What, exactly, is the soul?

[sojourner]

Did I say the did (though I believe they do). It is a Hebrew word, used to define a certain concept. It was in use and written by the Jews in c 2,000 BC. Unless some other culture before or at the same time was using the Jewish term, it was co opted. Any meaning attached to it other than the meaning of the Torah, is using the word wrongly.

Unless it was also in use in a different language and culture. Judaism has no copyright or trademark on the concept of soul, or on the word “soul.” You do realize that “soul” is an English word that may be used to translate any number of other foreign terms? “Soul” doesn’t only translate a Judaic word.

 

[shmogie]

Did I say the did (though I believe they do). It is a Hebrew word, used to define a certain concept. It was in use and written by the Jews in c 2,000 BC.
Unless some other culture before or at the same time was using the Jewish term, it was co opted. Any meaning attached to it other than the meaning of the Torah, is using the word wrongly.

An obscure native tribe in the jungle may have heard a GI use the word cow.

They can adopt it and use it as a name for birds, and it works for them, nevertheless, they are not using it to mean what it actually means, They are using an English word meaning a four legged ruminant to apply to a two legged, winged and flying, bird.

 

[shmogie]

Unless it was also in use in a different language and culture. Judaism has no copyright or trademark on the concept of soul, or on the word “soul.” You do realize that “soul” is an English word that may be used to translate any number of other foreign terms? “Soul” doesn’t only translate a Judaic word.

The Jewish word for soul, initially translated as soul (sheol is one of two or three closely related) came from the Hebrew scriptures. The concept can be immortal peanut butter, for all I care, the English word is the translation of a Hebrew word. How it is used today is irrelevant, and is mostly used differently than what it originally meant.

 

[sojourner]

An obscure native tribe in the jungle may have heard a GI use the word cow.

They can adopt it and use it as a name for birds, and it works for them, nevertheless, they are not using it to mean what it actually means, They are using an English word meaning a four legged ruminant to apply to a two legged, winged and flying, bird.

What if an isolated tribe — in their own language — came up with a term for their concept of soul?” Without ever having encountered anyone else? You’re trying to make Hebrew some kind of “original language of the world, which we know it is not. Language is much, much older than 2000 b.c.e

 

[shmogie]

What if an isolated tribe — in their own language — came up with a term for their concept of soul?” Without ever having encountered anyone else? You’re trying to make Hebrew some kind of “original language of the world, which we know it is not. Language is much, much older than 2000 b.c.e

No, I am not. I am simply pointing out that a word that came into the English language around 800 AD was a word used most probably as a translation of the Hebrew word.

All cultures have views on human immortality, spirits, ghosts, the essence of a person, etc.

Today they all are collectively called souls in English and other languages.

A culture may have a specific word for their concept, and that is what their word means.

The soul is the complete living person, all that she is, When she dies, the soul ceases to exist. Life + body= soul.

You or others make take issue with that, and thatś fine, that is the Hebrew definition, originally translated as soul, that means many different things today.

I accept and believe the Hebrew definition.

 

[`mud]

Ask `God` !
He knows !
Pick a `God` and listen closely !

 

[qaz]

in ancient times it was born as a rational explanation for the movement. then we discovered that motion , and not stillness, was the spontaneous state of the matter, so the traditional notion of soul vanished. john donne wrote a powerful poem about that : the anatomy of the world.
montesquieu finally renewed the word from its ashes, in the meaning of "general character" , or "essence" of something.

 

[Brickjectivity]

People talk about these "realms" or "planes" as if they existed, or could be detected in any way.

Making things up and stating them as fact seems so wrong to me, somehow.

Why does it not bother the "spiritual" types?

It does.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Well?


.​

Something somebody thought up one day.

 

[Audie]

It does.

What does? Talking nonsense they make up? Must not bother them too much.

 

[Audie]

in ancient times it was born as a rational explanation for the movement. then we discovered that motion , and not stillness, was the spontaneous state of the matter, so the traditional notion of soul vanished. john donne wrote a powerful poem about that : the anatomy of the world.
montesquieu finally renewed the word from its ashes, in the meaning of "general character" , or "essence" of something.

is this not an example of the 'facts not in evidence" that I was saying
ye spiritual ones speak?

 

[Brickjectivity]

What does? Talking nonsense they make up? Must not bother them too much.

It bothers me, and I am spiritual. It bothers lots of spiritual people I have encountered on this forum, too. I like my facts cold and in my face.

 

[qaz]

is this not an example of the 'facts not in evidence" that I was saying
ye spiritual ones speak?

"psyché estin entelecheia hé prooté soomatos physikou dynamei zoon echontos toiouton de, ho an hé organikon or entelecheia hé prooté soomatos physikou organikou"

aristotle, which confirms the ancient notion of soul.

For who is sure he hath a soul, unless
It see, and judge, and follow worthiness,
And by deeds praise it? He who doth not this,
May lodge an inmate soul, but 'tis not his

john donne, which polemically witnesses the passage from the ancient to the modern idea of soul.

"Soul, in religion and philosophy, the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being, that which confers individuality and humanity, often considered to be synonymous with the mind or the self"

britannica, which adopts montesquieu's secular meaning of esprit


you're confusing evidence-based assertions and plain pedantry.

 

[Skwim]

Something somebody thought up one day.

Boy, from all the crazy answers I've read it sure seems like everyone is on their own.

.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

I would say that the wild variety of responses to this thread gives credence to the idea that the "soul" is basically an idea variably held by many, many people... and it is not much more than that.

 

[sojourner]

No, I am not. I am simply pointing out that a word that came into the English language around 800 AD was a word used most probably as a translation of the Hebrew word.

All cultures have views on human immortality, spirits, ghosts, the essence of a person, etc.

Today they all are collectively called souls in English and other languages.

A culture may have a specific word for their concept, and that is what their word means.

The soul is the complete living person, all that she is, When she dies, the soul ceases to exist. Life + body= soul.

You or others make take issue with that, and thatś fine, that is the Hebrew definition, originally translated as soul, that means many different things today.

I accept and believe the Hebrew definition.

Fair enough, but I don’t think you can say with any degree of truth that the Hebrew meaning is the only “real meaning,” because it’s “oldest.” It’s probably not the oldest concept of “soul” in the world, and Christianity is theologically fundamentally a different animal from its Judaic forebear.

 

[Audie]

"psyché estin entelecheia hé prooté soomatos physikou dynamei zoon echontos toiouton de, ho an hé organikon or entelecheia hé prooté soomatos physikou organikou"

aristotle, which confirms the ancient notion of soul.

For who is sure he hath a soul, unless
It see, and judge, and follow worthiness,
And by deeds praise it? He who doth not this,
May lodge an inmate soul, but 'tis not his

john donne, which polemically witnesses the passage from the ancient to the modern idea of soul.

"Soul, in religion and philosophy, the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being, that which confers individuality and humanity, often considered to be synonymous with the mind or the self"

britannica, which adopts montesquieu's secular meaning of esprit


you're confusing evidence-based assertions and plain pedantry.

No, I am pointing out bs

 

[shmogie]

Fair enough, but I don’t think you can say with any degree of truth that the Hebrew meaning is the only “real meaning,” because it’s “oldest.” It’s probably not the oldest concept of “soul” in the world, and Christianity is theologically fundamentally a different animal from its Judaic forebear.

Perhaps not, but it is very likely to be the source of the English word soul.

No, Christianity is the ultimate expression of Judaism. Christ and the Apostles believed the Jewish scriptures and their definition of soul is in harmony with those scriptures.

The problem is with both the later amalgamating of pagan ideaś as a filter for what both the OT and NT teach, and confusing the soul with the spirit.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Hmm. How does it agree materialists?

They would say the soul isn't actually a thing, and nothing non-physical is left behind.

 

[sojourner]

Perhaps not, but it is very likely to be the source of the English word soul.

No, Christianity is the ultimate expression of Judaism. Christ and the Apostles believed the Jewish scriptures and their definition of soul is in harmony with those scriptures.

The problem is with both the later amalgamating of pagan ideaś as a filter for what both the OT and NT teach, and confusing the soul with the spirit.

Christianity outgrew its progenitor and changed the face of religion, just as children outgrow their parents and become their own women and men, changing the face of the continuing family. Christian theology is not simply a continuation of Judaic theology.
The NT IS the written amalgamation of Greek and Hebraic ideas, because the entire NT was written in Greek, from a perspective that was heavily influenced by Greek thought. So, we don’t really have a purely Hebraic, written understanding of Jesus. Jesus was a Jew, but the Judaic religious authorities branded him a heretic and had him put to death. So, according to the Bible, Jesus wasn’t a very good Jew. His ideas were already exhibiting a major shift from Hebraic theology while he was alive and teaching. And the religious authorities didn’t like it.

So, whatever we’re left with cannot be separated from “pagan” roots and made “pure,” just as a Martini cannot be separated from its Vermouth and be called a “pure Martini.” Nor, in it’s separated state, can it be called the “highest expression of gin.”

Whatever the proto-church thought of the soul is what we have. Gin is not “corrupted” by the addition of Vermouth; it becomes something entirely different, and is placed in a different class of beverage, with legitimate qualities unique to it — no matter where the origin of the gin. Some people drink their Martinis wet, some very dry. Some drink them with an olive, some with a pearl onion. Some drink them with vodka instead of gin. But it’s still a legitimate Martini, and not a shot of gin, with a mixology all its own. Thus it is with an understanding of soul.