[Mephibosheth2]

Originally Posted by OBW

— it seemed that the spirit was more like an aspect of the soul than something so independent. Probably one of the reasons that it took a sharp, two-edged sword to separate them.

Given that kind of differentiation, they begin to look more like slightly different aspects of one thing than completely different things that can be defined into separation.

I'm generally inclined to agree with you, though I'd reverse your order and hazard to say that it is the soul which is an aspect of the spirit, rather than the other way around. Let me explain. If you journey back to the creation of Adam, you will find that after God formed Adam's body out of the ground, He then breathed Adam's spirit into him, and then Adam 'became a living soul': According to the text, God did not specifically create or form Adam's soul. Adam's soul 'became' or 'came about' as a direct result of the interface between his formed body and the spirit breathed into him (this is an important distinction that was later remarked upon by the apostle Paul in his epistle to the Corinthians). Therefore, the soul, per se, is not really a separate entity on its own, but the product -or hybrid, if you will- of the spirit and the flesh. The three (but really two acting in synergy), together, constitute the whole person.