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We ended yesterday\u2019s article with the statement that all of God\u2019s created animals were called living beings or living souls (Hebrew: neh-fesh khah-yawh). This means that they were created with the same life forces of souls and spirits as were we humans.<\/p>\n
The problem that we have is that relatively few people can read and understand the original Hebrew to discern that the same words and phrases are being used for both humans and animals.<\/p>\n
If we read Genesis 2:7, we see that the Hebrew was translated as \u201cliving soul\u201d.<\/p>\n
7. And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
\nKJV<\/p>\n
But when we look at the same Hebrew term being used for the other animals, it is translated differently, as in Genesis 1:21.<\/p>\n
21. And God created great whales, and every living creature [living soul<\/i><\/b>] that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
\nKJV<\/p>\n
Note that here instead of referring to these animals as living souls, the same term is translated as living creature, which implies that they were not created by God as we were. To us this is dishonest, and appears to be a concerted effort among the translators to hide the fact that the animals have souls and spirits, in order to make it easier for humans to continue to exploit them.<\/p>\n
The same thing was also done in verse 24, where the land animals are also called living creatures instead of living souls.<\/p>\n
Even though the terms soul and spirit as we know them today are from the Greek, they should still be applied equally when translating the Hebrew into English.<\/p>\n
The other animals do have souls and spirits, just as we do, as people who have allowed themselves to become close to any animal knows.<\/p>\n
Since