AUSTIN GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY

IF RESURRECTION OF THE BODY,

WHY IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL?

INTRODUCTION TO THEOLOGY

MICHAEL WEED, Ph.D.

BY
SERGIO N. LONGORIA

AUSTIN, TEXAS

APRIL 23, 2010

 1

IF RESURRECTION OF THE BODY, WHY IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL?

The very title of this essay presupposes that the concept of the immortality of the soul is

somehow opposite to the concept of the resurrection of the body. For many in the church,

however, the immortality of the soul is precisely tied or bound up in the concept of the

resurrection of the body. That being the case, it is possible that many church people would find

the question in the title of this paper puzzling, strange, or perhaps even as theological double-talk.

Of course the soul is immortal some would say, and there is also a resurrection of the

body—there is both! To get a feel for what church members may actually think on the subject, I

asked some people in the church to answer a few questions regarding their understanding of the

immortality of the soul. Without hesitation, every single one of them answered that they

believed in the immortality of the soul. In their view the soul either goes to heaven after death or

to hell depending upon the person’s acceptance of the message of the gospel. Some did not

know where the soul was before the person is born, others thought that God created the soul

when a person is conceived or born. At least in one case, the connection was made between a

person being “saved” and the soul gaining immortality as a consequence. It would appear then

that the soul is not thought to be inherently immortal for some church people, but only becomes

so after one accepts the message of salvation.1

1
This of course creates a problem. If only the souls of the righteous are immortal, what
do we make of passages that suggest that the wicked will also be raised to stand judgment? Do
the wicked also have an immortal soul? If not, does that amount to annihilation? This is beyond
the scope of this paper, but it does pose an interesting question for further investigation within
the traditional understanding of soul.
 2

Of great curiosity was also the question posed as to whether they believed that there was

such a thing as “soul” and what it was. Again without hesitation everyone made the positive

affirmation that the soul does indeed exist. But the answer to what the soul is evoked many

different responses. Some thought that the soul was “life” but without anymore qualifiers it is

difficult to know what it was meant. Among the responses received were that the soul is the

personality of the person, the mind, an incorporeal entity that is us, the heart, the breath, the spirit,

the life, the breath that God breathes on a person at birth, that which connects a person to God,

the true self, etc. It is impossible to qualify each term in this essay, but suffice it to say that it is

quite diverse. These answers, together with those above regarding the immortality of the soul,

seem to point in the direction of an understanding where the soul is an entity separable from the

body at death which is capable of an independent life in heaven.

It is my purpose in this paper to examine some of the ideas that gave rise to the traditional

concept of the soul, which is exemplified by the answers given above, and how this may be

interpreted as providing personal continuity in formulating a concept of the immortality of the

soul from a Christian point of view. I also want to show how this idea is either opposed or

somehow complements the New Testament teaching of the resurrection of the body. It is my

contention that the traditional concept of soul is unnecessary in light of the Christian hope of the

resurrection. And that the resurrection of the body alone is the correct interpretation of the

Christian hope of immortality. I will try to establish as best as possible what is understood to be

the soul in the conception of the ancient Greeks, the Hebrews and later the early Christians. The

task is a formidable one and it is not intended to be exhaustive. But it will be enough to give us

an idea of the wide meaning and concept of the word, and how this can be spoken of intelligently

in the dialog concerning the immortality of the soul or the resurrection of the body.
 3

What is the Soul?

A cursory reading of any encyclopedia or dictionary will immediately bring up the fact

that the concept of soul is a confusing and complex one. But in the popular conception of our

day, indeed for much of Christianity’s history, soul and body are a dichotomy in which the soul

is opposed to the body and can exist separately and distinctly from the body; almost as if the soul

has its own incorporeal existence as an entity that somehow represents the real person.2 There is

little direct teaching in the Bible on the subject, but much of Christian theology has relegated the

body to the realm of this world as something intrinsically sinful and the soul as trapped within

the shell of the body seeking escape back to the spiritual realm. This is appears to be more of a

Greek idea than a biblical one.

The Platonic idea describes the soul as the true indestructible self which is imprisoned or

trapped in the body for a time until death releases the soul from the body.3 According to

Platonists, the naturally immortal soul was previously in the world of ideas, was enclosed in the

body as if in a prison, and the salvation or liberation of the self meant the release of the soul from

the earthly existence in the body. In this sense the body was depicted as bad while the soul was

good.4 From this derives the idea that all things material were thought to be bad while their

2
Tertullian spoke of a “corporeal” soul. But it is not my intent to follow each of the finer
points of the notion of soul, but only those that have been more influential through a more
Thomistic understanding of incorporeal soul.
3
E. A. Livingstone, ed., “Soul,” in Concise Dictionary of the Christian Church, 2nd ed.
(New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2006).
4
Hierotheos S. Vlachos, Life After Death, trans. Esther Williams (Levadia-Hellas: Birth
of the Theotokos Monastery, 2000), 213.
 4

perfect counterparts in the world of ideas were good. In this understanding the material world is

evil while the spiritual world is good; a dichotomy that has surfaced in the church at various

times throughout its history. Platonic and neo-platonic understandings of the soul in the church

are behind the teachings of Origen, who viewed the soul as pure mind and also thought that the

soul was pre-existent; a view that was later condemned by the church.5 Wolfson says that the

church’s concept of the soul common to all the church fathers is essentially Platonic. And that

the main characteristic of that Platonic conception is its separability from the body.6

A modified Platonic view came to be accepted in the church after the post-Nicene era in

which the soul came to be viewed as the true self and immortal, but not as pre-existing as in

Origen and the Platonic conception.7 According to St. Thomas Aquinas the soul is an individual

spiritual substance.8 Both the body and the soul constitute the human entity, but the soul may be

separated from the body and lead a separate existence from the body. In contrast to the Greek

idea of an intrinsically eternal soul, the soul is created by God in Aquinas.9 It can be seen that

the idea that the soul is a “thing” an “entity” a “spiritual substance” that exists separate from the

body is quite ancient, and has been carried over into the Christian conception of the soul even to

this day. Jaeger states that what we call the Platonic conception of the soul is actually not

5
C. M. Robeck, Jr., “Soul,” in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, ed.
Geoffrey Bromiley, vol. 4, 4 vols. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing
Co., 1986)
6
Harry A. Wolfson, “Immortality and Resurrection in the Philosophy of the Church
Fathers,” in Immortality and Resurrection, ed. Krister Stendahl (New York, NY: The Mcmillan
Company, 1965), 79.
7
Livingstone, “Soul.”
8
Spiritual as opposed to corporeal. Tertullian had postulated that the soul was corporeal
rather than spiritual.
9
Livingstone, “Soul.”
 5

original with Plato, but rather is original with the mystery religions of the East coming to the

West in the Orphic religion of the ancient Greeks and given a more systematic treatment by Plato

and his disciples.10 But is Aquinas’ conception of the soul biblical? By extension, is the

church’s concept of the soul as a spiritual substance biblical? Or is the term soul a way to

describe various aspects of the human existence? Perhaps this can best be explained by looking

at the concepts of the immortality of the soul.

The Immortality of the Soul

In citing professor Wilken, Robert Hoerber agrees that it has become fashionable in

Christian circles to deny that there is immortality of the soul in favor of the resurrection of the

body.11 He claims that this is an artificial distinction because the Greek concept of immortality

as professor Cullman presented it at the Ingersoll Lectures is not what the church means by

immortality of the soul. Therefore, Hoerber charges that Cullman has equivocated in his use of

the concepts in his attack of the church’s idea of the immortality of the soul. Because the

church’s concept is not at all the concept of the Platonic Greeks, not to mention that not all

Greeks were Platonic.12 That is, Hoerber contends that the church’s understanding of soul and

its immortality is more Thomistic than Platonic; and thus Cullman’s indictment of the church’s

claim of the immortality of the soul is misguided. Yet, in pointing out the distinction between

the Platonic view of the soul and the scriptural teaching on the soul, Hoerber states that Cullman

10
Werner Jaeger, “The Greek Ideas of Immortality,” in Immortality and Resurrection, ed.
Krister Stendahl (New York, NY: The Mcmillan Company, 1965), 103.
11
Robert G. Hoerber, “Immortality and Resurrection : A Critical Exegetical Study.,”
Concordia Journal 3, no. 2 (March 1, 1977): 56-70.
12
Ibid.
 6

has made a major contribution to correct biblical exegesis.13 Hoerber, however, fails to concede

that even the Thomistic approach has much of Greek philosophy. And I believe that Cullman

was trying to point this out to the extent that we should look only at what the Bible actually

teaches about the immortality of the soul and resurrection, claiming that what has crept into the

church regarding the immortality of the soul came from Greek philosophy. And I would suggest,

with Cullman, that it is precisely what came from Greece regarding the immortality of the soul

through figures such as Origen and Aquinas that has survived to this day.

I do take issue with both Cullman and Hoerber in that they have not properly identified

what they mean by soul. Or what exactly is the biblical teaching of the soul. Cullman states that

the New Testament concept of soul should more properly be called the “inner-man”14 and

Hoerber seems to simply assume that we all know what that means, except for professor Cullman.

But one can hardly blame them for this since no one seems to be able to properly define what the

soul is, and I do not pretend to be able to do so here either, except to say that it appears to be a

construct. That is, it seems that the concept of a soul separate from the body, no matter what

Christian nuances we place on it such as Aquinas’ notions, seems to have added a factor that

perhaps need not have been added to Christian doctrine. I am reminded of Occam’s Razor’s

maxim which states that “entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity” (entia non sunt

multiplicanda praeter necessitatem) and the conclusion thereof, that the simplest solution is

13
Ibid.
14
Oscar Cullman, “Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Body?,” in Immortality
and Resurrection, ed. Krister Stendahl (New York, NY: The Mcmillan Company, 1965), 24.
 7

usually the correct one.15 It might be simpler to leave the traditional concept of soul out of

Christian doctrine.

Is the concept of the soul as traditionally understood in Christian doctrine since Aquinas

(as a detachable part of the person living a separate existence) necessary to complement the

biblical idea of the resurrection of the body? Although the idea of a soul may be present in the

Scriptures themselves, this is not quite developed either in the Old Testament or the New

Testament.16 The Hebrews regarded the person as a whole rather than as made of parts such as

body and soul.17 In the New Testament, the concept is more closely related to the Hebrews than

with the Greeks.18 Therefore, it is possible that the soul as classically understood does not

actually exist and was added to Christian doctrine in order to explain immortality or to explain

other aspects of humanness that could best be described by terms such as mind, heart, self, etc.

But as we should see, I do not believe that it is necessary to expound a theory of the soul in order

to give meaning to the resurrection of the body. Whatever the soul may be understood as in

other contexts, it is not necessary as the residing place of the “true self” in order to provide the

platform for explaining the resurrection of the body.

In the introduction to his book on the Ingersoll Lectures, professor Stendahal admonishes

15
"Ockham’s razor." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2010. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
(Accessed 9 Apr. 2010) http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/424706/Ockhams-razor.
16
Van A. Harvey, ed., “Soul,” in A Handbook of Theological Terms (New York, NY:
Touchstone, 1997).
17
Robin Routledge, Old Testament Theology: A Thematic Approach (Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 2008), 143.
18
Harvey, “Soul.”
 8

the readers to keep watch over what questions the several lecturers seek to answer.19 With that

admonition in mind, what is the purpose in introducing the element of soul, as separate from the

body, to the concept of the resurrection of the body? What question are the theologians

attempting to answer when they postulate the existence of a substance called soul? I suggest that

Christian theologians were attempting to provide a means to link the old body to the new

resurrected one without loss of the traits that made that person unique. That is, what is the

underlying “substance” that is present both in the old body and the new one that provides a

means of continuity between the old and the new? The answer for them was the soul, a ready

made concept easy to borrow from Greek thought, only with pertinent modifications. After all, if

a person dies and there is nothing left of that person, not even its substance, how can the person

live again? The soul then provides a means for “something” to be used again by God. It

provides the necessary continuity between what was and what it to come. But is this what we

read in the New Testament? This idea seems to cheapen the work of Christ and limit our

understanding of what God can do.

One of the criticisms of the idea of the immortality of the soul, even a Christian

conception of it, is that since this “substance” we call soul is actually not destroyed at the time of

the body’s death, that death isn’t all that dreadful because the “self” (or soul) goes on to have a

blessed existence beyond.20 We do not actually die we just live on in a different form of

existence, namely, as disembodied souls. It somehow makes death seem not so terrible, not the

final enemy that must be destroyed as the Bible clearly states (1 Corinthians. 15:26). Guthrie

19
Krister Stendahl, ed., Immortality and Resurrection (The Mcmillan Company, 1965),
1-8.
20
Shirley C. Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, Revised. (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press,
1994), 379.
 9

says that “biblically based Christian faith rejects hope in the immortality of the soul because that

doctrine denies the terrible reality of death.”21 Indeed, Cullman has a whole section in his lecture

in which he compares the way in which Jesus faced death and that of Socrates. He says that “the

evangelists, who nevertheless intended to present Jesus as the Son of God, have not tried to

soften the terribleness of his thoroughly human death.”22 And although Hoerber contends that

this portrayal of Aristotle is not typical of the everyday Greeks of the time, I think the point that

Cullman is trying to make is clear and it’s the same Guthrie makes. By accepting the teaching of

an immortal soul, even one with Christian overtones, we seem to say that death is not that bad

after all because we do not actually die, but we only “pass on” to the next life.23 This seems to

deny the claim by St. Paul that Christ’s death and resurrection is what has taken away the sting

of death and sin (1 Corinthians 15:55). Our soul’s immortality, gained through our acceptance of

the gospel, is actually what takes away the sting of death. This doctrine then relies on the

immortality of our souls to continue to live after we die, rather than in the power of God to re-

make us according to His power. It doesn’t require a new act of creation by God.24 Even so,

Aquinas argued that the soul cannot live in a disembodied state forever.

The Thomistic approach seems to have thought that the soul, as a substance, cannot

remain ultimately separated from the body.25 This, presumably taken from St. Paul’s second

letter to the Corinthians in which he states:

21
Ibid.
22
Cullman, “Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Body?,” 18.
23
Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, 379.
24
Cullman, “Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Body?” 19.
25
Livingstone, “Soul.”
 10

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building
from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan,
longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found
naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would
be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be
swallowed up by life. (2 Corinthians 5:1-4) ESV

This section is thought to refer to the soul’s longing for a new body after the original one is

destroyed. The “tent” is the body and the heavenly dwelling is the new body. The new life in

the resurrected body being here referred to by St. Paul metaphorically as “life” and the opposite

of “what is mortal.” Unfortunately, this passage is written in the language of metaphor and it is

not all together clear what exactly St. Paul is referring to here. The passage could as easily be

referring to our longing to be freed from the burdens of this life and the joys of the glory of the

life to come. This is in fact, the general aim of St. Paul’s discourse in this section. He is

admonishing the Corinthians to persevere knowing that there is a life better than this one to

which they will be ushered-in in due time when we all partake of the final resurrection.

It may be that St. Paul is using Greek conceptions of the difference between the eternal

and the temporal, but it is not right to ascribe to him a theological anthropology which

incorporates a dichotomy a la Plato against the whole witness of Scripture. Scripture’s

anthropology rests on concepts foreign to the idea that the “real” person is the soul and that the

person is then “trapped” into this shell we call body. The Hebrews did make distinction between

the life (nephesh) of man (sometimes translated soul), flesh (basar) and even spirit (ruha), the

wind or breath that gives life. The word translated soul from Latin is anima, from Greek it’s

psyche, and from Hebrew is nephesh although translated into the English “soul” is not always

consistent.26 Nowhere in the Old Testament or in the New Testament does this mean an entity

26
Routledge, Old Testament Theology: A Thematic Approach, 143-147.
 11

which can be separated from the body and can have its own existence conscious and separate

from the body.

Guthrie explains that in the Christian concept of the soul when we die the soul “departs.”

But this does not mean that the immortal divine part of us has left us to live somewhere else.

Given the use of words by the biblical writers, it simply means that life has left us, that our lives

have come to an end.27 The nephesh is gone, the psyche is gone, and our life is over. In this

sense then, even Christian theologians like Aquinas have misunderstood the concept of soul and

have created elaborate constructs to define it and understand it. This is what I mean when I say

that we may not need the concept of soul as understood by these theologians, the biblical

concepts of life and breath may be enough in the biblical context. Simply put, the soul is the life

of my body. When I die, the soul, the life, also dies along with my body.28 Our hope for life

eternal must be found somewhere else. And this hope is what St. Paul describes as the

resurrection of the body.

The Resurrection of the Body

I asked above what was the nature of the question for which the concept of the soul was

the answer. Perhaps it was an attempt to provide a link or continuity between the old body and

the new one. It seems that some Christian theologians found that the soul should provide this

link. But in Scripture, this is provided by God’s power to create. As Cullman insists, our

immortality is based on a new act of creation by God and not on any quality of the soul. Nor is

27
Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, 379. I do not intend to go into a detailed exegesis of this
concept as found throughout Scripture, but only to touch on some conclusions by others.
28
Ibid.
 12

our immortality dependant upon our “soul.”29 Rather our immortality depends solely upon

God’s new act of creation. This new act of creation calls into existence that which was destroyed.

A picture of God’s power to do this is given to us by Ezekiel:

The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the LORD
and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. And he led me around
among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold,
they were very dry. And he said to me, "Son of man, can these bones live?" And I
answered, "O Lord GOD, you know." Then he said to me, "Prophesy over these bones,
and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. Thus says the Lord GOD to
these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay
sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and
put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the LORD." So I
prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a
rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked, and behold, there
were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them. But
there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son
of man, and say to the breath, thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O
breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live." So I prophesied as he commanded
me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly
great army. (Ezekiel 37:1-10) ESV

This passage is a picture of the restoration of Israel in the Old Testament and a picture of God’s

power to restore, by a new act of creation, that which was dead or destroyed. This doctrine gives

full force to St. Paul’s assertion that death is the last enemy to be conquered. That death is real,

terrible, and unnatural, and that God will right this wrong by a new act of creation. He will give

us new bodies and new life.

People’s “souls” are not disembodied awaiting to be embodied somewhere, rather the

New Testament explains that the bodies metaphorically sleep or wait until the resurrection. The

fact is they are dead; their bodies are in the grave. In fact, those of us alive are also awaiting the

resurrection. At the appointed time heaven and earth will also be re-created. But that a loved

one awaits the resurrection without the “soul” being present with God may be a hard saying for

29
Cullman, “Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Body?” 19.
 13

some and difficult to accept despite the evidence in Scripture. We are so accustomed to think

that the soul can be separated from the body and live independently. Yet, there is no suggestion

in the New Testament that when Jesus died, his soul returned to God while leaving behind his

body in the tomb. Rather the New Testament tells us that God raised Jesus in bodily form from

the dead and that it was in this new resurrected body that Jesus returned to God.30

Awaiting the resurrection in the grave as opposed to being in the presence of God as a

disembodied soul has caused many to reject this notion in spite of biblical evidence. But to deal

with this rejection, which Cullman considers emotional rather than exegetical, Cullman presents

the analogy of awaking from sleep. How the person has no knowledge of the time spent sleeping.

How the moment of going to sleep and waking up seems to be almost instantaneous for the

person sleeping although not for those awake.31 Time seems to pass on a different scale, so to

speak, for those awake and for those sleeping.32

Conclusion

At this point some may rather hold on to the idea of the immortality of the soul if the true

biblical understanding means giving up the idea of a soul; or perhaps holding on to a resurrection

idea in which God will “clothe” our soul with the new body. This may sound viable as shown

above, but as I have attempted to demonstrate, the concept of the soul seems to be a construct

used to explain certain aspects of our humanity and to provide a link from this world to the next;

30
Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, 380-381.
31
Cullman, “Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Body?” 52-53.
32
Cullman goes on to speculate about the possibility that those sleeping may have a form
of consciousness. But that would seem to defeat the force of his argument because once again he
seems to be introducing a concept similar to the soul—which he has just denounced as unbiblical.
 14

a link that is unnecessary given the creative powers of God who can make us again out of

nothing if necessary—out of no soul and out of no body, totally anew.

In answering the question in the title of my essay, If Resurrection of the Body, Why

Immortality of the Soul? I would have to say that sometimes people hold on to doctrines that

they believe bring them comfort rather than those expressly taught in the Scriptures. The

Christian idea of the immortality of the soul provides the believer with the unbiblical notion that

their departed loved one is already in heaven and it is only a matter of time before they receive a

resurrected body. On the other hand, the Pauline notion of the resurrection of the body teaches

us that all people, living or dead await the resurrection. And that those who have gone before us

to the grave would have no unfair advantage over those who are alive. All will be raised or

transformed at the same time. But this just doesn’t appear to sound as good as being in God’s

presence immediately after death. Some may argue that St. Paul said that to be absent from the

body is to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8). To this I have to say that it must be

understood within the context of the whole witness of Scripture as are all other objections to the

subject. What St. Paul is saying here is that no one can be present with God while still in this

body of flesh and blood. That is, when we get our new body we will be in the presence of God.

The Christian idea of the immortality of the soul diminishes the work of Christ, limits our

view of what God can accomplish, and gives us a superficial understanding of the truly

horrendous thing that death is; a view that may be reflected in other areas of our lives, such as

our moral values. And although the victory has been won by Christ, still death is the last enemy

that will be defeated at Christ coming, and then the terrible thing that death truly is, will be no

more.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall
there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed
 15

away." And he who was seated on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new."
Also he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true." (Revelation
21:4-5) ESV

Our consolation is not that our loved one is in heaven, but that God will bring our loved one back

to life at the appointed time, when we and all of creation are re-made by His power and mercy.

Life everlasting and immortality begins with this new act of creation by God.

Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a
moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and
the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body
must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the
perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come
to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory." (1 Corinthians
15:51-54) ESV

Thus, in accordance with the Apostles creed, I would have to say, “I believe in the resurrection

of the body and the life everlasting”—but not in the immortality of the soul (not even the popular

Christian version).
 16

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cullman, Oscar. “Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Body?.” In Immortality and
Resurrection, edited by Krister Stendahl, 9-53. New York, NY: The Mcmillan Company,
1965.

Encyclopædia Britannica. 2010. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. "Ockham’s razor." Accessed 9

Apr. 2010. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/424706/Ockhams-razor.

Guthrie, Shirley C. Christian Doctrine. Revised. Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1994.

Harvey, Van A., ed. “Soul.” In A Handbook of Theological Terms. New York, NY: Touchstone,
1997.

Hoerber, Robert G. “Immortality and Resurrection : A Critical Exegetical Study..” Concordia

Journal 3, no. 2 (March 1, 1977): 56-70.

Jaeger, Werner. “The Greek Ideas of Immortality.” In Immortality and Resurrection, edited by
Krister Stendahl, 97-114. New York, NY: The Mcmillan Company, 1965.

Livingstone, E. A., ed. “Soul.” In Concise Dictionary of the Christian Church. New York, NY:
Oxford University Press, 2006.

Robeck, Jr., C. M. “Soul.” In The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, edited by Geoffrey
Bromiley, 4: Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1986.

Routledge, Robin. Old Testament Theology: A Thematic Approach. Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 2008.

Stendahl, Krister, ed. Immortality and Resurrection. The Mcmillan Company, 1965.

Vlachos, Hierotheos S. Life After Death. Translated by Esther Williams. Levadia-Hellas: Birth of
the Theotokos Monastery, 2000.

Wolfson, Harry A. “Immortality and Resurrection in the Philosophy of the Church Fathers.” In
Immortality and Resurrection, edited by Krister Stendahl, 54-96. New York, NY: The
Mcmillan Company, 1965.