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Last Updated on :
Saturday, November 22, 2014

 

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Soul


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Christendom Admits "Immortal Soul" UnBiblical,
and Based On Greek Philosophy

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When we turn to works of reference by the learned expositors of the immortal soul theory, we see how this "believing a lie" works out quite naturally. Most of them make no attempt to conceal the fact that scriptural teaching and popular theology are very different regarding the meaning of "soul." They are in fact, proud that they have developed many "improvements" upon what they consider the partial and hazy conceptions voiced by the "Holy men of God who spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:21).

We soon find that we are forced to choose between Scripture teaching and orthodox Christianity. It is very fortunate for us that the issue is so clearcut, and that the leading exponents of the immortal soul theory are so frank in admission of its non-Biblical origin. Webster's Dictionary says:

"The Christian conception of the soul derives from the Greek, especially as modified by the mystery cults, as well as from the Bible...

"The more exact determination of the Christian conception was reserved for the Church Fathers, especially Saint Augustine, who taught that it is simple, immaterial and spiritual, devoid of quality and spatial extension. He argued its immortality from the fact that it is the repository of imperishable truth."

 

Funk & Wagnall Dictionary is even more to the point:

"Among the ancient Hebrews 'soul' was the equivalent of the principle of life as embodied in living creatures, and this meaning is continued throughout the Bible...

"It was Augustine especially who, in part on religious grounds and in part as the disciple of the later Greek Philosophy, taught the simple, immaterial and spiritual nature of the human soul--a view which has remained that of the scholastic philosophy and of Christian theologians down to the present time."

 

Hasting's well-known Bible Dictionary freely admits:

"Soul is throughout a great part of the Bible simply the equivalent of 'life' embodied in living creature. In the earlier usage of the Old Testament it has no reference to the later philosophical meaning--the animating principle--still less to the idea of an 'immaterial nature' which will survive the body."

 

The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia says:

"Soul has various shades of meaning in the Old Testament, which may be summarized as follows: Soul, living being, life, self, person, desire, appetite, emotion and passion.

"Nephesh or soul, can only denote the individual life with a material organization or body.

"In the New Testament 'psuche' appears under more or less similar conditions as in the Old Testament."

 

Young's Concordance defines both nephesh and psuche as "animal soul."

Strong's Concordance defines nephesh as, "A breathing creature, an animal; or, abstractly vitality." Psuche it likewise defines as "The animal, sentient principle."

The noted lexicographer Parkhurst (himself a believer in immortal soulism) says:

"As a noun nephesh hath been supposed to signify the spiritual part of man, or what we commonly call his soul. I must for myself confess that I can find no passages where it hath undoubtedly this meaning.

"Gen. 35:18, 1 Kings 17:21-22 and Psalms 16:10 seem fairest for this signification. But may not nephesh in the three former passages be most properly rendered 'breath,' and in the last, 'a breathing or animal frame'?"

 

These quotations show clearly that the immortal soul doctrine is generally admitted by its supporters to be entirely different from the BIBLE meaning of soul, and based mainly upon GREEK PHILOSOPHY.

 


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