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According to Genesis 2:7 God did not make a body and put a soul into it like a letter into an envelope of dust; rather he formed man's body from the dust, then, by breathing divine breath into it, he made the body of dust live, i.e. the dust did not embody a soul, but it became a soul – a whole creature. [7]
The primary meaning of the term נפש is 'the breath of life' instinct in the nostrils of all living beings, and by extension 'life', 'person' or 'very self'. There is no term in English corresponding to nephesh, and the (Christian) 'soul', which has quite different connotations is nonetheless customarily used to translate it.
Aristotelian Soul. Among Greek scholars, Hippocrates (c.460 – c.370 BC) believed that the embryo was the product of male semen and a female factor. But Aristotle (384 – 322 BC) held that only male semen gave rise to an embryo, while the female only provided a place for the embryo to develop, [4] (a concept he acquired from the preformationist Pythagoras).
The Old Testament consistently uses three primary words to describe the parts of man: basar (flesh), which refers to the external, material aspect of man (mostly in emphasizing human frailty); nephesh, which refers to the soul as well as the whole person or life; and ruach which is used to refer to the human spirit (ruach can mean "wind", "breath", or "spirit" depending on the context; cf ...
Pneuma (πνεῦμα) is an ancient Greek word for "breath", and in a religious context for "spirit". [1] [2] It has various technical meanings for medical writers and philosophers of classical antiquity, particularly in regard to physiology, and is also used in Greek translations of ruach רוח in the Hebrew Bible, and in the Greek New Testament.
The two passages were connected explicitly in later Christian exegesis: the same breath that created man re-created him. "[Insufflation] signifies, To blow into, Gen. 2. 7. This sheweth mans soul not to be of the earth, as his body was, but of nothing, by the insufflation of God, and so differing from the spirit of beasts, Eccl. 3. 21.
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This likeness (shape and form) apparently gave rise to the phrase and meaning of, "like father like son," which means the son is in the likeness of the father, which provides meaning to the claim that humanity was made in the likeness of God. Generally, people in the West have commonly used the word "soul" to denote this spirit body.