The Immortal? Soul
Funk and Wagnall Encyclopedia - article Soul
"Early Judaism considered the human personality as a whole, without making a sharp distinction between body and soul. By the Middle Ages, however, the soul was defined in Judaism as the principle of life and was considered capable of surviving bodily decay. The Christian doctrine of the soul has been strongly influenced by Plato and Aristotle. Most Christians believe that each individual has an immortal soul and that the human personality as a whole, composed of soul and resurrected body, may, through faith, be granted God's presence in the afterlife."
(Immortal soul? But what about...) [Rom 6:23]?
"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
(If we already have an immortal soul, then why would Paul say eternal life is a gift of God? If we already possess it, then it isn't really a gift, is it? This passage also plainly states that the wages of sin is death! Not life in hell.)
Gen 2:7 "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."
(Doesn't seem to say that man has a soul, but is one.)
(Soul in Hebrew is Nephesh)
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance [#5315] nephesh;
" a breathing creature, i.e. animal or (abst) vitality; used very widely in a literal, accommodated or figuretive sense (bodily or mental); appetite, beast, body, breath, creature, dead, desire, contented, fish, ghost, greedy, he, heart, (jeopardy of life; in jeopardy), lust, man, me, mind, mortality, one, own, person, pleasure, (her, him, my, thy)self, them, (your)selves, slay, soul, tablet, they, thing, will, would, have it."
(The Hebrew word (nephesh) has to do with being! Has a wide usuage concerning the physical. Flesh and Blood.)
Companion Bible Ap. 13
"Nephesh is used of lower animals only, in twenty two passages, and is rendered in nine different ways:-
(a) "creature," [Gen 1:21,24; 2:19; 9:10,12; Lev 11:46]
(b) "thing" [Lev 11:10; Ezek 47:9]
(C) "life" [Gen 1:29,30]
(d) "the life" [Gen 9:4; Deut 12:23; Prov 12:10]
(e) "beast" [Lev 24:18]
(f) "the soul" [Job 12:10]
(g) "breath" [Job 41:21]
(h) "fish" [Isa 19:10]
(i) "her" [Jer 2:24]
It is used of the lower animals four times before it is used of man; and out of the first thirteen times in Genesis, it is used ten times of lower animals."
Num 19:11"He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days."
Num 19:22 "And whatsoever the unclean person toucheth shall be unclean; and the soul that toucheth it shall be unclean until even."
(The word for dead body in Num 19:11 is nephesh, and the word for soul in Num 19:22 is also nephesh. Should be "person")
Ezek 18:4 "Behold 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."
Ezek 18: 20 "The soul that sinneth, it shall die...."
(Soul should be rendered "person" here, but this passage plainly states that souls can die)
from Companion Bible
(Psuche is soul in the Greek)
(The Greek dword "psuche" is the only word that is translated "soul" in the N.T. Used 105 times.
58 times translated soul
40 times life
3 times mind
1 time heart
1 time heartily
1 time us
1 time you
Psuche is also used of lower life forms [Rev 16:3} meaning a living thing, which can die!)
[Acts 2:41-43; 3:23; 7:14; 27:37; Rom 2:9; 13:1; 1Cor 15:45; James 15:20; 1Pet 3:20; 2Pet 2:14; Rev 6:9; 18:13; 20:4]
(In these passages 'psuche' is used for the life of a man.)
Matt 16:25-26 "For whosoever will save his life [psuche] shall loose it, and whosoever will lose his life [psuche] for my sake shall find it."
"For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul [psuche]? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul [psuche]?"
(This word should have been rendered 'life' throughout.)
(The Greek word "psuche" never indicates anything immortal in its meaning.)
(The word "soul" only means mortal, temporal, humans...who can die)
(A man dies in exactly the same manner as a beast) [ Eccl 3:19-20; Job 14:1-2; Job 14:12-15; Ps 49:12-20]
Eccl 3:19-20
"For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them; as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast; for all is vanity. All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again."
(So guess what folks...you are no better than your dog. We will suffer the same fate when it comes to death.)
(Death is the cessation of life)
Eccl 9:5
"For the living know that they shall die; but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward, for the memory of them is forgotten."
Ps 6:5
"For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thank?"
Ps 146:4
"His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth, in that day his thoughts perish."
Immortality of the Soul in Jewish Encyclopedia Vol VI pages 564-566
"The belief that the soul continues its existence after the dissolution of the body is...speculation...nowhere expressly taught in Holy Scripture...The belief in the immortality of the soul came to Jews from contact with Greek thought and chiefly through the philosophy of Plato, its principal exponent, who was led to it through Orphic and Eleusinian mysteries in which Babylonian and Egyptian views were strangely blended."
(The ancient Babylonians and Egyptians were the originators of the idea of the immortality of the soul.)
Herodotus= "The Egyptians were also the first that asserted that the soul of man is immortal."
Tertullian= "For some things are known, even by nature: the immortality of the soul, for instance is held by many...I may use, therefore the opinion of a Plato when he declared 'every soul is immortal'"
Plato= "The soul whose inseperable
attitude is life will never admit of life is opposite, death. The soul is shown to be immortal and, since immortal, indestructable...Do we believe there is such a thing as death? To be sure. And is this anything but the separation of the soul from the body?"
(Thus the idea of the immortal soul comes from one pagan authority quoting another pagan authority on the subject until the masses believe.)
Do You Have and Immortal Soul? by Garner Ted Armstrong
