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Robert Alter's new Hebrew Bible translation doesn't use the word soul. Blaire French in today's WSJ gives several reasons why nefesh really ought to be rendered soul: wsj.com/articles/putti…
A different argument that OT nefesh should be rendered soul, and that it is entirely appropriate to consider soul as separable from flesh, is in Richard Steiner's 2015 Disembodied Souls. Here's the link, but you can also get the pdf free at the sbl site. amazon.com/Disembodied-So…
I'd be over my head saying anything about Hebrew translation. But Steiner argues from several angles that disembodied souls were part of the common intellectual furniture of the ANE.
One reason I care about this as a systematic theologian: Conventional wisdom assures me that the OT view of nefesh is never disembodied. Psyche may come in from Hellenism and be a separate substance, but not nefesh.
I am gladly constrained by biblical usage. But Steiner not only provides warrants (from Ezekiel, from cultural context) for disembodied soul, but also offers a counter-genealogy to the Hebrew-vs-Hellenism genealogy that's become standard in theology.
For theological anthropology, lots of factors are in play in saying the right thing about the human soul. It seems to me that the OT case is plausibly on the side of disembodied soul. Not quite like in Plato, sure, & also not quite like Aristotle. But something.
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