Re: CONCULTURE: Xinkùtlan souls and metaphysics

Geoff Horswood wrote:
> This is what I have.  It's partially modelled on something I heard of once
> about an African(?) tribe (can't remember which one) who believed that
> people had 3 different souls, some of which were immortal and others tied
> to the body.  This gave the missionaries a real conundrum- which word
> should you use to translate things like "Praise the Lord, O my soul" or "I
> saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the
> word of God"?  Fascinating!
All what you wrote about "soul", is fascinating. I'm very short of time
these days, as you may know (my wife is still in hospital). When I have
time, I'll be able to comment on your message. The major problem of
interpreting religious terms is that different religions and confessions
often give different definitions to the same words depending on the
tradition of their interpretation.
For time being, here is a homework: if you have a concordance with Strong's
numbers, compare three words from Tanakh ("Old Testament"): nefesh, ruahh,
n'shamah - with only two equivalents in "New Testament": psyche and pneuma.
This seems to be the main sourse of confusions in translations. Nota bene:
AFAIU neither of these words corresponds directly to the English word "soul"
as it is commonly understood.

-- Yitzik