The Immortality of the Soul.
THE word "soul," in the Old Testament, is given as a translation of the Hebrew word, neh-phesh. This word is used at the very commencement of the revelation which God made to man. It is spoken concerning the work of creation. It is used four times in Gen. 1, namely, in verses 20, 21, 24, and 30. In all these instances it refers to the lower animals, and is connected with a word which signifies life, or living. These words together are rendered "life," in verses 20 and 30—margin, soul, and living soul. "Life" is, of course, only a partial translation of the two words. In verses 21 and 24 they are rendered "living creature." The reader will notice that the margin of verse 20 is partially, and of verse 30, entirely, like the rendering of chapter 2:7, where the creation of man is described. Man and the lower animals are, in the record of Genesis, called "living souls." This is often overlooked by the reader of the English, who hastily concludes that the phrase, "living soul," is applied to man alone. On this, Professor Bush remarked:— "It is an important fact, which is necessarily lost sight of by the mere English reader, that precisely the same language is employed in reference to the creation of man and of beasts. They were both made psuchai zosai, living souls. Whatever be the intrinsic nature of the psychical principle, both share it in common—a fact from which some have inferred that beasts are as immortal as man, and others, that man is as mortal as beasts."—Scriptural Psychology, p. 28. Gesenius says, and he is not alone in the statement, that the word rendered "living" in these passages, is not an adjective, but a noun; and this indicates that the word neh-phesh is in the construct, or genitive form, and a literal translation would be, "a soul of life." However, it could hardly be rendered better into the English than it is in the words "living soul." The two words—soul and life—are used together in the first six instances of the occurrence of neh-phesh, soul, and frequently afterwards. So closely were they associated, that in time they came to be used one for the other. Yet they were not, and are not, synonymous. Prof. Bush evidently erred when he wrote the following words:— "The verbal distinction of life and soul, so familiar to us, is not known in the Hebrew."—Scrip. Psych., p. 108. We say he evidently erred, and will give reasons why the error of his statement is evident to us:— 1. The fact that the two words are so frequently used together, is disproof of his assertion. If the two words, soul and life, are identical; if there is no distinction between the two, then one of them is redundant in all instances where they occur in connection, and the expression, "living soul," is a useless tautology. 2. In some cases of the use of the word soul, or neh-phesh, the idea of life is not only entirely absent, but directly negatived, as where it is used for the dead,—literally, a dead soul. If a living life, or a soul of soul, would be a senseless tautology, a dead life would be a solecism for which no excuse could be found in any language. Yet both would be allowable if the above-quoted assertion of Prof. Bush were correct. 3. Life is of different kinds, but the word "soul" is not applied—may not be applied—to all kinds of life. Hence the distinction must exist which Prof. B. says does not exist. There is vegetable life as well as animal life. We speak of a live tree and a dead tree with as much propriety as of a live horse and a dead horse, or a live man and a dead man. But soul is not used in reference to vegetable life; while it is used in reference to all grades of animal life. Dr. Clarke, on Gen. 1:21, comments thus:— "Nepheš chaiyah; a general term to express all creatures endued with animal life, in any of its infinitely varied gradations, from the half-reasoning elephant down to the stupid potto, or lower still, to the polype, which seems equally to share the vegetable and animal life." But it applies to the polype because it partakes of animal life, and not at all because it partakes of vegetable life. Vegetables have organizations and life as truly as have animals; and philosophers assert that they are built up in the same manner, by the same bioplastic action. The herbage was made "yielding seed after its kind," as truly as animals produce after their kind. But "the neh-phesh of the flesh is in the blood," Lev. 17:11, and others; neh-phesh, or soul, is properly predicated of creatures having blood, or animal life, in distinction from all things which have life without blood, or vegetable life. These reasons appear, to us, to be very conclusive that a plain distinction exists, and has existed from the first record of a revelation to man, between life and soul. The expression above commented upon by Clarke, neh-phesh chai-yah, translated "living soul," and which Clarke says is used to express all grades of animal life, even "down to the stupid potto," is the same that is used in the account of the creation of man, in Gen. 2:7. From this last text, most unwarrantable conclusions have been drawn in reference to the constitution or nature of man. That such conclusions have been drawn from Gen. 2:7, is owing, probably, to the fact stated by Prof. Bush, that our common translation hides from "the mere English reader" "that precisely the same language is employed in reference to the creation of man and of beasts." Yet, and we are sorry that it can be said, there are many writers and speakers who know the fact stated by Prof. Bush, who presume upon the ignorance of their readers and hearers, and confirm them in their ignorance and error by giving them to understand that a distinction in the record exists which does not exist. Such incur an awful responsibility in thus perverting the Scriptures, concealing that which is revealed, and teaching for the word of God that which is not revealed. No one ever labored more zealously than Prof. Bush to prove that such a distinction really exists in the nature of different orders of animals created in and of the earth. Yet he was honest in his statements concerning the record in Genesis. Thus in his "Notes," on Gen. 2:7, he says:— "The phrase living soul is, in the foregoing narrative, repeatedly applied to the inferior orders of animals, which are not considered to be possessed of a 'soul' in the sense in which that term is applied to man. It would seem to mean the same, therefore, when spoken of man, that it does when spoken of beasts, viz.: an animated being, a creature possessed of life and sensation, and capable of performing all the physical functions by which animals are distinguished, as eating, drinking, walking, &c. . . . Indeed, it may be remarked that the Scriptures generally afford much less explicit evidence of the existence of a sentient immaterial principle in man, capable of living and acting separate from the body, than is usually supposed." This is a fair statement of the case. There is, in fact, no explicit evidence of the existence of any immortal principle or soul in man; the popular idea is founded on inference or conjecture, or tradition. These traditions are fastened upon the Bible by arguing altogether from some secondary meaning of the word soul, and entirely overlooking the primary and usual meaning.