OVERVIEW: This ancient book of beginnings has much to say to the reader today about the beginning of humanity and of the basic, literal, constitutional nature of a human being. It is during the creative act of the God of light and life long ago when God decided what exactly the invisible parts of people would look like, and their ultimate fates.
This study of Genesis consults over fifty sources (as seen in the bibliography which can be accessed at the top of the page) with the majority being academic commentaries on Genesis. Due to some of the commentators having multiple relevant sources, this amounts to forty-one (41) experts being quoted here just on Genesis. Due to this extensive amount of quotes, nearly all of them have been categorized as footnotes (or as I call them, foot-quotes).
There are twenty-four chapters in Genesis (out of fifty) that are likely relevant in some way to eventually answering the question: what happens to the soul/mind when people die? Within these twenty-four chapters, a total of thirty-eight (38) verses, or verse groupings, have been quoted here. Of this total, fifteen (15) of them can be seen as highly-rated passages. For more explanation, refer to the appendix below (and prior to the foot-quotes at the bottom of this page).
One unique feature of this study is that many translations of Scripture are used for the main purpose of not overlooking a great translation of a particular verse. For just Genesis, twenty-three (23) versions have been quoted here. Of this group, there are eight (8) translations in the primary group which will account for 80% of the grand total (as a target) of the entire OT/NT study. Check out the “Bible Versions” tab at the top of the page for further explanation and description of these versions, or to see what an abbreviation of a Bible version refers to.
Section A: What does “heart” in Genesis refer to?
Section B: The deceased person is gathered to their people
Section C: Gathered to a mysterious place called Sheol
Section D: The making of humans in the beginning: Genesis chapter 1
Section E: The making of humans in the beginning: Genesis chapter 2
Section F: The making of humans in the beginning: Genesis chapter 3
Section G: Your life or your soul?
Section H: Immortality of the soul
Section I: God as judge and executioner
Section A: What does “heart” in Genesis refer to?
There are multiple passages in Genesis that contain the word heart, which typically carries a meaning related to the mind of a person. The Old Testament (OT) use of heart compared to the New Testament (NT) use of heart, is generally quite similar.
An examination of just Genesis shows that heart was then generally understood as referring to the literal part of a human being that holds thoughts. Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, probably knew what heart meant, based on the passages below. Jacob is being singled out here because the next topic seen at Section B includes quotes of Jacob.
Fifty-five of the sixty-six books of the Protestant Bible contain heart at least once, based on a search of the NASB. Regarding just Genesis, heart can be found ten times in the NKJV, for example. Heart is the most common translation of the Hebrew word leb which appears a few hundred times in the Hebrew Bible (i.e., the OT), and mind is the second-most common translation of leb (in KJV).
The “heart/mind” seen within this Hebrew word is more important, and more prevalent in the OT, than another Hebrew word, nephesh (usually meaning soul or person) when pursuing an understanding of the biblical meaning of the literal nature of humanity (i.e., theological anthropology).
“The most important word in the vocabulary of Old Testament anthropology is generally translated ‘heart’. … Altogether, therefore, it can be found 858 times, which makes it the commonest of all anthropological terms. … So there remain 814 passages which deal exclusively with the human ‘heart’ – that is to say, more than there are for nepes [or nephesh] as a whole (755 instances)” [Hans Walter Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, translated by Margaret Kohl (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974), 40].
Wolff writes that the specific characteristic and usual meaning of the word, leb, in the context of a whole range of physical, emotional, and the intellectual will, is “the consciousness” or the soul/mind of a person. “We must clearly hold on to the fact that the Bible primarily views the heart as the centre of the consciously living man” (Wolff, 55).
Notice in the following five passages in Genesis that heart can be seen as meaning some aspect of the person’s mind.
1) Abimelech, king of the Philistines, is quoted (at Genesis 20:5, using the NABRE translation), as saying to God, “I acted with a pure heart.” Other translations (e.g., CSB) say here, “with a clear conscience” regarding Abimelech’s handling of the beautiful Sarah, Abraham’s wife, after both had told the king they were brother and sister (and therefore implying they were not married).
2) A servant of Abraham went to Mesopotamia to inquire about a wife for Isaac, Abraham’s son, and said to himself, “Lord, make my journey … successful … let her be the woman. … Before I had finished speaking in my heart, behold, Rebekah came out with her jar … and went down to the spring (Gen 24:42-45, NASB).”
3) Abraham “said in his heart” (Gen 17:17, MLV) something similar to the following: How could my somewhat-elderly wife (Sarah) become pregnant and give birth to our first child?
4) Esau “hated Jacob … and Esau said in his heart … I will slay my brother Jacob (Gen 27:41, KJV).”
5) At the time of Noah, we read that “the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually (Gen 6:5, ESV).”
Based on these passages above, it is most likely that Jacob also could have realized one day (in a conversation with Abraham or Isaac, his father) that his thoughts were something that originated in his heart/mind. It seems reasonable to assert that Jacob could have comprehended that these thoughts in his heart/mind were of a very different nature compared to, for example, the blood in his arm.
However he looked at this difference between a private thought and a bleeding arm, he probably made a distinction between invisible thoughts versus the visible body itself. Therefore, the implication of this differentiation between them may be seen in Genesis. That is, if it is likely Jacob understood the distinction, then he may have allowed for different destinations at death of the invisible versus the visible as seen in his comments about the nature of death.
Because it’s important to establish the meaning of heart in the OT and as it was likely conceived by Jacob and his near-posterity, it would be better to hear some brief testimony on the Hebrew definition of it before jumping into the next section on how Abraham and his grandson understood death. To read what five experts have written (Sarna, Wenham, Smith, Bultmann, and Waltke) about this point (at foot-quote number 1 below), click here.
In the next section, we examine whether the Genesis fathers generally understood that their heart/mind would eventually be brought together with other deceased people in some sense.
Section B: The deceased person is gathered to their people
According to Genesis, human death consisted of the patriarchs being “gathered to their people,” or “brought in with their people,” since God instructed Abraham on what would happen to him at death. To investigate its meaning and what specifically was being referred to in this divine conversation, it is necessary to review the following passages in Genesis to see if there are some good hints.
The main question is: Was God referring to Abraham’s whole body or just to the heart of Abraham (i.e., his mind)? That is, was it his body that was to be “gathered” at the family grave site (a gathering of bones), or his heart/mind being “brought in” somewhere else? Rather than using the typical expression seen in Genesis, “gathered to his people,” God is quoted as saying that Abraham “shall go to his people” when he dies. Therefore, the divine plan was, or is still, that the deceased would be with other people in some sense.
It is one of the objectives here to begin to determine what specific sense was meant when God said this “go to his people at death” to Abraham, and to base this finding on everything else in the rest of Scripture. Because other prophets of God in the OT have further described this gathering of the deceased, there is much to evaluate.
Of the seven instances in Genesis, only the first use (chronologically) of this going to or gathering idea quotes God as saying it. The remaining six instances are not quotes of God. “God said to Abram … you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age (Gen 15:13a, 15, NASB).” The NABRE (Catholic) translation of Gen 15:15 uses another word for fathers: “You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace.”
Some interpreters (such as Rashi in his commentary) of Genesis have suggested that “gathering” is less preferred than “going to” or “brought in” due to the same Hebrew word (א-ס-ף) appearing in Judges 19:18 (“no one is bringing me in to his house”), Deut 22:2 (“you shall bring it in, inside your house”), Lev 23:39, and Exod 23:16. Rashi wrote (regarding Gen 49:29) “the expression derives from the fact that souls are brought in to the place where they are hidden away. . . . And every occurrence of א-ס-ף used in [the context of] death likewise denotes bringing in.”
Following the death of Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, and Jacob, the writer of Genesis uses the same “brought in (or gathered) to your people” expression for all four men. Of these remaining six instances, only Jacob is quoted as saying it though, and he is quoted twice (saying it slightly different each time) as seen in the next passage. “He [Jacob] commanded them: ‘I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave (Gen 49:29, CSB).” Click here (fq 2) to read what an expert (Sarna) has written about this point in his commentary on Genesis. The grandson of Abraham told his sons to bury him in the cave since death is fast approaching; a death which he describes as “being brought in somewhere to then be with his ancestors.”
The next passage contains this same idea (i.e., going somewhere at death, other than the grave), however it says it somewhat differently as follows. “Then Abraham breathed his last and died at a good old age, an old man and full of years; and he was gathered to his people. Then his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him (Gen 25:8-9, NIV).” Click here (fq 3) to read what four experts (Wenham, Atkinson, Aalders, and Sarna) have written about this point.
This gathering, or brought in, idiom seen throughout Genesis did not equate to a person dying, but instead, it referred to this other situation involving the heart/minds of a group of deceased people. Here’s another passage that needs to be examined (especially at the end): “These were the years of the life of Ishmael: one hundred and thirty-seven years; and he breathed his last and died and was gathered to his people (Gen 25:17, NKJV).” This gathered phrase referred to something other than actual death. Click here (fq 4) to read what an expert (Sarna) has written about this point.
Jacob himself describes what it means to be placed somewhere at death by saying it is restful, rather than it being like normal living. “I will lie with my fathers (Gen 47:30, KJV).” Does this mean that his deceased body will be placed near the graves of his ancestors, and nothing else is meant by gathered? Click here (fq 5) to read what two experts (Sarna and Zlotowitz) have written about this point.
Being “brought to their ancestors” at death is repeatedly portrayed by the writer of Genesis as something that happens prior to their burial. This is probably implying that it is not the deceased body being referred to, but instead something else that is invisible (such as their heart/mind). Two examples follow: “Then Isaac breathed his last and died, and was gathered to his people, an old man of ripe age; and his sons Esau and Jacob buried him (Gen 35:29, NASB).” The question is, does gathered essentially mean the same thing as buried in this passage? Alternatively, the original writer may have wanted to separate these two phrases to distinguish the meaning of gathered from buried.
The two phrases have originally been separated; the gathered phrase and the buried phrase are separated by “old and full of days.” The Hebrew Bible shows old and full of days as being placed between the translated words, people and sons. Of the forty-six versions of Scripture shown (on a single page) at BibleGateway.com that include a reference to the gathering idea (five have excluded it), all of them except one have placed something similar to the phrase, old and full of days, between the two phrases containing the words, gathered and buried (or something similar).
Of the eight translations selected as primary translations for this investigation of the OT, all of them except one version (CSB) uses the word and before his sons Esau and Jacob in the last phrase of this passage. Additionally, the Septuagint has the Greek word for and between the words translated as days and buried. The implication of using a series of ands with verbs (i.e., and died, and was gathered, and buried) is to raise the likelihood that the writer wanted to emphasize that the act of gathering was not the same act of burying.
The second example can be found at the end of ch. 49 and the beginning of ch. 50 (the last chapter of Genesis). If the reader excludes Gen 50:1-2 from the main part of this passage (i.e., Gen 49:33) due to the chapter division, then the meaning can be missed. “When Jacob ended his charge to his sons, he drew up his feet into the bed, breathed his last, and was gathered to his people. Then Joseph threw himself on his father’s face and wept over him and kissed him. Joseph commanded the physicians in his service to embalm his father (Gen 49:33–50:2, NRSV).”
Notice the word then (at the start of Gen 50:1) between gathered to his people and Joseph. It is evident that the original writer wanted the reader to know that what follows is sequentially related to what appears right before then. Since the following five verbs—threw, wept, kissed, commanded, and embalm—appear between the gathered phrase and any mention of a burial (e.g., Gen 50:5, 6, 7, 13, 14), it is very likely that the act of being gathered to his people occurred well before Jacob was actually buried.
Verses 3, 4, and 6 make it clear that Jacob died in Egypt, and in each of the ten verses of Gen 50:5-14, it is abundantly clear that he was not buried in Egypt. Therefore, it is the day of his death in Egypt, and not the day of his burial in Canaan, that the writer is referencing. Click here (fq 6) to read what an expert (Sarna) has written about this point.
This gathering expression could not have been understood at the time as referring to burying the members of a family together in a courtyard or burial ground. Consequently, it is likely that the original readers of Genesis conceived of the possibility, at least, of the capacity of separation of the heart/mind from the corpse as an act of God (based on that which God told Abraham).
However, this Hebrew belief in a type of separation does not necessarily mean it was similar to the Greek conception of separation of the mind from the body at death. It was actually different; the typical Hebrew imagined a person as more of a unity of mind and body than did the typical Hellenized person. Click here (fq 7) to read what an expert (Sarna) has written about this point.
There are other clues about the full meaning of being “gathered to his people.” Jacob may have provided a subtle hint at Gen 49:29 regarding the description of the kin, or people, that he would be soon joining. It is found in the form of the Hebrew word that usually is translated as people. Click here (fq 8) to read what three experts (Sarna, Zlotowitz, and Wenham) have written about this point in their commentaries on Genesis.
Although the ‘gathered to his people’ expression was common at the time of the writing of Genesis (being used five of the seven times the general idea is expressed), it was replaced by later writers of the OT with a variant of Jacob’s other similar expression, ‘lie with my fathers’ from Gen 47:30. Click here (fq 9) to read what one expert (Luther) has extensively written about the meaning of being gathered at death.
In the next section, we investigate three different options for the translation of the Hebrew word for the place that deceased people go. The emphasis on the more modern option, compared to the traditional translations (i.e., hell or grave), is supported by expert opinion as seen in biblical dictionaries and academic commentaries on Genesis.
Section C: Gathered to a mysterious place called “Sheol”
Historically, scholars have not agreed on the specific meaning of the Hebrew word Sheol, but it is undeniable that it is related to the destination, in some sense, of the deceased. It once was often translated as hell, but newer translations usually prefer grave, or alternatively, being left untranslated is even more preferable. For example, at 2 Sam 22:6, NIV uses grave, KJV uses hell, and in the updated version of KJV (i.e., NKJV), Sheol is used in this same passage instead of hell.
Perhaps this uncertainty is the reason many Bible versions today have chosen to say just Sheol in the OT, or its Greek equivalent (Hades) in the NT. A survey of about 50 Bible versions seen at BibleGateway.com shows the following results regarding this randomly selected passage, 2 Sam 22:6. Sheol: 25 times, grave: 11, hell: 6, death: 5, world of the dead: 1, and two versions with a combination of the above.
There are some scholars who have described Sheol as not being either hell or the grave, but instead an underworld of the dead or perhaps gravedom. The distinction being made between grave and gravedom is the idea among some commentators, even going back a few centuries, is that grave fails to capture the full meaning of Sheol. For them, the mind goes to Sheol while the body goes to the grave site.
The term Sheol is not uncommon since it appears over sixty times in the OT, and for some translations (e.g., NASB and ESV), Sheol is seen in seventeen books in the OT. The KJV has translated Sheol as hell thirty-one times and as grave thirty-one times. The first occurrence in the Bible of it is at Gen 37:35 where Jacob is quoted as identifying Sheol as a place or state where the deceased are gathered. Sheol has been translated as the grave in this passage as follows. “All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. ‘No,’ he said, I will continue to mourn until I join my son in the grave (Gen 37:35, NIV).”
The next occurrence of Sheol in the Hebrew Bible again quotes Jacob as follows: “then you will bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol (Gen 42:38, MLV).” Notice that down is used here, as is also seen in the next example: “When he sees that the young man is not with us, that he will die. And your servants will bring down the gray hairs of your servant our father with sorrow to Sheol (Gen 44:31, MLV).”
Although commentators have said this use of down could mean the actual location of Sheol was then believed to be underground, that could have been true. On the other hand, it may not have been the case for Jacob and the writer of Genesis. The context of other uses of the Hebrew word yarad (meaning down) shows that it was also used in another sense.
For example, Deut 28:43 uses it to show “those who from prosperity and affluence are cast down into poverty (Gesenius, yarad).” The Gesenius lexicon also says it can mean “to fall (as if to go down against one’s will) … used of men or beasts slain (fallen),” and Deut 20:20 uses it “of a city destroyed (Gesenius, yarad).” One more example of a use of yarad (down) is found in Genesis: “I will go down with you into Egypt and I will also surely bring you up again (Gen 46:4, MLV).”
The fourth and last original appearance of Sheol in Genesis is also found in chapter 44, and it is presented here from John Wycliffe’s version, the very first English translation of the Bible. “Now if ye take also this son from me [Jacob], and if anything should befall him on the way, ye shall lead forth my hoar hairs in sorrow to the grave/unto Sheol (Gen 44:29, WYC).” Over six hundred years ago, Wycliffe showed his uncertainty on whether Sheol meant something other than just the grave with this unusual dual arrangement.
There may be another clue about the meaning of Sheol, at least how Jacob understood it. When Gen 37:35 (seen above) is closely examined in the context of Gen 37:32-33, other possibilities become apparent based on different modern translations of v. 35. Verses 32-33 tell us that after Jacob inspected Joseph’s bloody garment which he recognized, he determined that a wild beast must have torn his son to pieces and devoured his body. Yet, his immediate response to all his sons and daughters trying to comfort him of this dreadful way to die, Jacob perhaps tells them (depending on which translation has it right) that he will go to Joseph when he, Jacob, goes to Sheol at his death.
The Masoretic Text (MT) is an authoritative Hebrew copy of the OT produced by the Masorete Jews shortly prior to the 10th century AD. The MT and LXX (or Septuagint) agree with each other regarding the word order of the following key words: down, son, mourning, and Sheol/Hades (“I will go down to my son in mourning into Hades (Gen 37:35, ABP)).” Therefore, it is very likely that an identical word order existed in the Hebrew text that the seventy translators used centuries before Christ. The focus of the word order is on son preceding mourning rather than the reverse. The translations ROTH and JSP are two more examples that are identical to ABP seen above. The next version is also very similar: “I shall go down to Sheol to my son, mourning (Gen 37:35, NRSV).
However, other Bible translations do not see it this way. They indicate that Jacob did not say that he would go to where his son was. For example: “I will go down to Sheol in mourning for my son (Gen 37:35, NASB)” and “I will go to my grave mourning for my son (Gen 37:35, NLT).” Based on what Jacob said using these two versions, we cannot presume that Jacob thought his son would actually be in Sheol. Mourning for someone is very different compared to eventually being with someone.
Another popular Bible version shows this distinction with its joining his son in the grave: “I will continue to mourn until I join my son in the grave (Gen 37:35, NIV).” (The 2011 version of NIV altered this verse from the 1978 NIV version which reads as follows: “In mourning will I go down to the grave to my son.”) Although without there actually being a body to bury, and therefore no grave for Joseph, it’s meaning in this particular 2011 version becomes joining his son in death.
Consequently, it is possible something relevant was ‘lost in translation’ of Gen 37:35 if we want to know what Jacob may have imagined Sheol to be. Compare “I shall go down to Sheol to my son (NRSV)” with ‘I shall join my son in death.’ The difference may be significant or slight depending on whether Sheol is seen as full of meaning for those persons in Scripture or instead, Sheol is understood by the reader as being rather devoid of meaning (i.e., beyond it being just the grave).
One last exegetical point can be made using a very literal translation: “Descend will I to my son, to the unseen, mourning (Gen 37:35, CVOT).” Before Jacob brought up Sheol or his own mourning, his very first point within this phrase was to say he would eventually go down to his son, even though his son’s body was supposedly eaten by an animal. Because Joseph’s literal body had literally disappeared, and the subject/verb are both literal (‘I shall descend’), it is possible, at least, that Sheol was thought to be literal as well. The idea here is that the literal mind of the deceased would exist somewhere else (in Sheol) compared to the body (which remains at the surface of earth).
When our goal here is to determine the meaning of the original writer of Scripture, we ask, What did Jacob actually say? And therefore, we can see what Jacob probably believed. And so, his repeated use of Sheol probably carried more meaning for him since he did not select the alternate word for death (Heb., maveth). This other noun is much more common both in Genesis and the OT. To determine what Jacob likely thought about Sheol, and hence the better translation of these four Genesis verses above, it is necessary to examine the many other uses of this same word in the OT, and its equivalent in the NT, in their various contexts. To discover the answer to the question, What happens when people die?, it seems necessary to explore the meaning of Sheol/Hades in depth.
One of the questions within the investigation of this word is, how can world be best described in world of the dead using the other references to it throughout the OT and NT? I would claim that Jacob held to the belief that the heart/mind of his son survived death, and the location of it was in Sheol, a place different than the grave.
However, providing the grounds for this claim cannot be done just from Genesis; but these reasons may be developed from other books of the Bible. It can be very helpful to survey the landscape though and see the testimony of OT experts on their understanding of Sheol and its unique meaning. This testimony on this point has been divided into the following four groups:
A) Sheol is another world, a realm different than the grave. Click here (fq 10) to read what four experts (Westermann, Fretheim, Waltke, and Reyburn & Fry) have written.
B) The body lays in the grave while the spirit/soul resides in Sheol. Click here (fq 11) to read what three experts (von Rad, Sarna, and Keil & Delitzsch) have written.
C) Our initial life after death is a reunion of the essence of a person. Click here (fq 12) to read what three experts (Mathews, Wenham, and Gunkel) have written.
D) Τhe last commentator is Luther (whose Genesis commentary fills eight volumes) and there are three quotes on the subject of the specific nature of Sheol. Click here (fq 13) to read what this expert has written.
Consulting authoritative dictionaries is useful in any biblical word study. Both Sheol and Hades are defined below since Hades is the equivalent Greek word the LXX translators selected for Sheol. In the New Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary, revised edition of 1995, the primary definition of Sheol (H7585) is “hades or the world of the dead (as if a subterranean retreat), including its accessories and inmates [Strong, Sheol].”
In the GBS/UBS Greek-English Dictionary, revised edition of 2010, the definition of Hades is the following (in order and in its entirety): “world of the dead; death; perhaps hell, the place of final punishment [Newman, Hades].” The primary definition shows that Hades refers to the “world of the dead” rather than to its main competitors: grave, hell, and death.
It is a significant fact that both the Hebrew and the Greek dictionary uses the same expression, world of the dead, as the primary definition as seen in each dictionary. This is surprising since only one Bible version out of fifty seen at BibleGateway.com uses it while twenty-two versions chose either grave, hell, or death for the passage in Second Samuel above. The only exception follows: “Ropes from the world of the dead had coiled around me [King David], and death had set a trap in my path. (2 Sam 22:6, CEV).” As we examine the rest of Scripture, perhaps there will be several passages that reveal their relevancy to the reader and consequently provide support for the idea seen in these two dictionaries above that Sheol should be defined as the world of the dead.
In the next section, the account of the creation of human beings will be scrutinized. In an attempt to understand the nature of death, it is necessary to investigate the literal nature of humanity. If we want to know what really happens to the soul/mind at death, then it is imperative to review all of the references throughout Scripture to God’s creation of the human being. In this chapter, a study of Genesis’s creation accounts can shed some light on this question about the nature of the soul.
Section D: The making of humans in the beginning – Genesis ch. 1
Each of the first three chapters of Genesis contain passages that possibly describe the literal, ontological nature of a human being and how it came into existence.
1) In chapter 1, the Creator God is quoted as saying, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us (Gen 1:26, NLT).”
2) In chapter 2, we read “The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being (Gen 2:7, NKJV).”
3) In chapter 3, God said to Adam that “by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return (Gen 3:19, NRSV).”
In chapter 1, which is the focus of this section, a prophet of God tells us that the creator of light and life purposely brought human beings into existence. The writer suggests that God determined their next and final creature should be unlike anything else in existence on earth. The Creator God is quoted as saying, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us (Gen 1:26, NLT).” There is a long history of disagreement on what exactly this passage means by image of God (Lat., imago Dei). Click here (fq 14) to read what two experts (Waltke and Sherlock) have written about the importance of this subject.
Consider the ramifications of how a person may imagine their literal nature, their purpose for being alive, and their view of what lies beyond death’s door. There are many different ways to attempt an explanation of the meaning of “being made in God’s image.” Click here (fq 15) to read what three experts (Brunner, Ware, and Barth through Sherlock) have written about this point.
The purpose of this section is to prepare for the interpretation of Gen 2:7 in the next section. Similarly, in order to reach an appropriate interpretation of Chapter 3’s passage seen above, it is necessary to address the verses before it. It is not the intention of this section to fully describe what image of God likely means but rather to suggest what it likely does not mean. The method for this consists of presenting three pictures regarding the intended meaning of image of God:
1) a brief collection of the various explanations of it historically
2) a summary of the general situation currently among scholars (and the two sides appear to have dug in their positions)
3) a listing of views by seven authors on eternal essence and the image of God
People reflect the realty of God somehow but the disagreement among scholars centers on what exactly is reflected. Click here (fq 16) to read what an expert (Cortez) has written about this point.
1) The historical picture:
Since the literary context for a passage in Scripture is most valuable for interpretation, it must be noted that some translators correlate the function of humankind found in the same verse (v. 26) with image of God by using “so that” between them as follows. “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish … birds … livestock … wild animals … and over all the creatures. So God created mankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female (Gen 1:26-27, NIV).” Click here (fq 17) to read what two experts (Gelin and Wolff) have written about this point.
However, others disagree with this interpretation seen above. For centuries, scholars have believed that receiving the image of God refers to the mental capacity for imagination, and our intelligence is what separates humans from the lowly animals. Click here (fq 18) to read what three experts (Sherlock, the Roman Catholic Church, and Jeeves) have written about this point.
If our upright stature, our dominance as a function of humans over animals, and our creativeness over the animal kingdom are insufficient for some critics, then perhaps the real meaning of image of God refers to our capacity for moral behavior. Click here (fq 19) to read what an expert (Jeeves) has written about this point.
2) Various current views of image of God:
To see what seven experts (Gunton through Schwobel, Jeeves, Sherlock, Ware, Waltke, Cortez, and Westermann) have written on the meaning of “being made in God’s image,” click here (fq 20). The concluding quote there says that the tension in the debate today has already been described as a general consensus among (1) biblical scholars who contend that the image of God should be seen in a primarily functional sense, and on the other hand, (2) most theologians who typically assert that it should be understood mainly in a relational approach. It also includes a compromise position that combines “both sides of the divide somewhat (i.e., the functional/stewardship role versus the relational/community role).”
3) What the image of God is not, as it relates to the eternal soul
The main purpose of this short-study on the meaning of image of God is to show the reasons for claiming what it specifically does not mean. Based on the following seven writers, there are solid reasons for believing that when God created humans and made us in God’s image (e.g., Gen 1:26), that in itself does not mean that we, or our soul/mind, consist of an immaterial nature similar to God’s spirit nature. The reader may believe it to be the case, but it is not this passage that can support that view.
As grounds for this assertion, click here (fq 21) to read the views of seven experts (Sherlock, Lundbom, Cortez, Jeeves, Green, Gunton, and Jewett) as each of their quotes directly relates to the human soul and the proper interpretation of image of God in this scriptural passage.
The important distinction evident there is that it is action and transformation involving the divine and humans, not a trait or a possession of an immaterial soul, regarding the meaning of image of God. Making a human in this image such that communication and development happens between the Spirit of God and the person’s brain probably involves that which the lowly animals do not have.
Section E: The making of humans in the beginning – Genesis ch. 2
This section intends to find the meaning of “The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being (Gen 2:7, NKJV)” by first examining its three parts. We begin with the following part: “And man became a living being” (v. 7c)
Only a few modern Bible versions say living soul instead of living being in this last phrase above. However, this was not the case for the major versions comprising the five centuries following the first English translation, the Wycliffe Bible of the 14th century, since soul appears there instead. These include Tyndale’s Pentateuch of 1530, the Great Bible of 1539 (which was the first authorized edition of Scripture in English), the unauthorized Geneva Bible of 1560 (the primary Bible of 16th-century English Protestantism), the authorized Bishops’ Bible of 1568, and the King James Version (which became the third English translation approved by the Church of England in 1611 with a major revision done in 1769). The American Standard Version of 1885 and 1901 (which originated as a new version that updated the KJV) also uses soul in Gen 2:7.
However, the picture has completely changed over the last century comprising dozens of new English translations of Scripture. Of the fifty-plus Bible versions on BibleGateway.com, only thirteen of them (25%) use soul in this verse while over two-thirds of them now say being instead. What is it that happened, and why is this change in terminology significant?
What happened was scholars of Genesis realized that when “Adam became a soul,” he supposedly joined with the animal kingdom since Scripture says they have a soul too, and also would join the world of plants too because Genesis uses the same Hebrew word, nephesh, for that too. Nephesh has been translated as both soul and as life (over a hundred times) in the OT.
Therefore, implications of translating the original language here as soul led to the realization that there would be, within v. 7, a lack of differentiation between human beings and everything else alive. And there are additional difficulties with other ramifications of assuming that the original meaning equates to that assumed centuries later for this single word. The meaning of soul has changed greatly over time. The developing concept of soul throughout history has been greatly influenced by Greek culture, and this saturation added to the depth of its meaning which was not there (in a significant sense) in the earlier Hebrew culture. Consequently the nuance or breadth of other possible meanings for soul was neglected at times. Click here (fq 22) to read what an expert (Mathews) has written on this point.
The Hebrew word translated as soul in the OT (nephesh) does not refer to today’s usual definition of soul (as modified by ancient Greek philosophy over the last sixteen centuries). Click here (fq 23) to read what an expert (Aalders) has written on this point.
Notice the following examples of this Hebrew word being translated not as soul but instead as creature in the context of animals:
1) “God created great whales, and every living creature [nephesh] that moveth [Gen 1:21, KJV).”
2) “God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air … whatever the man called every living creature [nephesh] (Gen 2:19, NRSV).”
3) Other examples of nephesh applying to animals in Genesis include: 1:24; 9:10; 9:12; and 9:15.
4) The following two examples from the book of Leviticus also include nephesh and have often been translated as creature. But first, notice in this next verse in which nephesh has been translated as soul: “All that have not fins and scales, in the seas and in the rivers, of all that swarm in the waters, and of all the living souls [nephesh] that are in the waters, an abomination, they are unto you (Lev 11:10, ROTH).”
A much more modern translation says, “and of all the living creatures that are in the waters (MLV)” because nephesh here translates better as creatures, rather than as souls. The second example is: “This is a law of the beasts, and of the fowl, and of every living creature [nephesh] which is moving in the waters, and of every creature [nephesh] which is teeming on the earth (Lev 11:46, YLT).”
To read what two experts (Green and Stigers) have written about this point, click here (fq 24).
The original writer of Gen 2:7 did not intend to say that “man became a soul” as soul is normally understood today. The Hebrew word written then does not refer to just the soul/mind, but rather to the whole person. The reader of Genesis cannot infer (based just on Genesis) that an immaterial soul was put inside the body of Adam and in his children. The correct meaning of this last phrase of this passage is likely just that after receiving the breath of life, the man began to live as a conscious person. To see what four experts (Mathews, Keil & Delitzsch, Westermann, and Wenham) have written about this point, click here (fq 25).
The next part of Genesis 2:7 – “The Lord God … breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (v. 7b) – will now be examined through a question and response format.
Question: What is God’s breath and how should the breath of life to be understood? Click here (fq 26) for responses from two experts (Reyburn & Fry and Fretheim).
Question: With “his nostrils” being in this passage, why should it not be taken literally? Click here (fq 27) for responses from two experts (Aalders and Stigers).
Question: What is the significance of v. 7b regarding the stated similarity between animals and humans? Click here (fq 28) for a response from an expert (Fretheim).
Question: What is the significance of v. 7b regarding the stated difference between animals and humans? Click here (fq 29) for responses from five experts (Sarna, Mathews, Westermann, Wenham, and Chrysostom).
Question: What is the consequence of receiving this divine breath (using both the immediate context and the context from the image of God passage)? Click here (fq 30) for responses from two experts (Stigers and Mathews).
Question: When just Gen 1:26 (image of God) is combined with Gen 2:7 (breath of life), then could a deduction be properly made that the immortal soul, as a reflection of the immortal God, was a part of the creation of human beings when God supposedly put this immaterial spirit into them?
If this is what actually happened, we cannot say it using the original words in these two passages including the meanings surrounding them. It must be based on other texts since there is not enough within these two, separately or combined, to support this reading. The previous section on the image of God and its meaning (as now understood by a long line of biblical scholars) showed that it cannot point to the obtaining of an immortal soul. Click here (fq 31) to see what an expert (Atkinson) has written on this point.
Question: So, v. 7 is not symbolic of the transferring of the nature of God, that is, God’s immortal spirit. This phrase points only to the simple meaning? Click here (fq 32) for three expert opinions (Stigers, Keil & Delitzsch, and Calvin).
Question: There is another Hebrew word, ruwach, that is similar in meaning (e.g., spirit or breath) to that used in Gen 2:7b, and which is much more common in the OT/Hebrew Bible. What can be learned of how close in meaning these two words are? Click here (fq 33) to read what five experts (Hamilton, Wenham, Keil & Delitzsch, Mathews, and Atkinson) have written on this point.
The third and final part of Gen 2:7 – “The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground” (v. 7a) – will be seen next by first examining brief word studies of three words in it (formed, ground, and dust).
1) formed: this word was meant in the sense of shaped. Click here (fq 34) to see what three experts (Fretheim, Wenham, and Zlotowitz) have written about this.
2) ground: used here in the sense of earth or its dirt. Click here (fq 35) to read what two experts (Reyburn & Fry and Mathews) have written about this.
3) dust: used in the literal sense rather than a metaphorical sense related to frailty. This is an important distinction. Click here (fq 36) to read what ten experts (Sarna, Calvin, Hamilton, Mathews, Reyburn & Fry, Orr, Stigers, Keil & Delitzsch, Aalders, and Westermann) have written about this.
Looking at the meaning of Gen 2:7 as a whole: “The time came when the Lord God formed a man’s body from the dust of the ground and breathed into it the breath of life. And man became a living person (Gen 2:7, TLB).” Click here (fq 37) to see what three Early Church Fathers have written on this.
There is much testimony within modern commentaries on Genesis that the belief of an immaterial and immortal soul existing within a person as a separate entity cannot be based on Gen 2:7. Click here (fq 38) to read seven experts (Atkinson, Berkouwer, Keil & Delitzsch, Orr, Jewett, Westermann, and Mathews).
Section F: The making of humans in the beginning – Genesis ch. 3
“You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground, since you were taken from it. For you are dust, and you will return to dust (Gen 3:19, CSB).”
At first glance, it would appear the only main point of Gen 3:19 is that the result of Adam’s sin against God includes working hard for a change to obtain his food. Apparently, Adam and Eve were often given tasty bread, or its ingredients and a recipe, from their Father without ever needing to raise a sweat to nurture and harvest the grain.
Regardless, the primary purpose of this section is to focus on the meaning of one phrase rather than the meaning of the whole verse. This one, short phrase appears in the second half of the verse which bears repeating: “Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return (Gen 3:19, NASB).” The focus in this section is on: “for you are dust.”
To reach an appropriate interpretation of “for you are dust” it is necessary to keep this passage within its wider context which includes Gen 1:26 and 2:7. Obviously, this phrase must also be kept in its immediate context which includes the phrase after it and the phrases before “you are dust” within v. 19. One of these phrases is repeated just four verses later and therefore could supply additional meaning with its emphasis by repetition. The following phrase in v. 23 parallels “until you return to the ground” in v. 19: “to cultivate the ground from which he was taken (Gen 3:23, NASB).”
It appears the writer of this text wanted to emphasize this point and employed two ways of doing it. First, the undeniable repetition seen in vv. 19 and 23 that “you are made of dust from the ground” shows that this fact (on its face) was probably important to the writer. Second, the writer’s grammar within v. 19 may indicate an emphasis of “you are dust.” The Revised English Bible (1989) is an example of a version where its translators recognized the peculiarity of the Hebrew and therefore wrote the following within v. 19, “indeed dust you are.” Click here (fq 39) to read what an expert (Mathews) has written about this point.
Regarding other passages in Genesis that may be relevant context, there is one other that includes the same Hebrew word, translated as dust, and is used in a similar way. Genesis 18 quotes Abraham as saying, “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes [Gen 18:27, NIV].” It seems clear that Abraham knew of the account that asserted humans to be composed of very small particles of the earth with his use of dust. He obviously figured out that his origin, as well as others such as Noah, was not from the heavens, but instead was from the earth’s materials. From this basic understanding, Abraham would be able to draw a metaphor (but based on a literal fact of his earthly origin) for the difference in standing between him and God.
Rather than presenting a plethora of voices presenting their testimony on the meaning of “you are dust” as was done in previous sections, I have selected just two biblical commentators. Click here (fq 40) to read two quotes from Atkinson and Westermann.
Combining Gen 1:26, 2:7, and 3:19, and the exegetical explanations from the biblical commentators seen in the previous sections, what picture has been painted from Sections D, E, and F?
Here is a synopsis (using Cortez, Green, and Jeeves) of the meaning of v. 26 and its “made in the image of God,” as summarized from the testimony of several scholars seen in the foot-quotes here:
1) “Rather than something possessed by human persons as a part of their essential being, then, the image of God is shown to be something that unfolds over time as God manifests himself. … The imago Dei is not something applied to the ‘inner,’ ‘immaterial,’ or ‘spiritual’ dimensions of the human person. On the contrary, the imago encompasses the embodied human person as a whole [Cortez, 37, 40].”
2) “Within the Old Testament, ‘soul’ (Heb., nephesh) refers to life and vitality — not life in general, but as instantiated in human persons and animals; not a thing to have but a way to be [Green, 275].”
3) “Our unity is central. We know each other, not as brains ensheathed in bodies, but as embodied persons. We are people who relate to each other as beings created in the image of God, but this image is not a separate thing. It is not the possession of an immaterial soul [Jeeves (a), 107].”
Next, here is my summary of the meaning of Gen 2:7: After God carefully shaped the intricate bodily systems of Adam using the naturally present physical elements (i.e., dust) from the surface of the earth, and imparted the spirit of life to all of its bodily cells, the human being became fully alive. This verse itself does not say that the man acquired an immaterial soul, but rather it explicitly says he became a person. Adam did not obtain a soul; he became a soul (i.e., an individual person) as a unity based on this text.
Since both animals and humans have God’s ‘breath of life’ within them, as a life-force, what makes humans superior to lowly animals is that we enjoy a unique relationship with God through this metaphor of an intimate, shared breath in addition to being made in God’s image.
Now, with this quick review above of these passages (as relevant context), combined with the repetition clearly seen in Gen 3:23—as being an emphasis that humans consist of dust, plus Gen 18:27—the question is, What is this phrase, “you are dust,” in Gen 3:19 telling the reader?
It is intentionally describing the basic, literal, constitutional nature of a human being. By using the same word, dust, that also appears in 2:7, in combination with a similar context (the actual composition of a person), the end of v. 19 can be interpreted as, ‘yes, indeed, human beings as a unity really are made of just carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and some other elements.’ The implication of this statement is that there may be a good reason for the biblical writer to intentionally omit any hint of an immaterial soul. But let’s not jump to any conclusions yet.
Given that the soul directly relates to that which provides identity and uniqueness to someone, which can equate to the mind of a person in some aspects of its use, the soul/mind is of utmost importance in the context of v. 19. What makes you actually you is the uniqueness of the contents of your mind, or of your soul/mind.
Notice how many times Gen 3:19 uses the word you or your in just two sentences. You will eat bread, your sweaty brow, you will return, you were taken, you are dust, and you will return to dust. These six occurrences were intentional, and their repetition probably means something. The emphasis on you relates to the heart of a person or to their mind, which raises the question similar to that seen above by Atkinson. Why didn’t the writer say what happens to the soul/mind at death since the subject, you, was mentioned six times in v. 19, and the end of the sentence refers to death (i.e., “you will return to dust”)?
Perhaps the answer is that the wrong supposition is retained while interpreting the passage. It could be an incorrect assumption to believe that God put an immaterial soul in Adam’s body. If this insertion did not happen and instead the human mind is a unity—that is, not consisting of a self-owned, immaterial spirit substance—then the absence of a body–soul dichotomy in v. 19 makes sense. Could the mind just be the product of a brain?
Clearly the writer did not say, ‘For your body is dust, and your body will return to dust.’ In the reference to death (i.e., “until you return to the ground”), it would be expected that the fate of the soul/mind would be addressed in or near v. 19 (under the assumption of a separate entity of a soul), but the text is strangely silent. That is, it could be strange only to a dualist within this context.
Because a lengthy treatment is given in this group of verses regarding God’s response to this first sin, where God describes the punishment to the snake, to the woman, and to the man, a more precise and full description would be expected at v. 19 (under this same Hellenistic assumption of dualism). In the quote of God in Gen 3:14-19, there are five references to functions of the soul/mind, but none in the last verse that describes death (e.g., enmity between, desire for, rule over, listened to, and choosing to eat).
Since the soul/mind is that part which chose to disobey the commandment of God to not eat of that one tree, it would be expected that it would be included in the list of unhappy outcomes (again assuming that it retained consciousness at death). That is, did Eve think that the punishment only involved losing her shell (i.e., her body), but not the invisible part that thinks and talks (like that within the snake)?
However, if that was not God’s intention, then it would be expected that some of the punishment would be directed at the soul/mind of Adam and of Eve. But the text is strangely silent on what exactly will perish. This omission is resolved if the Greek-inspired assumption (that the soul is independent and indestructible) is removed. Click here (fq 41) for some more quotes from Atkinson and Westermann on this point.
Section G: Your life or your soul?
The purpose of the remaining three short sections here is to identify those passages that may either need explanation or be part of a subsequent explanation in another book of the Bible. Unlike the previous six sections and their in-depth topical analysis, the remainder of this Genesis study will focus less on that and instead present a list of thirteen passages total for these three sections that may be relevant to any of the topics and subtopics here. The objective is to carefully not overlook any hints in Scripture and to notice any repetition of possibly relevant clues.
1) “And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life [nephesh] of another human being (Gen 9:5, NIV).” In this example, the Hebrew word nephesh is translated as life. However, nephesh is usually translated as soul across the entire OT by most Bible versions. The KJV translates the 753 occurrences of nephesh as soul over 60% of the time, with the second most frequent word being life (117 times).
However, nephesh could mean body, creature, heart, mind, person, life, or soul (in inverse order). When a father says the nephesh of his son “longs for your daughter. Please give her to him to be his wife (Gen 34:8, ESV),” what does nephesh mean in this case? The usual translation for this passage is soul (as in this ESV quote), but the second-most common word is heart among BibleGateway’s fifty-plus versions.
Regarding Gen 9:5, there is only one of them at BibleGateway.com that uses the word soul at the end of this passage. Two versions use the word, lifeblood, one uses the un-translated word, nephesh, and fifty-seven versions use life in this verse. The single version that uses soul also uses life with it as such: “the soul (or life).”
The main point here is that although nephesh is usually translated as soul, there are 278 occurrences of nephesh that have not been translated as soul by KJV. Also, soul in the OT had a different meaning compared to soul today due to the influence of Greek philosophy on the Church (especially sixteen centuries ago under Augustine and later).
2) “As her soul was departing (for she died), that she called his name Ben-Oni (Gen 35:18, NKJV).” What is it that actually departed the body of Jacob’s wife, Rachel, when she died? Perhaps it was her life that departed her body, and not her soul. The word translated as soul has also been translated as life 117 times in KJV. Nephesh appears at the start of this sentence in the Hebrew Bible followed by a Hebrew word usually translated as departing. “As her nefesh was in departing, (for she died) that she called (Gen 35:18, OJB).” Although half of the versions at BibleGateway.com say soul here, the other half have rejected the use of soul in this passage. Two examples follow: “When her life was departing (for she was dying), she called his name (Gen 35:18, LEB)” and “As her life slipped away, just before she died (Gen 35:18, VOICE).”
Section H: Immortality of the soul
The subject of soul immortality is relevant to the nature of death because the primary concern here is investigating what happens to the soul/mind shortly after a person dies based on Scripture. What is not a concern in this entire project is whether the Bible tells us about the gift of eternal life. It obviously does. Therefore, a study of whether or not the soul is innately immortal from birth does not impact the divine promise of immortality into the future. They are two separate ideas: one relates to the situation after death and the other relates to the characteristics of a person when they are born.
Because of this distinction related to the timing of actually obtaining the characteristic of immortality, the following question is relevant: Did God decide to create a human being such that its soul/mind actually is unable to die as a natural and innate possession, or do we literally obtain this immortality later such as after death or at our bodily resurrection?
One of the questions needing to be eventually addressed is: which hints in Scripture are likely relevant and which are not relevant to the question about immortality of the soul? I believe that it is better to search throughout all of Scripture for all of the possibly relevant clues to this mystery, and then later combine them to see if any clear meaning emerges. Or alternatively, to identify those passages that can be judged later after some study as irrelevant. However, my methodology for answering this overall question about the nature of death includes the emphasis on not rejecting too soon any hint that may be helpful.
Also on occasion, an interpretation of each passage brought before us cannot be rushed; therefore, in some cases, as more OT and NT passages are analyzed in their turn, only then can its meaning be assured. Oftentimes, it is not until an NT passage is reviewed that a full meaning of some OT passage can become understandable. Consequently, the basic format here from Genesis to Revelation includes both a topical study and a separate list of possibly relevant passages.
The following quote of an expert of Scripture makes a particular assertion regarding immortality of the soul, and one of the purposes of this study is to carefully determine whether or not there are sufficient grounds for believing it to be a true observation.
“The whole material creation is transient and mortal, but man is capable of immortality – ‘the immortality of the soul,’ as normally understood, is not a Biblical doctrine.” This was written by H.L. Ellison, a Consulting Editor under the direction of F.F. Bruce, the General Editor for The International Bible Commentary, and it includes forty-three contributors. It was published as a revised edition by Zondervan in 1986.
The first edition from 1979 is titled, The New Layman’s Bible Commentary, which has been described by many reviewers as being one of the finest one-volume commentaries. From the back cover of the revised edition we read the following (in part): “The outstanding volume of the year,” “A foremost standard reference and study work,” and “A landmark in the history of evangelical scholarship.” Both editions contain this quote as seen above.
Consider the following two verses from Genesis that may or may not be relevant to a biblical study on immortality of the soul/mind.
1) “I am the God of Abraham thy father, fear not, for I am with thee, and have blessed thee, and have multiplied thy seed, because of Abraham My servant (Gen 26:24, YLT).” Did some of the readers in the era before Christ study this quote of God speaking to Isaac, the son of Abraham, and understand it (in combination with Exodus 3:6 which is similar) as meaning that God is not God of the dead, but of the living based on its reference to servant as being an indication of his future work? Recall that Isaac’s son, Jacob, believed in a place of the dead called Sheol where he would once again meet his son, Joseph. Regardless, three accounts in the NT refer to a particular statement Jesus Christ had made that is probably related to this question of living again. “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living (Matt 22:32, ESV).” See also Mark 12:26-27 and Luke 20:37-38. Click here (fq 42) to see what an expert (Luther) has said about Gen 26:24.
2) “The Lord said [to Cain], ‘What have you done? Listen; your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground!’ (Gen 4:10, NRSV).” If the reader takes this passage as fully metaphorical, and sees that Abel’s blood cannot actually cry out, and therefore, the symbolism is pointing just to the blood on the ground that Cain likely saw when he murdered his brother, then it may not be particularly supportive. On the other hand, if the reader sees the passage either as blood being able to cry out, or sees it as not being symbolic of the soul/mind crying out, but instead that it can literally happen during death, whether heard or felt by the living, then the verse may be relevant to the question of innate immortality.
If the original intention was that listen means imagine rather than using your ears, and that the blood spilled on the ground is not literally talking, then it still is not required that the reader deduce that the soul/mind of the murdered man, Abel, was actually talking. That is because what is left after the obvious is removed can be what is metaphorical about this statement from God. That means that when God confronted Cain for his wrong-doing, God may have urged him to imagine his brother’s desire to keep on living, and perhaps, even that in Sheol Abel may be wishing that he could cry out for vengeance (as a last thought before dying).
Section I: God as judge & executioner
1) God’s power over a person’s death. “God said to him [the king of Gerar] … he [Abraham] will pray for you, and you shall live. But if you do not return her [Sarah], know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours (Gen 20:7, ESV).” You shall live means here that ‘you shall not die sooner rather than later.’ You shall surely die means ‘you shall die sooner rather than later.’ Therefore, God controls the timing of the withdrawal of the breath of life (from the Gen 2:7 study). The sudden onslaught of death in Gen 20:7 means that the life-sustaining spirit of life is removed from the physical body. It is not necessarily the withdrawal of the person’s spirit/soul (or their mind) that causes death, but instead it is the absence of the divine life-force that no longer animates the microscopic cells within a human being.
“Enoch walked with God; then he was gone because God took him (Gen 5:24, GW).” How was this usually interpreted in the first century—as natural death or something else? “Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, ‘and was not found, because God had taken him’ (Heb 11:5, NKJV).”
2) You will, or will not, certainly die. God is quoted as telling Adam “thou shalt surely die (Gen 2:17, KJV)” and later the serpent told Eve “you surely will not die (Gen 3:4, NASB)” for disobeying God’s commandment on eating from one of the trees. It seems very likely this conversation with the crafty snake has been summarized, and therefore it lasted much longer than what has been recorded (from the serpent, less than three verses: Gen 3:1b, 4-5). It is quite improbable that Eve could be fully persuaded to disobey them within a few minutes of conversation. Due to the closeness among God, Adam, and Eve in the Garden of Eden, this discussion perhaps consisted of additional reasons that were used to persuade Eve to disregard God’s instructions and that of the only man she knew at the time. The text makes it clear that Eve knew the prohibition was from God, the maker of all life there, and not just from the man.
Even though there may have been more than one approach that was used on Eve to change her mind, only one of them is identified, and it appears in Gen 3:5 (i.e., “you will be like God knowing good and evil”). What else could have been said to Eve in this long talk? Assuming that all the other animals were unable to talk in her language (because none can do that today in an intelligent conversation), then this may be a clue. If it was true that Eve had never experienced any talking snake before, or any other animal, then this startling curiosity must have begged the question, Who are you? Why would Eve not want to know how this one snake can hold an interesting conversation?
Suppose there was a good answer because if there was not one, then Eve probably would have walked away from the snake unimpressed. If the snake sounded like a really smart parakeet, but only that, then we should recall that Adam was given dominion over all the animals in that he named the different types of animals rather than it being the other way around. One thought that would explain it is that a fallen angel entered the animal as an invisible spirit. Of course, the demon would have left out the fallen part but would have said, perhaps, that “not only can angels exist in the spirit world, but humans can also, but only after their visible covering is discarded at death.”
It is not too far of a stretch that Satan’s spirit was able to enter the brain of the snake and that Eve was convinced that she had a spirit too inside her having seen it happen right in front of her. If this explanation satisfied Eve’s curiosity in a serpent that can talk, then it is conceivable, at least, that it told her that the spirit/mind within her body cannot die; her soul was made to be immortal from the beginning. That which is immaterial, that which can cause a non-talking snake to actually talk like Adam; and that which is spirit surely will not die.
However, my investigation here is not posing this particular question about spirit. Instead, it is asking, What in Scripture allows us to open the possibility that our soul/mind within us is different than spirit or is unlike an immaterial essence? Does Scripture really require the belief that the soul/mind is born as an immortal spirit, or alternatively, that our soul/mind obtains this characteristic of immortality as a literal gift of eternal life sometime later depending on whether we qualify for the gift of life? From this perspective, a person’s mind can be roughly defined as the product of a functioning brain involving microscopic neurons and neuro-impulses that naturally produce consciousness.
3) Do we have a literal spirit inside us other than the Spirit of God? “The Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh (Gen 6:3, NKJV).” The relevancy of this proposition in Genesis, or lack of it, to the questions above cannot be determined with a high level of confidence until all of Scripture is reviewed. It is possible that God is telling one of God’s prophets here that a human being “is indeed flesh” or perhaps a better translation of the Hebrew: a human “is just flesh.”
4) When God said destroy (in the case of the flood), did God mean destroy completely? “I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done (Gen 8:21, NASB).” Regarding whether or not human beings have an immaterial spirit that holds the soul/mind, the question becomes: did God really literally destroy the hearts of people, as used in this passage (as mind), or did God refer just to the fleshly bodies of humankind that were destroyed (assuming body–soul dualism)?
5) What is the significance of Judge appearing in Genesis? Abraham is quoted as understanding that God is the world’s Judge and acts in a fair and just manner. “Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just? (Gen 18:25, NRSV).” Does this mean that Abraham believed that at death the heart/mind is gathered together with other deceased persons so that a resurrection can then happen that involves the effects of a divine judgment (i.e., reward and punishment)? Otherwise, what is the purpose for God judging the lives of people if the assumption is made that Abraham and the several generations that followed him did not believe in a resurrection of the dead yet? Click here (fq 43) to read what an expert (Atkinson) has written about this point.
6) What did God mean by the punishment of being “cut off from his people”? One day God appeared to Abraham when he was about halfway through his lifetime. God told him his name shall no longer be Abram, but Abraham instead, and that his wife too shall be renamed, from Sarai to Sarah. During that conversation, God told him that a solemn covenant will be established between God and Abraham and his many descendants. The first requirement of this OT covenant that God identified immediately after emphasizing that Abraham must keep the covenant was male circumcision. The stated purpose of removing the foreskin would be a sign of this formal agreement. Then, God is quoted as saying there would be severe punishment for those who refuse to submit to this sign of the divine covenant: “that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant (Gen 17:14, AMP).”
The meaning of “cut off from his people” is a relevant clue to the overall question about what happens to the mind of the deceased at death since this same phrase appears in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers with additional specifics. What does God intend to do to those persons who are unrepentant about their sins, who remain defiant against their Creator, and who continuously choose to reject God’s love?
Ω Ω Ω
This concludes my study here on Genesis. The use of a large variety of Bible translations here, rather than one of two versions as is typical, follows from the idea that a thorough and comprehensive investigation of a mysterious and controversial subject requires a different method of using biblical sources.
The purpose of presenting a widely-sourced collection of scriptural passages, rather than a narrow set of Scripture translations or just one version, is to increase the chances of not overlooking a more accurate or better translation of the given passage.
Primary group (80% for the whole biblical study):
14% NASB (2020) New American Standard Bible
14% NRSV (1989) New Revised Standard Version
14% NIV (2011) New International Version
14% NKJV (1982) New King James Version
6% KJV (1611) King James Version
6% GNT (1976) Good News Translation
6% CSB (2017) Christian Standard Bible
6% MLV (2017) Modern Literal Version
The eight translations of Scripture above have been selected by me which when grouped together account for 80% of all passages quoted throughout the OT/NT study. The use of the top four versions will be more than twice as often as the bottom four versions (from Genesis to Revelation).
The selection of the top four versions is based on a combination of their scholarly use generally and of book sales. Other versions were selected for a variety of reasons including their being an extremely literal translation, a traditional or well-liked version with some credibility, or is a unique translation for a particular text.
A comparison of the target amount of verses for each of the top eight Bible translations against the actual amount of passages for this Genesis study is as follows: For the top tier of four translations, the actual percentage is 11% for each. For the next tier, the actual percentage is 7.5% for each.
The remaining 20% of passages that do not use any of these eight translations will consist of about one percent on average. (At least one other translation will likely be added to the list below.) This Genesis study employed an additional fifteen versions to these top eight translations. The actual percentage totals are 75% and 25% meaning that the primary and secondary groups were off only 5% each from the target of 80% and 20%. A total of 37 verse groupings from Genesis have been quoted here as seen in the summary list below.
Secondary group (20% for the whole biblical study):
~1% ABP (2018) Apostolic Bible Polyglot, OT
~1% AMP (2015) Amplified Bible
~1% CEV (1995) Contemporary English Version
~1% CVOT (2014) Concordant Version, OT
~1% English Standard Version
~1% GW (1995) God’s Word
~1% JSP (1876) Julia E. Smith Parker
~1% LEB (2012) Lexham English Bible
~1% NABRE (2011) New American Bible Rev. Ed.
~1% NET (1996) New English Translation
~1% NLT (2015) New Living Translation
~1% OJB (2011) Orthodox Jewish Bible
~1% REB (1989) Revised English Bible
~1% ROTH (1902) Joseph B. Rotherham’s Emphasized Bible, OT
~1% TLB (1971) The Living Bible
~1% VOICE (2012) The Voice
~1% WYC (1395) John Wycliffe’s Bible
~1% YLT (1898) Robert Young’s Literal Translation
Quoted Passages in Genesis (37 total / 15 highly rated verses):
Each verse (or verse grouping) below has been rated by me for its potential relevancy and importance to answering the main question: what happens when people die? The range of 1 to 6 applies to the entire group of passages (which includes the OT and NT) with just one verse being given a rating of 6 due to the explicit nature of it (on the matter of immortality in 2 Timothy). The verses with a rating of 1 have been separated out from the list below and do not appear in the text above.
Each book of the Bible will have two numbers associated with it that refer to this group of passages: the first one is a total number of potentially relevant verses, and the second one is the number of passages that have been rated four or higher. For example, there are six verse groupings seen below with a rating of 5 and another nine with a rating of 4, giving a sub-total of fifteen highly rated verses out of thirty-seven passages total.
Rating of 5:
Genesis 3:19
Genesis 25:8-9
Genesis 25:17
Genesis 35:29
Genesis 49:29
Genesis 49:33–50:2
Rating of 4:
Genesis 2:7
Genesis 3:23
Genesis 15:15
Genesis 18:27
Genesis 37:35
Genesis 42:38
Genesis 44:29
Genesis 44:31
Genesis 47:30
Rating of 3:
Genesis 1:26-27
Genesis 3:4
Genesis 17:14
Genesis 24:42-45
Genesis 35:18
Genesis 46:4
Rating of 2:
Genesis 1:21
Genesis 2:17
Genesis 2:19
Genesis 3:5
Genesis 4:10
Genesis 6:3
Genesis 6:5
Genesis 7:22
Genesis 8:21
Genesis 9:6
Genesis 17:17
Genesis 18:25
Genesis 20:5
Genesis 26:24
Genesis 27:41
Genesis 34:8
Quoted Passages Not in Genesis:
Leviticus 11:10
Leviticus 11:46
2 Samuel 22:6
Matthew 22:32
Footnoted Quotes from Expert Commentators of Scripture:
SEE WHAT SOME EXPERTS HAVE WRITTEN (foot-quote grouping number 1): (1) A commentator of Genesis in the Jewish Publication Society’s Torah commentary (in five volumes) writes the following regarding heart at the comment on Gen 6:5: “In biblical psychology, mental phenomena fall within the sphere of the heart, which is the organ of thought, understanding, and volition [Sarna, page 47].” (2) The next commentator is widely recognized as a leading biblical scholar and provided his explanation of the OT meaning of heart in the “Word Biblical Commentary” series. This series has been described as “a technical, exegetical, and academic commentary. Produced for pastors and scholars trained in the original languages and in advanced exegetical skill, this commentary series has been regarded as a cutting-edge resource for many years [Christianbook.com].” This biblical commentary set now consists of sixty-one volumes from more than fifty highly ranked authors. The “WBC has more #1-rated volumes than any other commentary series [ZondervanAcademic.com].” Gordon Wenham writes the following in his commentary on Genesis (which is ranked number one out of over a hundred commentaries on Genesis by BestCommentaries.com) at Gen 6:5: “‘Mind’ … [Heb., leb] literally, ‘heart,’ is the center of the human personality in biblical anthropology, where will and thought originate … it is not merely the source of the emotions as in English [Wenham (source ‘a’), 144].” (3) In “the Hebrew Bible … the [Heb., leb] (‘heart’) can convey emotional distress … joy … and grief … [and] it can also involve thought processes [Smith, 154].” (4) It is useful to see how the Apostle Paul used the Greek words for heart and mind in his writings. Additionally, it may be helpful to note how heart was translated from Hebrew to Greek for the Septuagint (i.e., LXX) since it is the earliest Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible available. The Pentateuch (including Genesis) was translated into the LXX in the middle of the 3rd century before Christ (BC). The Hebrew leb (i.e., heart) is “rendered either by … [Greek, cardia] (heart) or by … [Grk., nous] (mind), Paul uses ‘heart’ to a large extent synonymously with nous [mind]; viz. to designate the self as a willing, planning, intending self. … like nous, ‘heart’ is a man’s self [Bultmann, 220].” (5) “The OT understanding of ‘soul’ differs from the NT notion of ‘soul’ (Waltke, 70).” The literal constitution of a person has developed philosophically over time into a conglomeration that very few people of the OT would have recognized. Therefore, the ancient view of the soul was very different from the normal understanding of it today; consequently, this fact effects one’s interpretation of Scripture. The traditional view within the church for many centuries is that the soul/mind and the body basically are two very different substances; one physical and the other similar to a ghost and is independent of the brain). This view is a common presupposition today among Christians, however, it has been challenged by many theologians. It may even be inappropriate to assume Scripture teaches us that our soul/mind can normally function apart from the brain. Click here to return to the main text.
Foot-quote 2: Sarna confirms its uniqueness: “This is the only instance of the use of this phrase by the speaker about himself [Sarna, 346].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 3: (1) The highly-esteemed scholar Wenham writes that “this could just mean that his body now rested with his relatives in the family tomb. But since this is said explicitly in v. 9, it would seem more likely that the reference is to the soul [or heart/mind] of Abraham being reunited with his dead relatives in the afterlife [Wenham (b), 160].” Wenham (in his top-ranked commentary) here quotes another commentator who says that it can only mean the union of the soul, the transfigured personality, as it was described. (2) Have others recognized this likely tilt toward the place of this gathering not being at a family grave site but rather somewhere else? “They were then thought of as being gathered into a wide vague land of the dead, or state of death [Atkinson, 229].” This “land of the dead” did not mean then some distant part of the world where the deceased enjoy each other’s presence, as shown next. “It [this gathered expression] did not convey the idea of a conscious reunion in a world of ghosts. … He [Jacob] joined Abraham and Isaac in the land of darkness and silence [Atkinson, 438-439].” (3) What is the difference between God’s description of where Abraham would go when he dies and Jacob’s description of where he would go at death? “‘He was gathered to his people’ can be related to 15:15, ‘You will go to your fathers’ [Aalders (b), 74].” (4) Not only are they related, but these two expressions are very similar regarding the stage of existence right after death but before the Last Day. These two concepts above are “analogous [Sarna, 324].” The general editor of the JPS Commentary series, Sarna, identifies a third way repeatedly seen in Scripture of expressing this same idea. “Outside the Pentateuch, the standard idiom is ‘to lie down with one’s fathers’… No perceptible difference in meaning between the two [‘was gathered to his kin’ is the other] can be determined [Sarna, 363].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 4: This gathered phrase referred to something other than actual death. “An analysis of the contexts in which it is found reveals that it [‘was gathered to his kin’] is to be distinguished from death itself because the action follows the demise [Sarna, 174].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 5: (1) Some commentators see the purpose of God’s assertion to Abraham (“you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried”) as consisting of something beyond the obvious. “It is not the same as burial in an ancestral grave, because it is employed of Abraham, Aaron, and Moses, none of whom was buried with his forefathers [Sarna, 174].” (2) “Soon after the body dies, the heart/mind is gathered at the abode of God where it rests in the company of their ancestors” is how the typical writer of the OT would probably imagine it. “Since Abraham was not buried near his fathers, that verse must refer to a spiritual reunification of the [heart/mind] with his ancestors [Zlotowitz, 976].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 6: “It [the gathering phrase] is also not identical with interment in general because the report of burial follows this phrase, and the difference between the two is especially blatant in the case of Jacob, who was interred quite a while after being ‘gathered to his kin’ [Sarna, 174].” The repetition of the phrase by the writer of Genesis places a special emphasis on it beyond the obvious. Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 7: “It would seem, therefore, that the existence of this [gathering] idiom [which is unique to the Pentateuch], as of the corresponding figure ‘to lie down with one’s fathers,’ testifies to a belief that, despite his mortality and perishability, man possesses an immortal element that survives the loss of life. Death is looked upon as a transition to an afterlife where one is united with one’s ancestors. This interpretation contradicts the widespread, but apparently erroneous, view that such a notion is unknown in Israel until later times [Sarna, 174].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 8: (1) It should be noted this Genesis verse is “the only case in which ‘kin’ appears in the singular Hebrew form (‘am) [Sarna, 346].” If this is correct and significant, then it would be a possibility that Jacob intentionally emphasized the unity and tightly held grouping of deceased individuals there, rather than it being a loose collection of various families. This Hebrew word in Scripture has referred, at times, “to the whole human race … Isa 40:7, Isa 42:5 [Gesenius, ‘am].” The typical use of the plural form of this Hebrew word in the ‘gathered to his people’ expression may have been used to suggest that other nations besides the family of Jacob would be brought together during death somehow. (2) “The plural [Heb., ‘am], his peoples, implies that there are many ‘nations’ in the World to Come [Zlotowitz (a), 977].” (3) Regarding the origin of the gathered phrase, as compared to the earlier ‘go to your people’ phrase seen in Gen 15:15, “it is likely that [the Hebrew word for] ‘gathered’ … is a play on the name Joseph, which consists of the same consonants and similar vowels [Wenham (b), 488].” If this observation is accurate, then it can be imagined that Jacob developed it sometime, perhaps during his seventeen years in Egypt with his famous son, Joseph. Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 9: Letting Luther speak about being gathered at death. The preacher and university professor, Martin Luther, had much to say about this gathered expression in his last lecture series to his students before he died. “The words ‘was gathered to his people’ are truly splendid and full of meaning [Luther (d), 315].” Luther detected a divine purpose in gathering the minds of the deceased. “Where did Abraham go? Moses says: ‘He was gathered to his people.’ Do people, then, still remain after this life? For the words sound as though he had gone from one people to another or from one city to another. This is truly an outstanding and notable evidence of the resurrection and the future life. It should be set forth for the comfort of all who believe in God [Luther (b), 309].” For Luther, this belief seen throughout Genesis applies to the present day as well. “When we depart from the living, we go forth to the Guardian of our souls (1 Peter 2:25), who receives us into His hands. [Luther (b), 310].” Luther explains why it is an appropriate interpretation of this gathering expression to see the promise of another life through resurrection. “This manner of speaking, ‘he was gathered to his fathers,’ bears witness to the future resurrection of the dead since, indeed, it is a people to whom we are gathered. For on dying we do not disappear into the air. Therefore, the Holy Spirit does not say: ‘He disappeared after he ceased living’ but ‘he was gathered.’ He was not scattered, tossed this way and that, or afflicted as he was in a wretched and disastrous life but freed from all evils and gathered to his people like the other fathers [Luther (c), 281].” Additionally, Luther points to Matt 22:32 where Jesus is quoted as saying that ‘God is the God of a living, not just a dead, Abraham’ as being an indication of a future reward that follows his death. Above all one should note the very pleasing description of death this passage contains. God does not use the term ‘death.’ No, He tones down this name, so to speak, with pleasing words. ‘You will be gathered to your fathers.’ … Accordingly, God declares that Abraham will die; yet He promises that He will be Abraham’s reward. How are we going to harmonize these statements unless we conclude that after this life there remains another life, one that is better and eternal, to which we shall be awakened out of the very dust of death by the Son of God? [Luther (a), 39]. Luther applied this detected promise to Abraham of his resurrection to others as their own reward too. “But these words were written not for Abraham’s sake alone (says Paul at Rom 4:23-24), but for ours also, in order that we, too, may believe that there has been laid up a reward for us. … These things … were not written for Abraham’s benefit. They are of service to us, in order that when we, with Abraham, believe in the woman’s Seed, we may through this hope overcome death and no longer have a horror of departing from this life [Luther (a), 39-40].” About three or four months before he died, Luther finally finished his lecture series (after about ten years, off and on) with the following comments on the last chapter of Genesis. Nearly thirty years after the distribution of his Ninety-five Theses (which objected to the church’s selling of indulgences for people to obtain the release of a deceased person from painful purgatory), Luther told his students the deceased person is not subject to torture there, but instead, is resting in peace. He also raised the issue of where exactly the deceased go at death by suggesting the temporary dwelling is not someplace like a planet or in the clouds, but instead is some sort of “receptacle.” This Word testifies that after this life there is a people. Jacob did not ascend into heaven [in a normal mode of living]; nor did he descend into hell. Where, then, did he go? God has a receptacle in which the saints and the elect rest without death, without pain and hell. But … what kind of place it is, no one knows. But it is certain that it is called, and is, a people. … so, when we die … we are transferred by the angels into the bosom of Abraham, or to our people. … It suffices for us that Scripture testifies that from the beginning of the world those who believed in the Seed of the woman did not perish and were not consigned to oblivion but were gathered to their people. But no one can say what the nature of that place is. … But there is no doubt that those who have been gathered to their people are resting. But how? … Thus, the place of the dead has no torments; but, as we say, they rest in peace. … Consequently, we deny the existence of a purgatory and of a limbo of the fathers [Luther (d), 315-318]. Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 10: (1) An underworld: “Sheol … suggests … no-land, underworld (Westermann (b), 44).” (2) Shadows and silence in another realm for the mind: “He will lament until the day of his death, when he will go down to Sheol— where Joseph already is (cf. 42:38). Sheol is the realm of the dead, a shadowy, silent existence (more than the NIV’s ‘grave’) [Fretheim, 600].” (3) Several OT experts believe that Sheol means more than just the grave as seen next: “On the physical level it [Sheol] refers to the grave; on the metaphysical, to the realm of death as distinct from the realm of life [Waltke, 505].” It should be noted that Bruce Waltke’s commentary on Genesis has been ranked number four out of over a hundred Genesis commentaries by BestCommentaries.com. (4) The next quote depicts a dark and gloomy underworld, and it is found in the Genesis volume from the UBS ‘Helps for Translators’ series: “Sheol was regarded as a dark and gloomy place where all the dead were in a shadowy and slowly disappearing existence. It was believed to be beneath the earth; therefore, the expression is ‘go down to Sheol.’… A common translation of Sheol is ‘world of the dead.’ See TEV [Today’s English Version, or its new name, Good News Translation]. Sheol should not be translated by a word for ‘hell,’ a place of punishment [Reyburn and Fry, 867].” Also, the following translation of Gen 37:35 “is acceptable” according to them: “I will still be in mourning when I join my son in the world of the dead [Reyburn and Fry, 868].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 11: (1) Notice the following commentator points out the apparent belief of Jacob that people have a literal spirit (of some sort): “Jacob is deeply dismayed. …But it was apparently considered to be especially bad to die in such sorrow and not ‘in a good old age’ because it was then possible that the spirit of the dead would find no rest [von Rad, 384].” (2) Sarna writes in the Jewish Publication Society’s Torah Commentary that this underworld contained the spirits of the dead: “Sheol: the most frequently used term in biblical Hebrew for the abode of the spirits of the dead. … There is no concept of ‘heaven’ and ‘hell’ in the Hebrew Bible. The underworld received all men—good and bad, great and small— and all are equal there. It was a place of unrelieved darkness [Sarna, 262].” (3) The basic meaning of Sheol indicates a place where souls are required to be: “Sheol denotes the place where departed souls are gathered after death; it is an infinitive form from [Heb., Sheol], to demand. The demanding [is] applied to the place which inexorably summons all men into its shade [Keil and Delitzsch, 217].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 12: (1) In the next commentary on Genesis, Matthews writes that Jacob believed he would not only meet Joseph in Sheol, but that once there, his sorrow would actually be relieved: “Typically, a period of mourning would be appointed (e.g., Gen 27:41; 50:4; Deut 34:8), but in Jacob’s mind no end to his sorrow is possible (e.g., Isa 51:19). Therefore, he believes he will die ‘in (the state of) mourning’ (v. 35), finding relief only in meeting his deceased son ‘in Sheol.’… Jacob anticipates meeting his son once again indicates that he expects some form of life after death [Mathews, 701-702]. It should be noted that Kenneth Mathews’s commentary on Genesis has been ranked number three out of over a hundred Genesis commentaries by BestCommentaries.com. (2) Although it may contain wonderful family reunions, Wenham’s view of Sheol is that it is not necessarily a happy place (as we would imagine happiness): “Sheol is the place of the dead in the OT, where the spirits of the departed continue in a shadowy and rather unhappy existence (cf. Isa 14:14-20) and where relatives could be reunited with each other (cf. 2 Sam 12:23) [Wenham (b), 357].” (3) Gunkel imagines a bleak reunion there: “He wants to go to Sheol with ashes still on his head and sackcloth on his loins. This statement presumes that, in the underworld, everyone remains in the state one was in at death. And thus, in mourning garments, he wants to come to Joseph in Sheol. It is painful comfort to the survivor that there is after all a place of reunion (2 Sam 12:23). It is, however, bleak Sheol! Then Joseph may see, to the extent that the dead can still see, how faithfully his father mourned for him [Gunkel, 394].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 13: Grave is for the body; Sheol is for the soul/mind: “Just as the body is kept in the earth, so the soul, when freed, comes into its own [place, i.e., Sheol] [Luther (e), 292].” Sheol is some type of receptacle instead of souls being in the clouds or on a planet: “But [Sheol] is a kind of common receptacle not only for the bodies but also for the souls, where all the dead are gathered. In his Enchiridion to Laurentius Augustine mentions ‘secret shelters for souls’ {footnote, ch. 29, par. 109} [Luther (e), 292].” Luther may have accepted the reality of Sheol instead of it being just a Hebrew myth: “This descent [into Sheol] … is nothing else than the changing of this life into another state, where one no longer lives under the sun and on the earth [Luther (e), 293].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 14: (1) “Understanding that we are made in the image of God is essential for understanding our destiny and relationship to God (Waltke, 69).” (2) At three critical turning-points (creation, the Eden expulsion, and Noah’s new start), the “opening book of the Bible emphasizes that the concept of being made in the image of God is of fundamental importance to what it means to be human [Sherlock, 31].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 15: (1) Consider the ramifications of how a people may imagine their literal nature, their purpose for being alive, and their view of what lies beyond death’s door. “The most powerful of all spiritual forces is man’s view of himself, the way in which he understands his nature and his destiny, indeed it is the one force which determines all the others which influence human life (Brunner, 146).” (2) There are many different ways to explain the meaning of ‘being created in God’s image.’ “Let us not oversimplify the patristic standpoint, for the Fathers do not actually offer us a single, systematic doctrine of the human person; they merely provide us with a diversity of approaches to the continuing mystery of personhood [Ware, 3].” (3) According to Karl Barth, “we are nowhere told in the Scriptures what the image of God actually is [Sherlock, 89].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 16: Theologians, exegetes, and other scholars are now in general agreement “that the basic idea of the image denotes that human persons ‘reflect’ the divine reality in some way. … The real debate … begins when we try to explain more precisely what is reflected … and how this reflection actually takes place [Cortez, 16].” Due to space limitations of this volume, only the what is presented in summary form and not the how. “We also find virtual unanimity on the fact that all human persons— regardless of gender, race, or status— are made in the image of God … [but] only humans … thus, the imago should be that which makes humans different from other animals. … [Also] they view it as developing towards something … being transformed and renewed [Cortez, 17-18].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 17: (1) “The original sense of this theme of the image of God: man, in the concrete, is in the likeness of God, not because he has an upright stature which differentiates him from the animals (Koelher), but because he receives a delegation from God which expresses itself in dominion over the beasts, over the dynamic universe, and over sin [Gelin, 33].” (2) In Anthropology of the Old Testament, a biblical commentator on the meaning of image of God backs up this view of the importance of the biblical writer’s insertion of this ‘difference between animals and people’ between the two image phrases as such: There is a “special relationship to the rest of creation in which God sets man … it is the dominating relationship … It is precisely in his function as ruler that he is God’s image … the double expression … underlines the close relationship between [God and humans] [Wolff, 160-161].” As part of this intimacy with God, humankind shares in the sovereignty role. “Man receives from God a royal function, a delegation to be lord of the animal kingdom. … This same idea is repeated in Psalm 8, which is the best commentary on the theme of the image [of God]. This psalm recalls that God is transcendent. He is presented as tolerating no equal; his majesty is spoken of … admiration for the work of his hands is found throughout the whole psalm [Gelin, 31].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 18: (1) “Imagination carries with it the connotation of creative thought, not merely the technical exercise of reason; and it is in this sense that many Christian theologians have considered humans to be made in the image of God [Sherlock, 78].” (2) The Roman Catholic Church “holds and teaches that God … can be known with certainty … by the natural light of human reason. … Without this capacity, man would not be able to welcome God’s revelation. Man has this capacity because he is created ‘in the image of God’ [Roman Catholic Church, par. 36].” (3) “This Catholic view is firmly embedded in the works of Descartes, who wrote, ‘The human mind, by virtue of its rationality, provides evidence both of a kind of image of God and at the same time a criterion of radical discontinuity from the rest of creation. The animals are merely machines’ [Jeeves (a), 104].” On the other hand, more recent scholars have also disputed this interpretation of the passage by describing the scientific findings of those observing very intelligent animals, as follows: “How do such views stand in the light of research into the cognitive capacities of animals and more especially of nonhuman primates? There is now a large body of evidence pointing to the conclusion that animals also think. … The implication is that in each instance any attempt to set down a clear demarcation between the reasoning abilities of nonhuman primates and humans is found to have become blurred. … While rudimentary, they are today seen to overlap with similar abilities in developing small children. It therefore becomes increasingly difficult to seek to anchor a belief in the uniqueness of humans created in the image of God in terms of reasoning [Jeeves (a), 104-105].” If our upright stature, our dominance as a function of humans over animals, and our creativeness over the animal kingdom are insufficient for some critics, then perhaps the real meaning of image of God refers to our capacity for moral behavior. If the preacher Jonathan Edwards of the 18th century “was claiming that this capacity was unique to humans, then we may ask how such a claim stands today. … Over the past three decades evidence has been steadily accumulating of behavior, which if we were to witness it in humans, we would attribute to the possession of a moral sense and moral agency. … Clearly self-giving is found not just in God’s human work [Jeeves (a), 105].” This commentator above concludes by suggesting a more appropriate response from those who have defended the supposed moral superiority of humans over animals as such: “In order to defend the uniqueness of the developed human capacities for moral agency it is not necessary to deny evidence of their emergence in animals and in particular in nonhuman primates. The important question for Christians, however, is whether there is any evidence in Scripture to support the view that the image of God in humans is to be defined in terms of a unique capacity for moral behavior and moral agency? If there is, we await its identification [Jeeves (b), 197-198].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 19: If the preacher Jonathan Edwards of the 18th century “was claiming that this capacity was unique to humans, then we may ask how such a claim stands today. … Over the past three decades evidence has been steadily accumulating of behavior, which if we were to witness it in humans, we would attribute to the possession of a moral sense and moral agency. … Clearly self-giving is found not just in God’s human work [Jeeves (a), 105].” Jeeves concludes by suggesting a more appropriate response from those who have defended the supposed moral superiority of humans over animals as such: “In order to defend the uniqueness of the developed human capacities for moral agency it is not necessary to deny evidence of their emergence in animals and in particular in nonhuman primates. The important question for Christians, however, is whether there is any evidence in Scripture to support the view that the image of God in humans is to be defined in terms of a unique capacity for moral behavior and moral agency? If there is, we await its identification [Jeeves (b), 197-198].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 20: (1) Colin Gunton interprets “the fundamental content of the imago Dei in being human as persons in relation. … The human person is thus constituted as the image of God in relation to the trinitarian God by being conformed to the person of Christ in the Spirit and in relation to other created beings in the personal communion with other persons and in responsible stewardship for the cosmos [Schwobel, 17].” Furthermore, Gunton claims it becomes possible “to overcome the dualist implications of important strands of Western anthropology, because relations are relations of the whole person, body, soul and reason [Schwobel, 17].” (2) It is not the community-forming aspect that differentiates humans from lower animals, but it is that relatedness plus our unique interaction with God that, when combined, begins to point toward the core meaning of the image. “To focus on the capacity for personal relatedness is another way of describing what in the past has been alluded to in discussions of the societal nature of the divine image. [Jeeves (a), 106].” (3) The next commentator combines this ‘being in relation to God’ while also ‘being in relation to others’ to emphasize that Christ-followers who are constantly receptive to God’s teaching allow this special nature to blossom. “It is thus the community of those ‘in Christ’ which reveals today what it means to be made in the divine image. … This perspective offers an impressive account of how individual and corporate sides of being human may be integrated in a community of persons [Sherlock, 89].” The key distinction here is that it is a portion of human beings—not everyone—who interact with God and with others appropriately, and thereby they enliven and activate the gift of the image of God. (4) “The fact that human persons are created in the image of God signifies first and foremost an orientation, a direction, a relationship. … Only when I see myself in relationship with God does my personhood acquire authentic meaning. … To be created in the image means that we are created for fellowship and communion with God [Ware, 3].” In making a distinction between animals and humans, it is pertinent to note the following observation: “Only to humanity does God speak directly [Green, 274].” Both humans and animals have natural appetites in common such as for food and sex, but “what distinguishes humanity from animals is the imago Dei and a passionate appetite for God (Waltke, 71).” In the ancient world and also among some skeptics today, the appearance long ago of human beings can be seen as accidental or unintended. However, “the image signifies a deliberate, not accidental creation (Waltke, 85).” (5) “That Christ is ‘the image of the invisible God’ (Col 1:15) communicates more than that he ‘reflects’ or ‘makes visible’ the invisible qualities of God, although he certainly does that as well. Instead, the emphasis of the NT is on the presence of the divine in the incarnation. Thus, Jesus declares, ‘The Father is in me, and I in the Father’ (John 10:38) … Christ is the true image because he is the true ‘representative’ of God, the one in whom the real presence of God is manifest in creation [Cortez, 33].” The key distinction being made in the next quote is that it is the personal presence of the Spirit of God within human beings rather than image of God meaning it is some spiritual characteristic of God, such as humans having immortality within their soul. “Despite a long history of understanding the imago Dei as referring to an attribute, capacity, or structure of the human person, we have seen that there are good reasons for understanding it instead as a function, whereby God manifests his personal, covenantal presence in and through human persons. … As such, the imago Dei stands at the center of any adequate theological anthropology and will have important consequences for how we approach other anthropological issues [Cortez, 37].” There may be a relevant hint in Gen 9:6 since the phrase image of God appears there. “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed; for in the image of God He made man (Gen 9:6, NKJV).” The text may be saying that it is because of this image of God that earthly justice is required in the case of a murder conviction, for example, as opposed to only a very minimal penalty being applied. Cortez concludes his overview by suggesting a compromise position that infuses both sides of the divide somewhat (i.e., the functional/stewardship role versus the relational/community role). “We see that the functional imago portrays Gen 1:26-28 as a declaration that human persons are a unique locus of the manifestation of God’s glorious divine presence in creation. It is in virtue of this representative manifestation of divine presence, consequently, that humanity exercises dominion in and over creation. … As significant as this is for understanding the image of God, the relational approach offers a number of important insights as well [Cortez, 33].” He then describes the image as something performed by God within persons and also done by followers of God as follows: “The image of God is a task, something that the human person performs in creation … [and it] is something that God does (i.e., manifests himself) in and through human persons, a task in which human persons are called to participate. In this sense, the imago Dei is a gift given to humanity by God through the divine summons and the creation of human persons as male and female [Cortez, 33-35].” (6) Jeeves believes that the image in primarily a relational one involving higher impulses and thus he rejects the meaning of image as something involving a mystical capacity. “The contemporary focus of much current theological thinking on the imago dei is that it is seen primarily in our capacity for relatedness: relatedness to our Creator, relatedness to one another, and relatedness to the creation. … At the same time, we have no scriptural warrant for appealing to this or that special cognitive, conative, or mystical capacity to establish our uniqueness or in order to identify the imago dei in each of us. [Jeeves (b), 204].” The first half of this quote of Jeeves favors one side of the debate, but the second half of it makes a claim that most scholars, it would seem, would agree with. (7) “The most striking statement of the primeval story, over and above God being the creator, preserver and sustainer of creation, is that God created human beings in his image. … The sentence means that God created humanity to be his counterpart so that something can happen between God and the individual [Westermann (a), 604].” It should be noted that Claus Westermann’s commentary on Genesis has been ranked in the top quartile (#23 out of over 100 commentaries on Genesis) by BestCommentaries.com. (8) With this description of the meaning of image of God, as well as others who advocate something similar to an all-of-the-above approach, “the nature of the imago Dei remains an important and unresolved issue in contemporary theology [Cortez, 30].” The current situation has been described as a “chasm that divides the two … [with] lines firmly drawn [Cortez, 20].” The two sides that are in “tension” in the contemporary debate consist of the functional sense and the relational approach. “The general consensus among contemporary biblical scholars is that the image of God in Genesis 1 should be understood in a primarily functional sense; most theologians, on the other hand, argue for a relational approach [Cortez, 30].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 21: (1) “The significance of the soul as identified with the image of God within came considerably to the fore in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the ‘immortality of the soul’ for its own sake, apart from the saving work of Christ, was stressed. This has been questioned in recent decades by biblical scholars [Sherlock, 81].” (2) The OT fathers did not subscribe to the later Greek understanding of the soul as being naturally immortal from birth. The OT scholar, Jack Lundbom (who wrote a three-volume Anchor Bible commentary on Jeremiah), describes Hebrew thought on death as follows: “When the body dies, the [nephesh, or soul] dies, there is no immortality of the soul, as in Greek thought (Lundbom, 312).” (3) “Thus, some proponents have argued that the body was not a proper part of the image of God because only the immaterial part of the person, the soul, directly images God. Yet once again we must recognize that the biblical narratives make no such distinction. Instead, Genesis 1:26-28 simply identifies human persons … as imaging God. Looking to the subsequent reference in Genesis 5:1-3, Seth was presumably in the image of his father as a whole person as well [Cortez, 21].” “Rather than something possessed by human persons as a part of their essential being, then, the image of God is shown to be something that unfolds over time as God manifests himself in and through the narrative of his covenantal relationship with humanity. … The image of God can be understood as God manifesting his personal presence in creation through his covenantal relationships with human persons [Cortez, 37].” “We must also affirm that the creation of human beings as imago Dei emphasizes that humans are embodied beings. As we have seen, the imago Dei is not something applied to the ‘inner,’ ‘immaterial,’ or ‘spiritual’ dimensions of the human person. On the contrary, the imago encompasses the embodied human person as a whole [Cortez, 40].” (4) “Belief in an immaterial soul played an important role in debates about what was meant by saying that we are made in the image of God. It was in the immaterial soul that our capacity to reason was said to be located, and hence the need for an immaterial soul was foundational to one of the most widely held and enduring views of what it means to say that humans are uniquely made ‘in the image of God.’ [Jeeves (b), 190].” “It therefore becomes increasingly difficult to seek to anchor a belief in the uniqueness of humans created in the image of God in terms of reasoning located in an immortal soul. … The idea of a separate immaterial soul (mind) is difficult to defend in light of the tightness of the links between mind and brain, soul and body. Rather, a holistic view of ourselves is both compatible with the science and consonant with much contemporary theological thought [Jeeves (b), 191].” (5) “Genesis 1-2 does not locate the singularity of humanity in the human possession of a ‘soul,’ but rather in the human capacity to relate to Yahweh as covenant partner, and to join in companionship within the human family and in relation to the whole cosmos in ways that reflect the covenant love of God [Green, 275].” “Indeed, within the Old Testament, ‘soul’ (Heb., nephesh) refers to life and vitality — not life in general, but as instantiated in human persons and animals; not a thing to have but a way to be. … The distinguishing mark of human existence when compared with other creatures is thus the whole of human existence (and not some ‘part’ of the individual) [Green, 275].” (6) “Our unity is central. We know each other, not as brains ensheathed in bodies, but as embodied persons. We are people who relate to each other as beings created in the image of God, but this image is not a separate thing. It is not the possession of an immaterial soul, it is not the capacity to reason, and it is not the capacity for moral behavior [Jeeves (a), 107].” (7) “It is important also to realise that this being in the image of God will embrace both what we have been used to call spiritual and our bodiliness … relations are of the whole person, not of minds or bodies alone [Gunton, 59].” (8) “Zealous to exorcise Greek philosophy from Christian theology, and influenced by the monism of modern thought, present-day theologians have emphasized the unity of the personal self over the duality of body and soul. Such an emphasis is not altogether unwarranted, since theologians have traditionally inclined to the opposite extreme of treating body and soul as independent, distinct ‘substances’ [Jewett, 35-36].” “While there is an ineluctable relationship between soul and body, the soul is not some spiritual substance ‘in’ the body as a fetus is ‘in’ the womb. Nor is it a spiritual substance diffused through the body as blood ‘through’ the veins. Rather, the soul is just the personal self, the ‘I,’ animating the body [Jewett, 42].” “This problem is due to the fact that the Bible uses the language of ‘image’ and ‘likeness’ to speak not only of our creation but also of our salvation [Jewett, 55].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 22: “The traditional rendering of nephesh as ‘soul’ can mislead the reader since the semantic range of nephesh is much broader, including the meanings ‘life,’ ‘person,’ ‘self,’ ‘appetite,’ and ‘mind’ [Mathews (a), 197-198].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 23: “The word [nephesh], however, does not mean soul as we usually understand that term. It is better, therefore, to avoid the use of this term altogether. Here it [nephesh] is combined with ‘living’— ‘living being’—and in this form it appears various times in the Old Testament. In most instances it refers to animals [Aalders (a), 85].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 24: (1) The term in question, nephesh, is used only a few verses earlier with reference to ‘every beast of the earth,’ and ‘everything that creeps on the earth’ — that is, to everything ‘in which there is life (nephesh).’ This demonstrates that ‘soul’ is not for the Genesis story a unique characteristic of the human person. Accordingly, one might better translate Genesis 2:7 with reference to the divine gift of life: ‘the human being became fully alive’ [Green, 276].” (2) “‘Living creature’ does not and cannot signify man’s inner nature. The AV [KJV] has living ‘soul’ but this is perhaps not the best rendering of the phrase nephesh hayyah, for in 1:20, 21, 24; 9:10, 12, 15 the same phrase is used and applies to animals. The term simply means ‘a being of life,’ designating all human and animal life forms as vital creatures. Man is not, in this usage, differentiated from the beast. The term, therefore, cannot mean ‘soul’ as distinct from the body. Man’s vitality only is indicated [Stigers, 66].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 25: (1) “Most biblical scholars recognize a difference in the way Hebrew thought understood the soul versus the Platonic and later Hellenistic opinions of the human soul. Early Greek viewed the soul as united with the body; ‘soul’ was also considered the inner person, and there was a dwelling place for the soul. With later Platonic thought, however, the soul was viewed as preexistent and separate from the body; the ‘soul’ was the immaterial core of the individual that was immortal. … This notion of an abstract, metaphysical sense for ‘soul’ separated from the body is not central to Hebrew thought [Mathews (a), 198].” (2) “As [nephesh] does not refer to the soul merely, but to the whole man as an animated being, so [nephesh] does not denote the spirit of man as distinguished from body and soul. On the relation of the soul to the spirit of man nothing can be gathered from this passage; the words, correctly interpreted, neither show that the soul is an emanation, an exhalation of the human spirit, nor that the soul was created before the spirit and merely received its life from the latter [Keil and Delitzsch, 49].” (3) “The final result is set apart from the two stages of the act of creation. The person created by God is a living person. This sentence is very important for the biblical understanding of humanity: a person is created as a [nephesh]; a ‘living soul’ is not put into one’s body. The person as a living being is to be understood as a whole and any idea that one is made up of body and soul is ruled out [Westermann (a), 207].” (4) The term [nephesh] is one of the most common words in the OT (754 occurrences), and it has a wide range of meaning— ‘appetite, throat, person, soul, self, corpse,’ among others. … It tends to be overlooked in such discussions, however, that this verse says man became a [nephesh hayyah] a ‘living creature,’ not merely [nephesh] ‘creature.’ The adjective is significant in the phrase: implicitly this ‘living creature’ is being contrasted with a dead one, e.g., Num 5:2; 6:6, 11. Given the other uses of the phrase [nephesh hayyah] in Gen 1 , 2, 9, it seems unlikely that 2:7, ‘man became a living creature,’ means any more than the TEV [Today’s English Version] rendering ‘and the man began to live.’ [Wenham (a), 60-61].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 26: (1) “The breath of life is to be understood as ‘the breath that gives life’ or ‘the breath that causes the man to live’ [Reyburn & Fry, 64].” (2) This lifegiving breath is not literally breath, in one sense. God’s breath of life “is not the air in general, but God’s own living breath [Fretheim, 350].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 27: (1) “We would do well not to take this expression too literally, as though God physically breathed into the nostrils of a lifeless body. ‘Nostrils’ are mentioned because these are the passages through which breath normally passes. What we are told here is that the human being received life-breath by a direct act of God’s creative power [Aalders (b), 85].” (2) The Hebrew word translated as breath is primarily defined as “a puff” as in a “puff of wind” according to Strong’s dictionary. “When God breathed into his nostrils, it was not mere wind, but it symbolized His special creative act with respect to man only [Stigers, 66].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 28: “God shares this divine ‘breath of life’ with the human and with the animals. The result for both human beings and animals is ‘a living being’ [Fretheim, 350].” When two passages in Genesis are compared that both say breath of life (one for animals and one for humans), the two Hebrew words used for humans also appear in the other verse talking about animals. For example, from the account of the flood, we read: “Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died (Gen 7:22, NIV).” See also Gen 6:17 and 7:15 with their use of breath of life. Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 29: (1) “Man occupies a special place in the hierarchy of Creation and enjoys a unique relationship with God by virtue of his being the work of God’s own hands and being directly animated by God’s own breath [Sarna, 17].” (2) The distinction between lowly animals and humans who are made in the image of God can be seen in the symbolic and intimate breathing that is depicted in v. 7b. “Although both animal (7:22) and human life share in this gift of life (2:7), human life enjoys a unique relationship with God. The correspondence between man and his Maker is expressed both by the language of ‘image’ (1:26-27) and by the metaphor of a shared breath[Mathews (a), 197].” Consider the way Genesis describes how animals were brought into existence by the Maker of life in Chapter 1. “Let the waters swarm with fish” and “let the earth produce various living creatures.” But in v. 7, “the man receives his life force from the breath of the Creator himself, hovering over him. ‘Breathed’ is warmly personal, with the face-to-face intimacy of a kiss and the significance that this was giving as well as making [Mathews (a), 197].” (3) The best interpretation of v. 7b in its context is one which is limited to that which the words actually say. “The breath of life then means simply being alive, and the breathing in of this breath, the giving of life to humans, nothing more. And so there are no grounds for the opinion that God created humans immortal … this meaning is not in the text [Westermann (a), 207].” (4) This phrase in Gen 2:7 is significant because the text describes how humans became living creatures differently from how animals did. “By blowing on the inanimate body made from the earth, God made man come alive. It is not man’s possession of ‘the breath of life’ or his status as a ‘living creature’ that differentiates him from the animals. Animals are described in exactly the same terms. Gen 1:26-28 affirms the uniqueness of man by stating that man alone is made in God’s image and by giving man authority over the animals. There may be a similar suggestion here, in that man alone receives the breath of God directly. Man’s authority over the animals is evident in that he is authorized to name them [Wenham (a), 60-61].” (5) It is noteworthy how the Early Church Father, John Chrysostom (Archbishop of Constantinople, prolific commentator of Scripture, and preacher from the fourth century), described v. 7b with the focus on the great esteem humans enjoy from this divine breath. “Think of the order of its formation, I ask you, and consider what this shaped thing was before the Lord’s breathing which meant a breath of life for it and resulted in its becoming alive. Simply a lifeless shell, without vital force, and useful for nothing, so that its total makeup and its succession to such great esteem all stems from that action of breathing made upon it by God [Chrysostom, 166].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 30: (1) “Since man was created in the image of God, the particular act involved [the symbolic infusion of God’s breath] … enabled [man] to enter into fellowship with God [Stigers, 66].” (2) The effect of receiving this divine gift (based only on v. 7 and its context) was not that the man was suddenly imbued with an immaterial soul, but rather that the lifeless body became alive. “‘Breath,’ not ‘soul,’ comes closest to the idea of a transcendent life force in man. … Therefore the breath of God energized the dormant body, which became a ‘living person.’ … In our passage man does not possess a nephesh [soul] but rather is a nephesh (individual person). … Nephesh as the force of ‘life’ is evidenced in Lev 17:11: “For the life (nephesh) of the flesh is the blood. … This is seen in the contrasting expression nephesh mot, meaning a ‘dead person’ [seen in Lev 19:28; 21:1,11; Num 5:2; 6:6,11] [Mathews (a), 198-199].” The outcome of God imparting this life-force in a special way must be limited by the actual words in the relevant Genesis passages to mean he became alive and not became alive with an immaterial spirit/soul within him. “The consequence of this divine inbreathing is that the man became Your‘a living being’ (nephesh hayya) [Mathews (a), 197].” Adding other descriptions to this restricted consequence would be contrary to the accepted principles of interpretation, which is captured by the word, exegesis. Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 31: “It has sometimes been thought that the impartation of the life principle, as it is brought before us in this verse [v. 7], entailed immortality of the spirit or soul. … The Bible never says so [Atkinson, 32].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 32: (1) “A further thought may be expressed relative to the word ‘breathe’ in that it is chosen to emphasize the presence of life through the most visible symbol known to men— breathing, the absence of which signifies death [Stigers, 66].” This restricted meaning more closely focuses on the meaning intended by the original writer, rather than allowing later commentators to elaborate on what it meant to them. (2) “It is evident that this description merely gives prominence to the peculiar sign of life, viz., breathing. … Consequently, breathing into the nostril can only mean, that ‘God, through His own breath, produced and combined with the bodily form that principle of life, which was the origin of all human life, and which constantly manifests its existence in the breath inhaled and exhaled through the nose’ [Keil & Delitzsch,49].” (3) The sixteenth-century reformer, John Calvin, described the meaning of breath in v. 7 as understood by the early church fathers when he repeated the word vital (as in life-imparting), as follows: “the ancients … what they call the vital spirit, by the word breath [Calvin, 112].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 33: (1) “Instead of using ruwach for ‘breath’ (a word appearing nearly 400 times in the OT), Gen. 2:7 uses neshamah (25 times in the OT). Unlike ruwach, which is applied to God, man, animals, and even false gods, neshamah is applied only to Yahweh and to man. … Thus 2:7 may employ the less popular word for breath because it is man, and man alone, who is the recipient of the divine breath [Hamilton, 159].” (2) “It is the divine inbreathing both here and in Ezek 37 that gives life. ‘The breath of life’ is different from the word for ‘spirit’ [ruwach] in Ezekiel. Indeed [ruwach] and [neshamah] sometimes occur in parallel (e.g., Job 27:3; Isa 42:5) suggesting a near synonymity. In fact [neshamah], ‘breath,’ is a narrower and rarer term than [ruwach] ‘wind, spirit.’ ‘Breath,’ the ability to breathe, is a key characteristic of animal life as opposed to plant life [Wenham (a), 60].” (3) “There are several passages in which neshamah is synonymous with ruwach (e.g., Isa. 42:5; Job 32:8; 33:4, Josh. 10:40) [Keil & Delitzsch, 49].” (4) “This depiction of ‘inbreathing’ has a close parallel in Ezekiel’s vision of dry bones (37:9-10), where the reconstituted skeletons of the slain are brought to life again by the inbreathing of the ‘spirit.’ Here Ezekiel has ‘spirit’ (ruwach) for ‘breath of life,’ but the two are treated as virtually the same here and at times elsewhere. This inbreathing essentially means that Adam’s body came to life, for ‘breath of life’ is the life-sustaining principle embodied in man that comes from God [Mathews (a), 197].” (5) “This spirit (ruwach), or life principle, is shared by everything living. Animals possess it as much as man (Gen 7:22). It is the principle of natural life. It is a mistake to see in this statement [on v. 7b] the idea that a spiritual nature, akin to the Divine and not shared by the lower creation, was imparted to man [Atkinson, 31-32].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 34: (1) “Shaped the man according to the divine design [Fretheim, 349].” (2) “‘Shaping’ is an artistic, inventive activity that requires skill and planning (cf. Isa 41:9-10). Usually the verb [yatsar] describes God’s work in creation. God has ‘shaped’ the animals (2:19), Leviathan (Ps 104:26), the dry land (Ps 95:5), the mountains (Amos 4:13), and the future course of history (Isa 22:11, Jer 33:2). Preeminently, God’s shaping skill is seen in the creation of man, whether it be from dust as here or in the womb (Isa 44:2, 24) or in shaping human character to fulfill a particular role (Isa 43:21; 44:21) [Wenham (a), 59].” This suggestion was made against the background idea that the man was formed out of clay similar to an un-artistic forming of a child’s Play-Doh. (3) “Kashi notes that formed is spelled here (in reference to the creation of man) with two yuds unlike v. 19, where in describing the creation of animals, the verb is spelled with one yud. This denotes that man was endowed with a double ‘formation:’ once for this world and once for resurrection after death [Zlotowitz, 91].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 35: (1) “The Hebrew words for ‘man’ and ‘ground’ have similar sounds. … Man and ground are the same as used in verse 5. TEV [Today’s English Version, or its new name, Good News Translation] and many others provide a footnote on verse 7 to show the play on words between adam and adamah [Reyburn & Fry, 63].” (2) “Man is related to the ‘ground’ by his very constitution (3:19), making him perfectly suited for the task of working the ‘ground,’ which is required for cultivation (2:5,15). Because of man’s sin, however, his origins also became his destiny (3:19) [Mathews (a), 196].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 36: (1) The main purpose of v. 7a is “to explain the nature of man and the human condition [Sarna, 16].” (2) A modern meaning of dust in the context of v. 7a would be the chemical elements (carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, etc.) that combine to form organic molecules that are now known to be present in large amounts in both human beings and the surface of the earth. The following quote is an example of an interpretation that omits a literal reading of dust. “Lest men should use it as an occasion of pride, their first origin is placed immediately before them … for Moses relates that man had been, in the beginning, dust of the earth. Let foolish men now go and boast of the excellency of their nature! [Calvin, 111].” (3) “Nowhere does Gen 2 imply that dust is to be understood as a metaphor for frailty. Some kind of qualification would have to be added for that nuance to be apparent, as is done, for example, in Gen 18:27. Gen 2 simply says that dust was the raw material out of which man was created, as ‘rib’ was the corresponding raw material for the woman [Hamilton, 158].” It should be noted that Victor Hamilton’s commentary on Genesis has been ranked #2 out of over 100 commentators on Genesis by BestCommentaries.com. (4) “‘Dust’ as constitutive of human existence anticipates 3:19, where the penalty for the man’s sin is his return to ‘dust’… The intent of the passage is the association of human life and the basic substance of our making … ‘Dust from the ground’ is the raw material … the powder of something pulverized (Deut 9:21) [Mathews (a), 196].” (5) “Dust in English refers to dirt that has become like fine powder, easily carried by the wind or floating in the air [Reyburn & Fry, 63].” (6) “Man’s body— the organic frame—was produced by God, by whatever processes, from lower elements [Orr, 44].” (7) “First a word concerning the physical constitution of man’s body. It is formed of chemical elements found in the earth’s crust. … He was dust-formed, shaped of the particles of the surface of the ground [Stigers, 65-66].” (8) “The dust of the earth is merely the earthly substratum [Keil & Delitzsch, 49].” (9) “In the Hebrew the word translated ‘dust’ [aphar] does not mean clay or earth. It rather means any given material or substance broken down to its basic elements or parts. Thus in Lev 14:41 it [aphar] refers to the scrapings from the stones of a house; in Deut 9:21 to the grindings of the golden calf when it was destroyed; in 2 Kings 23:12 to the broken pieces of the altars of idols that were broken to pieces. In general it also refers to the substance of the earth (Gen. 3:14; Josh. 7:6; Job 2:12; 7:21; 21:26; Ps. 7:5; 22:15; Isa. 65:25; Lam. 2:10; Ezek. 27:30; Dan. 12:2; Mic. 7:17). In view of this it is definitely not necessary to hold that, on the basis of this passage, man was formed out of dust or clay into some kind of clay doll. It is far more likely that these words must be understood in such a way that the body of man is entirely built up of basic substances similar to those found in the earth [Aalders (b), 84-85].” (10) “[Adam and adamah, meaning ground] derive then from the same word, meaning primarily the surface of the earth and only secondarily the cultivated land [Westermann (a), 201].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 37: (1) Gregory of Nyssa (4th c.), On the Creation of Man: “But as man is one, the being consisting of soul and body, we are to suppose that the beginning of his existence is one, common to both aspects, so that he should not be found to be antecedent and posterior to himself, as if the bodily element were first in point of time and the other were a later addition [Louth, 51].” (2) Augustine (4th-5th c.), Two Books on Genesis against the Manichaeans: “We ought to understand this passage so that we do not take the words ‘he breathed into him the breath of life, and man became a living soul’ to mean that a part, as it were, of the nature of God was turned into the soul of man. … The nature of God is not mutable … Scripture clearly says that the soul was made by the almighty God and that it is therefore not a part of God or the nature of God [Louth, 52].” (3) John of Damascus (7th-8th c.), On the Orthodox: “From the earth he formed his body and by his own inbreathing gave him a rational and understanding soul, which we say is the divine image. … The body and the soul were formed at the same time— not one before and the other afterward, as the ravings of Origen would have it [Louth,53].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 38: (1) “Man … is conceived of as made of dust … a physical creature, to whom is lent by God a principle of life. The Greek thinkers tended to think of man as an immortal soul imprisoned in a body. This emphasis is the opposite to that … but has found a wide place in Christian thought [Atkinson, 32].” (2) “It is very generally agreed today that it is impossible to read in this text [Gen 2:7] the juncture of body and soul as two substances, material and psychic; this is already evident from the fact that man becomes a living soul, living being, through this creative act, and thus Pidoux writes ‘to say that man in Genesis is composed of two elements, a material one represented by the dust of the earth and a spiritual represented by the breath of God is not to give the biblical interpretation, for it does not say that man has a soul, but that man is a soul’ [Berkouwer, 215].” (3) “The process of man’s creation is described minutely here, because it serves to explain his relation to God and to the surrounding world. He was formed from dust … and into his nostril a breath of life was breathed, by which he became an animated being. Hence the nature of man consists of a material substance and an immaterial principle of life. The breath of life … does not denote the spirit by which man is distinguished from the animals, or the soul of man from that of the beasts, but only the life-breath [Keil & Delitzsch, 49].” (4) “Thus the appeal to Genesis 2:7 does not, for understandable reasons, impress critics of substantial dichotomy, since it is hardly permissible to impose the idea of two substances on the text, and since its reference to the act of the living God and Creator in man’s created humanness is something wholly different from the problem of man’s dichotomous composition [Berkouwer, 215].” (5) “We emphasise the distinction of the sides of man’s nature — the material and the spiritual; the Bible regards man rather in the unity of his person as made up of these two [Orr, 47].” (6) “While the two-substance doctrine is inadequate, nonetheless, those who would frame a Christian and biblical anthropology must speak of the human subject not only in terms of a unity of the personal self but also in terms of a distinction between soul and body. Although the personal self is not apart from the body, yet it cannot be equated with the body. … We assume the personal unity of each individual as an embodied self, [and] we also seek to do justice to the diversity-in-unity reflected in the way Scripture speaks of this self both in its material and in its immaterial aspects [Jewett, 36].” (7) “It points to an understanding of humanity or of human nature that had clearly prevailed for thousands of years: a human being does not consist of a number of parts (like body and soul and so on), but rather is ‘something’ that comes into being as a human person by a quickening into life. … To exist as a human being then is to exist in undivided unity, as expressed in the last sentence of 2:7. And so it is not at all permissible … to explain [ruwach] from the Greek or contemporary idea of spirit. This explanation received great support from Philo and has had its effect right down to the present day [Westermann (a), 206-207].” (8) “Such considerations opened the way for a closer analysis of dichotomy as it had frequently been expounded. And this closer analysis clearly reveals that dichotomy had often been understood as the relation of two substances, the mortal body and the mortal soul. Once man is thought of as put together of psychic and physical components, immortality is naturally associated with the psychic; and thus arises the dialectic that earmarks dichotomy, for the psychic (the soul) is now abstracted and isolated from the concrete context of human life, and made into the definitive immortal substance in man. It can hardly be denied that such formulations played a role not only in medieval Scholasticism but also in Protestantism, and occasionally even found their way into the confessions. This is not true of the Heidelberg Catechism and the Belgic Confession, since while they constantly speak of body and soul, the context makes clear that man’s total aspect, the whole man, is continuously the dominant consideration [Berkouwer, 215-216].” (9) “The Old Testament emphasizes the individual person as a unified whole. In Isa 1:18 nephesh occurs with basar (‘flesh’) as a merism to express the total person. Hebrew thought does not envision life apart from the body (Job 19:26-27). The breath of God assures life while its absence means death (e.g., Job 34:14; Ps 104:29). Man also possesses a ‘spirit’ (ruwach), which has its source in God (e.g.. Job 33:4; 34:14; Zech 12:1). Unlike the nephesh, the ruwach is not bound up with the body or blood and parallels the mind or inner person (e.g., Ps 77:6) [Mathews (a), 198-199].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 39: This addition of indeed was due to “the inner elements of the structure are introduced by parallel conjunctions … [with] the second occurrence has sometimes been taken as emphatic [Mathews (a), 253-254].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 40: (1) Atkinson points out that “the description of death in this verse is in harmony with the whole general outlook of the Bible upon the nature of man and the meaning of death. Here is God’s original explanation to man of the fact of death. No word is said about any separation of man’s person from his body to go on living discarnate in a state of suffering, or on repentance of blessedness. If this is what death means it is difficult to understand why it was not mentioned and clearly explained here? [Atkinson, 51-52].” (2) Westermann concludes that “the wordplay can indicate what [dust] says more clearly, namely that the person with its limitations is a creature belonging to the earth. 3:19 says both: ‘You are dust and to dust you shall return’ and ‘Till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken’ [Westermann (a), 206].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 41: (1) Once this Platonic assumption on the nature of the soul is removed during the interpretation process, then this “description of death in this verse is in harmony with the whole general outlook of the Bible upon the nature of man and the meaning of death [Atkinson, 51-52].” Whether this claim here is true cannot be adequately addressed in this chapter on Genesis until “the whole general outlook of the Bible” is specifically examined. To again re-quote Atkinson: because “no word is said about any separation of man’s person from his body to go on living” after the death of its body, it must be a possibility, at least, that God decided to create human beings such that there is no actual separation of the soul at death. This assertion allows for the possibility that the soul/mind of someone is remembered by God in some way, and perhaps recorded, for use at the general resurrection. Again Atkinson, it probably “was not mentioned and clearly explained here” in this third chapter of Genesis because there is nothing in the first three chapters that would require it. Τhe absence of even a hint in or around Gen 3:19 regarding the soul/mind (that chose disobedience) and its fate at death is instructional. What can be learned is that the common notion of the soul’s immortality from birth cannot be based on Genesis. (2) This assertion is based also on Westermann’s analysis of 2:7 and 3:19 where he wrote the following: “so we can take it as certain that both words [dust] in 3:19 and 2:7 refer to the limitations of the person’s earthly existence. It is probable too that … the passage deals with the creation of humanity and all that it is capable of. [Westermann (a), 206].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 42: “If we look at these words [in Gen 26:24] more carefully, we shall see that the resurrection of the dead can also be deduced from them … God is not the God of that which is nothing [Luther (f), 73].” Click here to go back.
Foot-quote 43: “Abraham is aware that there are two classes of mankind, distinguished since the first pronouncement about the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent and since the story of Cain and Abel. These classes are distinguished right through the Bible (see for instance Ps 37). Abraham also knew that the destiny of the two classes was different. The wicked will one day be slain eternally. The righteous will enter into life [Atkinson, 173].” Click here to go back.