The soul is us as a person and does die, and not something separate from the body. The teaching of the immortality, meaning literally "deathlessness", of the soul did not originate from the Bible, but rather from pagan sources. Should not the Bible be our source for understanding the meaning of soul rather than the teachings, such as Greek mythology ?
For example, at Genesis 2:7, of Adam, it says that "Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."(American Standard Version) The apostle Paul, in quoting from Genesis 2:7 said: " And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit."(1Cor 15:45, King James Bible)
Just as Jesus was "made a quickening spirit" in order to enter heaven, not possessing one, Adam was "made a living soul", not possessing one. When one completes his years of schooling and becomes a medical doctor, does he possess one or is he one ? So likewise was Adam "made a living soul", not possessing one. Another example is at Isaiah 53:12, where it says prophetically of Jesus: " Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death:"(King James Bible) Jesus himself said, in basically quoting this scripture, that "my soul is deeply grieved, even to death."(Matt 26:38)
Some will turn to Matthew 10:28, saying that this supports that the soul is immortal, opening to the first part of what Jesus said is: "fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul:" Yet Jesus continues and says that "but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."(King James Bible) Hence, Jesus identifies that the soul is not immortal, but can be destroyed and in "hell" at that. At Jeremiah 2:34, it says that the soul has blood, for it reads: "Also in thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of the poor innocents." (King James Bible)
At Leviticus 17:10, it says that "whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, that eateth any manner of blood; I will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people."(King James Bible) Hence, the soul has blood, and is condemned for eating blood and can be "cut off" or die. At Leviticus 23:30, God told the nation of Israel, that "whatsoever soul it be that doeth any work in that same day (day of atonement), the same soul will I destroy from among the people."(King James Bible)
At Ezekiel 13:19, God spoke of those women who were ' hunting souls', asking: "And will you profane me towards my people for the handfuls of barley and for the morsels of bread, in order to put to death the souls that ought not to die, and in order to preserve alive the souls that ought not to live by your lie to my people ?"
Hence, the Bible clearly identifies that the soul is not immortal, but can die. Ezekiel 18:4 says that "all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die."(King James Bible) In addition, at Acts 3:23, Peter, in quoting from Deuteronomy 18, said that " it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people."(King James Bible) Hence, the soul can be destroyed or become non-existent.
The philosopher Plato, of the fourth century B.C.E., did much to propagate the Greek notion of immortality of the soul. Because the Grecian philosophers interested themselves in the ultimate questions of life, their views also served to shape the religious views of the people. Socrates, of the fifth century B.C.E., taught the immortality of the human soul. In Phaedo (64C, 105E), Plato quotes Socrates’ conversation with two of his colleagues: “‘Do we think there is such a thing as death? . . . We believe, do we not, that death is the separation of the soul from the body, and that the state of being dead is the state in which the body is separated from the soul and exists alone by itself and the soul is separated from the body and exists alone by itself? Is death anything other than this?’ ‘No, it is this,’ he said. ‘And the soul does not admit death?’ ‘No.’†Socrates continues, “‘Then the soul is immortal.’ ‘Yes.’â€Â
Later, Josephus also provides details concerning the beliefs of the Pharisees. He observes: “They believe that souls have power to survive death and that there are rewards and punishments under the earth for those who have led lives of virtue or vice: eternal imprisonment is the lot of evil souls, while the good souls receive an easy passage to a new life.†(Jewish Antiquities, XVIII, 14 [i, 3]) “Every soul, they maintain, is imperishable, but the soul of the good alone passes into another body, while the souls of the wicked suffer eternal punishment.â€Â(The Jewish War, II, 162, 163 (viii, 14).
Were the Pharisees following what God had written in the Hebrew Scriptures, commonly called the Old Testament ? Jesus sternly told them, after their condemnation of Jesus disciples for not washing their hands before a meal, "Why is it you also overstep the commandment of God because of your tradition ? "(Matt 15:2,3) Thus, these put "tradition" above God's word, his commandments.(Matt 15:4-6) And that "tradition" also included teaching that the soul is immortal, surviving death, that came from Grecian philosophy.
Thus, The Interpreter’s Bible (Vol. II, p. 1015), commenting on 1 Samuel 25:29, observes that “the idea of man as consisting of body and soul which are separated at death is not Hebrew but Greek.†(edited by G. Buttrick, 1953) The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible (edited by G. Buttrick, 1962, Vol. 1, p. 802), further says that "it is natural that death should sometimes be represented as the disappearance of this nephesh (Gen. 35:18; I Kings 17:21; Jer. 15:9; Jonah 4:3). The ‘departure’ of the nephesh must be viewed as a figure of speech, for it does not continue to exist independently of the body, but dies with it (Num. 31:19; Judg. 16:30; Ezek. 13:19). No biblical text authorizes the statement that the ‘soul’ is separated from the body at the moment of death.â€Â
The Roman Catholic translation, The New American Bible, in its “Glossary of Biblical Theology Terms†(pp. 27, 28), says: “In the New Testament, to ‘save one’s soul’ (Mk 8:35) does not mean to save some ‘spiritual’ part of man, as opposed to his ‘body’ (in the Platonic sense) but the whole person with emphasis on the fact that the person is living, desiring, loving and willing, etc., in addition to being concrete and physical.â€Â-Edition published by P. J. Kenedy & Sons, New York, 1970.
In the Journal of Biblical Literature (Vol. XVI, p. 30), Professor C. A. Briggs, as a result of detailed analysis of the use of the Hebrew word for soul - ne´phesh, observed: "Soul in English usage at the present time conveys usually a very different meaning from ne´phesh in Hebrew, and it is easy for the incautious reader to misinterpret."
Thus, due to the churches teaching of "soul" as being immortal, the "incautious reader" follows it. However, the Bible teaches that the soul is us as a person, with all our desires and does die, having no immortality. Even animals are souls for Number 31:28 speaks of " one soul of five hundred, both of the persons, and of the beeves, and of the asses, and of the sheep:"
