cornelis, thank you for your cautionary statements with respect to dualism. Yet I don't see how the body-soul distinction necessarily must be thought of as constituting polar opposites. I imagine there must be a fundamental arche that unites the two at some level, for these two "aspects" need each other to express a human life; i.e., they constitute a unity. Yet given the limitations of language, to speak of either of the aspects requires us to "intend" one or the other; and intentionality implies a kind of artificial uprooting out of the fuller context in which each of the aspects appears and mutually participates in the other. In this sense, it distorts to some degree the thing we're thinking and speaking about. In this sense, "we murder to dissect." So we have to remember that the separation was an artificial one all along.
Does this make any sense?
Neither do I, but that is only because of others have made the mistakes before me. The body-soul distinction was just an example. But with respect to the Hebrew, I am afraid we run the risk of building our edifice on the analysis, rather than on what the analysis is contingent on.
I don't blame Alamo-Girl for sticking to her guns here, but as I understand it, we need to make doubly sure whether this dualism which has always been there is fundamental. If you build your epistemology on it, you'll be more Greek than Hebrew.