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Breath of Life
(From Forerunner Commentary)

Genesis 2:7  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) We are different from the rest of the natural creation in that we have mind, not instinct. In Genesis 2:7, God Himself, personally, breathes into man the breath of life. The Bible gives no indication at all that God took a personal, direct intervention to give life to any other creature in creation. This suggests that there is more here than just the giving of life. It implies the imparting of a spirit that adds to mankind a dimension others in the natural creation lack. It is the power of mind that is imparted by a spirit. Unlike animals that merely react according to pre-set patterns, we must gather information. Men have to gather knowledge, analyze, understand, and choose to do right as stipulated by instruction, in its broadest sense, and law, in its more specific sense. As a result of man having a spirit, of man having mind, man has personality and spirituality! He is capable of holiness, love, dominion, and responsibility. This requires time and experience because these qualities are acquired, not given. John W. Ritenbaugh We Shall Be God! (Part 2)

Genesis 2:7  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) Man does not have a soul—man is a "soul"! The original Hebrew word for "soul" is nephesh. Bagster's Analytical Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon defines it as "breath" and "anything that breathes, an animal." It can also refer to a "person" or even "one dead, a dead body." In Genesis 1:21, 24; 2:19; 9:10, 12, 15, 16 and Leviticus 11:46, the same word nephesh is translated "creature" when referring to animals. And so man is a soul. Notice that the word nephesh is translated as "dead body" or "the dead" in Leviticus 19:28; 21:1; 22:4; Numbers 5:2; 6:11; 9:6-7, 10. The "soul," then, is merely an air-breathing entity that is subject to death and decay. It is not immortal! The soul is composed of the "dust of the ground"—it is material, not spiritual. It is matter. When man breathes, he is a living soul. When man ceases to breathe, he becomes a nonliving or dead soul. That is what the Bible reveals. Just What Is Man?

Job 32:8  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) This spirit is not the man—it is something that is in the man. Joined with the physical brain of the man, it forms human mind. It imparts to man's brain his unique powers of intellect and personality—the ability to think rationally and make free will decisions. It imparts the ability to learn mathematics, languages, or any type of philosophical knowledge. But that is all! The spirit that is in man has no consciousness of itself. It is not an "immortal soul." This spirit is not the "man." Because of this spiritual element, the Bible often uses the word "spirit" simply to mean man's mind, intelligence, attitude. To distinguish this kind of spirit in man and the kind of spirit that is God's Holy Spirit from mere physical breath, the book of Job continues in context to use two separate Hebrew words—ruach for spirit, neshamah for breath (Job 33:4; 34:14). Just What Is Man?

Revelation 6:9  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) The word "souls" (psuchás, plural of psuché) also requires explanation, as the Greek word is far too complex in meaning to define facilely as a person's immortal essence, as most Catholics and Protestants are wont to do. Its basic meaning is "breath," and is thus equivalent to the Hebrew nephesh and Latin anima (as in English "animal" and "animate"). One of its uses is as the New Testament version of what Genesis 2:7 calls "the breath of life," that is, the vital force that makes a body live: "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 being [nephesh]." Luke 12:20 and Acts 20:10 use psuché in this manner. From this basic meaning derives its extensions: as "life" (see Matthew 6:25; John 10:11; Philippians 2:30; Revelation 12:11) and "living being" (see I Corinthians 15:45; Revelation 16:3). In addition, psuché can refer to the seat of emotion, will, and desire, whereas we would use the terms "heart," "mind," "personality," or "being" today (see Luke 1:46; Acts 14:2, 22; Hebrews 6:19; II Peter 2:14). In a similar sense, it can also identify man's moral and spiritual life (see Hebrews 13:17; I Peter 1:22; 2:11, 25; 4:19; III John 2). Some try to read immortality into certain biblical uses of psuché (for instance, Acts 2:27, 31; II Corinthians 1:23; Revelation 20:4), but the Bible does not support such an interpretation. In fact, in one of these, Matthew 10:28, Jesus confirms that souls can indeed be destroyed (also supported by the Old Testament in Job 33:22; Ezekiel 18:4, 20)! One must consult extrabiblical sources (such as Plato, Xenophon, Herodotus, and other Greek writers) to find usages of psuché that define "the soul as an essence which differs from the body and is not dissolved by death" (Thayer's Lexicon). How then is this word used in Revelation 6:9? We must remember that John is viewing a vision (Revelation 1:10), a symbolic representation for mortal eyes and minds of future events, not reality. One cannot see a person's actual soul, that is, his being, his life, so what John saw were representations of those who had been martyred. He probably literally saw bodies (Greek soma) under the altar but chose to identify them as psuchás, "lives" or "persons," because, as the next verses show, the vision depicts them speaking and receiving clothing, things a person can do only while alive. The important point to remember is that John specifically identifies them as having been "slain"—they are dead—and the Bible elsewhere shows that "the dead know nothing" (Ecclesiastes 9:5) and cannot work, plan, learn, or pursue any activity in the grave (verse 10). Thus, John, a Hebrew, is using psuché in the same sense as Old Testament writers sometimes use nephesh, as "dead body," a being that once had life (see Leviticus 21:11; Numbers 6:6; 9:6-7, 10; 19:11, 13; Haggai 2:13). Richard T. Ritenbaugh The Fifth Seal (Part One)

 

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