We can see this usage biblically when Jesus asks, "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world but forfeit his soul?" To gain the whole world but, ultimately, lose one's life in the process compare, "Whoever seeks to gain their life shall lose it, but whoever forsakes his life shall find it". That usage of "soul" to mean "life" was common in antiquity even as it is now, as we might say, "a lot of souls were lost in that accident" we mean people lost their lives, they died. And nobody can take that away from what it means to be human, because being human is by God's creative work, who made human beings in His image and likeness.Ĭlick to expand."Every living soul" sounds like "everything that was alive" to me. All these things are intrinsic to human beings as human beings though: we are rational animals, we are creatures of flesh, bone, blood, with a mind, with thought, reason, intellect, consciousness, with a will, with moral agency, and the capacity to worship God. These ideas tend to get subsumed into the idea of "the soul" in typical Christian thought historically. The concept of "the soul" does tend to be more than mere breath though, at least in reference to human beings, as we often can find (though not in Scripture itself) the idea of the "rational soul" in other words human beings don't simply have basic "animal life", we are creatures of mind, reason, thought, we are also creatures of moral agency and so forth. It's impossible for a person to not "have a soul", because human beings are living, breathing creatures. In Latin we have anima, "breath", and is the basis for our English words like animal, animating, etc. Likewise the Greek of the New Testament has psyche, meaning "breath", but again often rendered as "soul". So in Genesis chapter 2 where we read that God took a lump of dirt and breathed into the nostrils of man and man became a "living soul" the Hebrew here is "nephesh chayah", a "breathing, living creature" (nephesh means "breath" and is often rendered as "soul", chayah means "living ". The idea that human beings have this thing called a "soul" floating somewhere inside them, or that comprises the "real" person is entirely foreign from Scripture and historic, orthodox Christian teaching.Īnd if one wants to be really technical, everything that has breath has a "soul", as that's what the words translated as "soul" in the Bible mean, they mean "breath". Even more than that, no where in the Bible does it say that people "have souls", that just isn't the kind of language Scripture uses, and it's now how the biblical writers conceived of "the soul". However, it does show that there seems to be at least one more person - with whom I am not acquainted (the person who added this into the movie) - who is familiar with the idea.ĭoes anyone know if this is mentioned anywhere in the Bible? Have I simply missed it? If not, where does it come from and why? I would very much like to know.Ĭlick to expand.No, the Bible doesn't mention "people without souls". Even if I have, a fictional movie is hardly a good source for important information – especially biblical - and it is unlikely that I would have just accepted it as fact. The only mention I have found on the internet to this is in the description of an older fictional end times movie that I don’t think I have ever watched. I know it can’t be just me, because I have had more than one person bring it up in conversation – though one person identified the sign as some children being born without souls. On going back, I cannot find this mentioned anywhere digital Bible word searches and search engines have not yielded any such verses. I thought I read in the book of Revelation that in the end of times there would be people without souls.
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