Is the concept of the soul mentioned in the OT?

M

mojobadshah

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I'm assuming that if there was no afterlife in the OT that the Jews don't believe in the concept of the soul or am I wrong? How far back does this concept go and how is it different from the NT concept of the soul?
 
Humanity was created on the Sixth Day, but they did not have physical bodies at that time -- they only had their souls. Their physical bodies were created later, during the story of Adam and Eve. (This is the real meaning of the story of Adam and Eve.) So to answer your question, the concept of a soul appears on the very first page of Genesis.
 
Hebrew has a word nephesh "life" which is breathed into the clay (Adam means "clay") to make it something other than inert matter. The question of whether the nephesh could continue to exist without the body was raised, but not answered, in Ecclesiastes.
 
DEATH IS FINAL

There is no resurrection from the dead. The following quotes indicating the finality of death and not the delusion of immortality come only from the Old Testament. All but four references to resurrection are from the New Testament (i.e. Pagan derived.)

Job 7:9
"As the cloud is consumed and vanishes away, so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more."

Ps.6:5
"For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?"

Ec.3:19
"For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast."

Ec.9:5
"The dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward."

Ec.9:10
"For there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest."

Is.26:14
"They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased they shall not rise."

Is.38:18
"For the grave cannot praise thee, death can not celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth."

My comment: One can find Bible verses for or against immortality. Thus as a source for debating Immortality, the Bible is ambivalent and irrelevant.

What is the significance of a soul if there is no afterlife? The soul is just a metaphor for cognitive brain functions. When the brain dies, cells degenerate rapidly, axons dissolve, and all circuits that comprised what you call a soul, is gone. It is like burning a CD of music. Once the material melts and burns you can get no more music from it.

An afterlife is simply wishful thinking. We fear death and cannot face up to what it really means. That makes us invent gods and souls and afterlife magical universes like Heaven.

Amergin
 
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