Isn’t Calling a Person a “LIVING SOUL” Redundant?
This question refers to is the passage in the first book of the Bible that describes precisely how God created human beings:
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul (chay nephesh).
Genesis 2:7 (KJV)
The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being (chay nephesh).
Genesis 2:7 (NIV)
In this ‘creation text’ we see here that:
- God created the human body out of “the dust of the earth,”
- breathed into it the “breath of life,” aka the spirit of life,
- and so the man became a “living soul” (KJV), which — as you can see — is translated as “living being” in the New International Version.
The Hebrew word for “soul” or “being” is nephesh (neh-FESH), which is equivalent to the Greek psuche (soo-KHAY) because when this ‘creation text’ is partially quoted in 1 Corinthians 15:45, nephesh is translated by the word psuche in the original text. The Greek psuche is incidentally where we get the English words psyche, psychology and psychiatry.
This foundational passage plainly states that human beings are living souls. So, biblically, “soul” (nephesh/psuche) in its broadest sense refers to the entire human person. I am a living soul; you are a living soul. We see this clearly in such passages as this one:
All the souls (nephesh) that came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins, besides Jacob’s sons’ wives, all the souls (nephesh) were threescore and six.
Genesis 46:26a (KJV)
“Souls” in this verse simply refers to the people who accompanied Jacob to Egypt. The New International Version translates nephesh in this text as “those” and “persons” respectively. Other examples include Joshua 10:28, Genesis 12:5 and Jeremiah 52:30.
The New Testament equivalent to nephesh is psuche, which can also refer to the whole person in certain contexts, as observed here:
In it [Noah’s ark] only a few people (psuche), eight in all, were saved…
1 Peter 3:20
So, “soul” (nephesh/psuche) in its broadest sense clearly refers to the whole person, the whole human being—spirit, mind and body. When nephesh/psuche is used in this broad sense, “being” is perhaps the best translation, which is why the NIV translators decided to render nephesh as “being” in the creation text, Genesis 2:7—the first human was a “living being.” (For biblical details, see this article).
Of course, nephesh/psuche can exclusively refer to the mind in certain contexts (1 Chronicles 28:9, Acts 14:2) or mind & spirit (Revelation 6:9-10; Revelation 20:4). It can even refer to a dead body–a corpse–in certain contexts (Leviticus 21:11; Numbers 19:11).
All of this brings us to the question we’re tackling here: Isn’t saying “living soul” or “living being” redundant?
No, because God’s very Word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15; 3:16-17) defines the human being as such in the very first passage that addresses the topic of human nature, which is significant in light of the hermeneutical ‘law of first mention.’ If you’re not familiar with this interpretational guideline, it suggests that the first mention of a word or topic in Holy Scripture is vital to fully grasping the concept.
As you can see above in the quoted Genesis 2:7, “living soul” (or “living being”) is chay nephesh in the original Hebrew language; or zaó psuche in the Greek (as observed by the aforenoted 1 Corinthians 15:45). The reason the soul is said to be “living” in these verses is due to God’s spiritual breath of life. Without this divine lifeforce, the human being would be a dead soul. Simple logic dictates that, if there’s such a thing as a living soul, there must also be such a thing as a dead soul.
To explain, without the spiritual breath of life from God, the immaterial mind has no consciousness—no life. It’s similar to the way the body dies without physical air.
Remember, God is the “fountain of life” from which all life springs (Psalm 36:9). Hence, the animating spiritual lifeforce merely returns to the Creator who gave it when an unredeemed person dies, as observed in these two passages:
3Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.
4His breath (ruwach) goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.
Psalm 146:3-4 (KJV)
6Remember him—before the silver cord is severed,
and the golden bowl is broken;
before the pitcher is shattered at the spring,
and the wheel broken at the well,
7and the dust returns to the ground it came from,
and the spirit (ruwach) returns to God who gave it.
Ecclesiastes 12:6-7
Once the spiritual “breath of life” returns to God–I’m talking about the ruwach (or neshamah)–the lifeless soul is then held in Sheol, aka Hades.
These people will later be resurrected at the Great White Throne Judgment by the same animating lifeforce, God’s breath of life (ruwach/ neshamah). They will be judged, and “Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life” is discarded like trash in the Lake of Fire to suffer the “second death” (Revelation 20:11-15).
This “second death” entails the everlasting destruction of both soul and body, as the Lord plainly declared (Matthew 10:28; Luke 19:27; Hebrews 10:26-27). When this occurs, the spiritual breath of life, once again, merely returns to God in the same way that a person’s physical breath simply returns to the oxygen in the atmosphere upon physical decease.
Related Topics:
Q&A on HUMAN NATURE: Spirit, Mind & Flesh
HUMAN NATURE — Spirit, Mind & Body
Sheol / Hades: The “Intermediate State” of the Unsaved Dead
The Believer’s “Intermediate State” (between Physical Death and Bodily resurrection)
Hell (Human Damnation) — Questions and Answers
Why Is This World So Messed Up?