Everybody’s Got One?

I’m hardwired with a need  to understand things.

So, I had to figure out what this word meant that I’d heard people throwing around for over sixty years. It shouldn’t have been a big deal, I guess. If you ask anybody, they’ll tell what a soul is. 

Even my mother used to tell us, “take care of your body…it houses the soul.” And, in my college Psychology textbook, I can still  remember some kind of loose definition confirming its existence in a vague religious context, yet nestled neatly somewhere within the complex structure of the human psyche. 

But it couldn’t be seen, of course…

Merriam Webster’s full definition is every bit as puzzling:  “The immaterial essence, animating principle, or actuating cause of an individual life.”

Still, I was pretty sure it was in there somewhere.

However, things just weren’t adding up when I was learning to read and understand the Bible inductively, so I knew I was going to have to deal with its meaning. It seemed that the beginning was a good place to start—the account of God’s very personal and hands on creation of the first man in Gen.2:7:

“Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being [soul].”

This sentence revealed two indisputable facts about the makeup of the created man:

1. After being fashioned out of the elements of the Earth, the man was given, by his Creator, the breath of life. The flesh of the body (which would include the brain) had first been formed.  Not until it was animated by the Creator could it function and produce conscious thought.  
2. The Hebrew word נְשָׁמָה [neshamah; breath] appears to be the animating force of life.  

And, in context, Solomon’s book of Ecclesiastes confirms that the Lord takes back human breath:

“…then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the breath will return to God who gave it.”  [vs. 12:7]

[רוּחַ: (rû’-ôck  breath, wind, spirit]

I could only conclude that the first created man became a soul. Neither grammar nor context gave me any reason to assume that he received one. If I apply basic cake logic to this theological quandary, the truth becomes clear:

I can’t be a soul and have one too.

[(נֶפֶשׁ (nê’-phêsh) being, living being, person, soul]. 

On the other hand, I was in no hurry to part with my soul.  After all, I understood it to be a very relevant part of my existence.

So I kept reading.

In the texts of the Old Testament alone, the Hebrew word translated as “soul” [נֶפֶשׁ (nephesh) was used over seven-hundred times.  And a quick software search for the Greek equivalent ψυχή (psū-kāy’) used in the New Testament epistles and narratives reveals it was used two-hundred and sixty-three times. This parallel definiton was also the choice of the Hebrew scribes who translated their Scriptures into Greek [the Septuagint] over a hundred years before Christ was born.

[ψυχή (psū-kāy’) self, inner life, one’s inmost being, (physical) life, that which has life, living creature, person, human being]

So what did the recurrent usage of this term suggest to me as an inductive reader?

First and foremost, it was imperative that I be able to grasp its meaning in the context of every instance it was used.  For example, consider the words used in  Gen. 35:18, documenting the death of Rachel:

 “It came about as her soul was departing (for she died), that she named him Ben- oni; but his father called him Benjamin.”

If I read this sentence with a preconceived understanding that a soul is something unseen within me that leaves my body upon death, then I’m likely to apply that particular understanding to its meaning. But I’d be hard pressed to try to square this idea with some of the texts of the Messianic Psalms. These were words out of King David’s mouth, prophesying the future miracle of Jesus Christ’s resurrection from death:

“I have set the Lord continually before me. Because He is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. Therefore, my heart is glad and my glory rejoices. My flesh also shall dwell securely, for you shall not abandon my soul to Sheol, nor shall You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay.” [Psa. 16:8-10] [my emphasis]

The ancient Hebrew understanding of “Sheol” was the underworld—the place of the dead. The tomb. If David [or any other Biblical authors] understood the human soul to be something that departed from the body upon death, then why would he also have regarded it as something that the Lord would never leave discarded in the tomb—even using it interchangeably with “flesh?”

He didn’t. He saw the human soul not as a part of someone, but rather as the sum of someone.

If I have the Biblical understanding of a soul embedded in my mind, I can clearly understand what was happening to Rachel. As her life was departing from her, she gave her son a name.

So, my hope is the same as what David’s was for himself. If I die before Christ returns, my soul–that is, everything that remains of me, shall also dwell in the grave and undergo decay.

But, just like my Firstborn Brother’s flesh, it’ll dwell safely.

He will not abandon it.