The difference caused by the shift from Hebrew to Greek in the New Testament

 The shift from Hebrew to Greek in the New Testament (NT) was not just a change in language, but a profound philosophical overlay.¹ Hebrew is a concrete, holistic language; Greek (especially influenced by Platonism) is abstract and dualistic.

When the NT authors or the earlier Septuagint (LXX) translators mapped Hebrew concepts onto Greek words, they fundamentally changed how people viewed the soul, the afterlife, and the Law.

The Semantic Shift: Hebrew vs. Greek

Hebrew Concept	Original Meaning (Tanakh)	Greek Overly (NT/Septuagint)	Resulting Shift
Nephesh	"Breathing Being." A holistic person; the physical "throat" or life-force. You don't have a soul; you are a soul.	Psychē	"Immortal Soul." In Greek thought, the soul is a non-material "ghost" trapped in a body. It redefined death as the soul leaving the body.
Sheol	"The Grave." A shadowy, neutral place of "silence" where all dead go. There is no fire or conscious reward/punishment.	Hadēs	"Underworld." Derived from Greek myth. It introduced "compartments" (like Abraham's Bosom vs. Torment) and conscious existence after death.
Torah	"Instruction/Aiming." Teaching or guidance from a father to a son. It is a living, relational path.	Nomos	"Statutory Law." A legalistic code or civic decree. This made the Torah feel like a "burden" of rules rather than a spiritual guide.
Almāh	"Young Woman." A female of marriageable age. It describes a social status (youth) rather than a biological state (virginity).	Parthenos	"Virgin." While parthenos could be generic, it specifically denoted sexual purity. This turned a prophetic "sign" of a birth into a "miraculous" biological event.

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Mapping the Theological Framework

1. From Holism to Dualism (Nephesh → Psychē)

In the Tanakh, when a person dies, the nephesh (being) ceases. Hebrew thought is monistic—body and spirit are one. Greek readers, influenced by Plato, viewed the Psychē as distinct and superior to the "corrupt" flesh. This shift made the "salvation of the soul" more important than the "resurrection of the body."

2. From Sleep to Afterlife (Sheol → Hadēs)

Hebrew Sheol is a place of unconsciousness (Ecclesiastes 9:10). By using the Greek word Hadēs, the NT (especially in parables like the Rich Man and Lazarus) adopted the Greek geographical view of the underworld as a place of active, conscious experience—the precursor to the medieval concept of Hell.

3. From Guidance to Legalism (Torah → Nomos)

The Greek Nomos refers to a fixed law of the state. When Paul writes about the "Law" (Nomos)², Greek-speaking audiences heard "legal code." This stripped away the Hebrew nuance of Torah as a "path" and replaced it with a binary of "Legalism vs. Grace," a distinction much less sharp in the original Hebrew.

4. From History to Miracle (Almāh** → Parthenos)

In Isaiah 7:14, the Almāh was a young woman in the time of King Ahaz. By translating this as Parthenos (Virgin) in the Septuagint, the Greek-reading world began to view the verse as a biological prediction rather than a historical marker of God's presence (Immanuel).