The Hebrew and Greek terms translated “soul” have several shades of meaning. An early occurrence of the Heb. nephesh is in Genesis 2:7 : “The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath [ neshamah ] of life; and man became a living soul [ nephesh ].” “Soul” is the most common translation of the Heb. nephesh (from naphash , “to breathe”) and of the Gr. psyche . Inasmuch as breath is the most conspicuous evidence of life, nephesh basically designates man as a living being, a person. In this sense man is a soul, as for example, in Num. 19:18 , where the plural of nephesh is translated “persons.”
Frequently nephesh means “life” ( 1 Sam. 20:1 ; 22:23 ; 1 Kings 3:11 ; etc.) and is so translated in the KJV 119 times. Commonly, nephesh is used in place of the personal pronoun, meaning “I,” “you,” “he,” etc. ( 1 Kings 20:32 , “me”; and Jer. 17:21 , “yourselves”; etc.). Nephesh is also applied to animals ( Gen. 1:20 , 21 , 24 , translated “creature”; etc.). In the NT the Greek word psycheµ (“soul”) has a similar meaning, although often stressing the conscious self or personality.
Neither nephesh nor psycheµ connotes an immaterial, immortal entity or part of humanity capable of independent, conscious existence apart from the body. At death an individual ceases to be “a living soul.” The “spirit” ( Heb. ruÆach ) returns to God, who gave it ( Eccl. 12:7 ; see Spirit ). “In that very day his thoughts perish” ( Ps. 146:4 ). Conscious existence ceases at death, for “the dead know not any thing” ( Eccl. 9:5 ).
The concept of an immortal soul surviving at the time of death as a sentient, intelligent spirit being with an existence separate from the body entered Jewish thought during the intertestamental period through the influence of Greek philosophy. During the first three centuries after Christ, Christian theologians adopted the idea from the same source, especially from Plato. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, the Greeks borrowed this concept from the Egyptians ( History of the Persian Wars 2. 123).
This wholly pagan concept eventually replaced the original biblical meaning of nephesh and psyche so completely as to impregnate these terms with an import wholly foreign to that set forth by the Bible writers. This popular concept is the basis for various nonbiblical doctrines, such as the idea that at death men go to heaven, purgatory, or hell, and that the wicked are to be consigned to an eternally burning hell.
The Scriptures teach that God “only hath immortality” ( 1 Tim. 6:16 ), that humans can attain to immortality only in Christ ( John 3:16 ; 2 Tim. 1:10 ), that humans receive title to this gift when they accept Christ ( 1 John 5:10–12 ), and that immortality will be bestowed upon all the saved simultaneously at the resurrection and the second coming of Christ ( Rom. 2:7 , 8 ; 1 Cor. 15:20–26 , 51–54 ).
From the first, Seventh-day Adventists have rejected the pagan concept of the natural immortality of the soul, together with the doctrines derived from it and based upon it. ( See Death ; Eternal Life ; Immortality ; Resurrection ; Spirit .)