Talk:Nephesh

Deleted text
Large body of text was delete form the article with no discussion here. To understand "nephesh", is to understand the Biblical Hebrew understanding of life. Nephesh can not be understood just as "soul". Below is the deleted text that helps understand the full Biblical nephesh view of life.Telecine Guy 20:15, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

When referring to nonhuman animals, nephesh is associated with social animals, who also can bond with humans (e.g. 'pets' or companion animals, or others). These tangible aspects are some of the psychosocial characteristics found in birds and mammals:
 * Personality
 * Will or volition, as in the capacity for making choices.
 * Establish enduring bonds with others, including humans (specially if the bond is started at a young age).
 * Characteristics in many, but not all nephesh:
 * Curiosity
 * Playfulness
 * Desire to please and serve others, including humans..
 * Nurturing
 * Passion

Some birds and mammals show strong nephesh-associated activities, such as: bonding for life and mourning.

While humans are also called nephesh, the Bible also states that humans have the characteristics of spirituality (Hebrew רוּחַ - Ruah), that is understood as 'created in God’s image.' Spirit in Hebrew is ruach or ruah, that is capable of prayer, worship and other spiritual activities.

Nephesh is found in Strong's Lexicon as # H5315. The first four times nephesh is used in the Bible, it is used exclusively to describe animals: Gen. 1:20: (sea life), Gen. 1:21 (sea life),  Gen. 1:24: (land creatures)  Gen. 1:30 (birds and land creatures). Gen. 2:7 nephesh is used as description of man.

The Bible puts life is three groups:
 * Body only, as in insects, fish, reptiles and other lower animals.(physical life)
 * Body and soul (nephesh), as in birds and mammals (nephesh or soulish life)
 * Body, soul (nephesh) and spirit, as in humans. (soulish and spirit life)

Is there any online Bible text with transliterated Hebrew text?
That, next to a close, literal translation, would be the one to link this article's Bible quotes to; as it is now (only Eng.), it is of little help to people who cannot read Hebrew. ArmindenArminden (talk) 12:27, 27 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Yes, see http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/OTpdf/gen1.pdf May not be the best.

Another way to get a good meaning of the words is the Amplified Bible, as one Engish word is often not enough to get the meaning of the Biblical Hebrew. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1&version=AMP Telecine Guy 23:14, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Nephesh depictions in art and archaeology
Suggest reformatting to separate out artistic representations from spiritual meaning. Also should mention role of nepheshes (nepheshim? what is the correct plural?) in non-Nabataean contexts, e.g. the so-called Tomb of Zechariah at Jerusalem or the Yodat Nefesh stone.--Bjornpa (talk) 19:18, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Sean here, I agree with the above - it seems like making their artistic characteristics more prominent would help to keep this a separate article, rather than merging with soul. I think more pictures would help too. Iowa.Grad.13 (talk) 19:33, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

V.V- Seems alright — Preceding unsigned comment added by DumbArtStudent (talk • contribs) 01:43, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Marleen- I agree with the suggestions to distinguish between the artistic and spiritual contexts of Nephesh. I think the confusion would become clearer with more photos of what you're talking about. This might also help to avoid your article being brushed under the "soul" article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mnlinares (talk • contribs) 03:57, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

I think Marleen makes a great point when talking about this distinction--I think this would be a great way to separate your article from the soul article (because they are obviously two different things). Also, I will link the betyl portion of the Nabataean Art page to this. (Spederse (talk) 13:43, 28 November 2012 (UTC))

I don't think it's accurate to refer to it as just Nabataean sculpture, since there are also examples in Jewish art. That first sentence in the Nephesh in Art section should be revised, and there should be examples from Jerusalem. Also, Sabaic is not the norm- assume you mean Sabaean? That should be linked too. --Bjornpa (talk) 16:34, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Whitney-With all the edits I think you did a great job of explaining the art while also including the idea of spiritual idea behind it. And, of course, having a photo always helps. (Wmwright (talk) 23:49, 29 November 2012 (UTC))

Merge
Nephesh is a Hebrew word and the Bible uses Hebrew and Greek. So to merge would make it unclear. So no. Telecine Guy 04:39, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I would oppose a merge with any other etymology. MaynardClark (talk) 23:24, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Writing and research quality
I think that this article needs a major revision, and I think that primary (textual, Scriptural) sources should be used instead of secondary (interpretive) sources (as has been widely used). I suspect that the original author of the article thought that those commentaries are 'authoritative' or credible, but we end up with a much less substantive article. MaynardClark (talk) 23:26, 15 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I added these Ref, as you are correct. Someone now has delete all this text and ref. Thus reducing this to a just dictionary entry, claiming it is off topic. The deleted text is not off topic, as Nephesh is about understanding the Bible's view of life: Human and Animal. The text is to be returned. If any agrees please reply. Telecine Guy 17:01, 16 March 2015 (UTC)


 * See WP:PRIMARY. Wikipedia is based on secondary and tertiary sources and Primary sources are considered WP:ORIGINAL RESEARCH. Sorry, but that's the way Wikipedia works.Editor2020, Talk 01:19, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Who are nephesh?
I've read that some animals are not nephesh because they live more or less on instinct and show little well being to others (think arachnids, most insects, worms, fish, lizards, etc), and so they are not truly sentient or have a will like humans, birds, mammals or some dinosaurs exhibit.

But elsewhere I've read that nephesh includes all animals. Which is it? 178.76.164.104 (talk) 11:42, 28 October 2022 (UTC)


 * The bible gives nephesh tilte to birds and mammals only, this was on the page, but detailed see above. Telecine Guy (talk) 03:08, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Christian point of view
Every reference, without exception, is a Christian source. This article seems to be about the interpretation of the word nefesh by Christian scholars. This is not necessarily the same interpretation as you would get from Jewish scholars. Perhaps the article should be revised to include both? -- ABehrens (talk) 03:01, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * You are correct. This article would need a lot of work to include the Jewish view on the subject, which is completely missing. You are welcome to try and start working on it. Unfortunately the article is not on my own priorities list at the moment... Thank you, warshy (¥¥) 17:16, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Nefesh
Nefesh, a monument placed near a grave.

The content previously here has been moved to the more appropriate article title, Soul in the Bible. Please only contribute material to this article which is relevant to the Hebrew word nephesh. This article is not the place to discuss different religious concepts of the human soul. Tonicthebrown (talk) 07:31, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

I was wondering if possibly this page should be renamed nefesh as this transliteration's correct pronunciation might be clearer to the average anglophone. Menachemsdavis (talk) 21:55, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I'll rename it now. Musashiaharon (talk) 07:35, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, although nefesh has more Google Hits, it seems that nephesh produces the results that are about the biblical use of the word - I think nephesh is the more common spelling. StAnselm (talk) 10:59, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Aside from just the biblical use of the word, Kabbalah associates nefesh with a very specific level of the soul, namely, the lowest part of the soul that gives life to a person or animal. Higher levels of the soul give a person emotion (ruach), logic (neshamah) and awareness of G‑dliness (chaya). Within the category of nefesh are the nefesh habehamit and the nefesh haelokit. In yeshivah, we typically spelled the word as nefesh, although I am unsure about the rest of the world. I suspect that among Jews, nefesh is more popular, while among non-Jewish scholars nephesh is preferred due to the nature of the pei/phei in nefesh. However, I personally have seen little reason to use 'ph' for the 'f' sound, because
 * there is only one letter that can make the 'f' sound; any scholar of Hebrew will realize that 'f' must have been the letter fei. On the other hand, this provides no new information to the non-scholar, merely making the word slightly more difficult to read.
 * 'ph' is more unwieldy, requiring two letters where one will suffice to indicate pronunciation
 * most Jews use 'f' anyway Musashiaharon (talk) 11:10, 16 November 2011 (UTC)