Soul Concepts in Ancient Near Eastern Mythical Texts and Their Implications For The Primeval History

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"Soul-Concepts" in Ancient Near Eastern Mythical Texts and Their Implications for the
Primeval History
Author(s): Michaela Bauks
Source: Vetus Testamentum , 2016, Vol. 66, Fasc. 2 (2016), pp. 181-193
Published by: Brill
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VETUS TESTAMENTUM 66 (2016) 181-193
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"Soul-Concepts" in Ancient Near Eastern

Mythical Texts and Their Implications
for the Primeval History
Michaela Bauks
University Koblenz-Landau
bauks@uni-koblenz.de
Abstract
In an occidental perspective, influenced by classical Greek and Hellenist philosophy,

the soul is the immaterial part of the human, which becomes, in its incorporeality, the
immortal "remainder" of a person after his death. The comparaison of soul concepts
(cf. Hasenfratz) in Ancient Near Eastern, Egyptian, Greek archaic texts with the data of
the Primeval History exhibits indeed a similar "concept of man" (anthropology), but a
lesser elaborate concept of "souls" in the Biblical context.
Keywords
anthropology - creation - anthropogony - ancient Near East - primeval history
Dedicated to Gilles Dorival
The term "soul" is very ambiguous. In an occidental perspective, the soul is

the immaterial part of the human, which becomes, in its incorporeality, the
immortal "remainder" of a person after his death. Bruno SnelP and Jan
* Lecture held novernber 5, 2014 at Brown University and novernber 21, 2014 at the University of
Berkeley/CA. I 由ank Saul Olyan and Ronald Hendel for their invitations. I thank Dr. Andrea
Allgood, Brown University, Providence/RI for diligently revising my English manuscript.
1 The Discovery of the Mind. The Greek Origins of European Thought (Oxford, 1953), pp. 9-22.
© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2015 I DOI 10.1163/15685330·12301251

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182 BAUKS
Bremmer,2 have shown that this modem comprehension is the result of the
classical Greek evolution ofa concept ofsoul. It has its beginnings in Presocratic
philosophy, since Pythagoras defined psyche's characteristics as "life" and
"immortality뎃 The concept found its full expression in the platonic concept
of the soul, as it was developed in the Phaedo (cf. Soa, 11-d, 6; ca. 385 BCE).
This dialogue highlights the immortal and immaterial soul as the most pre-
cious part of the human being, and it proved immensely influential in classical
and Hellenistic philosophy as well as in patristic concepts. Ulrike Steinert:4 has
stressed obvious similarities between the concept of soul just before Plato in
the 5th c. BCE and some Near Eastern data.5 The Greek terms such as "psyche"
embrace physical, psychological and spiritual phenomena of the human exis-
tence in a kind of "unity in multiplicity". 'l'U)(Y) becomes the standard transla-
tion of Hebrew l뼈 in the LXX. These terms are etymologically close to each
other because both stems have to do with "drawing breath" or "to breeze/blow".
Hebrew Bible scholarship, however, has expressed reservations about the
use of the term "soul" for fear of introducing anachronistic presuppositions
into our reconstruction of ancient thinking. Scholars in the field of Religious
and Ethnological Studies, while aware of this risk, have advocated the use of the
term in a technical sense to develop a "soul typology". This concept describes
the different functions "soul" can have6 in various cultures by introducing the
terms "body-soul," "ego-soul," "wandering or free-soul (soul in trance)," "soul of
the dead (alter ego)" and sometimes "reincarnation-soul." This kind of a func-
tional description avoids the commonplace distinctions of soul characteris-
tics as mortal/immortal, material/immaterial or inside/outside of a person.7
Already in 1926,Johann Pedersen stated about the term 1V!ll: "It is not said that
man was supplied with a nephesh, and so the relation between body and soul
2 The Early Greek Concept of the Soul (Princeton, 1983); id., The Rise and Fall of Afterlife
(NewYork, 2002).
3 Bremmer, 2002, pp. 2-4, 15-26.
4 Aspekte des Menschseins im Alten Mesopotamien. Eine Studie zu Person und Identitat
im 2. und 1. Jt. v. Chr. (Leiden, 2012), 16-19; cf. P. A. Mumm and S. Richter, "Die Etymologie
von griechisch psyche", International Journal of Diachronic Linguistics and Linguistic
Reconstruction 5 (2008), pp. 33-108, 89 with n. 30 concerning psyche and etemmu.
5 See A. L. Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia. Portrait of a Dead Civilization (Chicago, 1964),
pp. 198-206 and G. Selz, "Composite Beings: Of Individualization and Objectification in Third
Millennium Mesopotamia", ArOr 72 (2004), pp. 33-53.
6 Cf. H. P. Hasenfratz, "Tod und Seele im Alten Agypten", in G. Binder/B. Effe (ed.), Tod und
Jenseits im Altertum (BAC 6; Trier, 1991), pp. 88-102.
7 Cf. C. Taylor, Sources of the Self (Cambridge, 1989), pp. m-126, who describes the conse-
quences of soul's inwardness.

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"SOUL-CONCEPTS" IN ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN MYTHICAL TEXTS 183
is quite different from what it is to us. Such as he is, man, in his total essence,
is a soul茂 He uses the term "soul", but he redefines it. Due to this observation,
I propose that soul must not to be defined as a quality, but as a status. Hans-W.
Woljf9 emphasizes a holistic view of 'IV!ll that has to be read anatomically as
"throat, neck, stomach", but in an extended sense, it designates bodily desire
or even life-force. The term i1'n 1V퍼 is an idiom for "living creature" includ-
ing humanity and animals. Wolff's observations induced the Hebrew Bible
scholarship to avoid the term "soul".
Bremmer, however, has taken two terms from the soul typology discussion
to characterize the pre-Platonic concept close to soul: "free soul" is signified
with tj,u짜 and "body soul" is signified by Suµ6~ ("breath" and "seat of emo-
tions"), vo6~/voil~ ("[act of] mind") and µtvo~ ("energy", "ardor of a warrior").
It is evident that an individual's tj,u짜 Suµ6~. and vo6~, are conceived without
distinguishing between internal and external aspects of the person.10 The
Greek terms can be a meaningful way to describe different functional aspects of
the soul. In a similar way in 1999, RobertA. di Vito11 pointed out persistent prob-
lems, namely that "the customary fixation on the problem of body and soul"
has "the almost inevitable limitation of comparison to ancient differences to
ancient Greek anthropological models" (219). He emphasizes that, compared
to the Enlightenment concept of self, ancient cultures knew neither a clear
idea of subjectivity nor a concept of inwardness. For him, the ancient person
"(1) is deeply embedded, or engaged, in its social identity, (2) is comparatively
decentered and undefined with respect to personal boundaries, (3) is relatively
transparent, socialized, and embodied (in other words, is altogether lacking in
a sense of 'inner depths'), and (4) is 'authentic' precisely in its heteronomy, in
its obedience to another and dependence upon another" (221).
Terms such as "self" or "person" are not less problematic than the soul-
typology. We need a concept that reflects unity in multiplicities, which enters
typological categories into that description, and we need a broader lexical
field for describing what soul-typology in pre-classical cultures means. If we
accept the soul-typology as it was introduced in Religious Studies, we can
8 J. Pedersen, Israel The Life andIts Culture (London/Copenhagen, 1926), p. 99 (highlighted

byMB).
9 H.-W. Wolff, Anthropology ofthe oT(Minneapolis, 1974), pp. 10-2s; cf. H. Seebass, nephesh,
TDOT 9 (1986), pp. 497-519; cf. S. Schroer and T. Staubli, Die Kiirpersymbolik der Bibel
(Darmstadt, 1998), pp. 93-103.
10 Bremmer, 1983, pp. 66-67.
11 "Old Testament Anthropology and the Construction of Personal Identity", CBQ (1999),
pp. 217-38.

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184 BAUKS
adapt the different terms for describing human states and modes of existence
in an adequate way. Wolff has exposed the holistic-additive anthropological
view through his semantic research of Hebrew keywords. And scholars such as
Bremmer, Assmann12 or Steinert have presented comparable research for the
neighboring cultures, onto which they have mapped the soul typology. This
approach shall be verified by some examples of soul typology, especially in
anthropogonies before the 5th century BCE.
Egypt
An explicit anthropogony does not exist in Egyptian literature.13 We have only

a few remarks on human's composition. CT 1130 VII, 465a (M. K.) states that
"I (Atum) have created the gods from my sweat, and people (remet) from the
tears (re빠t) of my eyes."14 A temple relief from Der el-Bahari (N. K.) illustrates
the creation of the king and his ka by the potter god Khnum (from Antinoe)
and the goddess Heket, who gives life.15 The ankh is interpreted in some texts
as breath or wind of life (tgw n.'nb; cf. Pyr 524; 1718 or the Osiris temple of
Dendera, where Khnum has this title).16 Further, the Great Amama Hymn
from the West wall of the tomb-chapel of Ay praises Aton as "Giver of breath to
nourish all that he had made."17 This idea is also present on some reliefs, where
12 J. Assmann, Death andSalvation inAncientEgypt (Ithaca, NY, 2005), pp. 86-112.

13 The cosmologies have embraced few allusions to the creation ofhumans, such as the Book
ofthe Heavenly Cow, which opted for an original community of gods and humans before
a revolt— -cf. E. Hornung, The Ancient Egyptian Books ofAfterlife (Ithaka, NY/London,
1999), pp. 148-152—-, or the Memphite Theology (BM 498) which describes the creation
of gods by perception and annunciation transcending the common world in a textual
—
world cf. J. Assmann, "Rezeption und Auslegung in A.gypten. Das 'Denkmal memphi-
tischer Theologie' als Auslegung der heliopolitanischen Kosmogonie", in R. G. Kratz/
T. Kriiger (Hg.), Rezeption und Auslegung im Alten Testament und seiner Umwelt FS —
0. H. Steck (OBO 153; Fribourg/Giittingen, 1997), pp. 125-139, esp. 135ff.
14 Cf. S. Bickel, La cosmogonie egyptienne avant le Nouvel Empire (oao 134; Fribourg/
Giittingen, 1994), pp. 199-205; R. Nyord, Breathing Flesh. Conceptions ofBody in the Ancient
Egyptian Coffin Texts (CNI Publications 37; Copenhagen, 2009), pp. 324-327.
15 Cf. CT 996 VII 212e-g; A. M. Badawi, Der Gott Chnum (Hamburg/New York, 1937), p. 18
ill. 6, 44.
16 Cf. Badawi, p. 37 n. $ p. 44 n. 7 and A. Mariette, Denderah. Description generate, vol1v
(Paris, 1873), pl. 40,11; for the titles of Chnum cf. C. Leitz, LAGG 7 (2003), pp. 597-598.
17 Cf. S. Quirke, "Creation Stories in Ancient Egypt", in M. J. Geller/ M. Schipper (ed.),
Cosmogony, Imagining Creation (Leiden/Boston, 2008), pp. 61-87, esp. 78; translation:
M. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature vol. 11 (Berkeley, 1976), p. 98.

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Akhenaton gets life ( 'nl;) through his nose by Aton.18 At the end, the metaphor
of sunset is used for the description of death: "<Those on> earth come from
your hand as you made them, When you have dawned they live, When you set
they die; You yourself are lifetime, one lives by you."19
It is striking that it is not in a creation context, but rather in the cult of the
afterlife that we find a concern regarding the nature of the human being. Here
the notion of "person", "self" or "soul" is developed. Every man has a b3, which
is spiritual rather than physical, and which lives on after the body has died.
Further, man has a life force, his double, a k3, transmitted from the father to the
son, which leaves man's body when he dies. The third principle, 'aIJ, "refers to a
salutary effectiveness that crosses the threshold of death, from this world into
the next and vice versa. The precondition of this redemptive force lies in the
heart of the son and its bond with the father".20 Egyptian anthropology intro-
duces different incorporeal elements, significant in the context of the journey
to the afterlife. Breath seems to be the life force of the living body.
Greece
Texts from the Greek archaic times do not describe an anthropogony (e.g.
Hesiod's Theogony lacks one). Data about human's "composition" can be
drawn out of the battle pieces of the Iliad. In the case of Sarpedon's fainting,21
psyche has left him and its return is not stated, but very probable, because
the man recovers and continues to fight The death of Patroclus at the hands
of Hector shows that psyche is depicted as leaving the body when a human
dies, bound for the netherworld: "Even as he (Patroculus) thus spake the end
of death enfolded him; and his soul (\j,uXYJ) fleeting from his limbs was gone
18 Cf. e.g. the boundary stela S at Tell el-Amarna, cf. N. de Garis Davies, The Rock Tombs of
elAmama., vol v (London, 1908), pl. 39.
19 Lichtheim, 99. — J. Assmann, Akhanyati's Theology of Light and Time (Jerusalem, 1992),
pp. 167-168, emphazises the dependency of Ps 104, 29-3oa from the Amarna Hymn 95,
17-18.-Critically A. Kruger, Das Lob des Schopfers. Studien zu Sprache, Motivik und
Theologie von Psalm 104 (wMANT 124; Neukirchen-Vluyn, 2010), pp. 418-419.
20 J. Assmann, 2005, p. 52.
21 His "spirit (ljlu제) failed him, and down over his eyes a mist was shed. Howbeit he revived,
and the breath (mot~) of the North Wind (Boreas) as it blew upon him made him to
live again after in grievous wise he had breathed forth his spirit (8uµ6~)"; Il. 5,696f. cf.
A. T. Murray, Homer, The Iliad 1 (The Loeb Classical Library; Cambridge, MA/London,
1965), pp. 244-245.

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186 BAUKS
to Hades, bewailing her fate, leaving manliness and youth." (IL 16, 855-857).22
Psyche in Homer's epic can be identified with a "free soul", a part of the liv-
ing person at times of crisis. In the case of death psyche and thymos leave the
corpse. It is striking that psyche has neither physical nor psychological con-
nections.23 NEJ<po~ "corpse" is etymologically bound to vEJ<U~ and designates a
"disappeared being" in the Hades (cx-lSE~ "invisible"; cf. Crat. 403a).24
Mesopotamian Anthropogonies
In contrast to the Egyptian Burial texts and the Homeric Epics, Mesopotamian
literature has transmitted anthropogonical mythical passages: The Sumerian
tradition is documented by Enki and NinmalJ and the Song of the Hoe.25 Both
texts agree concerning the motivation ofanthropogony, that humans have to
serve the gods, and concerning the material, that humans are formed from
clay.26 The Akkadian traditions seem more sophisticated: to the clay are added
flesh, blood and also spittle. The last three elements have divine origin: flesh
and blood are taken from a slaughtered god, spit from the igigi. The oldest
transmitted anthropogony in AtralJasis combines the four elements (Atr. I, ii
206-234 [oB]; cf. KAR 4 [MB]),27 meanwhile Eniima elis (v1, 5-34) refers only to
the blood of Kingu. The most important text is Atr. 1 ii, 206-234:28
206 On the first, seventh, and fifteenth day of the month

207 I [Enki] will make a purifying bath.
208 Let one god be slaughtered
209 So that all the gods may be cleansed in a dipping
22 A. T. Murray, The Iliad II (The Loeb Classical Library; Cambridge, MA/London, 1963),
pp. 226-227.
23 Bremmer, 1983, pp. 15-16.
24 M. F. Meyer, Aristoteles und die Geburt der biologischen Wissenschaft (Wiesbaden, 2014),
pp. 63-68.
25 Cf. J. J. W. Lisman, Cosmogony, Theogony andAnthropogony in Sumerian Texts (AOAT 409;
Miinster 2013), pp. 48-54, 57-59.
26 Also the menstruation blood of the mother goddess is important for giving birth to the
molded prototype of the human; cf. Lisman, pp. 183-186, 200.
27 Lisman, pp. 60-61: KAR 4,18-21 refers to the sacrifice of two gods: "In Uzumua, the bond of
heaven and earth,/ we shall slaughter the gods Alla and Illa,/ so that their blood makes
mankind grow./ Let the work assignment of the gods be itsjob (= thejob ofmankind)."
28 Translation: W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard, Atra-!J,asls. The Babylonian Story ofthe Flood
(Winona Lake, 1999), pp. 58-59.

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•SOUL-CONCEPTS" IN ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN MYTHICAL TEXTS 187
210 From his flesh [$iru] and blood [damu]

211 Let Nintu mix clay [tita],
212 That god and man
213 May be thoroughly mixed in the clay,
214 So that we may hear the drum for the rest of time
215 Let there be a spirit [etemmu] from the god's flesh.
216 Let it proclaim living (man) as its sign (ittu),
217 So that this be not forgotten let there be a spirit [etemmu] …·
L. 223 calls the slaughtered god We-ila, a god, who has "personality" [temu].
The semantic is striking: it could be a pun which refers to the beginning of the
epic "When the gods (like) men bore the work and suffered the toil"29 by relat-
ing the name of the god to the opening lines of the epic. From them temu and
heartbeat were taken. On one hand, temu gives man the capacity to carry out
the divine work, which makes humans a little bit divine. On the other hand,
the pun suggests that divinities have human "qualities" as well as having origi-
nally served humans' "functions". Additionally temu forms a second pun with
the most important term for our purposes, etemmu. Both come from the flesh
and blood of the slaughtered god.30 But it seems that etemmu persists after
death in its material way.31 This characteristic is reported in ll. 215-17: etemmu
is in the flesh of the god and partakes of the memory of man after its death.32
Tzvi Abusch33 translates "From the god's flesh let there be a ghost" (l. 215) or
"... there was a ghost" (l. 228) and allocates three shares to the human existence:
29 Lambert/Millard, pp. 42-43; cf. B. Alster, "ilu awilum : we-e il-e, 'Gods:Men' versus 'Man:
God'. Punning and the Reversal of Patterns in the At따asis Epic~ in T. Abusch (ed.),
Riches Hidden in Secret Places (Fs T. Jacobsen; Winona Lake/IN, 2002), p. 35-40, esp. 37:
"I 223 we ilu(m) is a play on awilum ilu, the reverse order of I 1: ilil awilum. Thus, we ilu(m)
is not meant as an etymology, but is just what it appears to be, an pun." Cf. Steinert,
pp. 324-332.
30 Cf. Abusch, pp. 370-373 analyzing the paradox that the immaterial human "spirit" is made
from divine flesh: "From the god's blood comes the person, the self is from the god's body,
the ghost.• In the case of death, damu "blood", force of vitality, and temum "intelligence"
vanish, not the materially bound etemmu (371).
31 The etemmu subsists and that includes the explanation, that gods, too, have an etemmu;
cf. G. Selz, "Was bleibt? Ein Versuch zu Tod und Identitii.t im Alten Orient•, in R. Rollinger
(Hg.), Von Sumer bis Homer. FS M Schretter (AOAT 32s; Munster, 2005), pp. 577-594, esp.
585; Steinert, pp. 330-331.
32 Cf. Steinert, pp. 325-326.
33 Abusch, p. 372, changes the sequence of I. 215£, II. 214 and 216 describing the situation of
the living man, with II. 215 and 217 previewing its afterlife in the memory by the others.

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188 BAUKS
body (clay) — etemmu, a kind of death-soul-temu, a kind of ego-soul, both of

the latter being associated with divine flesh and blood, respectively:언 Some
recent studies35 have unconvincingly argued for the existence of an immortal
soul based on this passage, which shows how it is difficult to dismiss tradi-
tional thinking.36
The issues must be framed differently: temu concerns a human capac-
ity for work, his intelligence, limited to his lifetime, whereas etemmu refers
to an abstract form of immortality, accomplished by man's descendants who
"remember his name".37 In some cases etemmu comes back to the human
realm in form of a death spirit, a personal god or a protective spirit.38 Finally
etemmu appears, when the human with temu has passed. Both include divine
and material parts.
The Gilgamesh epic frames the question of mankind's human and divine
proportions in another way. The epic introduces the king "Two-thirds of him
[= Gilgame~] was divine, one-third of him was human!"39 The actors of the
anthropogony, mother-goddess and Enki-EA, are the same. The procedure is
34 Abusch thinks that temum comes from god's blood and etemmu from its flesh (368);
cf. critically Steinert, pp. 327-329.
35 D. Katz, The image of the netherworld in the Sumerian sources (Bethesda, MD, 2003),
p. 198 and id., "Death They Dispensed to Mankind. The Funerary World of Ancient
Mesopotamia", Historiae 2 (2005), pp. 55-90; V. van der Stede, Mourir au pays des deux
fleuves. L'Au-dela Mesopotamien d'apres les sources sumeriennes et akkadiennes (Lettres
Orientales 12; Leuven, 2007), 24; M. Dietrich, "Die Dichotomie 'Leib' und 'Seele' in der
mesopotamischen Literatur", MAR 20 (2010), pp. 19-36, esp. 20; cf. id., "Die Begabung des
Menschen mit der 'Seele' nach Aussage der anthropogonischen Mythen Mesopotamiens",
in id./T. Kulmar (ed.), Body and Soul in the Conceptions of Religions (FARG 42; Milnster,
2008), pp. 47-66.
36 For an exhaustive critical evaluation, cf. Steinert, pp. 124-125, 328-332.
37 Selz, 2004, p. 37 explains that etemmu means in common understanding, "that in
Mesopotamia the 'spirit' of a deceased person survives physical extinction. The
Gilgamesh- or the Atrahasis-epic and other sources allow us assume that these spirits
were actually conceived of as the immortal part of a person, somehow comparable to
our concept of a 'soul'. But there is an additional way of survival mentioned in the epic:
the fame of Gilgamesh's deeds and the written account of them will provide a somewhat
questionable lasting life"; cf. Steinert, pp. 331-332 and S. L. Richter, The Deuteronomistic
History and the Name Theology.lesakken semo sam in the Bible and the Ancient Near East
(BZAW 318; Berlin/NewYork, 2002), pp.127-203.
38 Abusch, pp. 370-373; Selz, 2004, pp. 40-41.
39 Gilg. I, 50; Translation: B. Foster, The Epic ofGilgamesh (NewYork, 2001), pp. 4-5.

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not defined and only the divine portion of Gilgamesh is emphasized.40 The
consequences of his partly divine character are not immortality. At the end
of the epic, Gilgamesh's search for immortality leads him to the insight that
he obtains immortality (only) through his great acts (Gilg. XI, 325-333) and
by se떠ng his name (suma §aka.nu; z.B. Gilg. VII, 266f.).41 The anthropogony
of Gilgamesh's friend Enkidu corresponds to the traditional anthropogoni-
cal report more closely, when the mother-goddess pinched off clay, tossed it
upon the steppe and created him (1, 99-104). The clay is referenced again in the
notice of his death, when Gilgamesh says "My friend whom I loved is turned
into clay" (x, 264f.; cf. x, 48 and 178f.).42 After the act of creation, Enkidu is clas-
sified in a state of lullu, a first "draft" of mankind. He does not get temum until
he has intercourse with the harlot Sambat (1, 202).43
These examples confirm a holistic view of humankind because man has a
composite nature. The borders of time (life/death), status (god/human) and
space (world/netherworld) are more fluid than in our modem conceptions.
The individual seems less important. His postmortem existence is in fact
ensured by the collective's memory, and by the cult of the dead, which con-
firms a highly decentered view of personal identity (cf. etemmu).
Anthropogony in the Primeval History (Gen 1-11)
With regard to the Primeval History, we generally speak about some key words,
such as W.£Jl, n,, and :i난 for "inner"-human matters and about ,w:i for bodily
40 Gilgamesh's divine parts come from his parents, the goddess Ninsun and the posthu-
mously divinized king Lugalbanda cf. Steinert, pp. 63-65.
41 Cf. K. Radner, Die Macht des Namens. Altorientallsche Strateglen zur Selbsterhaltung
(sANTAG 8; Wiesbaden, 2005); A Zgoll, "'... Einen Namen will ich mir machen!' Die
Sehnsucht nach Unsterblichkeit im Alten Orient'; Saeculum 54 (2003), 1-11.
42 Foster, p. 6.
43 In this context, Sambat states: "You are handsome, Enkidu, you are become like a god"
(killl; 1, 207 Foster, p. 9); cf. Gilg. XI, 207 concerning the combination of immortality with
human's god-likeness, when Utanapistim and his wife become "like gods" (kima ilt) after
the flood; cf. A R. George, The Bab-yl.onian Gilgamesh-Epic. Introduction, Critical Edition,
and Cuneiform Texts, vol I (Oxford, 2003), p. 508, 716f.
44 The term :i', is cited only once in this section of text in 8:21 (+ ilV,) and has no relevance
to the anthropological discussion.

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190 BAUKS
and material matters.45 We also have the term i11JWJ, a synonym for breath
(cf. akk. napistu),46 sometimes synonymous with WDJ and n,,.
The term WDJ is attested with ;,,n {Gen 1:20, 21, 24, 30), where it designates
the status of animals and humans as "living beings". In Gen 2:7, it concerns
only humans,47 in 9:10, 12, 15 it includes both humans and animals. The critical
verse is Gen 2:7 "then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground
and breathed {nDJ) into his nostrils the breath oflife (口，，n nou>J), and the man
became a living creature {i1'n WDJ)."48 The first expression (口，，n nou>J) means
the material of creation and parallels the Egyptian allusions to anthropogony;
the second expression {i1'n WDJ) defines the status of the created being as "liv-
ing". We encounter no W!ll in Num 6:6 in an antonymous sense of status as
"dead being".49 The term WDJ appears without a modifier in Gen 9:4, 5, a pro-
lepsis of the blood prohibition in legal texts,50 and signifies "life" or "vitality".
On the one hand, this text reveals that flesh and blood are bound together and
signify vitality꼬 On the other hand, the vitality of animals is qualified differ-
ently from that of humans (V• 5). The hierarchy is explained by the concept
of imago Dei, which within P only concerns the human being {V. 6). The con-
cept is reiterated in the genealogy of Adam: His son Seth is conceived (5:3) in
his own likeness such as the first humans are created in the likeness of God
(1:26-27; 5:i).52
45 Cf. B.Janowski, "Konstellative Anthropologie. Zurn Begriffder Person im AltenTestament",

in B. Janowski (Hg.), Derganze Mensch. ZurAnthropologie derAntike und ihre europii.ische
Nachgeschichte (Berlin, 2012), pp.109-127, esp.110-m.
46 Steinert, p. 371, emphasizes the unemotional character of napistu in opposition to W!ll,
which would create the precondition for the term to connote "self" in Hebrew; however,
etemmu talces no function for the living being. The Akkadian terms are "als Ego-Seelen
typologisch verwandt, aber andererseits verschieden (Toten- bzw. Lebensseele)".
47 In contrast V. 19 presents i11也iJ n~lJ-;i1 for "animals".
48 Translations ofBiblical texts: NRSV.
49 Cf. Lev 19:28; 21:i; 22:4; Num 5:6; 9:6-13 and Hag 2:13; cf. Seebass, p. 516;Janowski, "Die leb-
endige nrephres. Das Alte Testament und die Frage nach der 'Seele' •, in id., Der nahe und
derfeme Gott. Beitriige zur Theologie desAlten Testaments5 (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 2014), pp.
73-116, 82-84; M. J. Suriano, "Breaking Bread with the Dead: Katumuwa's Stele, Hosea 9:4,
and the Early History of the Soul", JAOS 134 (2014), 385자05. See below with n. 59ff.
50 Cf.J. Milgrom, Leviticus:A Book ofRitualandEthics (Minneapolis, 2004), pp.187-189.
51 9:4 Butyou shall not eat flesh with its life (W!ll; orvitality), that is, its blood [better: within
itsblood].
52 In fact, the expression "likeness of god(s)" is also found in Gilg. 1, 207 and x1, 207 indicat-
ing that a human being has changed to a different status. God-likeness is mentioned in
Gen 3:5 and 3:23 in a negatively connoted way.

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Concerning the term n,,, its synonymy with i101Vl is evident.53 In the invo-
cation to God in Ps 104:1,32 the term 、1V!ll, "my soul" or simply "me" appears
—
twice in the beginning and at the end. In the creation context (cf. Qoh 12:7),
n,, is used for i101VJ in the context of dying (V. 29b-30).54 It is striking that
the circularity of life is described from death to (after)life, which is the exact
opposite of the position seen in the classical Hebrew anthropology conceiving
death as the end of an individual's existence. This "new" concept was assumed
to be the result of the putative Egyptian origins of the psalm influenced by
the Great Amarna Hymn,55 but the latter compares human dying with a sun-
set and the afterlife with a sunrise. And this setting is absent in Ps 104. In
Gen 1-11 n,, is used in a very different way: in Gen 1:2 as a divine wind or breath;
in Gen 3:8 as the daily breeze; and in 8:i as a wind draining the waters of the
flood. Only in 6:17 (P) do we encounter the idea that all flesh has 口`'n nm "life
breath", which will be destroyed by the flood. Gen 7:22 (non-P) creates the
hendiadys, 口`'n mi·noiz>J, which seems to conflate two different "breath tradi-
tions" (P and non-P) in the Primeval History. In Gen 6:3 n,, deals with the idea
that it is forbidden to transgress human and divine borders, and includes the
explicit limitation of human life.56
The last key word, ii.V::i, is found multiple times in Gen 1-11: The reference in
Gen 2:21, 23 (the creation of the woman) seems to be at most a parody of the
Mesopotamian concept of the slaughtered god as material for anthropogony.
The metaphor of the "unified flesh" in 2:24 highlights both the symbiosis of
man and woman and the interdependence among human beings. In Gen 6-g
ii.V::i + ,::i becomes an expression for allliving beings. Only in Gen 6:3 and 9:4
is the term used as an anthropological feature. In 6:3 ii.V::i marks the limited
character of man. In Gen 9:4 the combination of the terms ,;,v그, 1V!ll and 口j
is striking, because the juxtaposition of 1V!ll with blood confirms the significa-
tion "life force," which is here associated with blood, and not with breath.
All these passages confirm that in the Primeval History vitality is reported as
a divine gift, which is always materially bound. It is not expressed where breath
53 Cf. Is 42:5;Job 33:4 where both terms encounter within a parallelism.

54 29 ... when you take away their breath (n,;), they die / and return to their dust (기5 마 / 30
When you send forth your Spirit [mi; or breath c£ 29), they are created, / and you renew
the face of the ground (i101N).
55 J. Assmann. The Searchfor God in Ancient Egypt (Jthaka, NY, 2001), pp. 112-113 and 1992,
pp. 167-168; cf. above note 19.
56 Then the LORD said, "My Spirit (mi; or breath) shall not abide in man forever, for he is
flesh [better: because he, too, is flesh iiv그) : his days shall be 120 years."

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192 BAUKS
is located after death. Some psalms57 allude to the concept of Se'ol where the
dead reside. The different translations for W!IJ "vitality," such as "breath" take
the function of a life soul, which disappears with death (c£ Ps 104:29). In some
psalms W!IJ can be used as an ambiguous term concerning the permanence
of some aspects of humanity (e.g. Ps 73, 23-28). Only Gen 35:18 describes how
Rachel's W!IJ "departs" or simply "vanishes" (N:ll').58 Exact parallels to etemmu I
psyche / k3 etc. seem to be lacking in the Hebrew anthropology. In the context
of death cult we find 口`n5N, mo기 (e.g. 1 Sam 28; Is 14:gf.).59
Two Aramaic inscriptions are relevant forthe contextual meaning ofnbs/nps.
The first is the stele of Katumuwa (Zincirli/Samal; 8th cent. BCE).60 Depicting
a meal, the text mentions offerings of the nbs in proximity of the funerary ste-
lae (n~b) "a ram for Kubaba, and a ram for my 'soul' that (will be) in this stele"
(1. 5).61 In 1. n nbs encounters again in a more uncertain meaning and is trans-
lated by "funerary stelae", "person" or "death-soul", in proximity of them were
slaughtered.62 The second evidence, the Panamuwa inscription from Samal/
Ger야in (8th cent. BCE; KAI 214,15-21) brings up nbs for describing the dead king
who endures in the funerary cult of his son and for representing him visually
in form of the artifact. The text focuses on the filial duty of royal's son offer-
ings dedicated in proximity of the stele.63 Therefore D. Pardee points out that
nbs does neither designate "a specific element of the physical Breathing appa-
ratus", nor "a separable manifestation of KTMW in the sense of a 'ghost' or a
'soul' capable of an afterlife in Seol or in the heavens (because it is specifically
localized in the stele)'; but it refers "to the very essence of KTMW, as he is rep-
resented on the stele, eating and drinking at a feast", its "being" without any
reference to divinization, dead ghost etc언 Other scholars emphasize that the
57 Cf. Ps 6:6; 9:18; 16,10; 18,6; 30:4; 31:18; 49:16; 55:16; 86:13 제9:49; B. Janowski, Arguing with
God. Theological Anthropology of the Psalms (Westminster, 2013), pp. 312-334.
58 Cf. Janowski, 2014, p. 79, who emphasizes that Nl.l' does not signify "leave" (the unnamed
corpse) here, but "vanish", "disappear".
59 See B. B. Schmidt, Israel's Beneficent Dead: Ancestor Cult and Necroman아 in Ancient
Israelite Religion and Tradtion (FAT u; Tiibingen 1994), pp. 201-210; 267-272; C. B. Hays,
Death in the Iron Age II and in First Isaiah (FAT 79; Tiibingen 2011), pp. 203-211.221£
60 D. Pardee, ANew Aramaic Inscription from Zincirli, BASOR 356 (2009), pp. 51-71.
61 Pardee, 2009, 53-54 (transcription and translation), 63 (commentary).
62 Janowski proposes to translate in I. 11just by the pronoun "me" (20나, p. 96) with reference
to the translation of!. Kottsieper, TUAT NF 6 (2011), pp. 321-323.
63 M. S. Smith, Poetic Heroes. The Literary Commemoration ofWarriors and Warrior Culture
in the Early Biblical Worlds (Grand Rapids, 2014), p. 103£ with reference to Aqhat 1.17 11 ; cf.
Janowski, 2014, p. 96.
64 Pardee, 2009, p. 62f.

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meal depends on the idea that the nbs of the dead king continues to dwell on
or in the stele. S. L. Sanders assumes, that "Katumuwa's nbs was anything, but
immortal" whose "main ritually relevant 'active ingredient' is hunger. While
the dead could be invoked through naming or sharing a meal, the meal has
a special kind of power to render someone's personhood present via need,
and to perform the satisfaction of that need through feeding….The living
evoke and interact with the dead person's persona by summoning them to eat
together and sharing the food with them."65 M.J. Suriano translates nbs even by
"defunct-soul"66 and clarifies that "the abstract essence of v>~~/nbs …assigned
a physical presence through ritual."67 The term does not designate a disem-
bodied soul, but a soul, which is embodied through a ritual of commensality
orfeeding.
These discussions show a certain permeability of the signification of nbs
especially in the funerary context, which is close to the complex understand-
ing of soul in Biblical psalms, mentioned above. If these observations are
applicable to the anthropological concept included in the Primeval History, is
dubious, because 밑~~ is here marking a status and not an essence.
The Egyptian terms and the Mesopotamian etemmu embrace several types
ofsoul (all without life soul), sometimes taking on divine traits (e.g. "protective
god"). As such, they demonstrate a more elaborate "Ghost and Soul"-concept
than the Biblical evidence. Even the concept of immortality through the
"remembering of the name" is replaced by a biological concept, the likeness
of the child to his parents and continuity in form of genealogy, which has no
place for an immaterial soul before the Greek translation of the Lxx.68 The
different Hebrew terms of "inner-human matters" in Gen 1-11 concern human's
life-time ("body soul").
65 S. L. Sanders, "The Appetites of the Dead: West Semitic Linguistic and Ritual Aspects of
the Katumuwa Stele", BASOR 369 (2013), pp. 85-105, esp. p.100. I thank Seth Sanders to have
reminded me of the importance of these inscriptions, when I held my paper at Brown
University
66 H. Niehr translates "Totengeist", in C. Bonnet/H. Niehr (ed.), Religionen in der Umwelt des
AT 11: Phonizier, Punier, Aramiier (Stuttgart, 2010), pp. 282-28.t.
67 Suriano, 2014, p. 388.
68 Cf. M. Rosel, Die Geburt der Seele in der Dbersetzung, in: A. Wagner, Anthropologische
Aufbruche (FRLANT 232; Gottingen 2009), pp. 151-170; P. Marinkovic, n따fc§-psyche一
immortalitas. Hoffnung auf Unsterblichkeit in der biblischen Tradition der hellenist-
isch-romischen Zeit, in: A. Lang/ders., Bios-Cultus-(lm)mortalitas (Rahden, 2012),
pp. 187-198, presumes the birth of an immaterial soul concept only in the Hellenistic-
Roman age (4Makk 18,23; 1st CE).

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Soul Concepts in Ancient Near Eastern Mythical Texts and Their Implications For The Primeval History

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