According to the christian bible- do animals have souls?

Question

1st question:according to the bible, does it say anywhere, that animals have souls or do not have souls? if so, where?

2nd question: Is it PROVEN anywhere, bible, or on earth, that humans indeed have souls, that do leave the body after death?
3rd question: do they leave the body during dreaming?

Answer 1

1.) Yes, animals have souls according to the Bible:

Genesis 9:5 - "I will demand an account from every beast and from man. I will demand an account of every man's life from his fellow men."

God doesn't demand an accounting of anything without a "soul". Since He demands an acounting of the life of every beast, then every beast has a soul.

2.) There are endless, well-documented cases of experiences of near-death or actual death where people from different countries, cultures, religions, professions, etc. have all given similar reports of the "soul" ascending and meeting the souls of those who had died before them.

3.) Sometimes the "soul" can leave the body, as in astral projection.

One last comment; a French doctor and, later, an English doctor in the late 19th and early 20th centuries both did experiments with patients who were terminally ill with diseases which,upon death, caused no convulsions. They weighed their patients on scales attached to the deathbeds.

Both doctors found that the patients, at the instant of death, lost EXACTLY 3/4 of an ounce of body weight which couldn't be explained by exhalation of breath or any other physical function. Both doctors concluded that the 3/4 of an ounce that was lost was the weight of the human soul leaving the body.

Answer 2

1. Yes according to the bible animal are souls.

(basic definition of soul is breather, so everything that breaths is a soul)

2. Souls at death become dead souls in that they stop breathing.

3. No since a person or animal or breather are souls, souls can not leave the body.

http://watchtower.org/e/20050501/article_01.htm

http://watchtower.org/e/20010715/article_01.htm

.Animals are souls

Ge 1:20, 21, 24, 30; 2:19; 9:10, 12, 15, 16; Le 11:10, 46, 46; 24:18; Nu 31:28; Job 41:21; Eze 47:9.

A living person or individual is a soul

Ge 2:7; 12:5; 14:21; 36:6; 46:15, 18, 22, 25, 26, 26, 27, 27; Ex 1:5, 5; 12:4, 16; 16:16; Le 2:1; 4:2, 27; 5:1, 2, 4, 15, 17; 6:2; 7:18, 20, 21, 25, 27; 17:10, 12, 15; 18:29; 20:6, 6; 22:6, 11; 23:29, 30; 27:2; Nu 5:6; 15:27, 28, 30; 19:18, 22; 31:35, 35, 40, 40, 46; 35:30; De 10:22; 24:6, 7; 1Sa 22:22; 2Sa 14:14; 2Ki 12:4; 1Ch 5:21; Ps 19:7; Pr 11:25, 30; 16:24; 19:2, 15; 25:25; 27:7, 7, 9; Jer 43:6; 52:29; La 3:25; Eze 27:13; Ac 2:41, 43; 7:14; 27:37; Ro 13:1; 1Co 15:45; 1Pe 3:20; 2Pe 2:14.

The creature soul is mortal, destructible

Ge 12:13; 17:14; 19:19, 20; 37:21; Ex 12:15, 19; 31:14; Le 7:20, 21, 27; 19:8; 22:3; 23:30; 24:17; Nu 9:13; 15:30, 31; 19:13, 20; 23:10; 31:19; 35:11, 15, 30; De 19:6, 11; 22:26; 27:25; Jos 2:13, 14; 10:28, 30, 32, 35, 37, 37, 39; 11:11; 20:3, 9; Jg 5:18; 16:16, 30; 1Ki 19:4; 20:31; Job 7:15; 11:20; 18:4; 33:22; 36:14; Ps 7:2; 22:29; 66:9; 69:1; 78:50; 94:17; 106:15; 124:4; Pr 28:17; Isa 55:3; Jer 2:34; 4:10; 18:20; 38:17; 40:14; Eze 13:19; 17:17; 18:4; 22:25, 27; 33:6; Mt 2:20; 10:28, 28; 26:38; Mr 3:4; 14:34; Lu 6:9; 17:33; Joh 12:25; Ac 3:23; Ro 11:3; Heb 10:39; Jas 5:20; Re 8:9; 12:11; 16:3.

Life as an intelligent person

Ge 35:18; Ex 4:19; 21:23; 30:12; Jos 9:24; Jg 9:17; 12:3; 18:25; 2Ki 7:7; 2Ch 1:11; Job 2:4; 6:11; Pr 1:18; 7:23; 22:23; 25:13; Mt 6:25; 10:39; 16:25; Lu 12:20; Joh 10:15; 13:38; 15:13; Ac 20:10; Ro 16:4; Php 2:30; 1Th 2:8; Jas 1:21; 1Pe 1:22; 2:11, 25; 1Jo 3:16.

Soul delivered from Sheol or Hades (“hell”)

Ps 16:10; 30:3; 49:15; 86:13; 89:48; Pr 23:14; Ac 2:27.

Dead soul, or corpse

Le 19:28; 21:1, 11; 22:4; Nu 5:2; 6:6, 11; 9:6, 7, 10; 19:11, 13; Hag 2:13.

Soul distinguished from spirit

Php 1:27; 1Th 5:23; Heb 4:12.

God has soul

1Sa 2:35; Ps 11:5; 24:4; Pr 6:16; Isa 1:14; 42:1; Jer 5:9; 6:8; 12:7; 14:19; 15:1; 32:41; 51:14; La 3:20; Eze 23:18; Am 6:8; Mt 12:18; Heb 10:38.

Answer 3

1. Animals do not have souls.

2 and 3. The Bible does not teach that humans have souls.

Genesis 2:7 and 1 Corinthians 15:45 says that Adam came to be a living soul, not came to have a soul.

Genesis 1:24 calls lower animals souls as well.

What is a soul then? The Hebrew word Nephesh is used for animals and humans and refers to the creature itself, not some immaterial spirit.

H. M. Orlinsky of Hebrew Union College, stated that the word “soul” had been virtually eliminated from the newest translation of the Torah (issued by The Jewish Publication Society of America ) 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.

The New Catholic Encyclopedia agrees with this. In its article “Soul (in the Bible),” it says: “There is no dichotomy [division into two parts] of body and soul in the OT [“Old Testament,” or Hebrew Scriptures].” It adds that in the Bible, the word “soul” “never means soul as distinct from the body or the individual person.” Indeed, soul often “means the individual being itself whether of animals or men.”

Souls are not immortal. Ezekiel 18:4 makes it clear that souls die.

Why do most churches teach the soul is an immortal spirit that people have? The New Catholic Encyclopedia, in its article “Soul, Human, Immortality Of,” says that early Church Fathers found support for belief in an immortal soul, not in the Bible, but in “the poets and philosophers and general tradition of Greek thought . . . Later, the scholastics preferred to make use of Plato or principles from Aristotle.” It states that “the influence of Platonic and Neoplatonic thought”—including belief in the immortal soul—eventually was inserted “into the very core of Christian theology.”

Answer 4

#1. All living things have a soul.
Life is the breath of God or it isn't.
#2. There was a study in the '50s that measured the weight of a person at the time of death. The conclusion was the soul weighed some fraction of an ounce.
#3. Your soul can leave your body while sleeping or awake.
The body is only a vessel

Answer 5

In the beginning of our Scriptures, we see God creating 'every living creature' (Genesis 1:21, 24). The Hebrew words (transliterated) are 'chay' (living) and 'nephesh' (soul). 'Nephesh' is mentioned over 400 times in the Old Testament signifying soul. The words 'chay nephesh' are used from chapter one, verse 20, when the waters are filled with living creatures. The close translation from Hebrew is: 'And God said: Let the waters swarm [with] the swarmers [having] a soul of life …' and in the next verse: 'And God created the great sea animals, and all that creeps, [having] a living soul …' (The words in square brackets are not used in Hebrew, but are understood.) In verse 30, God provides food - purely vegetarian - to every living thing, in which, the Hebrew adds, '[is] a living soul'.

There is a definite separation here between 'every green plant', which of course are living things, and every creature possessed of a 'living soul'. In chapter two, the second, and older Creation account, the first human being was created from dust, then God 'blew into his nostrils [the] breath of life and man became a living soul', a 'chay nephesh'. Here we have the real sense of 'nephesh', or soul, as a being animated by the breath of life. This reminds us of the glorious invocation of psalm 150, where 'everything that breathes' IS TO PRAISE THE LORD.

When Pope John Paul II declared in a public audience in 1990 that 'also the animals possess a soul and men must love and feel solidarity with our smaller brethren' some people must have thought this was a new teaching, unaware of the Holy Father's scholarly familiarity with the authentic Hebrew texts.

St. Paul said that animals would be redeemed.

Additionally, Pope Pius Xll said that 'any unnecessary harshness towards animals and any reckless desire to harm them must be condemned'.

All living things have souls, but only angels and humans have spiritual souls. Animal and plant souls are material principles that cease to exist at death. Angels do not die, and human souls survive the death of the body.

The story of St Francis and the swallows and his way with animals and even a murderous "Brother Wolf" is very interesting.

Judaism also teaches that animals have souls but will not be with people in paradise.

"According to most traditional Jewish sources, animals do have a soul, (but) their souls don't get reunited with their owners in heaven," he said. The animal soul is at a lower level than the divine soul, which is what humans have, and it is that soul which is reunited with God in the afterlife.



We do not know God's plans for animals. There is no belief in souls leaving the body during sleep or having such ability except through demonic deception, a deceptive feeling of leaving the body and seeing new things through the devil's own limited foreknowledge.

Answer 6

The Bible does not say that animals or humans HAVE souls. It DOES say that they ARE souls.

A study of the Bible reveals that the word soul (hebrew word ne'phesh, greek word psy.che' occurs well over 800 times in the Scriptures. It refers to people (1 Pet. 3:20), animals (Gen. 1:20, 24), or the life that a person or an animal enjoys (Exo. 4:19).
The word for "spirit" (hebrew ru'ach, greek pneu'ma) is a completely different word from "soul". Spirit refers to that which gives life to a body (Ps. 104:29; James 2:26)

The soul and the spirit are not the same. The soul needs the spirit to function in the same way that a radio needs electricity to function. The spirit is the force that brings our soul (body) to life.

At Genesis 2:7 we read "And Jehovah God proceeded to form the man out of dust from the ground and to blow into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man came to be a living soul."
We learn from this verse that DUST + BREATH = living soul

The Bible also teaches us that the soul can die

Ezekiel 18:4: “Look! All the souls—to me they belong. As the soul of the father so likewise the soul of the son—to me they belong. The soul that is sinning—it itself will die.”

Ezekiel 18:20: “The soul that is sinning—it itself will die.

Psalm 104:29 also shows how the opposite of the first stated equation is true...

"...If you take away their spirit, they expire, and back to their dust they go."

dust + breath (same hebrew word as for spirit) = a living soul
living soul - breath (same hebrew word as for spirit) = dust

Answer 7

There is no mention of animals having souls in the bible. yes there is mention of the humansoul. No there is no mention of it leaving the body during sleep.

Answer 8

Leviticus 17:10-11 it is written, ‘As for any man of the house of Israel or some alien resident who is residing as an alien in YOUR midst who eats ANY SORT OF BLOOD, I shall certainly set my face against the soul that is eating the blood, and I shall indeed cut him off from among his people. 11 For the SOUL OF THE FLESH IS IN THE BLOOD, and I myself have put it upon the altar for YOU to make atonement for YOUR souls, because it is the blood that makes atonement by the soul [in it].
This Scripture was speaking about the animal sacrifice because it speaks of it as being placed upon the altar. So according to this Scripture animals are souls. But lets look at another.
Genesis 1:20 says, And God went on to say: “Let the waters swarm forth a swarm of living souls". Everything that moves in the ocean and living is considered to be part of the animal kingdom.
Genesis 1:24 says, And God went on to say: “Let the earth put forth living souls according to their kinds, domestic animal and moving animal and wild beast of the earth according to its kind.” And it came to be so.
I think this last scripture completely answers your question.
YOur second question is does man have a soul.
Genesis 2:7 says, And Jehovah God proceeded to form the man out of dust from the ground and to blow into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man came to be a living soul.
According to the divine word we, that is human beings are living souls.
But now you ask. does the soul leave the body at death? Let us see what the scripture say.
Ecclesastes 9:5 says, For the living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all, neither do they anymore have wages, because the remembrance of them has been forgotten.
I think if you were in a heavenly bliss flapping your wings you would be aware of it. Or if you were in a burning hell I think you would be aware of it. But according to GOD'S scripture, it says that you are conscious of NOTHING at all.
Ezekiel 18:4 says, Look! All the souls—to me they belong. As the soul of the father so likewise the soul of the son—to me they belong. The soul that is sinning—it itself will die.
All souls belong to God. Never does the devil get to take any for himself to do as he pleases with them. But it does not mean that God takes them up to heaven either. Why? Because this scripture cannot be in conflict with the above scripture in Ecclesiastes. Also it states that the soul that sins, dies. So the soul dies. I hope that this helps you with your questions.

Answer 9

1st question: no, animals do not have spirits.
2nd question: I'm sure that it does somewhere, but I don't read the bible too often, so I wouldn't know.
3rd question: No, they don't leave until you die, then, they go to heaven.

Answer 10

NO they DON'T.
God gave a breath of LIFE unto men's nostrils only.