Judaism: The origin of man is the same as that related under Christianity being drawn from Genesis, the first book of the Bible. However, Jews do not identify the Serpent as Satan, nor do they believe that Adam and Eve's transgression constituted a 'fall' for the entire human race. Concerning the nature of man, it is taught that man is not a mere 'dichotomy of body and soul...and certainly not a trichotomy' (as found in Christianity) but a 'multifaceted unitary being.'¹ The first man, Adam, became a 'living soul' when God breathed into him the 'breath of life.' (Genesis 2:7) In a godly person, the soul should dominate the body. The soul is compared 'in similes that go back to antiquity, to the rider of a steed, the captain of a ship and the governor of a state. Yet paradoxically, the soul is also often considered as a stranger on the earth, an alien yearning for its supernal home.'²

God creates the soul from nothing, coincidental with the formation of the body in the womb. 'The soul requires the good acts of the body to perfect its peculiarly immaterial, celestial-like substance, even as the body needs the faculties of sensation and reason which the soul provides.'³ Man has a nephesh (something also possessed by animals). This is the natural life (life-force) of a human being. Unique to man is the possession of a neshemah (the soul that entered Adam with the breath of God). According to Kabbalistic legend, on the Sabbath, every Jew 'acquires an extra soul, a neshema yeterah' in order to experience the joy, peace and blessedness of this holy day to the fullest.⁴

Man is a free agent, able to choose between good and evil. Judaism does not promote the idea that human beings are born into this world under the burden of 'Original Sin' inherited from Adam, as taught in Christianity. However, some Jewish theologians would explain that 'man's moral ambivalence derives from the two inclinations within him: the good inclination (yezer tov) and the evil inclination (yezer ra).'⁵

The body is not denigrated as in some religions, but valued, along with the soul, as being in the image and likeness of God. While some religions discourage marital union in order to achieve enlightenment, conversely, in Judaism marriage is a blessed, divine institution and a holy mandate. Members of the Jewish community are normally expected to marry in order to participate in the revealed purpose for mankind and to perpetuate the human species, specifically those who are in covenant with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.