How does a "soul" (Gen. 2-7) relate to "His image" (Gen. 1:26 -27)?

[Charlie744]

There is a current topic posted by Retrobyter entitled, "What is a soul"? that has over 76 pages of comments and responses.... so far. As with most topics, it might be possible to summarize them into a few different interpretations. And I would not be surprised to see the number of responses to generate another 20 pages or so.

I would like to suggest Gen. 1:26-27 will assist us in our understanding / interpretation of just what a soul is and why....... given that we still have more than one view.......

Thanks, Charlie

[DeighAnn]

Many people believe the first time 'soul' is mentioned in the Bible, is 2:7 and would be shocked to find it found in


Genesis 1:20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

Ending all thought that animals don't have souls. 

5315 nephesh

nephesh: a soul, living being, life, self, person, desire, passion, appetite, emotion
Original Word: נֶפֶשׁ
Part of Speech: Noun Feminine
Transliteration: nephesh
Phonetic Spelling: (neh'-fesh)
Definition: a soul, living being, life, self, person, desire, passion, appetite, emotion


Having been in that discussion on 'soul' it is made evident here that the entire living being body/spirit/soul is called a soul.  

Much has been made that it is the 'dirt' with 'breath of life' not taking into consideration all that came before and all that follows. 

If we were to read through the 754 occurrences we would find that it is used in diverse ways and so the question of 'what is A soul' is a question that can not be answered because Gods word doesn't use it as an 'A' thing.  
 

Psalm 139:13 For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.

Psalm 139:14 I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.

Psalm 139:15 My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

Psalm 139:16 Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.

Psalm 139:17 How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!

 
But only we are made in the 'image' and I think that has more to do with how we think and reason, making us different from the souls of the rest of the creatures.  

When it comes to angels having souls, I just believe angels are 'us' who have gone to the place Christ went first to prepare for us and I get that from 
 

 John,  speaking with an angel in heaven   - 

And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.

In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

 And there shall be no more curse but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and His servants shall serve Him:

And they shall see His face; and His name shall be in their foreheads.

And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.

 And he (THE ANGEL) said unto me, These sayings are faithful and true: and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent His angel to shew unto His servants the things which must shortly be done.

Behold, I come quickly blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book.

 And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which shewed me these things.

 Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God.

I never saw this up until today.  

[Charlie744]

2 minutes ago, DeighAnn said:

Many people believe the first time 'soul' is mentioned in the Bible, is 2:7 and would be shocked to find it found in


Genesis 1:20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

Ending all thought that animals don't have souls. 

5315 nephesh

nephesh: a soul, living being, life, self, person, desire, passion, appetite, emotion
Original Word: נֶפֶשׁ
Part of Speech: Noun Feminine
Transliteration: nephesh
Phonetic Spelling: (neh'-fesh)
Definition: a soul, living being, life, self, person, desire, passion, appetite, emotion


Having been in that discussion on 'soul' it is made evident here that the entire living being body/spirit/soul is called a soul.  

Much has been made that it is the 'dirt' with 'breath of life' not taking into consideration all that came before and all that follows. 

If we were to read through the 754 occurrences we would find that it is used in diverse ways and so the question of 'what is A soul' is a question that can not be answered because Gods word doesn't use it as an 'A' thing.  
 

Psalm 139:13 For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.

Psalm 139:14 I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.

Psalm 139:15 My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

Psalm 139:16 Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.

Psalm 139:17 How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!

 
But only we are made in the 'image' and I think that has more to do with how we think and reason, making us different from the souls of the rest of the creatures.  

When it comes to angels having souls, I just believe angels are 'us' who have gone to the place Christ went first to prepare for us and I get that from 
 

 John,  speaking with an angel in heaven   - 

And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.

In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

 And there shall be no more curse but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and His servants shall serve Him:

And they shall see His face; and His name shall be in their foreheads.

And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.

 And he (THE ANGEL) said unto me, These sayings are faithful and true: and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent His angel to shew unto His servants the things which must shortly be done.

Behold, I come quickly blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book.

 And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which shewed me these things.

 Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God.

I never saw this up until today.  

Thanks DeighAnn! I am not sure ... but you referenced Gen. 1:20 above..... did you meant to?  I was referencing Gen. 1:26 referring to "Let us make man in our image"..... if we have the definition of a living soul in 2:7 it should tell us what God meant in 1:26...

Also, over the past few days there have been some discussion between Electlady and myself on 2:7..... If you find those comments to fit your own thoughts on what a living soul is then you might be able to connect those to this post....

Hope you do not mind going back over those relatively few and recent posts with her, Charlie

[Guest kingdombrat]

Theoretically speaking here, Soul would not relate to image.   The Image of God came when the Bible reveals how God took the Dust of the Earth and then [FORMED] man.   A [SOUL] reflects life, not the literal image of God or any image.

Edited May 3, 2021 by kingdombrat

[Charlie744]

9 minutes ago, kingdombrat said:

Theoretically speaking here, Soul would not relate to image.   The Image of God came when the Bible reveals how God took the Dust of the Earth and then [FORMED] man.   A [SOUL] reflects life, not the literal image of God or any image.

Thanks... let me try this another way .... I believe I am confusing you.  If we start with 1:26 where God tells us He will make man in His Image, and then in 2:7 He tells us how He made Adam (dirt plus His breathing into Adam), don't you think these are connected and relate to each other? 

Very bad analogy here (I apologize), If I tell you I am going to make a sandwich like the one I made yesterday and then I proceed to put together the peanut butter and jelly together, does that tell you that the sandwich I made is in fact a PB & J ....?

I can already envision the responses here..... I am quite sure they will be very funny.... I look forward to reading them 

Charlie

[Guest kingdombrat]

5 minutes ago, Charlie744 said:

Thanks... let me try this another way .... I believe I am confusing you.  If we start with 1:26 where God tells us He will make man in His Image, and then in 2:7 He tells us how He made Adam (dirt plus His breathing into Adam), don't you think these are connected and relate to each other? 

Very bad analogy here (I apologize), If I tell you I am going to make a sandwich like the one I made yesterday and then I proceed to put together the peanut butter and jelly together, does that tell you that the sandwich I made is in fact a PB & J ....?

I can already envision the responses here..... I am quite sure they will be very funny.... I look forward to reading them 

Charlie

No, the FORMED MOLD is the IMAGE, the SOUL literally means LIFE.   Add the 2 together and you have an image that became life.  But that IMAGE is in the Likeness of God.

[Charlie744]

55 minutes ago, kingdombrat said:

No, the FORMED MOLD is the IMAGE, the SOUL literally means LIFE.   Add the 2 together and you have an image that became life.  But that IMAGE is in the Likeness of God.

Well, I think I would have liked it better if you addressed the PB & J sandwich analogy... (just kidding ). If you would be so kind as to give me a little more here.... I need to see this from your perspective..... remember, your talking to a guy who responds with a PB & J answer...... Your going to have to dumb it down for me to pick it up!

Thanks kingdombrat, Charlie

 

[Guest kingdombrat]

1 hour ago, Charlie744 said:

Well, I think I would have liked it better if you addressed the PB & J sandwich analogy... (just kidding ). If you would be so kind as to give me a little more here.... I need to see this from your perspective..... remember, your talking to a guy who responds with a PB & J answer...... Your going to have to dumb it down for me to pick it up!

Thanks kingdombrat, Charlie

We know the human body is referred to as [Clay] throughout the entire Bible.   The term [Clay] is the key here.   What in life do we have in our homes, our possessions that are formed from Clay?   Many things and we both can agree to that.   But each item on its own like a Clay Vase, a Clay bottle, a Clay bowl, etc are [ALL] images when we view them.   Yes, they are a bottle/dish/plate/etc, but they are also an image of those very things.

 

Adam, before God breathed life into him, was a mere Clay object of a man.   But to look at the Clay object of Adam, you can see the Image of a man, and you can see the Image of Adam's Creator.

 

I like to use Machine Shops for example.  They make Forms, Molds, Dies that when you put materials inside will eventually create a cup, glass, plate, etc that both represent the item and the image of itself.

 

All of these including Adam were first Formed/Molded Images of something created.

 

But that Formed Image in the Likeness of God [Adam] then became a SOUL [Living Entity].   The Soul just asserts Life.   The Image however, is solely the portion of Creation before it became Life.   

 

Look at the Angels, they were FORMED, and have no Soul, and are considered God's Likeness.   so the [SOUL] is not the Image/Likeness, the FORM/Creation prior to life is the Image.

[Charlie744]

18 minutes ago, electlady said:

Look what I found, Charlie.

FORMED: Hebrew word # 3335; yatsar - to form, to fashion, to frame, used of human activity, used of divine activity, used of Israel as a people, to frame, to pre-ordain, to plan (figurative of divine)to purpose of a situation, to be predetermined, to be pre-ordained, to be formed.

This is awesome!  This was a VERY special event.

— electlady 

Elect.... you are indeed batman!  Told you .... nice to have you back! Charlie

[Charlie744]

5 minutes ago, kingdombrat said:

We know the human body is referred to as [Clay] throughout the entire Bible.   The term [Clay] is the key here.   What in life do we have in our homes, our possessions that are formed from Clay?   Many things and we both can agree to that.   But each item on its own like a Clay Vase, a Clay bottle, a Clay bowl, etc are [ALL] images when we view them.   Yes, they are a bottle/dish/plate/etc, but they are also an image of those very things.

 

Adam, before God breathed life into him, was a mere Clay object of a man.   But to look at the Clay object of Adam, you can see the Image of a man, and you can see the Image of Adam's Creator.

 

I like to use Machine Shops for example.  They make Forms, Molds, Dies that when you put materials inside will eventually create a cup, glass, plate, etc that both represent the item and the image of itself.

 

All of these including Adam were first Formed/Molded Images of something created.

 

But that Formed Image in the Likeness of God [Adam] then became a SOUL [Living Entity].   The Soul just asserts Life.   The Image however, is solely the portion of Creation before it became Life.   

 

Look at the Angels, they were FORMED, and have no Soul, and are considered God's Likeness.   so the [SOUL] is not the Image/Likeness, the FORM/Creation prior to life is the Image.

Very kind of you to offer these thoughts! I certainly agree with you on the "physical" side of things where the "clay" represents the physical part of Adam but, as you know, God is so much more than a "physical" being. So, what can God bring to the table to impart WITHIN this piece of clay that would make IT as though it was in "His image"?  

For me, He must bring into Adam (clay) something from within Him... His essence or spirit. This will NOT be exactly like God because no one is like God, but this new creation will be LIKE Him ---- If we were to look at Jesus, He had a physical body (clay) and He had the Spirit of God within Him.... If you have seen me you have seen the Father --- so Adam must be made in the image of God / Jesus on earth....

This is why I content God breathed His essence / spirit into Adam and this would seem to fit both 1:26 and 2:7...

However, I am really starting to like the PB & J analogy the more we talk about this... Charlie