Below are all of the instances where the English word “soul” occurs in the Old Testament as found in the King James Version of the Bible. For each occurrence, the same passage from the 1984 edition of the New International Version is shown for the sake of comparison.
The English word “soul” occurs 419 times in the King James version of the Old Testament. With only 3 exceptions (see 2 Samuel 13:39, Psalms 16:2, Job 30:15), the KJV translators choose this word (soul) when translating the Hebrew word nephesh into English. (In 2 of the 3 exceptions, there is no Hebrew word supporting the use of the word “soul.” In other words, in these 3 instances, the KJV translators chose to insert “soul” into the translation with nothing in the original text to support their decision. This is confirmed by the fact that the translators marked 2 of the instances in italics, indicating that the words were not in the original Hebrew text. The remaining reference, Job 30:15, should have has the KJV translators using “soul” for the Hebrew word “nedeebaw,” which would have been better rendered as “honor” or “reputation.”)
In contrast, the NIV translators used the English word “soul” much more sparingly. When translating nephesh into English, the NIV translators retained the KJV translators’ “soul” approximately 25% of the time. Specifically, of the 416 instances where the KJV translators chose to translate the Hebrew nephesh with the English word “soul,” the NIV translators chose to do likewise only 110 times. For the remaining 316 occurrences, the NIV translators replaced the KJV’s “soul” with a variety of alternative words and phrases, such as: anyone, being, courage, dignity, he, heart, hearted, herself, himself, I, life, me, my, neck, none, one, people, person, self, selves, she, slave, them, thought, us, we, whoever, whole being, you, yourself, and yourselves.
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Author: Philip P. Kapusta
Keywords: Soul, Spirit, Nephesh, Nefesh, Soul spirit, Body soul, Body soul spirit, Immortal soul, Soul can die, Soul death, Soul sleep, Ruah, Ruach, Breath, Breath life, Soul life, Kill the soul, Unable to kill the soul, Immortal spirit
Bible reference(s): Genesis 37:35, Genesis 42:38, Genesis 44:29, Genesis 44:31, Numbers 16:30, Numbers 16:33, Deuteronomy 32:22, 1 Samuel 2:6, 2 Samuel 22:6, 1 Kings 2:6, 1 Kings 2:9, Job 7:9, Job 11:7, Job 14:13, Job 17:13, Job 17:16, Job 21:7, Job 24:19, Job 26:6, Psalms 6:4, Psalms 9:17, Psalms 16:10, Psalms 18:5, Psalms 30:3, Psalms 31:17, Psalms 49:14-15, Psalms 55:15, Psalms 86:13, Psalms 88:3, Psalms 89:48, Psalms 116:3, Psalms 139:8, Psalms 141:7, Proverbs 1:12, Proverbs 5:5, Proverbs 7:27, Proverbs 9:18, Proverbs 15:11, Proverbs 15:24, Proverbs 23:14, Proverbs 30:16, Ecclesiastes 9:10, Song of Solomon 8:6, Isaiah 5:14, Isaiah 14:9, Isaiah 14:11, Isaiah 14:15, Isaiah 28:15, Isaiah 28:18, Isaiah 38:18, Isaiah 57:8, Ezekiel 31:15-17, Ezekiel 32:21, Ezekiel 32:27, Hosea 13:14, Amos 9:2, Jonah 2:2, Habakkuk 2:5
Source: Philip P. Kapusta
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