Spirit or Soul- a crucial difference
@HighPriestess (739)
Melbourne, Florida
February 23, 2007 9:40am CST
Since the early translations of the Old and New Testament, a confusion has prevailed that deviated the understanding of the notion or concept of the immortal self within the human being from its true meaning, and that's due to the incorrect word used for it.
We are talking about the spirit.
The much extended use of the word "soul" is totally inappropiated when referring to that immortal part of ourselves that, accordingly to the Judeo-Christian religions, survives death and which it is eternal.
And this misunderstanding started with the very first translated version of the books that compound the Bible as we know it, the Septuagint.
And there was still another problem, as explained by Brenton, the expert in the English versions of the Septuagint:
One difficulty which they had to overcome was that of introducing theological ideas, which till then had only their proper terms in Hebrew, into a language of Gentiles, which till then had terms for no religious notions except those of heathens. Hence the necessity of using many words and phrases in new and appropriated senses.
These remarks are not intended as depreciatory of the Septuagint version: their object is rather to show what difficulties the translators had to encounter, and why in some respects they failed; as well as to meet the thought which has occupied the minds of some, who would extol this version as though it possessed something resembling co-ordinate authority with the Hebrew text itself.
There were two words in Hebrew that lacked an equivalent in Greek (at that time Koynos was the dialect in use): rowah (spirit and in feminine gender) and nephesh (soul, masculine). Both were translated as psyche, that also was used to translate into Greek the Hebrew word for "mind".
Rowah was the word used in the original texts to describe something that was immortal and etereal, opposed to nephesh which was material, phisical, could touch and eat and cenrtainly not immortal.
In most of the the English versions of the Bible -included the King James Version- the word "soul" is used to describe both concepts and therefore, contradictions emerge in the reading of many verses of the Pentateuch; and the confusion not only affected Christianity but Judaism as well. .
1 response
@CatEyes (2448)
• United States
27 Feb 07
Not many know this and I find it comforting that there are those out there who do and take a active notice in such affairs. One of the hardest hurtles one has to overcome while translating is to Know what the text truley meant. We all know that the Holy Bible works with many parables, representations and so forth and when translating they are mis construed or completly miss understood. Even today, when a person reads the same passage as the next person, they can come away with two different meanings. One can see how translating can be so difficult and reletive. Good discussion.