A common trait God designed into all living things was communication. Giant trees in vast forests are interconnected through a maze of mycorrhizal networks. Finding the best ways to multiply and spread, viruses read released chemical signals from their neighbours. Honey bees tell other workers how to locate a new food source by doing a special dance when they return to their hive. Most animals communicate through sight, sound, scent, movement, and positioning of their body parts. God has provided humans with a special, nontangible way to relay messages. Humans are the only creatures possessing a white sclera, which remains obviously visible around their iris. This makes them capable of sending subliminal messages to others with just a look from their eyes. 

      God has also led humans to communicate through the written word. Humans have learned to communicate complicated thoughts and messages over vast distances and through time with literacy. Wanting to preserve his message for future generations, God inspired mankind to develop a written language just in time for Moses to record God’s commandments and have those commandments read and understood by his people. Although they were slaves in Egypt, most Israelites would have had to be literate to read God’s commands. I have found the best way to learn what God has communicated to mankind is to read the words he inspired to be preserved for us. To do this, I use a Berean-style, Biblist approach when doing Bible study.

      That style demands that I define and apply a word’s original usage the way God inspired it. When God used a word and Moses understood it to have a specific meaning, I must understand and use those words the same way Moses did to fully understand the message of God. Many words have gained multiple meanings through time, culture, and tradition. To be faithful to the message of God, I must use and interpret God’s words the same way Moses and the original authors did. When a word’s meaning is changed, it alters the inspired message of God, just as if it were replaced with a different word. This type of Bible study takes time. I find that discovering the intended meaning of God’s words is the best way to discover God’s intentions and truths. Deuteronomy 4:2 New King James Version 2 You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.

      With Moses being the human founder of the Jewish religion, the original Jewish beliefs would have been formed from the words of God as Moses understood them. Although the Jews did not obey the words of God and eventually strayed from his truths, the earliest Jewish beliefs and traditions were built on God’s words as directed by Moses. New beliefs accepted into the Jewish religion after Moses, would not have been inspired by God or come from the original words or intentions of God. Those new beliefs will have been crafted by men. Malachi 3:6 International Standard Version 6 “Because I the Lord don’t change; therefore you children of Jacob aren’t destroyed.” Isaiah 40:8 1599 Geneva Bible 8 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand forever.

      Being the most studied and analyzed book known to mankind, most people find it hard to believe that the Bible and any of God’s words or intentions might have been misconstrued to any meaningful extent. After the Bible’s words have been studied, translated, interpreted, and recorded by theologians, most people believe the words they read from their Bibles today have the same meaning and intent as the words God inspired. One problem people have is that they assume their initial beliefs are accurate, rather than fact-checking their beliefs against what the theologians who translated their Bible version say about the words they used. I find that using a Berean-inspired, Biblist approach is the surest way to uncover what the translating theologians intended, and what God’s true meanings are.

      We do not have to look very far into the Bible to find a good example of these assumptions. Let’s take a look at Genesis 2:7 from the King James version. 7 And 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 soul.

      The word soul, as used by the KJV translators, has come to mean many things in our modern culture, but its correct usage is clearly defined by its translators. Neglecting to check into how God or the translators intended the word nephesh to be understood has led many Christians away from God’s truths. The term soul as used in the KJV comes from the Hebrew word nephesh, which God used to describe all life made of flesh. I believe the KJV translators realized that mankind is different from other life forms, so they used the word soul exclusively to identify mankind. To check the Hebrew terms of usage for the word nephesh, I will use the Strong’s concordance. The Strong’s concordance describes how the Hebrew word nephesh should be correctly used to describe all aspects of a physical life of mortality only.

nephesh

neh’-fesh properly a breathing creature, that is, animal or (abstractly) vitality; used very widely in a literal, accommodated or figurative sense (bodily or mental) KJV Usage: any, appetite, beast, body, breath, creature, X dead (-ly), desire, X [dis-] contented, X fish, ghost, + greedy, he, heart (-y), (hath, X jeopardy of) life (X in jeopardy), lust, man, me, mind, mortality, one, own, person, pleasure, (her-, him-, my-, thy-) self, them (your) -selves, + slay, soul, + tablet, they, thing, (X she) will, X would have it.  

      To confirm the validity of Strong’s concordance, we can check the Jewish historical record to find when the concept of an immortal soul first entered their belief system. The Jews believe their holy scriptures are the preserved words of God, but unlike some other religions, they don’t feel compelled to follow them. This allows the Jews to honestly look at their beliefs and acknowledge their origins. Most modern Jews believe they have an immortal soul. It is an integral part of their faith, even though the Jewish encyclopedia, heralded for its accuracy, unpretentiously describes the origins of, and when Jews first came to believe in an immortal soul.

      An excerpt from Kaufmann Kohler’s work discusses the concept of the immortality of the soul in early Hebrew thought. It states that this belief was not a fundamental tenet of early Judaism found explicitly in the Holy Scripture, but rather a matter of philosophical and theological speculation. Initially, the soul nefesh was seen as mere breath, inseparable from the lifeblood, lacking independent substance. When the spirit of God departs, the soul descends to Sheol for a shadowy, unconscious existence.

      His text highlights that practices like ancestor worship and necromancy, which imply a continuous existence of the soul, were discouraged by early Jewish lawgivers and prophets who emphasized the exclusive power of Yhwh, the God of life. Eternal life was initially attributed only to God and celestial beings. While some Psalmists express hope for immortality rooted in God’s power, figures like Job still adhered to the belief in Sheol as the ultimate destination.

      The belief in a continuous existence of the soul gained traction later, influenced by Persian ideas in connection with the Messianic hope and the concept of resurrection. Finally, the excerpt notes that contact with Greek thought, particularly the philosophy of Plato, significantly contributed to the adoption of the belief in the immortality of the soul by the Jews. Plato’s ideas, in turn, were influenced by Orphic and Eleusinian mysteries that incorporated Babylonian and Egyptian concepts.

      The historical beginning of the immortal soul doctrine came from the imaginings of men. God did not inspire Moses to record it in his Old Testament books or teach it to the Israelites. As Jewish history records, the concept of an immortal soul came to them in the Babylonian captivity. The Jews taught and popularized it during and after the Second Temple period. For the immortal soul doctrine to be inspired by God’s word, its biblical proof will have to be found within post-second temple scripture. 

      As a Christian following a Berean Biblist tradition, I try to place my faith in the words of God and the definitions he inspired. I believe only the words of God, as he delivered them, are true and accurate. To faithfully follow God’s truths, I want to know what his words mean and how to use them within his definitions. Doing so helps me build my beliefs on firm, God-inspired words of truth.