Bible Readings — Bible Questions Answered

What Is Man?

Man’s Creation and Nature

What is man’s nature? BR-ASI9 341.4

“Shall mortal man be more just than God?” Job 4:17. BR-ASI9 341.5

Note.—Mortal: “Subject to death.”—Webster. BR-ASI9 341.6

Of what was man formed in the beginning? BR-ASI9 341.7

“God formed man of the dust of the ground.” Genesis 2:7. BR-ASI9 341.8

What act made him a living soul? BR-ASI9 341.9

“And [God] breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” Genesis 2:7. BR-ASI9 341.10

Note.—The living soul was not put into man; but the breath of life which was put into man made him—the man, formed of the earth—a living soul, or creature. “Man became a living being,” says the Smith-Goodspeed American translation. (University of Chicago Press). BR-ASI9 341.11

The Hebrew words translated “living soul” in this text are nephesh chaiyah, the same expression used in Genesis 1:24, translated “living creature.” BR-ASI9 341.12

The word nephesh occurs in the Old Testament 755 times. In the King James Version it is translated 428 times as “soul,” for example: Genesis 2:7; 12:5; Numbers 9:13; Psalm 6:3; Isaiah 1:14. Nephesh is also translated in the following ways: BR-ASI9 341.13

119 times, life (life’s, lives). For example: Genesis 1:20, 30; 9:4; 1 Kings 19:14; Job 6:11; Psalm 38:12. BR-ASI9 342.1

29 times, person. For example: Numbers 31:19; 35:11, 15, 30; Deuteronomy 27:25; Joshua 20:3, 9; 1 Samuel 22:22. BR-ASI9 342.2

15 times, mind. For example: Deuteronomy 18:6; Jeremiah 15:1. BR-ASI9 342.3

15 times, heart. For example: Exodus 23:9; Proverbs 23:7. BR-ASI9 342.4

9 times, creature. Genesis 1:21, 24; 2:19; 9:10, 12, 15, 16; Leviticus 11:46. BR-ASI9 342.5

7 times, body (or, dead body). Leviticus 21:11; Numbers 6:6; 9:6, 7, 10; 19:13; Haggai 2:13. BR-ASI9 342.6

5 times, dead. Leviticus 19:28; 21:1; 22:4; Numbers 5:2; 6:11. BR-ASI9 342.7

3 times, man. Exodus 12:16; 2 Kings 12:4; 1 Chronicles 5:21. BR-ASI9 342.8

3 times, me. Numbers 23:10; Judges 16:30; 1 Kings 20:32. BR-ASI9 342.9

3 times, beast. Leviticus 24:18. BR-ASI9 342.10

2 times, ghost. Job 11:20; Jeremiah 15:9. BR-ASI9 342.11

1 time, fish. Isaiah 19:10. BR-ASI9 342.12

One or more times as various forms of the personal pronouns. (These figures are from Young’s Analytical Concordance.) BR-ASI9 342.13

Are other creatures besides man called “living souls”? BR-ASI9 342.14

“The sea . . . became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea.” Revelation 16:3. BR-ASI9 342.15

Note.—Look up the nine instances of nephesh, “soul,” translated as “creature,” and you will see that they all refer to animals as “living creatures,” or, as the words might have been translated, “living souls.” On the phrase nephesh chaiyah, living soul or creature, in Genesis 1:24, Adam Clarke says: “A general term to express all creatures endued with animal life, in any of its infinitely varied gradations, from the half-reasoning elephant down to the stupid potto, or lower still, to the polype, which seems equally to share the vegetable and animal life.” BR-ASI9 342.16

An examination of the various occurrences of nephesh in the Old Testament shows that nephesh describes the individual rather than being a constituent part of the individual. It would be more correct, therefore, to say that a man is a nephesh, or “soul,” than that he has a nephesh, or “soul.” True, the expressions “my soul,” “thy soul,” “his soul,” etc., occur frequently, but in most instances these are simply idiomatic expressions meaning “myself,” “thyself,” “himself,” etc. Translators recognizing this have at times substituted the personal pronoun. For examples see Psalm 35:25; Proverbs 6:16; 16:26; Isaiah 5:14. BR-ASI9 343.1

Do others besides man have the “breath of life”? BR-ASI9 344.1

“And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: all in whose nostrils was the breath of life.” Genesis 7:21, 22. BR-ASI9 344.2

What does Job call that which God breathed into man’s nostrils? BR-ASI9 344.3

“All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils.” Job 27:3. BR-ASI9 344.4

Note.—The spirit, then, is the breath. The margin says, “That is, the breath which God gave him.” BR-ASI9 344.5

When man gives up this spirit, what becomes of it? BR-ASI9 344.6

“Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.” Ecclesiastes 12:7. BR-ASI9 344.7

Note.—That is, the spirit, or breath of life by which man lives, and which is only lent him of God, at death goes back to the great Author of life. Having come from Him, it belongs to God, and man can have it eternally only as a gift from God, through Jesus Christ. (Romans 6:23.) When the spirit goes back to God, the dust, from which man was made a “living soul” in the beginning, goes back as it was, to the earth, and the individual no longer exists as a living, conscious, thinking being, except as he exists in the mind, plan, and purpose of God through Christ and the resurrection. In this sense “all live unto Him” (Luke 20:38), for all are to be raised from the dead. (See John 5:28, 29; Acts 24:15; Romans 4:17.) BR-ASI9 344.8