The concept of an immaterial and immortal soul – distinct from the body – did not appear in Judaism before the Babylonian exile,[1] but developed as a result of interaction with Persian and Hellenistic philosophies.
[7] And the Lord God created man in two formations; and took dust from the place of the house of the sanctuary, and from the four winds of the world, and mixed from all the waters of the world, and created him red, black, and white; and breathed into his nostrils the inspiration of life, and there was in the body of Adam the inspiration of a speaking spirit, unto the illumination of the eyes and the hearing of the ears.
"[26] The concept of an immaterial soul separate from and surviving the body is common today but according to modern scholars, it was not found in ancient Hebrew beliefs.
[1] The word nephesh never means an immortal soul[27] or an incorporeal part of the human being[28] that can survive death of the body as the spirit of the dead.
[32][citation needed] The scholarly consensus of the 20th century held that the canonical teaching of the Old Testament made no reference to an immortal soul independent of the body in at least its earlier periods.
[3][42][43][44] According to Stephen Cook, scholars "now hotly debate the older, commonplace position that the idea of a soul, separable from the body, played little or no role in preexilic Israel" and that "recent approaches to Israelite religion that are increasingly informed by archaeological artifacts are defending the view that Israel’s beliefs in an afterlife were much more vibrant than many scholars have been willing to admit.