehphesh)"
1 Samuel 20:1.
(31). "David
saw that Saul was come out to seek his life (soul–nehphesh)"
1 Samuel 23:15.
(32). "Deliver
him that smote his brother, that we may kill him for the life (soul–nehphesh) of
his brother whom he slew" 2 Samuel 14:7.
(33). "Who
today have saved your life (soul–nehphesh) and
the lives (souls–nehpheshs of your sons and
daughter, the lives (souls–nehpheshs) of
your wives, and the lives (souls–nehpheshs) of
your concubines" 2 Samuel 19:5.
(34). "Have
you asked for the life (soul–nehphesh) of
your enemies" 1 Kings 3:11.
(35). "Prolong
my life (soul–nehphesh)" Job 6:11. Not ÒProlong
the life of an immortal, deathless soul?Ó
(36). "For
himself that he might die, and said, It is enough; now, O
Lord, take my life (soul–nehphesh)" 1 Kings
19:4.
(37). "A
man that dose violence to the blood of any person (soul–nehphesh) shall
flee unto the pit; let no man stay him" Proverbs 28:17. A person
has blood; if there were an immaterial soul it would have no blood.
(38). "Ammon
has sent Ishmael the son of Nethaniah to take your life (soul–nehphesh)...wherefore
should he take your life (soul–nehphesh)"
Jeremiah 40:14-15.
(39). "By
shedding blood and destroying lives (nehpheshs–living
beings)" Ezekiel 22:27.
(40). ÒWhatsoever soul (person–life
–nehphesh) it be that doest any work in the same day, the same soul (person–life–nehphesh) will
I destroyÓ Leviticus 23:30. ÒDestroy" New King
James Version. ÒThat person (nehphesh)Ó American
Standard Bible.
(41). "And they
smote all the souls (persons–nehpheshs) that
were therein with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them; there
were none left that breathed" Joshua 11:11.
(42). "He utterly
destroyed them and all the souls (persons–nehpheshs)
that were therein; he left none remaining" Joshua 10:28.
(43). "And he
smote it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls (persons–nehpheshs) that were therein; he
left none remaining in it" Joshua 10:30.
(44). " And
smote it with he edge of the sword, and all the souls (persons–nehpheshs) that
were therein" Joshua 10:32.
(45). "And all
the souls (persons–nehpheshs) that were
therein he utterly destroyed that day" Joshua
10:35.
(46). "But
he utterly destroyed it, and all the souls (persons-nephesh)
that were thereinÓ Joshua 10:37.
(47). "And he
captured it and its king and all its cities, and they smote them with the edge
of the sword, and utterly destroyed all the souls
(persons–nehpheshs) that were thereinÓ Joshua
10:39. Can immortal souls be utterly destroyed with a sword?
(48). "That
his soul (person–nehphesh) was vexed
to death" Judges 16:16. "Annoyed to death" New
American Standard Version. We say, "He worried me to dead."
(49). ÒYet thou
huntest my soulÓ (life–nehphesh) 1 Samuel
24:11 KJV. "You are lying in wait for my soul (life–nehphesh) to
take it" New KJV, American Standard Version.
(50). "To pursue
you and to seek your soul (life–nehphesh)
1 Samuel 25:29. Sometimes nehphesh was translated Òseek your soul,Ó and
sometimes the same word was translated Òseek your life.Ó See
1-9 below. Did the translators think the Hebrew word nehphesh is a (1) mortal
person that both can and will die, (2) or an immortal soul that cannot die?
1. ÒWhich sought your lifeÓ
(nehphesh) 2 Samuel 4:8.
2. ÒSeeking my lifeÓ (nehphesh)
2 Samuel 16:11.
3. ÒTake away my lifeÓ (nehphesh)
1. Kings 19:10.
4. ÒThey seek my life, (nehphesh) to
take it awayÓ 1 Kings19:14.
5. ÒSeek after my soulÓ (nehphesh)
Psalm 35:4.
6. ÒSeek after my lifeÓ (nehphesh)
Psalm 38:12.
7. ÒSeek after my soulÓ (nehphesh)
Psalm 40:14.
8. ÒLet all those that seek theeÓ
(nehphesh) Psalm 40:16.
9. ÒTo slay theeÓ (nehphesh)
Jeremiah 40:14.
(51). "The blood
of the souls (persons–nehpheshs) of the
innocent poorÓ Jeremiah 2:34. Dose an immaterial, invisible soul that is in
a person have no substance, but it has blood!
(52). "To
slay the souls (persons–nehpheshs) that
should not die and to save the souls (persons–nehpheshs) alive that
should not live" Ezekiel 13:19. If a soul were something that
is immortal and cannot die, this passage is completely nonsense.
(53). ÒHe spared not
their soul (nehphesh–life) from deathÓ Psalms
78:50.
(54). "Like
a roaring lion ravening the prey, they have devoured souls (nehpheshs–living beings)" Ezekiel
22:25.
(56) ÒThe soul (nehphesh–life) of
every living thingÓ King James Version (Job 12:10). ÒIn
whose hand is the life (nehphesh) of every living
thing."
(57). "He did
not spare their soul (nehphesh–living being) from
death, but gave over their life to the plague, and smote all the firstborn in
EgyptÓ Psalm 78:50.
(58). "The soul (person–nehphesh) who
sins will die" Ezekiel 18:4.
(59). Ezekiel 18:20
1. "The SOUL (person–nehphesh) that
sins, IT SHALL DIE" King James Version.
2. "The PERSON (nehphesh) who
sins SHALL DIE" New Revised Standard Version.
3. "The PERSON (nehphesh) who
sins WILL DIE" New American Standard Version, and New
Revised English Bible.
4. ÒIt is the PERSON (nehphesh) who
sins that WILL DIEÓ The Revised English Bible.
5. "The PERSON (nehphesh) who
sins is the one who WILL DIE" New Century
Version, Holman, and Christian Standard Bible.
6. ÒIt is for a MANÕS (nehphesh) own
sins that he WILL DIEÓ The Living Bible.
7. ÒThe PERSON (nehphesh) who
sins will be the one who DIESÓ New Living Translation.
8. ÒOnly THOSE (persons–nehphesh) who
sin will be PUT TO DEATHÓ
Contemporary English Version.
9. ÒOnly THE ONE (person–nehphesh) who
sins SHALL DIEÓ The New American Bible, and Today's
New International Version.
10. ÒThe PERSON (nehphesh) who
sins WILL DIEÓ God Word Translation.
11. ÒPEOPLE (nehphesh) WILL
DIE because of their own sinsÓ New International Reader's
Version.
Ezekiel 18:20 is a person dying
(being put to death) for a sin under the Old Testament Law, but by those who
believe there is a soul that will not die when the person it was in dies this
passage is almost always changed to be referring to something that cannot
die. When this is misapply as it often is, to some immaterial something
that is believed to be in a person, this is an undeniable statement that the
immortal something that they say cannot die will die, that if there were a soul
it would not have everlasting life being endlessly tormented by God. This
is definitely not what the translators wanted, but what they made in their
attempt to make there be a soul that is immortal. If "soul" means
"an immortal something that cannot die," then James 5:20 say,
"Shall save from death an immortal something that cannot die." This
man made theology makes nonsense of the Bible.
The divine sentence, "The
soul that sins, it shall die" has been revised to say, "The
soul that sins, it shall live being eternally tormented by God." Not only
must "die" be changed to "eternal life"
but after making the change, then torment, which is not in Ezekiel 18:20 must
be added to it; changed to Òa soul that sins, it shall live forever being endlessly
tormented by God.Ó To make it teach what many want it to teach, (1) God's word
must be changed, (2) and then added to.
ÒShall dieÓ in Ezekiel
18:4 is in contrast to Òshall surely liveÓ in Ezekiel 18:9. It
is life or death of a living person under the Law that is being spoken of, not
two kinds of life after death; if death is only a separation of soul and body
as many teach, what is the death of a soul; how can a soul that is alive but
separated from God be dead?
In over 320, over one-third of the about
870 times that nehphesh, the Hebrew word that is translated or mistranslated
soul, it is used of souls,
1. Of souls (nehphesh) that are already dead.
2. Of souls (nehphesh) that can die, and can be killed.
3. Of souls (nehphesh) that can be buried.
4. Of souls (nehphesh) that can be sought to be killed.
5. Of souls (nehphesh) that can be murdered.
6. Of souls (nehphesh) that can be delivered from death.
7. Of souls (nehphesh) that can be smote (killed).
8. Of souls (nehphesh) that can be affected.
9. Of souls (nehphesh) that can be cut off.
In most of these passages the
translators of the King James and other translations have hidden from the
readers that the very thing they believe to be immortal and cannot die, they
have hid that it can and does die, or it is already dead. By picking when they
translated nehphesh into soul and picking when to translate
"nehphesh" into "life," "person"
and many other words. Can such hiding have been anything more then a
deliberate deceiving because they wanted to teach PlatoÕs Greek philosophy of a
deathless souls in place of the resurrection of dead persons? But even in the
King James Version there are many passages which says that nehpheshs (souls)
can and do die, or souls are already dead.
Nehphesh (often mistranslated into
the pagan Greek deathless, no substance ÒsoulÓ) is a physical person or animal,
whether the person or animal is living or dead.
SOULS CAN BE
KILLED BY OTHERS
1. "We
feared greatly for our soul (nehphesh–life, living
being) because of youÓ (Joshua 9:24). They
feared for their life, not for a deathless being that was in them being killed.
2. "All
the men who were seeking your soul (nehphesh–life) are
deadÓ (Exodus 4:19).
3. ÒSaul
had come out to seek his life (nehphesh–life,
living being) while David was in the wildernessÓ (1 Samuel
23:15).
4. They had to
flee to save their souls (nehpheshs–lives, living
beings) (2 King 7:7), their lives (nehphesh–living
being) would be utterly destroyed "with the edge of the
sword" or other weapons (Joshua 10:27; 10:30; 10:32; 10:35,
10:37; 10:39).
5. ÒAnd deliver
our lives (nehpheshs–living beings) from deathÓ (Joshua
2:13).
SOULS CAN
DIE FOR LACK OF FOOD
Not only could souls
(nehpheshs–living beings) be killed by their enemies, but souls
(nehpheshs–living beings) could also die for lack of food (Lamentations
1:11; Numbers 11:6).
SOULS CAN
EAT FOOD
Leviticus 7:18; 7:20; 7:25;
7:27; also, Genesis 9:4; 9:5; 12:13; 17:14; 19:17; 19:19; 19:20; 32:30; 32:31;
35:18; 37:21; Exodus 21:23; 30:12; 30:15; 31:14; Leviticus 7:21; 17:11; 17:12;
17:14; 19:8; 21:1; 21:11; 22:3; 24:17; 24:18; Numbers 5:2; 6:6; 9:6; 9:7; 9:10;
9:18; 19:11; 19:13; 19:20; 23:10; 31:19; 35:11; 35:15; 35:30; 35:31;
Deuteronomy 12:23; Joshua 11:11; 20:3; 20:9; Judges 5:28; 12:3; 16:16; 18:25;
Ruth 4:15; 1 Samuel 1:19; 1:20; 1:23; 23:15; 23:20; 25:29; 28:9; 28:21; 2 Samuel
4:8; 14:7; 16:11; 19:5; 19:6; 1 Kings 1:12; 1:29; 3:11; 17:21; 17:22; 19:10;
19:14; 20:32; 2 Kings 1:13; 19:24; 1 Chronicles 11:19; 2 Chronicles 11:11;
Esther 7:7; Job 13:14; 30:16; 33:18; 33:22; 36:14; Psalm 7:2; 17:13; 22:20;
22:21; 22:29; 22:30; 31:13; 33:19; 35:4; 35:17; 38:12; 38:13; 70:2; 70:3;
71:10; Proverbs 1:19; 7:23; 12:10; 13:3; 23:14; Isaiah 10:18; 43:4; Jeremiah
2:34; 4:30; 34:20-21; 38:2; 38:16; 39:18; 40:15; 44:30; 45:5; 49:37; Ezekiel
17:17; 18:4; 18:20; 18:27; 22:25; 22:27; Jonah 4:3; 4:6.
Summary - The "nehphesh
(soul in King James Version)" of the Old Testament is an earthly being,
man, animal, or sea creature; nehphesh can be either living or dead persons or
animals. The nehphesh can die, it can be dead, and it can be killed.
According
to the King James Version
1.
Souls can be sought to kill
11. Souls can drink water
2. Souls can be smote
12. Souls can desire
3.
Souls can die from a lack of food or water
13. Souls can be discontented
4.
Souls can be cut off
14. Souls can be grieved
5.
Souls can be murdered
15. Souls can be bound with a bond
6.
Souls can be delivered from death
16. Souls can be affected
7.
Souls can be born
17. Souls loathes
8.
Souls can live
18. Souls can lust
9.
Souls can sorrow
19. Souls can have anguish
10.
Souls can eat
20. etc.
Not one of the about 870 times that
nehphesh is used it does not have reference to an invisible, immaterial
something in a person that has no substance and cannot die. Nehphesh
in the Old Testament and psukee in the New Testament are together used about
967 times with over one-third being associated with the death of a soul (person
or animal). Some (nehpheshs–souls) are dead. Some souls are
dying. Some souls are in fear of death. Some souls have persons that are trying
to kill them. Some souls are saved from death, etc. On the other hand,
in the 976 times soul is used, not one time is a soul (nehphesh) said to be
deathless or immortal.
In about thirty-two passages souls (nehpheshs) are
spoken of as being killed by man ÒAnd he that kills any man (nehphesh) shall
surely be put to death. And he that kills a beast (nehphesh) shall
make it good; beast (nehphesh) for beast (nehphesh)Ó
Leviticus 24:17-18. In this passage hehphesh is used four times in the Hebrew,
but because of the bias of the translators not one time is it translated soul
in the King James Version. They translated nehphesh into both man and beast to
deliberately hide from their readers that animals are souls (nehpheshs) just
the same as men, to hide that both are living beings that can and do
die, (see Joshua 10:28; 10:30; 10:32; 10:35; 10:37; 10:39; Deuteronomy
27:25; Leviticus 24:17-18).
THE WAY THE
FOUR TIMES NEHPHESH
IS
TRANSLATED IN LEVITICUS 24:17-18
As it is in the Hebrew
ÒAnd he that kills any NEHPHESH shall surely be
put to death. And he that kills a NEHPHESH shall
make it good; NEHPHESH for NEHPHESH.Ó
As nehphesh is translated in the King James Version
ÒAnd he that kills any MAN shall
surely be put to death. And he that kills a BEAST shall
make it good; BEAST for BEAST.Ó
As nehphesh is translated in the New American Standard Bible
ÒAnd if a man takes the LIFE (nehphesh) of
any human being, he shall surely be put to death. And the one who takes
the LIFE (nehphesh) of an animal shall make it
good, LIFE (nehphesh) for LIFE (nehphesh).Ó
As nehphesh is translated the New International Version, 2011
update.
ÒAnyone who takes the LIFE of a human being is to
be put to death. Anyone who takes the LIFE of someoneÕs animal
must make restitution—LIFE for LIFE.Ó
In about thirteen passages
souls (nehpheshs) of men are said to be actually dead (see
Numbers 6:6; Leviticus 21:11). In many of these passages, the King James
Version and others translated nehphesh as life or body; and they made it so
that the English reader cannot see that animals are ÒsoulsÓ (are
living beings), and that man kills ÒsoulsÓ of both men and animals, and
sometimes ÒsoulsÓ are actually dead. Under the Law anyone that touched a
dead body (a dead nehphesh) was unclean. ÒDead bodyÓ (nehphesh) Leviticus
21:11, and Numbers
6:6. Corpses are dead souls, and anyone (any living souls-persons) who came in
contact with a dead soul (corpses, dead body) was unclean.
This clearly shows that the meaning
of the Hebrew word nehphesh is (1) something that is not immortal; (2) that it
is something that it can die: (3) or that it can be already dead; (4) that it
is something that it can be touched when it is dead. There is no other
word in the Bible that could be translated into Plato's immortal soul;
therefore, the translators had to use this word and hide, the best they could,
the fact that a nehphesh can and does die.
Of the hundreds of times Nehphesh is
used in the Old Testament only five are used in the same passage as sheol.
Of these five in the Kings James Version sheol is translated Hell
three times (Psalm 16:10; 86:13; Proverbs 23:14). The other two they had to
translate it grave (Psalm 30:3; 89:48). Did they think ÒHellÓ and ÒgraveÓ are the
same thing?
In most translations nehphesh is
sometimes translated to be immortal, sometime as mortal, often in the same
passages. How could it be known when the same word even it is in the same
passage when it is something that is mortal and when it is something that is
immortal? The only answer is that the translators were trying to put the Greek immortal
soul that Plato believed in into the Bible by mistranslating when they could,
but many times found nehphesh would not make sense if they had translated it
(changed it) into something immortal and deathless.
==================================================
The Companion Bible, Appendix 13 says nehphesh (life–soul)
is used
1. Of the lower
animals (nehpheshs–souls) in 22 passages.
2. Of the lower
animals and man (nehpheshs–souls) in 7 passages.
3. Of man
(nehphesh–soul) as an individual person in 53 passages.
4. Of man
(nehphesh–soul) as exercising certain powers or performing certain acts
in 96 passages.
5. Of man
(nehphesh–soul) as possessing animal appetites and desires in 92
passages.
6. Of man
(nehphesh–soul) as exercising mental faculties and manifesting certain
feelings, affection and passions in 231 passages.
7. Of man
(nehphesh–soul) being cut off by God and as being killed or slain by man
in 54 passages.
8. Of man
(nehphesh–soul) as being mortal, subject to death of various kinds, from
which it can be saved and delivered and life prolonged in 243 passages.
9. Of man
(nehphesh–soul) as actually dead in 13 passages.
====================================================
Just one of the many examples of the
absurdity of the translations of nehphesh in the King James Version with the
meaning of "soul" as it is used today, an invisible something that is
in a person that no one has ever seen this immortal something that cannot be
seen. "For mine enemies speak against me; and they that lay wait
for my soul (nehphesh) take counsel
together" (Psalm 71:10). How could anyone lay in wait (ambush)
for an undying invisible something that is now in a person that no one can see;
how could anyone kill something that cannot die even if they could see it?
"Deliver my soul" (nehphesh)
Psalm 17:13 in today's English it would be "Save my life" (nehphesh).
1. "They
also that seek after my life" (soul–nehphesh)
Psalm 38:12. ÒThat seeks after
my soul" (nehphesh) Psalm 40:14. Both soul and life
are from the same word (nehphesh). Why were the translators so inconsistent;
life and soul, according to the theology they believed, are two completely
different things, yet they translated both from the same Hebrew word many
times.
2. "They
smote all the souls (nehpheshs)" Joshua
11:11 in today's English it would be, "They killed all the
people." "Whosoever kills any personÓ (soul–nehphesh) Joshua 20:9. Again, both soul and
person are translated from the same Hebrew word; they could smite (kill) all
the persons, but to smite (kill) all the deathless souls would be completely
impossible, but the King James Version says they did the impossible.
3. "They
that lay wait for my soul" (nehphesh) in today's
English it would be, "They that are waiting in ambush for my life"
Psalm 70:10.
Many more times "soul" (nehphesh)
would only make sense if translated "life." To apply
today's meaning, "An undying invisible something that is now in a
person" makes many passages be total nonsense. Today's meaning of "soul" is
very different from the meaning of nehphesh in Biblical times, which
makes "soul" be a mistranslation every time they
changed nehphesh to soul. When anyone reads the Bible, and reads "soul," and
knows only what the word "soul" means today, they
cannot understand what God said. Many English translations use "soul" and "person" interchangeable.
The Revised Standard used "person" frequently where
the King James used "soul." The problem is that most
English readers would not know that when the translators said a "person" died,
that the translators are hiding the fact that in many places ÒpersonÓ (nehphesh)
that cannot keep from dying is the same word that they translated Òsoul,Ó
something that they believed cannot die. Why did some translators do this? Was
it because they believed an immortal "soul" cannot
die, but a person cannot keep from dying? If a ÒsoulÓ (nehphesh) dies, it would
not be immortal; therefore, they were forced to use ÒpersonÓ or "life" in many places to hide
the fact from you that a nehphesh both can die and dose die. The truth is that
they were trying to put "soul" with today's meaning in the Bible
despite the fact that it is not there. If they had been consistent in
translating, they would not have been able to add the doctrine of an undying
soul in the Bible.
"The Lord of hosts has sworn by Himself (soul–nehphesh)"
(Jeremiah 51:14). By His own being or person. God "could swear by
no one greater, He swore by Himself (psukee–soul)" (Hebrews
6:13). Not even the King James translators wanted God to have an invisible
something in Him that would live after He was dead. God's nehphesh and man's
nehphesh are their being, person, not an invisible something that is not a
person and is not God.
All the Old Testament words, which
are translated life, spirit, breath, or soul, are all used referring to both
persons and animals. Every word that is used to prove a person has an immortal
soul or an immortal spirit would also prove all breathing creatures have an
immortal soul or an immortal spirit if they proved a person does.
(1) NEHPHESH
NEHPHESH-SOUL–LIFE–LIVING
BEING is used to describe all living beings.
1. Animal,
birds, reptiles, and insects have this same nehphesh
(soul–life) that a person has. Sea creatures, birds (Genesis 1:20), every
living creature that moves in water or on land are living souls (Genesis 1:21).
Every beast, bird, and insect are a nehphesh, are a living being.
2. "Man became
a living being" Genesis 2:7. See Genesis 2:19; 9:4; 9:10;
9:12; 9:15-16.
(2) NSHAHMAH–BREATH
NSHAHMAH is used 24
times in the Old Testament. Not one of the 24 says anything about
anything that is immortal.
Nshahmah as it is translated
in the New International Version.
1. Genesis
2:7, ÒBreathed into his nostrils the breath (nshahmah) of
life.Ó
2. Genesis 7:22, ÒEverything
on dry land that had the breath of life (nshahmah) in
its nostrils died.Ó
3.
Deuteronomy 20:16, ÒDo not leave alive anything that breathes (nshahmah).Ó
4. Joshua
10:40, ÒHe totally destroyed all who breathed (nshahmah).Ó
5. Joshua
11:11, ÒThey totally destroyed them, not sparing anything that breathed (nshahmah).Ó
6. Joshua 11:14, ÒBut all the people
they put to the sword until they completely destroyed them, not sparing anyone
that breathed (nshahmah).Ó
7. 2
Samuel 22:16, ÒAt the blast of breath (nshahmah) from
his nostrils.Ó
8. 1
Kings 15:29 ÒHe did not leave Jeroboam anyone that breathed (nshahmah), but destroyed them all.Ó
9. 1
Kings 17:17, ÒHe grew worse and worse, and finally stopped breathing (nshahmah).Ó
10.
Job 4:9, (Hebrew dualism in Job–the same thing said in two different
ways).
ÒAt the breath (ruach) of
God they are destroyed:
At the blast (nshahmah) of
his anger they perish.Ó
11. Job 26:4
ÒWho has helped you utter these
words?
And whose spirit (nshahmah) spoke
from your mouth?Ó
12. Job
27:3
ÒAs long as I have life (ruach) within
me,
The breath (nshahmah)
of God in my nostrils.Ó
13. Job
32:8
ÒBut it is the spirit (ruach) in
a man,
The breath (nshahmah) of
the Almighty.Ó
14. Job
33:4
ÒThe Spirit (ruach) of
God made me;
The breath (nshahmah)
of the Almighty gives me life.Ó
15. Job
34:14-15 ÒIf it was his intention and he withdrew his spirit (ruach) and breathÓ (nshahmah).
ÒAll mankind would perish together,
And man would return to the dust.Ó
16. Job
37:10
ÒThe tempest comes out from its
chamber, the cold from the driving winds.
The breath (nshahmah) of
God produces ice, and the broad waters become frozen.Ó
17. Psalm
18:15, ÒO Lord, at the blast (nshahmah) of
breath from your nostrils.Ó
18. Psalm
150:6, ÒLet everything that has breath (nshahmah)
praise the Lord.Ó
19. Proverbs
20:27, ÒThe lamp of the Lord searches the spirit (nshahmah) of
a man; it searches out his inmost being.Ó
20. Isaiah
2:22, ÒStop trusting in man, who has but a breath (nshahmah) in
his nostrils.Ó
21. Isaiah
30:33, ÒThe breath (nshahmah) of the Lord,
like a stream of burning sulfur, sets it ablaze.Ó
22. Isaiah
42:5, ÒWho gives breath (nshahmah) to its
people, and life to those who walk on it.Ó
23. Isaiah
57:16, ÒThe breath (nshahmah) of man that
I have created.Ó ÒSpirit of
manÓ in King James Version.
24.
Daniel 10:17, ÒMy strength is gone and I can hardly breathe (nshahmah).Ó
Of the twenty-four times nshahmah is in the Hebrew, it is
translated soul only one time in the King James Version, (Isaiah 57:16); none
in New American Standard Version, New International Version, many others.
Nahahmah is the breath of life that comes from God in both mankind and animals;
it is not an immortal soul.
Nshahmah is also used to describe
all living being/breath of life; all living things that breathes (Used
24 times in the Hebrew Old Testament).
(1) Nshahmah used to
describe man, "Breathed into his nostrils the BREATH of
life" Genesis 2:7; 1 Kings 17:17; Job 27:3.
(2) Nshahmah used to
describe man and animals; both man and animals have the same nshahmah
(breath of life–spirit).
1."All in whose nostrils was the
BREATH (nshahmah) of the spirit of life, of all that was on
the dry land, died" Genesis 7:22. All living being, man, and
animals died.
2. "But of the cities of these
peoples, that Jehovah your God gives you for an inheritance, you shall save
alive nothing that BREATHS (nshahmah)" Deuteronomy 20:16.
All living being, both man and animals that breathed.
3. "So Joshua smote all the land,
the hill-country, and the South, and the lowland, and the slopes, and
all their kings, he left none remaining, but he utterly destroyed all that
BREATHED (nshahmah)" Joshua 10:40. All living being, both man and
animals that had life, that breathed (nshahmah) were killed.
4. "And they smote all the
souls (nehpheshs) that were therein with the edge of the
sword, utterly destroying them; there were none left that BREATHED (nshahmah)"
Joshua 11:11. All living being, both man and animals that breathed were killed.
5. Also Joshua 11:14; 1 Kings 15:29; Job 34:14;
Psalm 150:6.
(3) Ruach
Ruach–spirit–breath, is used of,
1. God (Exodus
15:8; 2 Samuel 22:16; Isaiah 4:4)
2. Spirit of
the Lord (Zephaniah 4:6)
3. Heavenly
being (Psalm 104:4)
4. All flesh,
birds, cattle, beasts, and every creeping thing–all
have the same spirit (ruach - breath) as man (Genesis 7:22)
5. Man and
beasts, "I am bringing the flood of water upon the
earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the BREATH (ruach) of
life, from under heaven; everything that is on the earth shall
perish" (Genesis 6:17). Also Ecclesiastes 3:19
6. Man (Ecclesiastes
12:5-7; Psalm 104:29) See Genesis 6:17; 7:15; 54:27; Job 4:9. It is not
unto the sixth chapter of Genesis that ÒruachÓ is first used referring to
mankind (Genesis 6:17), and then is translated Òbreath of life.Ó When
the ruach (breath of life) leaves the body of both man and beasts, both are
dead, (Psalm 104:29-30).
Both ruach and nshahmah have very near if not the same
meaning.
ÒAll in whose nostrils was the breath (nshahmah) of
the spirit of life, diedÓ (Genesis 7:22)
"To destroy all flesh in which
is the breath (ruach) of life" (Genesis
6:17).
Both ruach and nshahmah are used in Hebrew dualism in Job
three times as two ways of saying the same thing (Job 4:9; 27:3; 32:8).
1. Job 4:9
a. ÒBy the breath (ruach) of God
they perish,
b. And by the blast (nshahmah) of
His anger they come to an endÓ
2. Job 27:3
a. ÒAll the while my breath (nshahmah) is
in me,
b. And the spirit (ruach) of
God is in my nostrils.Ó
3. Job 32:8
a. ÒBut it is a spirit (ruach) in
man,
b. And the breath (nshahmah) of
the Almighty gives them understanding.Ó
The above is an example of the many
times ruach and nshahmah seem to be used interchangeable; they are both the
breath, both are the life of a living being, life of both man and beast.
Nshahmah is limited to the air or breath of the mouth of any breathing being;
ruach also means any breathing being, but has a much broader use in that it is
also used of wind and any air movement. Neither the breath (nshahmah) of
a person, or the breath (ruach) of a person is not an immortal entity added to
the person that has life in itself apart from the life of the person any more
then the breath (nshahmah) of God, or the breath (ruach) of God is not
an entity that has life in itself apart from God.
RUACH IS TRANSLATED SIXTEEN
DIFFERENT WAYS IN THE KING JAMES VERSION. Of about 389 times
ruach is used in the Old Testament it is translated wind about 90 times, breath
28 times, blast 4 times, air, windy, tempest, whirlwind, and tempest. Both
ruach and nshahmah are basically translated with the same words, both have
something to do with the breath or air without which there would be no life; in
Genesis 2:7 it was when God breathed into AdamÕs nostrils the breath of life
(nshahmah) that Adam became a living being. Nshahmah is clearly the breath
that give life to Adam, not another living being that was put in Adam.
There is no suggestion in any one of
the many times ruach is used referring both to mankind and to animals that ruach
is an immaterial, immortal something that has itÕs own life and will live after
the death of the person or animal that it had been in.
(1) Ruach translated BREATH of man and
beast (ruach–spirit).
1. ÒAll in whose nostrils was the BREATH (ruach) of lifeÓ (Genesis
6:17; 7:15).
2. "By the BREATH (ruach) of his
mouth" (Genesis 6:17; Psalm 104:29; Job 15:30).
3. "By the BREATH (ruach) of his
mouth" (Job 15:30).
4. "All in whose nostrils was the BREATH (ruach) of
life" (Genesis 7:22).
5. "To destroy all flesh in
which is the BREATH (ruach) of lifeÓ (Genesis 6:17).
6. "So they went into the ark to Noah, by twos
of all flesh in which was the BREATH (ruach) of life" (Genesis 7:15).
7. "No BREATH (ruach) in
them" (Jeremiah 10:14). Why not, "No SPIRIT (ruach) in
them" or "Takes away their SPIRIT (ruach)" (Psalm
104:29)? How did the translators know when the same word was wind, breath,
spirit, blast, air, mind, courage, cool, or anger? In English the meaning of
some of these words are not even close to being the same; how are those who
read their translation to know that these are all translated from the same word
in the Hebrew? Idols are described as not having breath (ruach)
(Habakkuk 2:19) which means idols have no life just as a person without breath
(ruach) has no life.
8. "Every goldsmith...his molten images are
deceitful, and there is no BRATH (ruach) in them" (Jeremiah 51:17).
9. "Takes away their BREATH (ruach), they
expire, and return to their dust" (Psalm 104:29).
10. ÒThere is no advantage for man over beastÓ (Ecclesiastes 3:19).
(2) Ruach translated WIND (ruach)
1. "God made a WIND (ruach) to pass
over" (Genesis 8:1).
2. "Like the chaff, which the WIND (ruach) drives" (Psalm
1:4).
3. "You did blow with your WIND (ruach)" (Exodus
15:10).
4. "Clouds and WIND (ruach) without
rain" (Proverbs 25:14).
5. "My escape from the WINDY (ruach) storm" (Psalm
55:8).
6. "A destroying WIND (ruach)" (Jeremiah
51:1).
7. "A strong WIND (ruach)" (Job 8:2).
8. "You shall scatter in the WIND (ruach)" (Ezekiel
5:2).
9. "An east WIND (ruach)" (Exodus 10:13).
10. "A mighty strong west WIND (ruach)" (Exodus 10:19).
11. Also Psalm 1:4 and Exodus 15:10.
(3) Ruach translated BLAST. ÒAnd at the BLAST (ruach)" of
Thy (GodÕs) nostrils (a
blast of air) the waters were piled upÓ (Exodus
15:8). Also 2 Samuel 22:6.
(4) Ruach translated WINDY ÒMy escape
from the WINDY (ruach) stormÓ (Psalm 55:8).
(5) Ruach translated WHIRLWIND ÒA WHIRLWIND (ruach) came
out of the north" (Ezekiel 1:4).
(6) Ruach translated TEMPEST ÒAn horrible
TEMPEST (ruach)" (Psalm 11:6).
(7) Ruach translated AIR "That no AIR (ruach) can
come between them" (Job 41:16; 41:8).
(8) Ruach translated MIND "A grief of MIND (ruach)Ó (Genesis
26:35; Proverbs 29:11).
(9) Ruach translated COURAGE "Neither did
there remain any more COURAGE (ruach) in them" (Joshua
5:1).
(10) Ruach translated COOL "Walking in the garden
in the COOL (ruach) of the day" (Genesis 3:8).
(11) Ruach translated ANGER "Their ANGER (ruach) was
abated" (Judges 8:3).
(12) Ruach translated SIDE (Jeremiah 52:23; Ezekiel
42:16; 42:17; 42:18; 42:19; Òside windÓ in footnote).
(13) Ruach translated QUARTERS (ruach) (1
Chronicles 9:24).
(14) Ruach translated SPIRITUAL (ruach) (Hosea 9:7).
(15) Ruach translated VAIN (ruach) (Job
15:2; 16:3).
(16) Ruach translated SPIRIT (ruach) (Job
27:3).
An example of how other translations
differ on the sixteen different ways (above) ruach is translated in the King
James Version.
| King |New |
New Revised | The |
| James |International|
Standard | Living |
| Version |Version |
Version | Bible |
1 Genesis
6:17 | breath |
breath | breath |
breath |
2 Genesis
8:1 | wind |
wind |
wind |
wind |
3 Psalm
55:8 | windy |
tempest | raging wind |
storm |
4 Ezekiel
1:4 | whirlwind | windstorm | stormy
wind | storm |
5 Psalm 11:6 |
tempest |
wind |
wind |
wind |
6 2 Samuel 22:16 |
blast |
blast |
blast |
blast |
7 Job
41:16 |
air |
air |
air |
air |
8 Genesis
26:35 | mind |
grief | better life |
bitter |
9 Joshua
5:1 | courage |
courage | spirit |
courage |
10 Genesis
3:8 | cool |
cool |
cool | |
11 Judge
8:3 | anger |
resentment | anger |calmed
down|
12 Jeremiah 52:23|
side |
side |
side |
side |
13 1 Chron. 9:24 |
quarters | side |
side |
side |
14 Hosea
9:7 | spiritual |
inspired | spirit |
inspired |
15 Job
15:2 |
vain |
winded |
windy | windbag |
16 Job
27:3 | spirit |
east wind | breath |
breath |
Why was the same word
translated ÒBy the BREATH (ruach) of his
mouthÓ (Job 15:30), and then translated ÒAnd the SPIRIT (ruach) of
God in my nostrilsÓ (Job 27:3)? Many of the sixteen different ways
ruach is translated have nothing in common; the sixteen different translations
of the same word by the King James Version are not even close to being the
same; yet they are the same word in the Hebrew. There is no way that ruach
could have sixteen total different meaning.
Were they saying God has an
Òimmaterial invisibleÓ (E. W. Vine) something in Him that can exist after His
death, as we are told that mankind has? There is no possible way that the
translators could have known.
1. When (ruach) was breath of any
mortal being.
2. Or known when the same word
should be changed to be an immortal, deathless something that does not breathe
air.
The two meaning are nothing
alike. ÒYou take away their breath
(ruach), they die, and return to their dust. You send
forth your spirit (ruach – breath), they are created,
and you renew the face of the earthÓ (Psalm 104:29-30).
1. When God take away ruach (breath)
they die.
2. When God sends ruach (breath),
they live.
The spirit as it is used today
cannot die; therefore, this word (ruach) could not be translated spirit, but
when the earth is renewed by new life, the translators changed this new life
from breath to spirit (ruach).
(1). AMPLIFIED BIBLE, ÒWhen You hide Your face,
they are troubled and dismayed; when You take away their breath (ruach),
they die and return to their dust. When You send forth Your Spirit and
give them breath (ruach), they are created,
and You replenish the face of the groundÓ (Psalm 104:29-30).
(2). COMMON ENGLISH BIBLE, ÒBut when you hide your face,
they are terrified; when you take away their breath (ruach),
they die and return to dust. When you let loose your breath (ruach),
they are created, and you make the surface of the ground brand-new againÓ (Psalm
104:29-30).
(3), NEW CENTURY VERSION, ÒWhen you turn away from them,
they become frightened. When you take away their breath (ruach),
they die and turn to dust. When you breathe (ruach) on
them, they are created, and you make the land new againÓ (Psalm
104:29-30).
(4). HOLMAN CHRISTIAN STANDARD BIBLE, ÒWhen You hide
Your face, they are terrified; when You take away their breath (ruach),
they die and return to the dust. When You send Your breath (ruach),
they are created, and You renew the face of the earthÓ (Psalm
104:29-30).
Does the number of times ÒruachÓ is
translated ÒspiritÓ in the difference translations show the scholars that
translated them were easing away from the King James Version?
ÒSpiritÓ 236
times in King James Version
ÒSpiritÓ 221
times in New American Standard Bible
ÒSpiritÓ 193
times in New International Version
ÒSpiritÓ 167
times in New Living Translation
ÒSpiritÓ 131
times in The Message
ÒSpiritÓ
79 times in Contemporary English Version
1. ÒAnd the SPIRIT (ruach) of
God in my nostrilsÓ (Job 27:3)
2. "SPIRIT (ruach) of
God" (Genesis 1:2)
3. "And the SPIRIT (ruach) shall
return unto GodÓ (Ecclesiastes 12:7)
4. "And the SPIRIT (ruach) of
the beast that goes downwardÓ (Ecclesiastes 3:21)
SPIRIT (ruach) in passages that
has reference to attitude, behavior, thinking, disposition, mood, or
temperament. As ÒA happy disposition,Ó Ògood attitudeÓ or Òbad mood.Ó None
of these passages are speaking of an immortal, no substance something that has
it own life that it will live after the person it had been in is dead; the
teaching of the Greeks and of Plato says a soul will live without a
resurrection freed from the dead person it had been trapped in.
1. "A lying
SPIRIT (ruach)" (1 Kings 22:23)
2. "The SPIRIT (ruach) of
jealousy came" (Genesis 1:2; 41:8, Numbers 5:14; 5:30)
3. ÒThe SPIRIT (ruach) of
heavinessÓ (Isaiah 61:3)
4. "Because
he had another SPIRIT (ruach)" (Numbers 14:24)
5. "The
SPIRIT (ruach) entered into me" (Ezekiel 2:2;
3:24)
6. ÒNeither was there
SPIRIT (ruach) in themÓ (Joshua 5:1). No soul in
them?
7. "And a
new SPIRIT (ruach) will I put within you" (Ezekiel
36:26). A new soul put in them?
8. "God
hardened his SPIRIT (ruach)" (Deuteronomy 2:30)
9. "Anguish
of SPIRIT (ruach)" (Exodus 6:9)
10. "SPIRIT (ruach) of
wisdom" (Exodus 28:3)
11. "Joshua...was filled with
the SPIRIT (ruach) of wisdomÓ (Deuteronomy 34:9)
12. "Sorrowful SPIRIT (ruach)"
(2 Samuel 1:15)
13. "Why is your SPIRIT (ruach) so
sad" (1 Kings 21:5)
14. "SPIRIT (ruach) was
troubled" (Genesis 41:8)
15. "The sacrifices of God
are a broken SPIRIT (ruach)" (Psalm 51:7)
16. "Hasty of SPIRIT (ruach)"
(Proverbs 14.29)
17. ÒBy sorrow of the heart the
SPIRIT (ruach) is brokenÓ (Proverbs 15:13)
18. "An haughty SPIRIT (ruach)"
(Proverbs 16:18)
19. "An humble SPIRIT (Proverbs
16:19)
W. E. Vine, ÒVineÕs Complete
Expository Dictionary,Ó pages 240–241 gives nine ways spirit–ruach
is used in the Old Testament.
1. First:
this word means Òbreath.Ó
2. Second: this
word can be used with emphasis on the invisible, intangible, fleeting quality
of air.
3. Third: ruach can
mean, Òwind.Ó
4. Fourth: the wind
represents direction.
5. Fifth: ruach
frequently represents the element of life in a man, his natural ÒspiritÓ,
ÒAnd all flesh died that moved upon the earthÉAll in whose nostrils was
the breath of life.Ó (Gen. 7:21–22). In these verses the animals
have ÒspiritÓ (cf. Ps. 104:29).
6. Sixth: ruach is
often used of
1. A manÕs mind–set,
disposition, or ÒtemperÓ, ÒÕBlessed is the man unto whom the
Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit (ruach) there
is no guileÕ (Ps. 32:2). In Ezek. 13:3 the word is used of oneÕs mind
or thinking, ÔWoe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit (ruach),
and have seen nothingÕÓ (cf. Prov. 29:11).
2. Ruach can represent
particular dispositions, as it does in Josh. 2:11, ÒAnd as soon as we
had heard this things, our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more
courage (ruach–spirit in King James) in any man, because
of youÉÓ (cf. Josh. 5:1; Job 15:12).
3. Another disposition
represented by this word is ÒtemperÓ, ÒIf the spirit (temper) of
the ruler rise up against thee, leave not thy placeÉÓ (Eccl. 10:4).
David prayed that God would Òrestore unto me the joy of thy salvation;
and uphold me with the free SpiritÓ (Ps. 51:12). In this verse Òjoy
of salvationÓ and Òfree SpiritÓ are parallel and;
therefore, synonymous terms. Therefore, ÒspiritÓ refers to oneÕs
inner disposition, just as ÒjoyÓ
refers to an inner emotion.
(7). Seventh: the Bible often speaks of GodÕs ÒSpirit.Ó
(8). Eighth: angels in heaven are sometimes called Òspirits.Ó
(9). Nine: the ÒspiritÓ may also be used of that
which enables a man to do a particular job of that which represents the essence
of a quality of man.
Just as in the New Testament, when spirit is used in reference to
a person, it is the disposition of the persons mind or thinking.
Why did the translators translate
the word "ruach" into "spirit" in
one place, and "blast" or "wind" in
others? The meaning of "spirit" as it was
used in 1611 and as it is used today, an immortality no substance something in
a person is not a thirty-first cousin to ÒwindÓ or Òbreath,Ó
etc., yet the translators, at will, translated the same word into many words,
into many things that have meaning that are worlds apart.
Does the same word have many
completely different meanings? (1) One meaning that had reference to the mortal person or animal? (2) And
another meaning of the same word that would have had reference to an immortal
living being that is in a person unto the death of the person that animals do
not have?
ÒRuach,Ó is it mortal or immortal?
If ruach is the immortal something that is in a person, then how could ruach
also be something that is in both a person and in an animal that is mortal?
Then how could the Hebrew people know when it was speaking of a mortal person,
or a mortal animal that cannot keep from dying, or when it was actual speaking
of something in the person that is immortal and cannot die; how could they know
that when the same word was speaking of an animal that it was speaking of
something in the animal that was not immortal? How could the translators know?
They could not; the translators had to put their theology of man into the
Bible, even if they could not be consistent. How could anyone read the
Kings James Version and know that anger, cool, courage, air, mind, breath,
wind, blast, and spirit are the same thing? Most English reader today
would not know that ÒwindÓ and "spirit" are
both indiscriminately translated from the same word, and that almost without
exception today's reader would understand "spirit" to
be an immortal soul, but would never understand "wind" to
be an immortal soul. Those who do not read Hebrew are deliberately misled by
such indiscriminately translations.
Summary - Nehphesh,
nshahmah, and ruach are something that both a person and an animal have in
common, and all three are something that can and does die. Both an
animal and a man are a soul, a living being of this earth.
Animals or people do not have a soul, do not have a pagan
immortal something imprisoned in them that cannot die, something that when is
freed it will live after the death of the animal or person it was in.
How nehphesh and psukee are
translated in seven different versions.
| K.J.V. | N.K.J.V. | N.A.S.V. | R.S.V. |
Gen. 1:20 | creatures |
creatures | creatures | creatures |
Gen. 2:7 |
soul | living being| living
being| living
being|
Gen. 9:5 |
life |
life |
life | life |
Mt 16:25-26|life &
soul | life & soul | life & soul | life 4 times|
Acts 3:23 |
soul |
soul |
soul | soul |
1 Cor15:45 |
soul | living being|
soul | living being|
1 Pet 3:20 |
souls |
soul |
persons | persons |
Rev. 16:3 |
soul |
creature | living thing| living thing|
-----------------------------------------------------
| N.R.S.V. | N.I.V. |Robert
Young|
Gen. 1:20 |
creatures | creatures |
creature |
Gen. 2:7 |
living being| living being |living being-creature|
Gen. 9:5 |
life |
life |
life |
Mt 16:25-26| life 4 times|
life & soul | soul |
Acts 3:23 |
everyone |
anyone |
soul |
1 Cor15:45 | living
being| living being | creature |
1 Pet 3:20 |
persons | people |
soul |
Rev. 16:3 |
living thing| living thing | soul |
PSUKEE IN
NEW TESTAMENT
Of the 105 times psukee is used in the Greek
1. Only 58 times it is translated ÒsoulÓ in the King James.
2. Only 56 times it is translated ÒsoulÓ in the American
Standard.
3. Only 33 times it is translated ÒsoulÓ in the New Revised
Standard.
4. Only 24 times it is translated ÒsoulÓ in the New
International (2011 update).
A bird's eye view (below) of the way
psukee is translated all 105 times it is used in the New Testament in four
versions shows that a psukee is a living being, not an immortal no substance
something. The translators wanted to put their immortal soul in the Bible, but
they had a problem for if they had uniformly translated psukee into "soul,"
in some passages their immortal soul would have been subject to death and in
other passages it would be dead.
K. J. V. King James Version ----- N. R.
S. New Revised Standard Version ------- A. S. V. American Standard
Version ------- N. I. T. New International Version (2011 update)
|K.
J. V.| N. R. S.|A. S. V.|N. I. V
Matthew
2:20 | LIFE | LIFE | LIFE | LIFE
Matthew
6:25 | LIFE |
LIFE | LIFE | LIFE
Matthew
6:25 | LIFE |
LIFE | LIFE | LIFE
Matthew 10:28 |
soul | soul | soul |
soul
Matthew
10:28 | soul | soul |
soul | soul
Matthew
10:39 | LIFE | LIFE |
LIFE | LIFE
Matthew
10:39 | LIFE | LIFE |
LIFE | LIFE
Matthew
11:29 | souls | souls |
souls | souls
Matthew 12:28 |
soul | soul | soul |
I
Matthew
16:25 | LIFE | LIFE |
LIFE | LIFE
Matthew
16:25 | LIFE | LIFE |
LIFE | LIFE
Matthew
16:26 | soul | LIFE |
LIFE | soul
Matthew
16:26 | soul | LIFE |
LIFE | soul
Matthew 20:28 |
LIFE | LIFE | LIFE |
LIFE
Matthew
22:37 | soul | soul |
soul | soul
Matthew
26:38 | soul |
I | soul | soul
Mark
3:4 | LIFE |
LIFE | LIFE | LIFE
Mark
8:35 | LIFE |
LIFE | LIFE | LIFE
Mark 8:35 |
LIFE | LIFE | LIFE |
LIFE
Mark
8:36 | soul |
LIFE | LIFE | soul
Mark
8:37 | soul |
LIFE | LIFE | soul
Mark
10:45 | LIFE |
LIFE | LIFE | LIFE
Mark
12:30 | soul |
soul | soul | soul
Mark 12:33 |
soul | HEART | HEART | HEART
Mark
14:34 | soul |
I | soul | soul
Luke
1:46 | soul |
soul | soul | soul
Luke
2:35 | soul |
soul | soul | soul
Luke
6:9 | LIFE |
LIFE | LIFE | LIFE
Luke 9:24 |
LIFE | LIFE | LIFE |
LIFE
Luke
9:24 | LIFE |
LIFE | LIFE | LIFE
Luke
9:56 |
LIVES | | |
LIFE
Luke
10:27 | soul |
soul | soul | soul
Luke
12:19 | soul |
soul | soul | MYSELF
Luke 12:19 |
soul | soul | soul |
LIFE
Luke
12:20 | soul |
LIFE | soul | LIFE
Luke
12:22 | LIFE |
LIFE | LIFE | LIFE
Luke
12:23 | LIFE |
LIFE | LIFE | LIFE
Luke
14:26 | LIFE |
LIFE | LIFE | LIFE
Luke 17:33 |
LIFE | LIFE | LIFE |
LIFE
Luke
21:19 | soul |
souls | souls | YOURSELVES
John
10:11 | LIFE |
LIFE | LIFE | LIFE
John
10:15 | LIFE |
LIFE | LIFE | LIFE
John
10:17 | LIFE |
LIFE | LIFE | LIFE
John
10:24 | US |
US | US | US
John 12:25 | LIFE | LIFE | LIFE | LIFE