BibleProject - You Are A Soul

Episode Date: November 13, 2017

This is our first episode related to our new word studies video on the Hebrew word “Nephesh” which often gets translated as “soul” in English bibles. In Hebrew the most basic meaning of the word is “throat.” Which seems weird to us. So how did we get “soul” from “throat”? Tim and Jon discuss. In the first part of the episode (0-12:30), Tim and Jon outline where the word “soul” comes from (Old English), and why most people think that a core teaching of the Bible is people “having souls.” Jon asks how much you can really separate the ideas of a person’s “mind, soul, and body.” In the second part of the episode (12:30-41:20), Tim explains that the Hebrew word “Nephesh” is an extremely common word in the Hebrew Old Testament. It occurs over 700 times, but less than 10% of the time is it translated as “soul.” It also gets translated as “life”, “heart”, “you”, “people” and several other words. Tim outlines some famous verses in the Old Testament that use the word soul. Like Psalm 42 “ As the deer pants...My soul thirsts for you” the original meaning is Hebrew is “my throat thirsts for you.” Tim explains that the word Nephesh is designed to show the essential physicality of a person. Whereas “soul” connotes the non-physicality of a person. In the third part of the episode (41:20-end), Tim says “Nephesh” isn’t just used to describe humans, but also used to describe animals and what the land produced in Genesis. “And God said ‘Let the waters teem with living Nephesh.’” The bottom line, biblically, is that people don’t have souls. They are souls. They don’t have “nephesh” they are “nephesh.” And the ultimate hope for Christians is not a disembodied existence living as souls, but an embodied existence living in their Nephesh. You can check out our new word studies video on Nephesh here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_igCcWAMAM Thank you to all our supporters! Check out more free resources on our website: www.thebibleproject.com Show Resources: The Shema: Deuteronomy 6:4-5 Original uses of the word Nephesh meaning throat: Psalm 23 Psalm 42:1-2 Isaiah 58:11 Show Music: Defender Instrumental: Rosasharn Music River Deep: Retro Soul (Danya Vodovoz, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B1tVfm832w) Lotus Lane: The Loyalist Herbal Tea: Artificial Music Show Produced By: Jon Collins and Dan Gummel

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode. You've heard the phrase guard your soul, or God loves your soul,

or Jesus died to save your soul. We toss around this word soul a lot in religious circles. We have a body, we have a mind, we have emotions, but what is our soul? People often assume the idea of a eternal non-physical existence that humans living on after death, apart from their bodies, as disembodied souls forever and ever. That's a really important idea in the Bible, or a main teaching of the Bible. And I certainly thought that, till I actually started to read the Bible. I'm John Collins, and this is the Bible Project Podcast. And today, we're going to talk about how you don't have a soul. I actually started to read the Bible. I'm John Collins, and this is the Bible Project Podcast.

And today, we're gonna talk about how you don't have a soul. But you are a soul. So Tim and myself and the rest of the Bible Project crew have been making a series of videos on biblical words. The word we're working on now is the Hebrew word Nephash, which in our English translations of the Bible gets translated as soul. But it is actually hardly ever the meaning of soul in the Bible. How do biblical authors use this word Nephash? What are they imagining? And what does it

mean for us as humans to be a soul? Thanks for joining us here we go Okay, we are going to talk about the soul. Yes. The human soul. Because this is what we'd like to do on an average day. Yeah, talk about. I'm in biblical words.

I'm incredibly excited about this conversation. Yes. So the motivator is a word study, in the word study series. We're doing a video on the fifth key word in the Shema. And do ramen chapter six. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all of your soul, soul, and then with all your strength. So right now for us real time, soul is the next one. Come out in a month and a half or two. And there you go, we're having the conversation

about the meaning of this highly misunderstood word in the Bible. Yeah, and why are you so interested in this? I feel like you have been for a long time. Yeah. So where does that come from? Well, I'm just, I'm really interested in the human experience. And you know, I've always been confused by what we mean when we say soul, how that's

different from spirit. I remember talking to a guy really admire as a thinker, as a Christian, and he was talking about your body, your psyche, your soul, and your spirit. And it seemed like he had these really clear categories in his mind. And I'm like, I don't have that clear of categories. I mean, I understand body, that's really clear. Psychy starts to get a little less clear or mind, but kind of have a handle on that. And then soul just, it kind of gets really blurry. But I have this fairly typical understanding

of your essence, this like disembodied essence that you have that you will carry on with you forever. It seems like that's typically what people are talking about when they mean soul. Yeah. Yeah, and then that gets complicated, I think, for many people when they encounter popular presentations of like brain science or neuroscience, things that are able to explain what often or historically has been interested as non-physical, something like mind, you know, or reason, and then there's a whole movement that says, no, actually, even what we can experience as not being a part of our bodies, like our thoughts, our actually products of synapses firing and chemicals mixing in our brain.

Yeah, it's material. It's material. And then I think for many people that create maybe some sort of crisis or at least a attention in their worldview, wait, I thought humans were both material but also something non-material. Yeah. And how does that work? How does that work?

I think most people would say, yeah, we're material and non-material, but then if you really try to drill down and get a handle on what that non-material part is, it's a complete mystery. Yeah. And people often assume that the idea of an eternal non-physical existence that humans living on after death, apart from their bodies as souls, disembodied souls forever and ever. Many people assume that that's a really important idea in the Bible or a main teaching of the Bible. And I certainly thought that. And until I actually started to read the Bible, I remember even before I knew anything about Greek or Hebrew, and I became aware that the

word soul was being used in the Bible not the way I used it in English. And then as I learned more, I realized what most people mean by the word soul, that disembodied living on forever and ever part of you, is actually hardly ever the meaning of soul in the Bible. If at all. I realize it was a whole point of debate. You can count on one hand the key passages that seem to describe that. So yes, it's both, I think both, it's leaves a misunderstanding about the human person and also that idea has led us to misunderstand much of what the Bible has said. And I start to sound like a broken record at some point. There's a cultural gap between us and the Bible

and its authors and how they used words and their language and culture. And so it goes both ways. We impose our concepts of whatever onto these texts and make them say what they might mean in English. So we're both distorting what they say. That happens very often. And also we miss out on what they were trying to say in the first place. So it's like a double whammy. It's a double whammy. We distort what they're actually saying and we miss what they were trying to say in the first place. So it's like a double whammy. It's a double whammy.

We distort what they're actually saying, and we miss what they wanted to say. So I have found that kind of have to do both a demolition job and a rebuilding job when it comes to the word soul and the Bible. Before we demo the word, I always like to try to understand how we got the word in English. Yes, yeah. I have a bit in the notes, but I'm sure you have more.

There it is. Sour. Eighth century old English word. Yeah, it's actually first attested in bail wolf. This is from the Oxford English Dictionary. This is the first time that word shows up because in bail. Yeah, Cornel Oxford English Dictionary. This is the first time that word shows up. Yeah, Cornel Oxford English Dictionary. It's first literary usage in a text that we can date to the 8th century.

So what that means is that people were using it long before that. Right. It got into literature. It can be tracked here. And so that's very clearly referring to some non-physical essence of a living being. Correct. So that was a category in the 8th century English. Yeah.

Now, on the etymology dictionary online, it says that it also might be a proto-dermanic word, and it may even come potentially from a German word that means C. Did you see that? I did. Yeah, and there were other routes that people think are even older. Okay. This is just, it's the first appearance in English.

English, yeah. Yeah. So it seems like this word has existed in European languages, referring to a concept of a non-physical, disembodied, you, the essence of you, that is not physical and therefore couldn't survive death. And so let's assume the sake of argument And so let's assume for the sake of argument because we haven't looked at the relevant Versus yet, but that the Bible actually isn't talking about some disembodied

Part of you when it talks about the soul. Yeah, where would that idea come from? Well the main concept it comes to us from Greek culture and philosophy. The idea, this is a classic idea in Plato and Aristotle of the immortal soul, and they use the Greek word, psuke, psuke, to describe that. But it's eternal, non-physical, it exists after death, and in fact, in the philosophy of these great teachers, the material world, the Unite Experience, is just a second rate kind of shadow world. And the purest, beautiful, most pure, beautiful form of existence is non-physical. So for them,

our souls were actually all this language of, I'm a soul trapped in a body, or your soul escaping the body, or imprisoned in your body, that's all part of this heritage of... From Plato and Aristotle. Yep, of Platonic philosophy. Our physical existence is less than, and what's true and real is what's not physical. And they called it the suke? They used the Greek word suke,

which is close to a psyche, which is more mine. Yes, it's exactly, yeah. Isn't that interesting? So yeah, you'd have to track the history of how the, it's because our word psyche in English is just that Greek word spelled with English letters. Yeah, so. But that refers more to our mind.

But now refers more to our mind. But now refers more to our mind, whereas in their philosophies it was the essence of the human, the non-material essence of a person. So it's very fascinating how cultures develop this idea of what we are as humans, idea of what we are as humans and what categories there are of our humanity. Yes. And so I think what we're interested in is what is the, what are the categories of the Bible presents? Yes. And what do they mean with those categories?

And now we're going to see both in Old Testament, Hebrew and New Testament Greek. There is a category that this word can be used for to describe the enduring human person after death. It's very rare. These words occur hundreds of times in the Bible, and there's a small handful of times where it seems to pretty clearly refer to a human, but using the word human because human means body. For us the word human is also the body, but it's the endurance of a person, a living being, through death, always in the hope of resurrection, of re-embodiment. But all that to say is there's at least kind of a crack in the door in the Bible for those Greek concepts to get imported in. Creating the mess, I think, that we have today, which is reading these Greek ideas back into the biblical usage.

But to get there, you have to kind of walk through the storyline of how this word develops, it's meaning and so on. So here's some basics about this word, these words in the Bible. So the English word soul, if you like to do an online Bible Gateway or Blue Letter Bible search, you can search the NIV translation. You'll see the English word, soul, appears nearly a hundred times. So that's a lot. The word soul, appears a lot in your NIV translation. 72, although not for the Bible.

You would think it would be or more. Well, yeah. Is that the whole Bible? Is that the Old Testament? Yeah, it would be or more? Well, yeah. The whole Bible is at the Old Testament. Yeah, it's the search in the new international version. In the Old and New Testament. Oh, in the Old Testament. Old Testament. So we're talking like 40 something books. How many books in Old Testament?

24. Oh, I'm way off. 24 books. Yeah. Well, that's count, I'm sorry, that's counting the book of the 12 prophets. It's counting all the ones and twos, that's one. Oh, so what does that get us at too?

39, in the Protestant Bible. 46 in the Catholic. Once you combine the book of the Twelve Profits. Once you combine the books in the Hebrew tradition, you get 24. Okay. So, let's say 24 of the Hebrew tradition. Okay, so let's say 24 of the Hebrew tradition. That means in every book the word soul only appear an average of four times. The English word soul.

English word soul. And for a book that's about, you know, about what? Where are you gonna go when you die? Okay, yeah, okay. All right. I see where you're going here. Yeah, like you think it would be more interested in your soul Interesting. Yeah, if the Bible is primarily Telling us information about what happens after you die so you can get ready for that and what to do now It's odd that the word soul doesn't appear if I was writing the Bible the word soul would show up a lot

I think famous last words If I had my version of the Bible, there would be a lot more talk about your soul. Let's get to put these numbers in perspective. Okay, so the English word soul appears just under 100 times in the new international version. 72 of those times, it's translating the Hebrew word nefesh. So let's talk about the Hebrew word nefesh. The Hebrew word nefesh occurs 754 times. Oh, they were getting somewhere. In the Hebrew Bible. So just stop and think about that.

So the Hebrew word nefesh. Okay, the Hebrew the Hebrew word, and that's one of the most common words. It's an imbibical Hebrew. It's used a lot. Other than like God. Oh yeah, what does that compare to? What other type of words are you, 750 times? Oh, got it. Oh, it would be, I mean, very common words, you know, like place or walk.

Okay. Or once you get like the words God. Those are God or yeah you're up in the thousands C or said yeah up in the thousands yeah okay so we have this the word neffesh it appears 750 times in the Old Testament but only 10% of the time is one out of 10 times that word translated soul yeah so remember what translators are doing is they get a sense of the range of meaning of a word. In different contexts, the same word can have different nuances. It's true in every language, true in English. So they, depending on context, they'll use a different English word to get at a different

nuance of meaning. So I have this little chart in front of you. It's the standard most common translations of the word nefesh. The most common English word actually that translates to is the word life. Life. Then second comes soul. Then after that comes me, then comes lives or living, the living, then the pronoun I, then heart, heart, then... That's an interesting choice. Yes, then themselves, you, people, anyone, and then the chart sheds off. And there's about 50 other

different English words that are used to translate it to really niche context words. So here's the point. This word is really plastic. It's really broad. And broad. So what we want to get at is examine that broad usage to get at the core ideas underneath and then see how these are all legitimate trans-like. It's kind of like, it's kind of like Opa and Greek. Opa, it means like all these different things. Yeah, yeah.

I remember I was in Greece and I was trying to fair what I met and I asked this guy, Stothios, like, what, what doesn't mean? And he goes, just pay attention and you'll figure it out. Because sometimes he didn't tell you. He was just like, just watch how people use it. Sometimes it's like, oops, sometimes it's stop. Sometimes it's like, hey you, you know, it's like all sorts of things. Oh, that's great. That's a great example. That's a good example. Yeah, yeah. It's a very very plastic word. Yeah So yeah, here you go. It's a very broad word most all languages have broad words. Mm-hmm

Actually the English word life is fairly broad. Yeah, I can talk about my physical life Mm-hmm or all my life meaning years Mm-hmm all the years I've been alive, I can talk about Get a Life, which is like, have a social network. Here, let's run with this a little bit. Let's do a good example. Think of the pie chart we would make.

Okay. So life, it would be your physical existence, the length of your existence, like time duration. Your quality of your existence. The quality of your existence. They could also just mean like organic compounds. Organic, oh yeah, biological life. Biological life.

It can refer to your social network, get a life, meaning get some friends, or not on your life, not on your life. So on your... The worth, like the worth or the value of your life. Your life has all your being. Yeah. Yeah. We use the word life in really different ways.

And is that similar to Neffesh? Yeah. Because it actually is one of the translations of Neffesh. It's one of the translations, that's what we've been... Yeah, maybe think of it. Got it. Yeah. That's helpful. So, here's some famous Bible verses where Neffesh occurs that...

To me, raised some of the interesting questions. One of the most famous Bible verses in American popular culture. Yep. Psalm 23. The Lord's My Shepherd. I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters.

He refreshes my nefesh. Hmm. My soul. Refreshes my nefesh. And that's usually in that verses, usually translated soul. Mm-hmm. Yeah, he refreshes my soul. And then he spreads a table before my enemies, that kind of thing. Now it's interesting. The Lord's my shepherd. He makes me lie down,

green pastures, quiet waters. The whole, what's the governing metaphor, obviously? Her sheep. Is that I'm, yeah, the me of the poet is a sheep. So what then, if I'm a sheep in this poem, what does it mean that I eat green grass and drink water? My nethish is refreshed. Or it raises the issue like, oh, soul. Does the normal meaning of the English word soul really help us? Oh, I see. Understand the imagery of the palm. Yeah, it almost seems like he's turning a corner here and he's like, you'd expect him to say, like, he takes care of my body,

but it said he's like, refreshes my soul. Yeah, okay, yeah. Which just makes it feel like you're just getting really spiritual. Yeah, at all. Yeah, and that funny, if we said he refreshes my body, yeah. It would, yeah, yeah, I would feel less

bivalished. I'm laying down and green pastures, that's cozy. I'm drinking these quiet waters, that's refreshing. And my soul is fresh. And so now my body's written, it's like, but no, my soul is fresh. My soul. So by saying soul in English, what do you, I mean, what, this is a metaphor. Yeah, sure, my soul is a treasure. My soul. So by saying soul in English, what do you, I mean, what?

This is a metaphor. Yeah, we're not sure. Yes. So he's just like, it's not too surprising that he would say soul. Mm-hmm. So I'm 42. As the deer pants for streams of water. So my nephesh pants for you, my God, my nephash thirsts for God for the living God.

So you have a panting deer that is likened to my nephash panting for God. And then my nephash, if you have a deer panting by a stream of water, what's it likely gonna? It's thirsty. So then the poet develops the metaphor, metaphors, my nephish thirst, both pants and thirst for God. So God is depicted as a source of life that can, similar to Psalm 23, refresh, refresh. In the same way that water can refresh the physical something.

So God can refresh and bring life to a nephesh. And we might be tempted to say, oh sure, water's physical, God is spirit, so he refreshes the non-physical part of me. So that's what we think this might be saying. Is that what it's actually saying? So if you look at all the standard Hebrew dictionaries, the law point out is there's a number of times where

nefes is used in its most basic meaning, which is throat. It's most basic meaning. The most basic meaning, which is throat. It's most basic meaning. The most basic meaning of life. And by most basic, you don't mean translated the most because that's life. That's right, yeah. What do you mean by most basic? This often happens.

Do you remember when we talked about glory? And weight. But its most basic meaning is heavy or weighty. And it's what you're looking for is a nuance of meaning that can explain conceptually to be like the conceptual bedrock for all the other nuances of meaning. So it's not like the word originally met this and over time it developed. It's that of all the ranges of meaning for how this word gets used. Oh, this one. Kind of links them the most.

It's the one that's like, it's the one that connects them all together. Well, throat doesn't seem to connect them at all. That's why this is such a great conversation. I remember being so bewildered when I learned Hebrew. And then who decided it meant throat? Well, you, people who looked at all the uses of nephish in the Bible, and they found instances like this.

Numbers, chapter 11, the Israelites in the wilderness, saying, this is great, this is one of their complaints in the wilderness, and they say, who will give us meat to eat? Ah, we remember the fish, we used to eat for free in Egypt. Free fish. The cucumbers, the melons, the leaks, the onions, the garlic. But now our nefesh has dried up,

and there's nothing to look at except as a manna. Ha, ha, ha, ha. And so what God goes on to do is to give them meat in this story and then it's paralleled with the story soon after about God providing water for them. So this becomes the complaint, the governs God's response, which is to give them food and then water. But our nephish has dried up. Our soul has dried up. Mm. Our soul has dried up.

Yeah, such an interesting metaphor. Our nephish is dry. So obviously he's not talking about a disembodied entity. Yeah, clearly. Because they're talking about how hungry and thirsty they are. Yeah, whatever their nephish is, they're nephish. They're not using it as a metaphor. Their nephish being dry is a description

of their hunger and thirst. So interesting, English translations go different ways here. The new American standard translates that as our appetite is gone. So they basically, if paraphrase it, so you no longer even know the word nephys is being used there. Apatite. So what part of the body dries up when you're hungry or thirsty? It's fairly intuitive.

You're throat. Yeah, you're throat. I don't know why they didn't say, look, our throat is parched or our throat is dry. Isaiah 58. This is a promise on the other side of exile. What God is going to do when he restores his people. And it's Isaiah 58-11.

The Lord will continually guide you and satisfy your nephesh in scorched places, giving strength to your bones. You will be like a watered garden, like a spring of water that never fails. So if like you're living in a, this is like post-apocalyptic Babylon just burned, you know, your whole country, side, and cities to the ground. Is there anything to hope for? And God says, yes, he's going to satisfy your nefesh in these scorched places. What does that mean? Strength to bones and lots of water.

You'll be like a water garden. Yes, that's right. Yes, actually he's flipping the metaphor. You'll both become your nefesh itself will be restored and then you will be a source of restoration for elsewhere in the land. He goes on and you're gonna rebuild the cities and rebuild the ancient ruins and so on. So your nephish will be restored and then you will become a source of restoration for others.

But once again, it's this image of dry, right? And nephish. And then the opposite of it is right? And Neffesh, and then the opposite of it is these very visceral physical images, bones, and water. Just keep going. Go down to these two alternate transits, Psalm 69. These are ones when I read these, and I was like, oh, I see what's going on here. The opening sentence of Psalm 69 and actually you'll depending on what translation you're reading, it will affect what you get out of here. So in the New American standard, the poet says, save me, oh God, for the waters have threatened my life. Threatened my neffesh. Threatened my neffesh. Yeah, there you go. So the NIV has a different translation, and then what it shows us is that the new American

standard has, once again, kind of paraphrased out of existence, the original metaphor here. NIV reads, save me, O God, the waters have come up to my nephash. And that's literally in Hebrew, the waters have gone up to my nephish. And that's literally in Hebrew. The waters have gone up to the nephish. So if nephish just meant life, and it was a metaphor or soul, then you would say, what does that mean that the waters have come up to your soul?

Oh, well, I guess you're just kind of threatened. So we'll paraphrase it. They've threatened my life. Threatened my life. Or, and, but, and IV is saying, oh, Neffesh, actually in a basic way just refers to your neck. Yes. And that's what he's using it as.

Neck. So it, but it is a metaphor. He's describing an act of drowning as what his life feels like. And he's gonna go on to say, you know, enemies are after me and they're slandering me in public. And so drowning is a metaphor for just a really, really bad day in the life of the poet.

But the metaphor he uses is a literal description of drowning. Yeah. Water is coming up to the nephish. So here we have, so your nephish can be dry when you're hungry and thirsty, or you can drown waters coming up to your nephish, or in that example in Psalm 105,

describing Joseph when he was sold in slavery as brothers. It's again, different translations here. In the New American Standard. Joseph was sold as a slave. They, his brothers afflicted his feet with fetters. He himself was laid up in irons. That's how the New American Standard reads. New international version. Joseph was sold as a slave. They bruised his feet with shackles.

His nefesh was put into irons, literally what it says in Hebrew. And then you get it. So his neck, his shackles on his feet, and then he has a neck shackle around his nefesh. So nefesh clearly can refer to your throat. Yes. Your neck.

Yeah. I still understand why that's the most basic. Hmm. These are the only times that nephish is referring to a specific part of the body. So, clearly it's referring to your neck and your neck, like Joseph, your neck's put in the irons. Yeah. Then, what you have is references to painting, your nefesh being dry, dry, and thirsty. Yeah. So it's the same word for neck and throat, nefesh. Nefesh. That's right.

Yes. Yeah. And there's other words for neck and for throat. Nefesh. Oh really? To both. Nefesh is, is somehow referring to it as a holistic whole. Does a Hebrew word for neck? And there's a Hebrew word for throat. And then there's nefesh, which refers to as a whole. As a whole. But as we're going to see, you can sometimes refer to just like the physical piece of flesh around what you could put a shackle.

Or what we would call the Asophagus. Right. Is it the nephage? Okay. But your esophagus is really important, like really, really important, as your whole body. And so this is where you can also refer to nephage as a metaphor to describe what goes in and out of your throat. This is interesting in light of some of the conversations we've had about Ruaq before. So look at, this is number two on the handout. The example Jeremiah 159, he describes how terrifying it's going to be to live in Jerusalem when Babylon comes to town. And he says it'll be like a woman who gave birth to seven sons, but she'll breathe out her nephesh. Her son will go down while it's still day.

So to breathe out is the verb form of the noun, nafach. It's the same thing that God does to the lump of clay in verses two. Those are similar roots then, not fucking Neffes. Yeah, yeah. So it's na fach. Oh, no, sorry. It's a different root word.

Oh, so he's using it for alliteration, poetically. It's got it. So she na fach is her nefes. The first two letters are the same. So nefes here refers to what goes in and out of your throat, namely breath, which is how most English translations go. She breathes out her last.

Oh, so it's, she's not breathing out of her neck. Just dying. She's breathing out her life. She's describing a woman who's given birth to many out, she's given life to others, but now her life is going out of her. She breathes out her nephage. And that makes it seem like some disembodied. Yeah, it makes it seem like spirit, ruch, ruch. And some member, like Venn diagrams for words here. Yeah. So ruch refers to the invisible energy that can go out of you. And Nefesh and all these uses that we've looked at,

it's referring to the body part, your Ruach goes in and out of your Nefesh. But Nefesh can refer to the physical thing. It can also refer to the passageway in and out of the Nefesh that goes in and out of the nephysh that goes in and out of your body. That's like your life, so your lifeline. I think we're going to lose people with the Ruaq thing. Ruaq, it means breath or spirit or wind. But it can mean your life breath and God gives you your ruach and he can take

it away. And so breathing out your ruach is a very typical thing for death, for dying, for dying. In the Bible, you give up your ruach. Is it something that is a phrase that's used? And so here's a poetic metaphor of a woman breathing out her and what you would expect is breath, but what she breathes out is her nephish. There's a weird thing to say. Just weird to say. Like I'm dying, I'm breathing out my neck. Yeah, it doesn't work in English.

It doesn't work. It makes me feel like I don't have a head and I'm just breathing out my neck. Yeah, it doesn't work in English. It doesn't work. It makes me feel like I don't have a head and I'm just breathing out my neck. It's like listening to the squirting blood. So here, something's developing here where your nephysias, your throat, in breath and food, come down. Yeah, it's very connected to breath. In and out. Because that's where your breath comes in. Yep. Is your throat. That's right. But now here's a sense in which we're connected still to the throat.

We breathe out. But now nephish is being abstracted to refer to your life. And as we're going to see, that is actually the most common main usage of this word is just to refer to physical life. And as we're going to see, that is actually the most common main usage of this word is just to refer to physical life. So there's this basic meaning of the word and by basic meaning it's the most plain, it's the most concrete meaning. It's the most concrete. It refers to an actual physical body part. Yeah, it refers to something physical. And from that, we can get all these abstractions. We can abstract out and understand how all the other meanings are linked together.

And that way, is it kind of like a heart, the way they were used in English? Because I was thinking about this because we did the heart video. The fact that we used the organ heart to represent feelings, if you were an alien from outer space looking at that, you would just be like, what? Yeah. Why that organ that's pumping blood? Correct.

Why is that? How did that become the abstracted idea of the embodiment of your feelings and emotions? Yeah. It makes no sense. Yeah. And I'm sitting here going, how does your throat become? You have abstracted idea of like life and your personhood. Yeah.

That doesn't make any sense. Yes. That's what's happening right now. But actually makes more sense. Because you breathe in and out of your throat. Yeah, that's right. And it connects your rewox to your right. And it connects your roof to your body. Mm-hmm.

It's a important passageway. And yes. So you have this essential passageway in your body. Yes, you're through. One of the most essential parts of your existence. A very delicate part of your body, too. Yeah. Yeah.

It's very essential. And so if you were to choose a body part to abstract away, just represent your physical life. Your physical life. That would be a good contender. Yeah. Not like this was chosen by committee or anything. But I'm just imagining like a committee sitting down

and being like, guys, I think we're going with heart. We're going to go with that organ. It's making some sense. It's red. It's just it beats just it beats. Yeah. Like, yeah. Yeah. I feel pain in there sometimes in English. I think this is the best one to go with.

Another great example is the word intestines in biblical Hebrew. There's a couple times once where I got gets stabbed in the stomach with a button of a spear and then like his intestines spill out. Gross. But the word occurs many other times, but it's almost never translated intestines. It's translated my inward being. And it's because it's almost always used in metaphors of anger, anxiety, or fear. Yeah. Or strong affection.

And so it's another one of these examples where talking about, we call it a queasy stomach. Mm-hmm. It's a actual like, it's a physiological response that our bodies have when we're have extreme emotions. Yeah, nausea. Nausea, yeah, we're just quesiness or butterflies. We call butterflies, yeah. Try and explain that to an alien. I butterflies in my stomach.

So in Bibl-Bibl-Bibl-Bibl-Bibl- you feel strong, your most intense emotions and you got. And you're good. So once again, yeah, so when you want to describe your physical existence as a whole, as we're going to see, you use the word base. No, but there's a word for body already. Yeah. Which is what? The few, there's bazar, which means like flesh. You can describe the meat of an animal, or you can describe your bodily existence. And then in Greek, there's a few words to soma, the most common Greek word in the New

Testament. So again, we kind of have to... Like, why wouldn't they just use outward? If it's instead of using some new fancy word and turning it into this idea of your body. Well, yeah. So, but body is talking about the meat on me. Yeah, the muscles. That's different than my vital sense organs.

Like the throat's connected to my head and my torso. And so there's this sense of the centrality of this part of my body, to my whole existence. It's me. If you talk to me, you don't look at my hand. Yeah. You look at this thing supported by my neffesh, my head and my face. That's interesting. So, like, yeah, you've got the sense of where you're looking from and hearing from.

It's all up here in your head, which is connected to your body with your neffesh, which is then connected to this really central part of you, your chest, where you're breathing, where the heart is. Where the heart is. Where the heart is. Where the heart breathing, where the heart is. Where the heart is. Where the heart is. Where the heart is. Where the heart is. Where the heart is.

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Where the heart is. Where the heart is. Where the heart is. where the heart is. Where the heart is. Where the heart is. Where the heart to have a word that means my physical existence, you wouldn't develop a meaning out of bicep, but throat, there's something essential about the throat, the essence. And so that's in, you know. So does it mean like the essence of me then, like the, the, hmm. Well, we have to keep going, but it does mean the essence of a person, but it doesn't mean non-physical.

Actually, Neffish primarily refers to me as a physical organism, a living physical organism. It's one of the great ironies of Bible translations, is that the English word soul It's one of the great ironies of Bible translations is that the English word soul primarily means non-physical essence. Whereas the biblical word nefesh primarily means your physical essence, the opposite. Which is why when you start tracking with these appearances of the word soul in the Old Testament, you'd be like, oh, that doesn't mean that a non-physical part. My soul pants after you.

So, okay, onward. Onward. So, because a body part then can come to symbolize the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, the body part, a body part then can come to symbolize your life, essence as a physical being, seems this is how the nefesh can refer to then me as a whole physical embodied being. So for example, when someone's one of the most common phrases for somebody trying to kill you is they seek my nefesh. When David is being hunted by Saul in the wilderness, he gets reports, Saul is seeking your nefesh. And in English, you'll know

you're at this phrase, whenever anybody is seeking someone's life, this is why life is one of the most common translations, seeking your life. To murder somebody is to strike their nephish. This is what, oh, when Joseph, he gets kidnapped by his brothers, and what they wanna do is kill him, but when they end up throwing him in a pit instead,

and it's because his brother Ruben said, what, don't strike his nefish. So that's a good example. To strike my nefish, doesn't mean to, it's a very opposite of saying, don't strike the non-physical part of it. It doesn't make any sense. Sure, yeah.

It doesn't make any sense. I mean, like, so you know how in planes, the the flight attendants will say there's 300 souls on board. Oh, oh, yes. Yep. Yes. Now, you could say they're referring to the non-physical part of you to be like, hey, these people are really important. But what they're really referring to is that there's 300 people, people. That's right. Yes. But they're using something, the essence of them to communicate that. Why couldn't Joseph's brother be doing the same thing? Like, I'm going to use the word that represents the most important part of him, the permanent part of him, his nefesh.

Yes. If he did mean soul in the sense that we understand it. Well, part of it is actually that, because of the King James translation, the King James translation rendered many of these occurrences of Neffesh as soul. And they clearly mean the physical embodied person. And King James. In King James. And then the King James.

Because that's what it meant back then. It had that double meaning in the text. Oh, well, this is where I actually think the King James influenced the history of the English language. In other words, through the King James, the Hebrew meaning of Nefesh ended up entering the English usage for a time. And it survives in... I see. It survives. Like in pilot talk. In like whenever a leader of a some kind of vessel. Yeah. whenever a leader of a some kind of vessel. Yeah.

Oh. Describe how many humans are on board. They'll say there are 200 souls. So the Hebrew meaning of soul influenced. Influenced. History of the English language. The English word soul, which typically meant more disembodied from like bail wolf.

Now a sudden they realize, oh, this means actually more than that. And then that usage slipped in when it became captains of ships. And that nuance of meaning has all but died out in common English usage, except when we're describing how many people were on a boat or a plane. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah.

Boats and planes. So they're not just being spiritual up on planes. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Boats and planes. So they're not just being spiritual up on planes. No. In the boats, they're just using... It's a remnant of 500-year-old English influenced by the King James Y. Yeah, there's lots of stuff like this. The history of... That's the word nephish in normal day English.

Yeah, so that's an example of a great biblical use of nafish in normal English. There's 272 souls. Nefis. Nefis. Nefis. Nefis. What's plural, nefish? That's right.

Okay. So, that's, yeah, there you go. The embodied life. So here's something that's interesting. This is point four. You can say you can strike someone's nephage. It's their embodied life. It all, so it's not just humans though. On page one of the Bible, the waters team with living nephage. Let the waters team with living nephage. Then later on, let the land produce living nephysh. So first it's sea creatures, now it's land animals.

And then in Genesis 2, God breathed into the Adam, the humans nostrils. Nefahch. Nefahch. Yeah, the breath of life. And the human became a living nefish. So this is something humans share in common with all other creatures that we are, we are an ephish. That's interesting. So humans don't have a nefish. Humans, along with animals, are a nephish. Are a nephish. I didn't make that up.

That's a summary I read in a dictionary somewhere. But that was helpful for me. Hmm. We should have started there, Genesis 1 and 2. I feel like, I feel like this whole time, like, I don't know, I feel like this could be a big misunderstanding, but here in Genesis 1, the waters were teaming with living Neffesh, the land produced living Neffesh,

and then God breathed into man's nostrils, man being a dom there. And the man became a living Neffesh. So that's obviously not talking about a soul. Correct, yeah. Correct. Yeah. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. It's yeah, the human becomes animated by God's Ruaach and God's breath or spirit and that whole conversation that we had a long time ago. Right. And when you are animated by the gift of divine, like all living creatures are, and right animated by God's spirit, then what are you? And what is the bird?

And what is the salmon? We are living nephish. That's what we are. Yeah, this is dismantling. Yeah, this is dismantling my concept of the human experience, the human person. We're not done yet. We're probably starting to rebuild. But I think the demo is almost complete. This picture of God takes a dumb dirt. Literally dirt, is that what that word means, right? It takes dirt. He brings in it, Rewach.

His Rewach. And then we become a living Neffesh. And the same way that a fish or an animal's living Neffesh. That is the biblical kind of anatomy and a way or like the biblical sense of like who you are. And nowhere in there is some sacred spirit or soul. I mean, you have the breath of life, God's breath. That's right.

That's not you. That's the animating That's not you. That's the animating energy that keeps you alive. It keeps you alive. Yeah. That's right. So what do you have left? Well, you have dirt that's now a living soul.

Great. I'm organic compound walking around animated by God's breath. Yeah. It's a lot less sexy than I'd like it to be. That's a better. I don't know. It's very earthy. Yes, yeah, yes, sexy, then I'd like it to be well, I don't know, it's very earthy and it's and it's intuitive. Yes, but it's just not the category of had in my mind. Okay, sure, well, okay, so I'll give you that.

And it's not as mysterious or something, it's very kind of like, oh, feels very, I don't know. Mm-hmm. I'm dirt animated by God's breath. Yeah, and in the estimation of page one and two, pages one and two, that is... I want to think of myself as more than that. Yeah, well, you are.

Your God's royal representative, you're remarkable. That's my vocation. Remarkable creature. That's the unique capacity and role to... But I could build a robot and tell him, now you're my image and go, dude, my job for me, right? But it's just, but it's now, it's just metal and circuits. And I feel like what makes me feel special

and more than just a robot or an animal is this idea of having a soul. A soul. Yeah. Like, you know, the Pinocchio thing of like, you're a puppet and now I'm going to Yeah. And now you into this. Well, okay. So this is interesting.

Genesis 1 puts animals and humans on a spectrum. And what makes humans different is interesting. Genesis 1 puts animals and humans on a spectrum and what makes humans different is not that they have a soul. They're all living nephish. What sets the humans apart, yeah, is their capacity and responsibility to represent God and God's creative, gracious rule. And yeah, that's right. So yeah, so you feel like it's a demotion.

You're getting demoted to become more animal-like. And where it's funny, I think the intention of Genesis is one is the opposite. Well, sure, yeah. It's to promote humans to a special role that they are both like the animals that come from and go back to the same place. But they have a different role in responsibility.

So I'm trying to understand what is, it's just your categories are getting reshuffled. Yeah, and if one of those categories is this non-physical part of me that lives on forever, that represents the real essence of the real, the real me. And it's kind of infused into this body. But, but can also be separated from the body. If I begin to identify with that thing, and that's the thing that I feel like is the deepest, most meaningful part of me.

When I use the word soul, I mean like my deepest, the deepest me. And now you're telling me, no, you don't have that. You are. Well, or just the thing that is that is your body is deeply connected to your physical embodied existence. It's not separable your physical embodied existence. It's not separable from your embodied existence. It's inseparable. It's inseparable.

That's right. This is why the ultimate hope for humans in the Bible is not living a disembodied existence. It's resurrection. It's embodied existence. Which is having a nefish. Having a nefish, right? The end of this biblical story is nefishes, right?

Embodied humans, inhabiting an embodied physical world. So anyway, that's to get ahead of ourselves for the moment. And the conversation's not over. Yeah. But for the moment. And the conversation's not over. You gotta let, let the, but for the moment, you're right. What is the reorientation that has to take place is that humans do not have a soul. According, at least in the Old Testament,

humans are a nephish. They are a soul. Soul is our English word, translating Hebrew word that describes me as a whole living, breathing physical organism. Or your neck. Or your neck. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Bible Project Podcast.

Tim and I will continue this conversation on the next episode. If you enjoyed this podcast, you might also enjoy Tim's podcast called Exploring My Strange Bible. It's a collection of his sermons and teachings from over the last decade. The Bible project is a non-profit, crowd-funded project here in Portland, Oregon. We believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus and we're committed to making free resources, like videos and study guides, and it's all because of the support of people like you. Check out what we're up to right now, download resources at thebibletproject.com. Thanks for being a part of this with us. you