Where does the soul come from?

Question

What makes the soul? How does it get into an embryo? Does it exist before the sperm or egg does?

Answer 1

SOUL

The original-language terms (Heb., ne´phesh ; Gr., psy·khe´) as used in the Scriptures show “soul” to be a person, an animal, or the life that a person or an animal enjoys.

The connotations that the English “soul” commonly carries in the minds of most persons are not in agreement with the meaning of the Hebrew and Greek words as used by the inspired Bible writers. This fact has steadily gained wider acknowledgment. Back in 1897, in the Journal of Biblical Literature (Vol. XVI, p. 30), Professor C. A. Briggs, as a result of detailed analysis of the use of ne´phesh, observed: “Soul in English usage at the present time conveys usually a very different meaning from [ne´phesh] in Hebrew, and it is easy for the incautious reader to misinterpret.”

More recently, when The Jewish Publication Society of America issued a new translation of the Torah, or first five books of the Bible, the editor-in-chief, H. M. Orlinsky of Hebrew Union College, stated that the word “soul” had been virtually eliminated from this translation because, “the Hebrew word in question here is ‘Nefesh.’” He added: “Other translators have interpreted it to mean ‘soul,’ which is completely inaccurate. The Bible does not say we have a soul. ‘Nefesh’ is the person himself, his need for food, the very blood in his veins, his being.”—The New York Times, October 12, 1962.

Earth’s First Souls. The initial occurrences of ne´phesh are found at Genesis 1:20-23. On the fifth creative “day” God said: “‘Let the waters swarm forth a swarm of living souls [ne´phesh] and let flying creatures fly over the earth . . . ’ And God proceeded to create the great sea monsters and every living soul [ne´phesh] that moves about, which the waters swarmed forth according to their kinds, and every winged flying creature according to its kind.” Similarly on the sixth creative “day” ne´phesh is applied to the “domestic animal and moving animal and wild beast of the earth” as “living souls.”—Ge 1:24.

After man’s creation, God’s instruction to him again used the term ne´phesh with regard to the animal creation, “everything moving upon the earth in which there is life as a soul [literally, in which there is living soul (ne´phesh)].” (Ge 1:30) Other examples of animals being so designated are found at Genesis 2:19; 9:10-16; Leviticus 11:10, 46; 24:18; Numbers 31:28; Ezekiel 47:9. Notably, the Christian Greek Scriptures coincide in applying the Greek psy·khe´ to animals, as at Revelation 8:9; 16:3, where it is used of creatures in the sea.

Thus, the Scriptures clearly show that ne´phesh and psy·khe´ are used to designate the animal creation lower than man. The same terms apply to man.

The Human Soul. Precisely the same Hebrew phrase used of the animal creation, namely, ne´phesh chai·yah´ (living soul), is applied to Adam, when, after God formed man out of dust from the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, “the man came to be a living soul.” (Ge 2:7) Man was distinct from the animal creation, but that distinction was not because he was a ne´phesh (soul) and they were not. Rather, the record shows that it was because man alone was created “in God’s image.” (Ge 1:26, 27) He was created with moral qualities like those of God, with power and wisdom far superior to the animals; hence he could have in subjection all the lower forms of creature life. (Ge 1:26, 28) Man’s organism was more complex, as well as more versatile, than that of the animals. (Compare 1Co 15:39.) Likewise, Adam had, but lost, the prospect of eternal life; this is never stated with regard to the creatures lower than man.—Ge 2:15-17; 3:22-24.

It is true that the account says that ‘God proceeded to blow into the man’s nostrils the breath [form of nesha·mah´] of life,’ whereas this is not stated in the account of the animal creation. Clearly, however, the account of the creation of man is much more detailed than that of the creation of animals. Moreover, Genesis 7:21-23, in describing the Flood’s destruction of “all flesh” outside the ark, lists the animal creatures along with mankind and says: “Everything in which the breath [form of nesha·mah´] of the force of life was active in its nostrils, namely, all that were on the dry ground, died.” Obviously, the breath of life of the animal creatures also originally came from the Creator, Jehovah God.

So, too, the “spirit” (Heb., ru´ach; Gr., pneu´ma), or life-force, of man is not distinct from the life-force in animals, as is shown by Ecclesiastes 3:19-21, which states that “they all have but one spirit [u·ru´ach].”