by Christa Walker

Created on: September 03, 2009

This is one question but there are many answers given. Which one is the correct answer? Many Christians believe in the heaven and hell concept. Hindus, on the other hand, believe in reincarnation. According to Islamic belief, Allah will assess each one's life course and consign a person to paradise or to hellfire. No matter what your religion, most religions agree on one fundamental idea: Something inside a person is immortal and continues living after death. Belief in the immortality of the soul is all but universal in thousands of religions and sects.

Some, although minority, take the opposite view, that conscious life ends at death. Ancient philosophers like Aristotle and Epicurus, refused to believe in immortality.

So the question is, Is there an immortal soul that lives on? Where did the belief in an immortal soul come from? And if there is not an immortal soul then is there any hope for the dead?

To find out what happens when we die we must ask the giver of life for the answer. Of course we can't interview the creator but we can read his words on the matter that he had written for us to answer these sorts of questions.

The word soul is used in the Bible many times. To understand the meaning of the word used in God's word we need to look a little closer at the original words used.

In the Old Testament soul is used over 700 times. The Hebrew word translated "soul" is nephesh. According to The Dictionary of Bible and Religion, it "refers to the entire living being, to the whole individual."

For example, Genesis 2:7 states: God formed Man out of dirt from the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life. The Man came alive-a living soul! -the message Note that Adam did not have a soul; he was a soul. This is heavily supported in the OT-Leviticus 5:1; Psalm 119:28; Judges 16:16; Leviticus 23:30; Deuteronomy 24:7; Job 19:2.

In the New Testament the word translated "soul" is used more than a hundred times. The Greek word translated "soul" is psykhe. Like nephesh, this word refers to a whole person or to their life. Some examples in the NT are: Romans 13:1; 1 Peter 3:20; John 12:27; 1 Thessalonians 5:14; Acts 2:43; Matthew 10:28.

To understand what happens at death we first need to understand why we die. Romans 5:12 explains simply that we die because we inherited sin or imperfection from our father, the first man, Adam. He was created perfect and was told that he would only die if he was disobedient to God. When he sinned against God he became imperfect

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