soul


We, each of us, body, emotions, and intellect, evolve as we make our way through the Time of Life. My perfect sight is gone, to see clearly up close I have to wear eyeglasses. And my tongue, ninety year old taste buds are not as sharp as they once were, I'm not as into chocolate as a few years ago; the only dish that seems never to change for me is a tray of a dozen cold, salty oysters, my idea of Heaven might be sitting upstairs at Hunt's Oyster Bar and having one tray after another set down before me as the ages pass into eternity. 
My hearing has evolved, when I retired from the Navy it was perfect, but I'm on my fifth pair of hearing aids, which I call "my ears," since 2001, and a joy of being hard of hearing is that if I don't appreciate the noises and other sounds around me all I have to do is turn "my ears" off and relax into the sound of silence. 
Emotions: feelings change, my love for my grandmother was not the same as my fierce, almost obsessively protective love for my children, which itself evolved as they grew up and independently away. 
My intellect: my earliest "grade" in first grade at Cove School was a paper with a red X across it, I had colored the girl yellow and the boy black, not seeing, because I couldn't read yet, the instructions that said color the boy blue and the girl red; as a teenager and for decades of adulthood I was a captive of dogma, again, what Steve Jobs called the result of other people's thinking, but a sign over the library door at a theological seminary I attended starting at age 45 challenged me to "seek the truth, come whence it may, cost what it will," and in this second half of my life, a Time of seeking, my key discovery has been and is that I'm ignorant, I know nothing, a blank slate to write on but then erase and move on.

Tuesday, today is Thursday, but day before yesterday, this past Tuesday, I wrote and published a +Time blogpost that for some reason I mis-titled "Thursday Thinking." My usual wandering nonsense, in it I was trying to explain an earlier blogpost I'd published about our fading insignificance, that in Time we disappear into nothing but a name on a grave marker. It had struck me sadly as I looked at the grave marker of a person who had been so large in my own life. Writing, I strolled off, as usual, into apparently unrelated matters, and a long Time friend who read my blogpost raised an idea that wasn't part of my thought process for those two blogposts, but intrigued me: 

the Soul. 

as in Shema, Yisrael, Adonai eloheinu, Adonai echod, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. 

as in, the Lord breathed into ha-adama the earthling (a mud doll) the breath of life and he became a living being.

as in, Fool!! this night is your soul (or "your life") required of you.

as in, I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord, more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning. (a sense of eager anticipation, eager to the depth of one's Being)

In the past and again today, I explored the Hebrew and Greek words for Soul and Life in the Bible, including as used in instances above. The meanings seem clear to me, the essence of Life Itself, not of something separate. But both Hebrew and Christian scholars have grown, enlarged, expanded, evolved what the words can mean; more in the sense of eisegesis than exegesis. Rabbis arguing and discussing the Torah, the sense of Truth evolves - - in Christian thought, as influenced by the oversight and guiding presence of the Holy Spirit. So, I can accept the church's evolution of the notion of Soul; while still recognizing that it is Faith, not Knowledge.   

++++++++

Not a thing to be seen or touched, the soul is an idea, a thought, a philosophical notion that has evolved in religion as a belief, an object of faith as opposed to knowledge. We do not know, we believe, where no amount of belief makes anything True. Faith is confidence in what is hoped for, conviction of what is not seen; conviction that enables the believing faithful to go on about Life confident and assured instead of worried, anxious. 

Faith soothes existential anxieties, doesn't it. That's how Faith began, answering ancient humans' anxieties about the nature of Life, things, experience, crops growing, sun, moon, storms, fears, perplexities, death. 

Below (scroll down) are several Google responses (some of it's AI) that appeared in answer to questions I posed about the Soul. Christianity itself is an interesting development of the idea of Soul. Christianity starts from Judaism (Paul) with the idea that at death humans sleep until awakened by the trumpet and resurrected bodily at the End of Days, a Time known only to God. But Christianity grew beyond its Jewish roots with the addition of pagan gentiles, converts bringing Greek thought with them, including platonic philosophy about the Soul as not simply the essence of Life in the body, but as separate from the body and possibly departing from the body at death and surviving the body after death. It's a comforting belief that brings soothing confidence against fear of death as an inconceivably end and nonexistence of self. 

In Christianity, the idea of Soul passing immediately at death into the presence of God is encouraged by several Bible passages, including Jesus' parable of Lazarus the Beggar feasting at Abraham's table while the Rich Man languishes thirstily in the fires of Hell; and perhaps especially including Luke's story (no other gospel writer has it) of Jesus on the Cross promising the repentant Thief, "Today you will be with me in paradise" - - which not only sustains the idea of the separate Soul, but also grounds evangelical Christian theology that salvation comes by individual belief, Faith. 

So, anyway, Seeking, I don't put aside the idea of Soul as it has evolved in Christian thought. Neither do I expect to sort out our mix of "resurrection of the body" in our Creeds, with our conviction that at death life is not ended but changed and at death we go to be with our loved ones. But, again, recognizing that what we say we believe is not Knowledge but Faith.

For anyone interested, the responses I received online are copy and pasted below.

Again as always, for a Time of Life and Love,

RSF&PTL

T90


photo: Life as seen from 7H at 6:11 this morning.

   

The Christian concept of the soul developed from a Hebrew holistic view (man is a soul) to an immortal, immaterial entity (man has a soul) through 2nd–3rd century synthesis with Greek Platonic philosophy. This shift, accelerated by church fathers like Origen and Augustine, replaced the early emphasis on physical resurrection with a dualism focusing on the soul's survival after death.
Origins and Early Development
  • Biblical Foundation (Hebrew Thought): Early biblical tradition viewed humanity as a holistic unit. In Genesis 2:7, humans do not have a soul; they become a "living soul" (or creature) when breath (spirit) enters the body (dust).

  • Greek Influence: Early Christians, particularly in Alexandria, integrated Greek thought. By the end of the 2nd century, the Greek concept of the soul as a divine, immortal entity distinct from the physical body began to influence church theology.
  • Patristic Period (2nd-3rd Century): Early Christians debate the soul's nature. By A.D. 200, influential theologians like Origen firmly established the doctrine of the inherent immortality of the soul.

  • Augustine's Influence: St. Augustine of Hippo (4th-5th century) cemented the idea of the soul as a spiritual "rider" on the body, emphasizing the duality between the immortal soul and the mortal body.
Key Evolutionary Shifts in the Doctrine
  • Platonism: Many early Christians used Plato's view that the soul is an incorporeal substance belonging to the divine realm, while the body is temporary.

  • Mortalism vs. Immortality: In the 2nd century, some, like Tatian, argued the soul is not inherently immortal but becomes so only through knowledge of God, allowing it to survive to be judged. Others debated "soul sleep" before judgment.

  • Middle Ages and Beyond: The view that the soul is created by God and infused into the body at conception (creationism) became standard.
How the Soul is Believed to Enter the Body
  • Creationism: The predominant, traditional Catholic view is that God creates each soul directly from nothing and joins it with the body at the moment of conception.

  • Traducianism: An alternative view argued by some that the soul is propagated by the parents along with the physical body during reproduction.

  • Theological Shifts: Early Christians believed in an immediate creation of the soul, while later medieval theologians, including Aquinas, sometimes debated whether the soul entered later in development.
While early Christianity focused on bodily resurrection, the adoption of Platonism established the concept of the soul as the immortal "true person".



The notion of the soul in Judaism evolved from a concept of "living breath" (nefesh) in the Torah to a distinct, immortal entity (neshamah) influenced significantly by Persian and Greek philosophy during the Second Temple period. While early biblical thought focused on the body as a whole, interaction with Hellenism facilitated the belief in a soul that survives physical death.
Evolution of the Soul Concept:
  • Early Biblical Period (Torah): In Genesis 2:7, God breathes the "breath of life" (nishmat chayim) into man. However, early, ancient Israelite thought often considered the soul (nefesh) to be inseparable from the life-blood or the whole person.
  • Persian & Greek Influence: The idea of a disembodied soul, possessing its own individuality, took root in later biblical books (e.g., Job) and was further solidified by contact with Greek philosophy—chiefly Plato—during the Hellenistic period.
  • Rabbinic & Talmudic Period: Sages developed the concept that the soul exists before birth and survives after death, with ideas of resurrection requiring the soul to reunite with the body.
Key Aspects of the Jewish Soul:
  • Divine Source: The soul is considered a "spark of Godliness" that emanates from a higher, spiritual world.
  • Five Components: Jewish tradition, particularly mysticism (Kabbalah), often defines the soul in five levels: Nefesh (physical life), Ruach (personality/emotions), Neshamah (intellect), Chayah (supra-rational), and Yechidah (union with God).
  • Purpose: The soul is sent into a body to fulfill a mission on earth, eventually returning to its divine source.
While some medieval Jewish philosophers, such as Maimonides, strongly emphasized the separation of body and soul, many Jewish traditions hold an integrated view where the soul nourishes the body,similar to how God maintains the world.

where did the idea of soul come from - Google Search

​​

The origin of the soul is primarily understood as a divine, immaterial spark according to religious traditions, often described as the "breath of life" bestowed by God (Genesis 2:7). Philosophically, it is seen as the immaterial, thinking aspect of a person, with theories suggesting it is either directly created by God for each person or inherited from parents. 

Key perspectives on the origin of the soul include:

  • Divine Creation (Theism): Many religious views, particularly in Christianity and Judaism, maintain that the soul is directly created by God and infused into the body. This is often tied to the "breath of life" in Genesis.

Philosophical and Historical Context