"> ">
What Does the Bible Say About..? Logo

What Does the Bible Say About..The Soul?

You say the soul lives on after the body dies ok. Where did you ever come up with that notion? Do you know what a soul is? God breathed into Adam and he became a soul. The Bible does not say that he gave him a soul. The soul does die according to the Bible, so this idea that you hold that the soul lives on is an abomination, a lie right from Satan himself, and you’re just basically deceived.

Answer

I thank you for making me research this a little more closely. As I said in one answer, frequently the spirit and the soul are used synonymously. Thus when one dies, both or either the breath and the soul (consciousness, psyche) leave the body. But that does not say whether either live on.

The concept of the soul living on, even though not directly stated in scripture, was common among the Jews long before the time of Jesus. The argument about the resurrection of some consciousness after death was one of the differences between the sects of the Sadducees and the Pharisees.

The one scripture that most strongly suggests that the soul lives on is Psalm 16:10 (quoted in Acts 2:27-31). “For thou wilt not leave my soul in the grave; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” Some would say that Leviticus 21:1 and some other passages that translate the Hebrew word “nephesh” as “dead” also imply something that continues on after death. “And the LORD said unto Moses, Speak unto the priests the sons of Aaron, and say unto them, There shall none be defiled for the dead among his people.” In such passages, how would one be defiled for or by something that no longer exists?

Whether what lives on is properly called the soul may be debatable. That something lives on is not. “And as touching the dead, that they rise: have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: ye therefore do greatly err.” (Mark 12:27) The resurrection of something apart from the physical body is a cornerstone of Christianity. See also 1 Corinthians 15. If Jesus was not resurrected, then there is no forgiveness of sins in him. If there is no resurrection of some consciousness, most conveniently if not necessarily most properly called the soul, then we might as well each do what we feel like doing and let anarchy reign.

Perhaps the soul does not live on. Perhaps it dies along with the body. If so, then we don’t know what to call that which clearly does live on.

Note: the questioner did not provide scripture for where he claims that the Bible says the soul does die. I was unable to answer that directly without knowing on what scripture he based his allegation.)