Perhaps the most controversial aspect of OBEs is veridical perception, which is the claim that during an OBE, the viewer is able to literally float out of their body and witness something or someone that they could not have otherwise seen. A well-known example is the case of Pam Reynolds, a brain surgery patient who underwent a highly invasive operation to remove a brain tumor.

She claimed to have surveyed the scene during an OBE. Although skepticism abounds, proponents of the afterlife have repeatedly used this story as “evidence” of an ability to float beyond the body.

But at this stage, they are nothing more than unverifiable stories. A study from 2014, titled Awareness during Resuscitation (AWARE), was the first serious large-scale investigation to look at NDEs.

The research involved multiple hospitals and hundreds of interviews with cardiac arrest survivors. To investigate whether any individuals had genuinely floated above themselves and viewed their surroundings, researchers placed pictures on shelves that would only be viewable from above.

Although there were only two veridical OBEs during the study, neither could accurately relate the images from the shelves. We eagerly await the next phase, known as AWARE II.

In 1955, a Canadian neurosurgeon called Wilder Penfield electrically stimulated the brains of people with epilepsy. On one occasion, he stimulated a patient’s right temporal lobe and the patient exclaimed, “Oh God.

In 2002, a Swiss group also working on patients with epilepsy passed a weak current through a patient’s right angular gyrus, which is where the parietal lobe meets the temporal lobe. This region is also called the temporoparietal junction.

Our brains do such a wonderful job of pinning us in reality that we often forget that the pins are an illusion and can, therefore, sometimes be shaken loose. Blanke, one of the scientists involved in the Swiss experiment, believes, “OBEs are related to a failure to integrate multisensory information from one’s own body at the temporoparietal junction (TPJ).”.

They found “the angular gyrus to be involved in all five patients in whom lesion analysis could be performed.”.

Have you ever asked yourself this question, “Where will our spirit and soul go after our body dies.

Some Holding to Truth readers of our post, “What is the Difference Between the Spirit and the Soul of Man. ” have asked this and related questions in the comments.

“Where will our spirit and the soul go after our body dies.

In Genesis 37:35 Moses writes concerning Jacob,. “And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him.

Thus his father wept for him.”. Again in Psalm 6:5 David said,.

in Sheol who can give thanks to You.”. In Matthew 11:23, Christ rebuked the unbelief of the people of Capernaum saying,.

For if the works of power which took place in you had taken place in Sodom, it would have remained until today.”. Footnote 1 on this verse in the Recovery Version explains what Hades is and the relationship between Hades and Sheol:

37:35. Psa.

Acts 2:27). In Matthew 12:40, the Lord, in comparing Himself to the prophet Jonah, said,.

Footnote 1 on this verse explains what the “heart of the earth” is: The heart of the earth is called “the lower parts of the earth” (Eph.

Footnote 1 on Matthew 12:40 continues to point out from Luke 16:19-31 that there are two sections of Hades: Hades, equal to Sheol in the Old Testament…has two sections, the section of torment and the section of comfort (Luke 16:23-26).

Hence, heart of the earth, lower parts of the earth, Hades, and Paradise are synonymous terms, referring to the place where the Lord stayed for three days and three nights after His death and before His resurrection. In Luke 16:22 the Lord Jesus said,.

and the rich man also died and was buried.”. Footnote 1 on this verse points out that Abraham’s bosom is a a rabbinical phrase, equivalent to being with Abraham in Paradise and tells the reader to see note 1 on verse 4 in 2 Corinthians 12.

“That he was caught away into Paradise and heard unspeakable words, which it is not allowed for a man to speak.”. The beginning of footnote 1 on verse 4 says,.

Acts 2:24, 27, 31. Eph.

Matt. 12:40)….

2) and Paradise (v. 4) are not the same place.

“And in Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham from afar and Lazarus in his bosom.”. However, God does not want even the worst of sinners to suffer in the place of torment.

“And [Jesus] said to him, Truly I say to you, Today you shall be with Me in Paradise.” Luke 23:43. Luke 23:32-43 gives us two responses to Jesus with two outcomes.

The mocking criminal despised Him and perished. But the other criminal believed that Jesus was the Christ with this blessed response,.

43 And He said to him, Truly I say to you, Today you shall be with Me in Paradise. This word of the gospel should give us hope to pray for even the worst of sinners that they may believe into Jesus Christ.

Hades is not the final destination. For the believers, it is simply the resting place where they “sleep,” awaiting the resurrection of life at the Lord’s return (John 5:29).

13 But we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those who are sleeping, that you would not grieve even as the rest who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose, so also those who have fallen asleep through Jesus, God will bring with Him.

16 Because the Lord Himself, with a shout of command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Since the resurrection of the dead and the eternal destiny of God’s redeemed is another vast subject, we’ll have to save those points for another post.

Lord Jesus, we praise you that, as believers in Christ, death and Hades are not our end. They are only a gateway with a comfortable resting place in Paradise until we meet You in resurrection at Your soon appearing.

If you have been helped by a point in this post, please share it in a comment.

In many religious and philosophical traditions, the soul is the spiritual essence of a person, which includes one’s identity, personality, and memories, an immaterial aspect or essence of a living being that is believed to be able to survive physical death. The concept of the soul is generally applied to humans, though it can also be applied to other living or even non-living entities, as in animism.

The Modern English noun soul is derived from Old English sāwol, sāwel. The earliest attestations reported in the Oxford English Dictionary are from the 8th century.

in the Vespasian Psalter 77.50, it means “life” or “animate existence”.

Present-day cognates include Dutch ziel and German Seele.

For example, Thomas Aquinas, borrowing directly from Aristotle’s On the Soul, attributed “soul” (anima) to all organisms but argued that only human souls are immortal. Other religions (most notably Hinduism and Jainism) believe that all living things from the smallest bacterium to the largest of mammals are the souls themselves (Atman, jiva) and have their physical representative (the body) in the world.

Thus if one sees a tiger then there is a self-conscious identity residing in it (the soul), and a physical representative (the whole body of the tiger, which is observable) in the world. Some teach that even non-biological entities (such as rivers and mountains) possess souls.

In the ancient Egyptian religion, an individual was believed to be made up of various elements, some physical and some spiritual. Similar ideas are found in ancient Assyrian and Babylonian religion.

It is one of the earliest references to a soul as a separate entity from the body. The 800-pound (360 kg) basalt stele is 3 ft (0.91 m) tall and 2 ft (0.61 m) wide.

The Baháʼí Faith affirms that “the soul is a sign of God, a heavenly gem whose reality the most learned of men hath failed to grasp, and whose mystery no mind, however acute, can ever hope to unravel”. Bahá’u’lláh stated that the soul not only continues to live after the physical death of the human body but is, in fact, immortal.

and hell as a state of remoteness from God. Each state follows as a natural consequence of individual efforts, or the lack thereof, to develop spiritually.

The traditional doctrine in Buddhism regarding the soul, self or ego is that it is non-existent as a separate, permanent entity. The non-existence of self (anatman), the impermanence of all things (anitya), and the suffering (dukkha) experienced by living beings due to attachment to ideas of self and permanence are central concepts in almost all Buddhist schools.

According to some Christian eschatology, when people die, their souls will be judged by God and determined to go to Heaven or to Hades awaiting a resurrection. The oldest existing branches of Christianity, the Catholic Church and the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches, adhere to this view, as well as many Protestant denominations.

Some Protestant Christians believe that the souls and bodies of the unrighteous will be destroyed in Hell rather than suffering eternally (annihilationism). Believers will inherit eternal life either in Heaven, or in a Kingdom of God on earth, and enjoy eternal fellowship with God.

Paul the Apostle used ψυχή (psychē) and πνεῦμα (pneuma) specifically to distinguish between the Jewish notions of נפש (nephesh) and רוח ruah (spirit) (also in the Septuagint, e.g. Genesis 1:2 רוּחַ אֱלֹהִים = πνεῦμα θεοῦ = spiritus Dei = “the Spirit of God”).

Christians generally believe in the existence and eternal, infinite nature of the soul.

The major theories put forward include soul creationism, traducianism, and pre-existence. According to soul creationism, God creates each individual soul directly, either at the moment of conception or at some later time.

According to the preexistence theory, the soul exists before the moment of conception. There have been differing thoughts regarding whether human embryos have souls from conception, or whether there is a point between conception and birth where the fetus acquires a soul, consciousness, and/or personhood.

Augustine (354-430), one of Western Christianity’s most influential early Christian thinkers, described the soul as “a special substance, endowed with reason, adapted to rule the body”. Some Christians espouse a trichotomic view of humans, which characterizes humans as consisting of a body (soma), soul (psyche), and spirit (pneuma).

Paul said that the “body wars against” the soul, “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit” (Heb 4:12 NASB), and that “I buffet my body”, to keep it under control.

This means that the soul is entirely contained in every single part of the human body, and therefore ubiquitous and cannot be placed in a single organ (heart or brain, etc.), nor it is separable from the body (except after the body’s death).

The present Catechism of the Catholic Church states that the term soul. All souls living and dead will be judged by Jesus Christ when he comes back to earth.

Protestants generally believe in the soul’s existence and immortality, but fall into two major camps about what this means in terms of an afterlife. Some, following John Calvin, believe that the soul persists as consciousness after death.

Various new religious movements deriving from Adventism — including Christadelphians, Seventh-day Adventists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses — similarly believe that the dead do not possess a soul separate from the body and are unconscious until the resurrection.

“The spirit and the body are the soul of man.” Latter-day Saints believe that the soul is the union of a pre-existing, God-made spirit and a temporal body, which is formed by physical conception on earth.

This reuniting of body and spirit results in a perfect soul that is immortal, and eternal, and capable of receiving a fulness of joy.

These are co-eternal with God, and animate the spirits. The union of a newly-created spirit body with an eternally-existing intelligence constitutes a “spirit birth”[citation needed] and justifies God’s title “Father of our spirits”.

Some Confucian traditions contrast a spiritual soul with a corporeal soul.

In Hindu philosophy, especially in the Vedanta school of Hinduism, Ātman is the first principle, the true self of an individual beyond identification with phenomena, the essence of an individual. In order to attain liberation (moksha), a human being must acquire self-knowledge (atma jnana), which is to realize that one’s true self (Ātman) is identical with the transcendent se.

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” ~ Robert Frost. If you have found your way to this article, it is probably because you think you might be going through what is often referred to as “The Dark Night Of The Soul.” You’re looking for answers.

You might even feel desperate, hopeless, and helpless. Well, to that I say: I am glad you are here.

While there is some information out there about this spiritual journey, I personally don’t think there is enough. Dark Night sojourners need to hear from those of us who have survived the darkness and experienced a true awakening as a result.

I have written it JUST for you. I want to answer your very important question – “What is The Dark Night Of the Soul.

You are not going crazy. (Well, you kinda are – but in a good way.

Plus, I want to provide you with some crucial survival tips that might bring you some comfort along your journey. So, with that said, I ask that you proceed with an open mind.

By the way, my name is Bethany and I am a recovering addict. Consider me as a kind of personal tour guide that will help you understand The Dark Night Of The Soul experience.

Surviving The Dark Night Of The Soul changed my life. It was a true blessing.

Mother Theresa, St. John of the Cross and Eckart Tolle are some of the most famous.

Keep in mind that not everyone travels this very personal journey. It is generally only bestowed upon those who have a strong desire to seek a spiritual path.

This term comes from a poem written by St. John of the Cross in the 1500s.

Nevertheless, there is one line that speaks to me, which I believe explains the experience perfectly: I abandoned myself. The driving force behind this dark journey is what many mystics and religious scholars refer to as “ego death.” This death must happen so that your soul can be reawakened.

The Dark Night Of The Soul is equally as complicated as it is simplistic. It is a paradox in its truest form.

You have to die to self so you can truly live. You have to experience great loss so you can gain everything.

You must abandon yourself to find yourself. Welcome to Bizarro World.

I will give you the best answer I possibly can to this question. Just know that my response will no make real sense to you until “Tomorrow” comes and your Dark Night is over.

Here is a longer explanation: The Dark Night Of The Soul is the space between who you were and who you will become. You will have to completely let go of your old self to embrace a more enlightened self.

Though it may not feel like it now, YOU WILL come back together again. But, first – you have to fall apart.

During your journey between Point A and Point B, you will feel as though you have been abandoned by God. Even if you don’t consider yourself a believer, you will feel a wretched emptiness that leaves you feeling as if you have been cut off from your own life force.

It is soulwork in one of its purest forms. In the darkness, you will feel as if you are going absolutely insane.

The very building blocks of who you are as a human being will tumble and fall. You will feel confused, bewildered, angry, desperate, helpless, and hopeless.

It may be hard to understand, but while you are in the darkness, you don’t have to “do” anything. It will be “done unto you.” No logical sense can be made of what happens during The Dark Night Of The Soul.

Many mistake this experience for clinical depression – and for good reason. The Dark Night Of The Soul reaches into the core of your being and fills you with an agonizing form of sadness.

It mimics all the symptoms of depression. You may be experiencing some of these “symptoms”:.

They are wrongly diagnosed with depression and are usually given antidepressants. The thing is, the problem is not in your head.

Your situation is not the result of some kind of biological malady. It is happening because you are in the process of an incredibly painful spiritual transformation.

Of course, everyone experiences The Dark Night Of The Soul differently. We all come to the darkness with our own unique set of circumstances that must be resolved.

However. I hope this list has helped you assess your current reality.

If you DO NOT feel that there is a strong spiritual aspect to your current condition, you may be suffering from depression. To be on the safe side, it never hurts to talk to a doctor to find out.

Depression, on the other hand, should be treated by a mental healthcare professional.

In fact, for awhile, I thought I was cursed. I was enveloped with an overwhelming sadness that shook me to the core.

This introspection left me free-falling through an infinite void every single day for exactly one year of my life (to the day. ).

During the process, I smoked crazy weed. (Marijuana addiction is not a myth.

I popped enough Xanax to kill an elephant. Yet, no amount of intoxicants would numb the pain my Dark Night Of The Soul was delivering by the metaphysical truckload.

That was four years ago. Today, I am a completely different person.

Of course, it doesn’t really matter whether or not you have ever had an addiction to drugs or alcohol. I am only sharing what happened for me.

You will be shown whatever it is you need to see while you are in the darkness. For example, if you have low self-esteem, you will be shown how loved you are.

If you are a workaholic, you will come to understand that family is more valuable. If you’re greedy, you will become more generous.

That being said, if you ARE struggling with chemical dependency, going on this journey is likely to get you fired up about getting clean and staying clean. At least it did for me.

Now that you have a better understanding of The Dark Night Of The Soul, I want to share a kind of survival guide to help you along. I think having this information will make the darkness easier to navigate.

Strange as it may seem, the pain you are experiencing is actually a blessing – and I wouldn’t want to rob you of that. Nevertheless, I am a passionate advocate for suicide prevention.

They never make it to their Tomorrow because the pain overwhelms them. They see no way out except death.

It will get worse before it gets better. This is why I have put together this survival guide.

Remember, no matter how dark The Night, the sun always rises again. So, without further ado, here are 11 suggestions I highly recommend for those of you who are traveling through darkness:.

Most people have not heard about this ascent to higher consciousness. This is because m.

Black cloak. Scythe.

The Grim Reaper is the classic visage of death in Western culture, but it’s far from the only one. Ancient societies personified death in a myriad of ways.

Norse mythology the gloomy and reclusive Hel, and Hindu traditions sport the wildly ornate King Yama. Modern science has de-personified death, pulling back its cloak to discover a complex pattern of biological and physical processes that separate the living from the deceased.

Many of us imagine death will be like drifting to sleep. Your head gets heavy.

A final breath and then … lights out. It sounds perversely pleasant.

Sam Parnia, the director of critical care and resuscitation research at NYU Langone Medical Center, researches death and has proposed that our consciousness sticks around while we die. This is due to brainwaves firing in the cerebral cortex — the conscious, thinking part of the brain — for roughly 20 seconds after clinical death.

If such states occur in humans, it may be evidence that the brain maintains a lucid consciousness during death’s early stages. It may also explain how patients brought back from the brink can remember events that took place while they were technically dead.

“In the same way that a group of researchers might be studying the qualitative nature of the human experience of ‘love,’ for instance, we’re trying to understand the exact features that people experience when they go through death, because we understand that this is going to reflect the universal experience we’re all going to have when we die,” he told LiveScience.

Image source: Wikimedia Commons). Recently at the Yale School of Medicine, researchers received 32 dead pig brains from a nearby slaughterhouse.

They’d placed the order in the hopes of giving the brains a physiological resurrection. The researchers connected the brains to an artificial perfusion system called BrainEx.

This system revitalized the brains and kept some of their cells “alive” for as long as 36 hours postmortem. The cells consumed and metabolized sugars.

And some samples were even able to carry electrical signals. Because the researchers weren’t aiming for Animal Farm with Zombies, they included chemicals in the solution that prevented neural activity representative of consciousness from taking place.

With it, we may be able to develop new treatments for brain injuries and neurodegenerative conditions. Researchers used zebrafish to gain insights into postmortem gene expression.

There is life after death. No, science hasn’t discovered proof of an afterlife or how much the soul weighs.

A study published in the Royal Society’s Open Biology looked at gene expression in dead mice and zebrafish. The researchers were unsure if gene expression diminished gradually or stopped altogether.

Over a thousand genes became more active after death. In some cases, these spiked expressions lasted for up to four days.

“Can you imagine, 24 hours after [time of death] you take a sample and the transcripts of the genes are actually increasing in abundance. That was a surprise.”.

Noble and his co-authors suggest this shows that the body undergoes a “step-wise shutdown,” meaning vertebrates die gradually and not all at once. Even our genes will eventually fade, and all that we are will become clay.

You’re not alone, but you may take solace in the fact that part of you will continue on long after your death. Your energy.

It is transformed. As comedian and physicist Aaron Freeman explains in his “Eulogy from a Physicist“:

that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world.

Facing the Fear of Death in Virtual Realityyoutu.be. Near-death experiences come in a variety of styles.

Some go to a supernatural realm and meet passed-on relatives. Others enjoy the classic dark-tunnel-bright-light scenario.

A study published in Neurology suggests near-death experiences stem from a type of sleep-wake state. It compared survivors who had near-death experiences with those who did not.

“People who have near-death experiences may have an arousal system that predisposes them to REM intrusion,” Kevin Nelson, professor at the University of Kentucky and the study’s lead author, told the BBC. It’s worth noting that the study does have its limitations.

These highlight key difficulties in studying near-death experiences. Such experiences are rare and cannot be induced in a controlled setting.

The result is sparse data opened to a lot of interpretation, but it is unlikely that the soul enjoys a postmortem romp. One experiment installed pictures on high shelves in 1,000 hospital rooms.

No cardiac arrest survivor reported seeing the images. Then again, if they did manage to sever their fleshy fetters, they may have had more pressing matters to attend to.

Image source: Cocoparisienne / Pixabay. We’re still not sure, but eye witness accounts suggest the answer may be yes.

This observation led the researchers to conclude the elephants had a “generalized response” to death. Dolphins too have been seen guarding deceased members of their species.

No other species has been observed performing human-like memorial rituals, which requires abstract thought, but these events suggest animals possess a unique understanding of and response to death. As Jason Goldman writes for BBC, “[F]or every facet of life that is unique to our species, there are hundreds that are shared with other animals.

Anthropologist Donald Brown has studied human cultures and discovered hundreds of features shared by each and every one. Among them, every culture has its own way to honor and mourn the dead.

Humans or another hominin in our ancestral lineage. That answer is difficult because it is shrouded in the fog of our prehistorical past.

Several fossils of this extinct hominin were discovered in a cave chamber at the Rising Star Cave system, Cradle of Humankind, South Africa. To access the chamber required a vertical climb, a few tight fits, and much crawling.

They also ruled out geological traps like cave-ins. Given the seemingly deliberate placement, some have concluded the chamber served as a Homo naledi graveyard.

The medieval Danse Macabre fresco at the Holy Trinity Church in Hrastovlje, Solvenia. (Photo: Marco Almbauer/Wikimedia Commons).

We are alive. therefore, we are not dead.

People afflicted with Cotard’s syndrome don’t see the divide so cleanly. This rare condition was first described by Dr.

This nihilistic delusion manifests in a prevailing sense of hopelessness, neglect of health, and difficulty dealing with external reality. In one case, a 53-year-old Filipino woman with Cotard’s syndrome believed herself to smell like rotting fish and wished to be brought to the morgue so she could be with her kind.

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Who is in heaven today. Does the soul sleep in the grave.

When a person stops living in this world, he or she goes either to heaven or to hell and then waits for judgment before God. The Bible reveals that the soul does not sleep.

There are some passages in the Bible which seem to teach that the soul sleeps after death. For example in 1 Corinthians 11:28-30 the apostle told the believers in Corinth that anyone who took communion with unrepentant sin must examine himself.

Now Paul does not mean literal sleep but death. But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep. 1 Corinthians 11:28-30 (NASB).

The next level of seriousness is not sleeping but death. Another passage that seems to refer to soul sleep is 1 Corinthians 15:18-21.

If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied. But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep.

1 Corinthians 15:18-21 (NASB). Verse 18 directly connects “fallen asleep” with “have perished.” Verse 20 also connects “the dead” with “those who are asleep.” That is, “sleep” and “asleep” can refer to what most humans do at night when we lie down in a bed and remain there for eight hours until the morning.

Another example is 1 Thessalonians 4:13-16. But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve, as do the rest who have no hope.

For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

Verses 13 and 15 refer to believers being “asleep.” Anyone reading these verses would think the Bible teaches that our spirits sleep after death. Those who come to that conclusion have missed verse 16 which connects “asleep” to “the dead.”.

This He said, and after that He said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep. but I go, that I may awaken him out of sleep.” The disciples therefore said to Him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that He was speaking of literal sleep.

Jesus meant that Lazarus was physically dead. He used both sleep and death for the same situation.

27:52. Acts 13:36).

Enoch is a great example of one that God took to heaven and who did not die. He left this earth and went to heaven.

AND HE WAS NOT FOUND BECAUSE GOD TOOK HIM UP.

Hebrews 11:5 (NASB). Enoch was not sleeping but went to heaven.

Elijah was not sleeping in a grave. In Matthew 17:1-4 we are told that Moses and Elijah were talking with Jesus.

2 Corinthians 5:6-8 says that when a Christian dies he or she is instantly with the Lord in heaven. It is wonderful to know that when we die we go to be with God.

2 Corinthians 5:6-8 (NASB). To be absent from the body means that a Christian’s “soul,” actually our spirit, leaves our physical body and goes to heaven.

They go to Hades or hell. That is the message of the parable of Lazarus and the rich man.

Also, in the parable Jesus reveals that both men could think, communicate and feel pain. The apostle Paul had a great passion in his heart to be with Jesus.

But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better. yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake.

He wanted to be with Jesus. It will be wonderful for Christians to be with Jesus some day – to be with our God and Savior.

Will I see you in heaven.

God’s Word states that after Adam was created, he became a living soul when his body, which God made out of dust, received breath from God (Genesis 2:7). Before this life-giving breath came from God, there was no “Adam.” He became an individual (a soul) when body and breath came together.

It is specific to each person. It never leaves his or her body and it dies when the person dies.

The fact the soul is this all-in-one combination of body and God’s life-giving breath is a big deal. The Bible teaches us to think holistically about the soul and the lives we live.

Let’s take a closer look at what the Bible says about the soul.

Body + Breath of Life = Living Soul. If you have a look at the original languages the Bible was written in, terms sometimes translated as “soul” actually meant “life” or “person.” Two examples come to mind:

However, they can also be translated as “life” or “person.”. Looking at the original Hebrew and Greek as well as the various uses of these terms helps us get to a more comprehensive view of who we are as humans.

In Hebrew, the way to say “Let me live” (I Kings 20:32) is “Let my soul live.” See how the use of “soul” here ties into a person’s overall existence.

It actually means “that I may bless you.”. The use of the word “soul” is speaking to someone’s complete identity.

Another way to look at this is that humans do not have a soul but are a soul (1 Corinthians 15:45. Genesis 2:7).

Now that we know what a soul is, let’s look further at how the Bible describes it: The “soul” can weep (Jeremiah 13:17).

“Souls” can be taken captive (Jeremiah 52:28-30).

And yes, the “soul” can die (Ezekiel 18:4. James 5:20.

Psalm 89:48. Job 36:14.

21:1, 11).

The book of Proverbs says, “The laborer’s appetite works for him” (Proverbs 16:26).

The Bible talks about the soul here as a whole person who needs, wishes for, and craves things. Nephesh is also translated as “soul” in other places in the Bible, and that it has feelings.

Here, the word for “desire” is also nephesh. In this context, the Hebrew word means “desire” or “greed.”.

Souls are what make us human. The soul isn’t something that exists independently of the body.

It’s also important to realize that as far as the Bible is concerned, the soul does not last forever. Because it is a complete form of body + breath = life, it dies as the body dies.

It is part of a fundamental deception that has been around since the start of humanity. Satan lied to Eve right in the Garden of Eden, telling her she wouldn’t die if she ate the forbidden fruit.

This was clearly an empty promise as humans became mortal as soon as Adam and Eve ate this fruit. Mortality started as a result of deception.

There’s 1 Timothy 6:14-16, where we learn that God alone possesses immortality. As things currently stand, we humans are mortal.

Simple as that.

As in, we as humans, do not have it now.

Their consciousness ends.

they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, their hatred, and their envy have now perished.

Quite the sobering message, right.

The Bible teaches that eternal life is a gift Christ offers us. Without this gift, we simply do not continue to live in any way after we die (Romans 6:23.

5:24. 1 John 5:11, 12).

Our “souls” go to sleep when we die. And if we accept Christ’s sacrifice, we can have the hope that we’ll wake up again at His Second Coming.

Ancestor worship, for example, is a common belief and practice. This is based on the idea that relatives who have died still keep living, though their lives are now within a different plane of existence.

It’s considered very important to worship these deceased relatives to ensure their favor and have them intervene positively for the family members still alive. Immortality of the soul was also expressed in human sacrifices.

Ancient philosophy is full of references of the immortality of the soul. The Greek philosopher Plato saw the body as the prison of the soul and believed the soul was set free from this imprisonment at death.

He reasoned that because the soul is capable of understanding scientific truth, and truth, according to Plato, was immortal, the soul had to be immortal. Plato taught his students that the body and the “immortal soul” separate when a person dies.

It is thought that this process of belief infiltration started around the 3rd century AD, as Platonic philosophy popped up in Christian teachings about the soul. The Italian philosopher and Catholic Priest, Thomas Aquinas, further cemented this belief in the 13th century.

A little later, the Roman Catholic Church officially proclaimed the doctrine of the immortality of the soul as truth in 1513. This Catholic doctrine has also heavily influenced Protestant churches, many of which also believe the soul does not die.

In the 1500s, Leonardo da Vinci thought he could find the human soul by dissecting the brain. He was influenced by a common belief of his time that the soul was located in the center of the head.

Fast-forward to 1907 and Duncan MacDougall, an American physician from Haverhill, Massachusetts became convinced the soul had physical weight.

He suggested, based on his attempt to measure the mass lost at the point of death, that the soul weighs 21 grams. As you can see, human theories about physical properties of the soul and where it is located have varied widely.

The Bible describes the soul differently. It makes no reference to the soul as a physical part of the human body that takes up space or has physical weight.

It’s not a “part” of the body, but all of a person’s existence.

If you want to strengthen your soul and live a richer life, it’s important to treat our whole person with respect and care. Part of this holistic care includes eating a clean diet, exercise, education, maintaining healthy relationships, and managing time so we don’t get burned out or overworked.

Looking after your soul also means taking time to worship God, and spend quality time with family and friends.

It doesn’t mean we are God, or that we’re walking containers for God’s spirit. We are souls created in the image of God but we most definitely are not God.

According to the Bible, the soul and the spirit work together. A person’s “spirit” is his or her life force.

This life force comes from God (Isaiah 42:5) and goes back to Him when we die (Ecclesiastes 12:7. Psalm 104:29.

But at no point does the spirit do anything of its own power, such as the way many stories portray a ghost of someone after they die. This life force connects the body and makes the soul, and the soul without the life force is dead.

Again,. Physical Body + Breath of Life from God = Human Soul.

The spirit of life God gives us is not just the ability to live, but also what gives us an individual identity as humans. It allows us to think and feel.