Despite widespread use of the phrase immortal soul, this terminology
is found nowhere in the Bible. Where did the idea of an immortal soul originate?
The concept of the soul's supposed immortality was first taught in ancient
Egypt and Babylon. "The belief that the soul continues in 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 the
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" (Jewish Encyclopedia, 1941, Vol. 6, "Immortality of the
Soul," pp. 564, 566).
Plato (428-348 B.C.), the Greek philosopher and student of Socrates, taught
that the body and the "immortal soul" separate at death. The International
Standard Bible Encyclopedia comments on ancient Israel's view of the
soul: "We are influenced always more or less by the Greek, Platonic idea
that the body dies, yet the soul is immortal. Such an idea is utterly contrary
to the Israelite consciousness and is nowhere found in the Old Testament" (1960,
Vol. 2, "Death," p. 812).
Early Christianity was influenced and corrupted by Greek philosophies
as it spread through the Greek and Roman world. By A.D. 200 the doctrine
of the immortality of the soul became a controversy among Christian believers.
The Evangelical Dictionary of Theology notes that Origen, an
early and influential Catholic theologian, was influenced by Greek thinkers: "Speculation
about the soul in the subapostolic church was heavily influenced by Greek
philosophy. This is seen in Origen's acceptance of Plato's doctrine of
the preexistence of the soul as pure mind (nous) originally, which,
by reason of its fall from God, cooled down to soul (psyche) when
it lost its participation in the divine fire by looking earthward" (1992, "Soul," p.
1037).
