by Bridget Webber

Created on: April 02, 2009   Last Updated: March 13, 2010

It can at first be hard to distinguish between the soul, and the spirit, because people through the ages have passed on their confusion about the matter via theology and teachings. Looking into religious texts may further add to the muddied concept of the soul and spirit as two separate entities, because the two words often over-lap and the interpretation as to their root meanings is left unclear.

We can look into ancient languages, and so attempt to decipher the meanings of the words this way, and although this isn't definite proof as to the answers, it can still be useful to us to a degree. The Hebrew word for 'soul' in the old testament is 'nephesh'.

The word nephesh, is used many times in the bible, and runs alongside the word for body, or person. Sometimes a being, that is an animal or a human, is described as being a nephesh. In fact, the soul, as a term used in religious writings, seems to be synonymous with the body of a being. In this way, each of us, are a soul.

Looking further may show us that a soul can die when the person dies. Whether you take this literally or not, is up to you, and how you would choose to interpret the words that you read.

A spirit, or 'ruach', on the other hand, is thought to be a less inanimate concept. Even so the word ruach may be said to be very similar to the word nephesh, as ruach can mean wind, while nephesh means breath. Wind however, can be described in relation to the spirit as having a separate life force, than that of a nephesh, or body.

Perhaps the easiest way, if indeed there is one, to think of the difference between your soul and your spirit, is to look closer to home in the age that we live in. The way we use the words soul, and spirit, can give us many clues as to what exactly, their meanings are.

When we speak of the soul in everyday language we may use the word in several ways. We may describe a person as being soul-less, inferring that he or she has no soul. When we talk about someone in this way we don't mean that they are clinically dead. What we mean is that they seem to be lacking in some form of higher consciousness and empathy.

By looking at this way of talking about the soul, we can see that in the modern world, we disassociate the soul from being part of the body to a large extent, and relate it very much to being part of a humans personality linked with them being sentient.

When we use the word spirit another interpretation is amassed, suggesting that the two words in question have different meanings.

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