Biblical Hebrew Forum

[furuli AT online.no]

Dear Michael,

A view that the OT tells about, or implies that man has an immortal 
soul is anachronistic. Such a view extrapolates into the OT a modern 
religious belief that was inherited from the Greeks. Even the 
Babylonians who believed in a Netherworld where the dead were alive, 
do not connect this life after death with NAPI$TU (the Akkadian 
cognate to NEPE$).  It is correct, as Liz writes that NEPE$ was 
connected with the blood. We must be very careful not to press Hebrew 
idiom, and this can be illustrated with NEPE$ and DFM.  In Leviticus 
17:11 it is said that NEPE$ is *in* the blood, but in verse 14 it is 
said that NEPE$ *is* the blood.  For modern persons this should 
indicate a difference, because something cannot both be *in* a fluid 
and at the same time "be" that very fluid. Such a difference was not 
always necessary for the Hebrew mind because roots such as NP$ could 
have a broader scope than many modern words, and different viewpoints 
could be used as well.  We can say that we *have* life and at the 
same time say that we *are* alive. Depending on whether the side of 
the concept NEPE$  that a writer wanted to make visible was the 
physical creature or the life of  that creature, he could use BE or 
not use that preposition.  Taking this into account, we realize that 
not even 1 Kings 17:20,21 is evidence for a soul that is separated 
from, and lives apart from the body.


Best regards

Rolf Furuli




> J. Sprinkle wrote:
>
> >  for he does not possess
> >  a NEPHESH, but he is a
> >  NEPHESH....  NEPHESH in
> >  OT does not often (I'm
> >  tempted to say never)
> >  mean "soul" as opposed
> >  to body.
>
> This may be true in Gen. 2:7.  But I think we're
> approaching the idea in Gen. 35:18:
>
> VAY'HI B'TZET NAFSHAH...
>
> "So it was as her life departed..."
>
> This account seems to objectify Rachel's NEPHESH from
> some other essential part of her being, ...perhaps her
> body.  But then her body is still her.  And her
> NEPHESH something else.  See what I mean?  I'm not
> saying that the doctrine of the *immortal soul* is
> taught here in Genesis, but that NEPHESH is an
> immaterial part of the human creature, ...I think
> we're at least given a hint in this passage.
>
> B'RAKHOT,
> -- Michael Millier