themselves with their secret or occult power were unable to do. Now it is this Moses who under the power of God’s spirit or under inspiration gives us the first definition to be found in the Bible of the human soul. Also from the opposition between this Moses and the men of occult power in Egypt we can begin to form correct ideas as to whether Moses was a spirit medium or not.

WHAT THE HUMAN SOUL IS

32, 33. As to the human soul, how do definitions of it by Christendom’s spokesmen and by the Bible differ?

³² Religious teachings of Christendom surround the human soul with mysteries that philosophers need to explore. Differently from them, Moses calls all the fish, birds and land animals that God created before making man “souls,” “living souls.” (Gen. 1:20, 21, 24, 30; 2:19, NW; Ro; Da) So, long before man’s creation, billions of animal souls or earthly souls had died. Moses then tells how the first human soul came to be, saying: “Then Jehovah God proceeded to form the man out of dust from the ground and to blow into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man came to be a living soul.” (Gen. 2:7, NW; AS; Da) This flatly disproves what is stated about the wherefrom of man by the spiritualist author, Arthur Findlay, in advertising his book On the Edge of the Etheric or Survival After Death Scientifically Explained. He states: “We retain in the Etheric, to which we pass at death, our bodily appearance, our memories, and our affections. . . . As we are now so shall we be hereafter; as we sow so shall we reap. We have come from the Etheric; we return to the Etheric. Our physical life is but a small part of our life, which, coming from the Etheric, returns to it at death. There it continues to function in a world both real and tangible.” Moses says nothing about “the Etheric.”

³³ Nor does Moses’ inspired account of the creation of the human soul agree with V. D. Rishi and say anything about an “intermediary element called perispirit [surrounding spirit] or fluid body.” The Creator, Jehovah God, gave the first man just one body, made from the different elements in the dust of our earth. What made that material body come to life? It was God’s blowing into man’s nostrils, thus into man’s lungs, the “breath of life.” It was not by his breathing into man an invisible soul and connecting that soul with the material body by a fluid body or a surrounding spirit of the same form as the earthly body. God breathed, as it were, into the lifeless body his life-giving force, which was to be sustained by man’s breathing. What resulted? The body came to life. What did that mean? It meant a soul, a visible, touchable, feelable human soul, came into existence. “The man came to be a living soul.” That living soul did not come from “the Etheric,” so called, for it had never existed before. By God’s combining body and breath of life it now came to life. Thus the explanation of what a human soul is may be reduced to this simple, unmysterious “soul equation”:

human soul = body + breath of life from God.

34. How does the Christian writer Paul’s definition of the human soul harmonize with that contained in the Hebrew Scriptures Moses wrote?

³⁴ This is not just the thought of the pre-Christian Hebrews or Jews; it is also the true Christian thought. The Christian apostle Paul, writer of fourteen books of the Bible, supports Moses’ writings, saying: “It is even so written: ‘The first man Adam became a living soul.’ . . . The first man is out of the earth and made of dust.” (1 Cor. 15:45, 47, NW) Thus the first living human soul was the first man Adam. The living human soul is the living human creature. For that reason Young’s English translation of the Bible (1862) uses the word “creature” instead of “soul” here.

35-37. How does an outstanding modern translation aid users of that Bible version in gaining accurate knowledge and understanding about the soul and its Creator?

³⁵ The Bible is the final authority on the soul. In the Hebrew part of the Bible the word nephʹesh (translated “soul”) is found about 800 times; in the Christian Greek part of the Bible the word psy·cheʹ (also translated “soul”) is found 102 times. In each case the New World Translation renders this Greek word “soul.” This yet uncompleted translation is also consistently rendering the Hebrew word nephʹesh “soul.” Thus the readers of the Bible may see how the Creator of the soul uses the word in his inspired Bible.

³⁶ Since the Bible recognizes and teaches that the living human creature himself is the human soul, it is perfectly reasonable that the Bible should state that the human soul has blood—“the blood of the souls of the poor innocents” (Jer. 2:34)—God himself saying: “Your blood of your souls shall I ask back.” (Gen. 9:5, NW) In fact, God the Creator of souls shows the dependence of the human soul upon the blood stream to be so heavy that he says: “The soul of the flesh is in the blood.” More than that: “The soul of every sort of flesh isa its blood.” “The blood isb the soul and you must not eat the soul [yes, not eat the soul] with the blood.” (Lev. 17:11, 14 and Deut. 12:23, NW) Human souls can eat blood and fat, but God’s law forbids it: “For anyone eating fat from the beast from which he presents it as an offering made by fire to Jehovah, the soul that eats must be cut off from his people. Any soul who eats any blood, that soul must be cut off from his people.”—Lev. 7:25, 27, NW.

³⁷ A human soul can also eat an animal body: “As for any soul that eats a dead body or something torn by a wild beast.” (Lev. 17:15, NW) The human soul craves material food: “Because your soul craves to eat meat, whenever your soul craves it you may eat meat.” (Deut. 12:20, NW) Also fruit: “You must eat enough grapes for you to satisfy your soul.” (Deut. 23:24, NW) Or a honeycomb.—Prov. 27:7.

38. What various experiences of human souls further help us to understand the consistent Bible teaching about the soul?

³⁸ The human soul is the living, intelligent creature himself, the material, visible, tangible person, and not an invisible, untouchable, ethereal something inside the human body. Hence the human soul can tear its own self or can be torn by a lion, can be delivered from a threatening sword, can fall into a pit dug for it, can be brought back again from a pit, or can be brought out of a prison. (Job 18:4, margin; Ps. 7:2; 22:20; Job 33:18, 30; Jer. 18:20; Ps. 142:7) The human soul can be bought for money; it can be kidnaped and sold; it can be hunted like a wild beast. (Lev. 22:11; Deut. 24:7; Ex. 4:19, NW) After the creation of the first human souls on earth, Adam and Eve, all other human souls have been born. They have not come out of “the Etheric.” They have come out of the bodies or loins of fatherly human souls and from the wombs of motherly human souls. Of Jacob’s wife Leah we read: “In time she bore these to Jacob: sixteen souls. All the souls who came to Jacob into Egypt were those who issued out of his upper thigh, aside from the wives of Jacob’s sons. All the souls were sixty-six.” (Gen. 46:18, 26, NW) “And all the souls who issued out of Jacob’s upper thigh came to be seventy souls.” (Ex. 1:5, NW) The soul is, therefore, not something separate and distinct from the human body that can leave the body in dreams and at death or that can transmigrate or pass at death into another body, to be thus reborn at death into another body.

39. Does the Bible show a difference between body and soul, and how?

³⁹ Now a question; Does the Bible itself show a difference between body and soul? Indeed it does, and that right at the beginning, at Genesis 2:7, at man’s creation. The man’s body that Jehovah God formed out of the dust from the ground in Eden was not a human soul; it was just a lifeless, inactive body that neither saw, heard, tasted, smelled, felt nor thought. To make the body live and use all its sense organs and powers, God combined the perfect human body with the breath of life that he blew into the body. Thus there came to be a living human soul that had never existed before. So the human body is a necessary part of the human soul, and the human soul cannot exist apart from the human body. Many times the Bible speaks of the life that we human creatures enjoy as “soul.” Jesus said: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate . . . even his own soul, he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26, NW) “He that is fond of his soul destroys it, but he that hates his soul in this world will safeguard it for everlasting life.” (John 12:25, NW) “They did not love their souls even despite the danger of death.” (Rev. 12:11, NW) “I am the right shepherd; the right shepherd surrenders his soul in behalf of the sheep.”—John 10:11, NW.

40. What are some examples of the Bible’s use of the word “soul” to refer to the person himself?

⁴⁰ In harmony with this unseparableness of the soul from its body, when a speaker uses the expression “my soul,” he really means “I myself,” or, “me myself.” Jesus gave an illustration of a rich man, who, after storing up his increased good things, said: “I will say to my soul: ‘Soul, you have many good things laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, enjoy yourself.’ But God said to him: ‘Unreasonable one, this night they are demanding your soul from you.’” Without soul or life as a human creature, how could the rich man enjoy the good things he had stored up? (Luke 12:16-21, NW) Even God himself uses the expression “my soul,” saying: “Look! my servant whom I chose, my beloved, whom my soul approved!” (Matt. 12:18, NW; Isa. 42:1) “‘My righteous one will live by reason of faith,’ and, ‘if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.’” (Heb. 10:38, NW) “Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates.” (Isa. 1:14, RS) Likewise, the expression “your (thy) soul” is used to mean “you yourself,” and “his soul,” “him himself.” For example, “Yahweh of hosts hath sworn by his own soul.” (Jer. 51:14; Amos 6:8, Ro, margin) “So it shall be well unto thee, and thy soul shall live.” (Jer. 38:20; Isa. 55:2, 3) Thus the word “soul” is used to refer to the person himself.

41, 42. By the reported acts of Elijah, Elisha, Jesus and his apostles in restoring dead persons to life, how are spiritualism’s false claims further exposed for rejection?

⁴¹ What the prophet Elijah said regarding the child whom he was used to restore to life is no Biblical proof that the human soul is distinct and is merely linked to the human body by some element called a “perispirit or fluid body,” and that at death it carries on a separate, independent, outside existence in the immaterial, spirit world. We read: “The son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick, and his sickness came to be so severe that there was no breath left in him. And [Elijah] proceeded to stretch himself upon the child three times and call to Jehovah and say: ‘O Jehovah my God, please, cause the soul of this child to come back within him.’ Finally Jehovah listened to Elijah’s voice, and the soul of the child came back within him, so that he came to life.” (1 Ki. 17:17, 21, 22, NW) Does the Bible here say the child’s soul was alive in an invisible, spirit world and that the child was lucky that it had died and that it had never been so happy on earth as it was then in the spirit world? No! Did the child’s mother ask Elijah to act as a male medium and put her in touch with her dead son so that she could talk with the departed soul through Elijah? No! If the child was better off for having died, then it was an injustice and extreme selfishness for Elijah to pray as he did and for him to restore the child to life in the human body.

⁴² The same holds true for the Shunammite’s son whom Elijah’s successor, Elisha, restored to life. It holds true also for the dead whom Jesus and his apostles restored to life in the flesh on earth: Jairus’ daughter, the widow of Nain’s son, Lazarus the brother of Mary and Martha, Dorcas (Tabitha) of Joppa, and Eutychus of Troas. (2 Ki. 4:8-37; Matt. 10:1, 8; Luke 8:41-56; 7:11-15; John 11:1-44; Acts 9:36-41; 20:6-12) What the prophet Elijah really prayed for was, not for a departed soul to return from the spirit world into the child’s body, but for the child’s life as a human creature to return by Jehovah God’s power that his dead body might become alive again and the child might come to be a living human soul again. In agreement with this An American Translation reads here: “May this child’s life return into him again.” “So the LORD hearkened to the voice of Elijah; and the life of the child came back to him again, so that he lived.” “‘See, your son is alive,’ said Elijah.” (1 Ki. 17:21-24, AT; also Mo) Hence it is no more difficult for us in English to say a human soul has soul than it was difficult for a Jew to say in Hebrew that a nephʹesh has nephʹesh or that nephʹesh is in a nephʹesh (“soul”).—Lev. 17:10-14, NW.

THE SPIRIT IN MAN

43, 44. How, in contrast with Rishi’s definition, does the Bible identify the human spirit?

⁴³ But in this case does not the scripture, Ecclesiastes 12:7, apply: “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it”? Yes. And does not the report, at Luke 8:54, 55 (RS), of Jesus’ raising Jairus’ daughter to life say: “But taking her by the hand he called, saying, ‘Child, arise.’ And her spirit returned, and she got up at once”? Yes. Are we, then, to reason from this that, before Elijah raised the widow’s dead son to life, and before Jesus raised Jairus’ girl to life, their spirit was alive in a spirit world and that it had returned to God who gave it and was living with him? No; for the “spirit” is not, as Rishi describes it, “the etheric body of an individual having all his characteristics. . . . the exact counterpart of the physical portion of the individual.” According to the Bible the spirit (ruʹahh, Hebrew; pneuʹma, Greek) is God’s invisible active force that causes life or makes alive.

⁴⁴ As it is described in Revelation 11:8-11 (NW): “And their corpses will be on the broad way of the great city . . . And after the three and a half days spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet.” Also as it is described in Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones: “Thus saith My Lord Yahweh, unto these bones, Lo! I am about to bring into you spirit, and ye shall live; . . . And when I looked then lo! upon them were sinews, and flesh had come up, and there had spread over them skin above, but spirit was there none within them. Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the spirit, prophesy, Son of man, and thou shalt say unto the spirit, Thus saith My Lord Yahweh—From the four winds come thou, O spirit, and breathe into these [breathless] slain that they may live. And when I prophesied as he commanded me, then came into them the spirit and they lived and stood upon their feet, an exceeding great army.”—Ezek. 37:5-10, Ro; also Yg; Le.

45, 46. (a) For continuing or restoring life of human creatures, what does the Bible show to be Almighty God’s part? (b) How is this fully shown in the case of Jesus?

⁴⁵ Jehovah God is the source of the life-imparting spirit or invisible life-giving active force. Hence when the dead body returns to the earth as it was, that spirit or active force that animated that body returns to its source; it quits operating in that body. So the power to make that human creature live again rests with God, the Source of life. By the sentence of death that God pronounced upon Adam and Eve he has subjected all their offspring to condemnation and at the limit of their condemned lives he requires of them their life force, for they are condemned to death through inheriting the sin from Adam and Eve. God’s just law requires that life force or spirit of them, and thus it returns to him. When God lifts that condemnation or removes it, then he can make the relieved offspring of Adam live again by his spirit or invisible activating force. Hence the inspired Psalm says to God: “Thou hidest thy face, they are dismayed, thou withdrawest their spirit, they cease to breathe, and unto their own dust do they return: thou sendest forth thy spirit and they are created, and thou renewest the face of the ground.”—Ps. 104:29, 30, Ro; also Yg; Le.

⁴⁶ This life force sustained by breathing is what returned to Jairus’ daughter when Jesus took her by the hand and commanded: “Child, arise.” God heard Jesus and caused His life-imparting active force to make her body alive and breathe again and keep it from returning at that time to the dust of the earth. Jesus referred to such spirit or life force when, at his death on the stake at Calvary, he said to God: “Father, into your hands I entrust my spirit.” (Luke 23:46, NW) On the third day afterward God restored that spirit or life force by resurrecting Jesus from the dead. (Acts 2:22-28, 32-36) So Ecclesiastes 12:7 cannot be used to teach that immortal spirits of the human dead are in a spirit world enjoying greater life, knowledge and freedom than ever before and that they have all, good and bad alike, returned to God. Instead, it proves that all mankind are under condemnation of death and hence must grow old and approach death and that when they die the body will return to the dust, for God’s righteous law requires their life force of them.

47. As to life, why, according to the Bible, are humans superior to earth’s lower animals?

⁴⁷ In this respect, mankind, because of the condemnation to death that they inherited from Adam, are like the lower animals that die, not because animals are condemned to die for sin, but because their Creator did not decree that they should live forever. Showing that thus man’s spirit is just now like that of the lower animals, the inspired wise man says: “I said in my heart concerning the speaking of the sons of men, that God might make it clear to them, and that they might see that they by themselves are but beasts. For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even the same thing befalleth them; as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one kind of spirit: so that the preeminence of man above the beast is nought; for all is vanity. Every thing goeth unto one place: every thing came from the dust, and every thing returneth to the dust. Who knoweth the spirit of the sons of man that ascendeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that descendeth downward to the earth?” (Eccl. 3:18-21, Le; also Yg; Ro) We see, therefore, that the spirit or invisible, activating life force that makes animals live is the same as that which makes mankind live, and hence the only thing that can give man any pre-eminence above a lower animal is God’s decree or God’s arrangement concerning man’s future. By God’s undeserved kindness man does enjoy such a pre-eminence over lower animals, for God has willed and provided that believing, obedient mankind may enjoy everlasting life in a righteous, death-free new world. So the enjoying of such life does not begin when the body returns to the dust at death, for the spirit that then returns to God is not an invisible, immortal counterpart of that mortal body, having all its characteristics. Such an idea of the spirit in man is simply an imaginary theory that spiritualists invent to support their teaching of “survival after death.” Their “next world” is not God’s righteous new world.

IS THE HUMAN SOUL IMMORTAL?

48. Why do spiritualism’s claims now require that we accurately determine whether the Bible does or does not teach the immortality of the human soul?

⁴⁸ For a human soul to live there must be (1) a human body and (2) the invisible, active force or spirit from God combining with that body to make it breathe and live. The human creature thus brought to life is the human soul. (Gen. 2:7) Now since the human soul must breathe earth’s atmosphere and must eat material food here on earth, and since it may be torn, be imprisoned and be laid in irons or be reached by the sword and may be brought down to the pit (Ps. 105:18, Da; Yg; Jer. 4:10; Luke 2:35), is the human soul deathproof, immortal? Spiritualism rests mainly upon the belief in the immortality of the human soul; it bases its teaching of “survival after death” upon the soul’s immortality, and it says that the Bible is full of references to survival after death and the communicating between the living and the dead. Consequently the claims of spiritualism require us to examine the special question, Does the Bible teach the immortality of the human soul, making survival after death possible?

49-53. How many are the Bible references to immortality, and what does each mean?

⁴⁹ Immortality is of course mentioned in the Bible, but does the Bible say the human soul has it? Look it up and surprise yourself to find that the word “immortality” does not occur once in the Hebrew Scriptures of the Bible; and in the Christian Greek Scriptures the Greek word a·tha·na·siʹa, which is translated “immortality,” occurs only three times. Here are the three times:

⁵⁰ “For this which is corruptible must put on incorruption, and this which is mortal must put on immortality. But when this which is corruptible puts on incorruption and this which is mortal puts on immortality, then the saying will take place that is written [at Isaiah 25:8]: ‘Death is swallowed up forever.’” (1 Cor. 15:53, 54, NW) Here the apostle Paul is discussing the Christian resurrection from the dead and he shows how the faithful Christians are raised from the dead and with what body. He does not say they now have immortality any more than they now have incorruptibility, for in Romans 2:6, 7 he tells Christians that God “will render to each one according to his works: everlasting life to those who are seeking glory and honor and incorruptibleness by endurance in work that is good.” (NW) Incorruptibleness as well as immortality is a future reward that is to be bestowed upon faithful Christians at their resurrection from the dead. The apostle showed that this resurrection and putting on of incorruptibleness and immortality was not to take place at death but at the second coming and presence of Jesus Christ when he raises his faithful followers from the dead. “For just as in Adam all are dying, so also in the Christ all will be made alive. But each one in his own rank: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who belong to the Christ during his presence. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised up in incorruption. . . . and we shall be changed.”—1 Cor. 15:22, 23, 42, 52, NW.

⁵¹ Notice no mention here of the human soul. Instead of the inherent immortality of the human soul, the above two mentions of a·tha·na·siʹa or immortality teach directly the contrary.

⁵² The remaining or third mention of a·tha·na·siʹa or immortality is found in the following quotation: “Observe the commandment in a spotless and irreprehensible way until the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ. This manifestation the happy and only Potentate will show in its own appointed times, he the King of those who rule as kings and Lord of those who rule as lords, the one alone having immortality.” (1 Tim. 6:14-16, NW) The apostle Paul is here telling Timothy that of all the earthly potentates who rule as kings and as lords and who claim immortality none really have it, but the “happy and only Potentate” Jesus Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords, has it exclusively since his own resurrection from the dead. We grant you that the pagan Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and Hindus taught their heathenish doctrine of the inherent immortality and incorruptibility of the human soul. But Jesus Christ, who is the first one upon whom the immortal, ‘incorruptible God’ bestowed immortality and incorruptibility when raising him from the dead, is the first one that brought the truth concerning these to light by his preaching of the good news about God’s kingdom. “Now it has been made clearly evident through the manifestation of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has abolished death but has shed light upon life and incorruption through the good news.”—2 Tim. 1:10 and; 1 Tim. 1:17, NW.

⁵³ From this it is seen that this third Scriptural mention of a·tha·na·siʹa or immortality flatly denies that any humans, even earthly potentates, dictators, kings and lords, have inherent immortality of the human soul. In the Roman Catholic version of the Bible, in the apocryphal or deuterocanonical books of its “Old Testament,” the words “immortality” and “incorruption” do occur, but even these references do not show or prove that the human soul is inherently immortal. For instance, Ecclesiasticus 17:29 (Dy) plainly says: “For all things cannot be in men, because the son of man is not immortal.” See also Ecclesiasticus 6:16 and The Book of Wisdom 1:15; 2:23; 3:1, 4; 4:1; 6:19, 20; 8:13, 17; 15:1, 3, all of which, if showing anything, show that immortality is a prize to be gained in the future and is not possessed inherently.

DOES THE HUMAN SOUL DIE?

54. To what extent does the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures show that the human soul dies?

⁵⁴ If, now, the Bible does not teach the inherent immortality of the human soul, it ought to say that the human soul is mortal, that it dies! Does the Bible do so? Directly so, in plain language that even a child can grasp. Since spiritualists, Roman Catholics and other religions of Christendom cannot produce one Bible verse saying or proving that the human soul is deathless, immortal, it ought to be enough if we produced just one Bible verse in witness that the human soul is mortal, dies. But we can produce many verses in witness, and the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, which regularly translates the Hebrew word nephʹesh and the Greek word psy·cheʹ as “soul” from Genesis 1:20 onward, shows more fully than any other translation that the Bible says the human soul dies.

55-57. What are four basic elements of the Bible teaching about the death of the first human soul?

⁵⁵ In the original garden or paradise of Eden the perfect human souls Adam and Eve did not have to die. Those two perfect human souls could have lived on forever in their earthly paradise. How? By sustaining their human, material bodies with the natural food that Jehovah God there provided and by obediently nourishing their hearts and minds with the spiritual food that he provided when he talked to them out of the invisible. But God warned them that the human soul, despite its ability to live on earth forever by God’s provisions, was mortal, able to die. Genesis, chapter two, after describing God’s creation of the first human soul Adam, goes on to say: “And Jehovah God proceeded to take the man and settle him in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and to take care of it. And Jehovah God also laid this command upon the man: ‘From every tree of the garden you may eat to satisfaction. But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will positively die.’” (Gen. 2:15-17, NW) If Adam the soul disobeyed God, then Adam the soul would die. If Adam the soul obeyed God and ate of all the trees in Eden except this forbidden one, then Adam the soul would continue living as long as his obedience kept up. This offered the opportunity for the human soul to live eternally, not in a spirit world, but in human perfection in the earthly paradise of Eden.

⁵⁶ When God pronounced the sentence of death upon Adam after he disobediently accepted some of the forbidden fruit from the hand of his wife and ate it, God said: “In the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return.” (Gen. 3:17-19, NW) Note that God did not say to Adam, ‘Your body will return to the dust but your spirit will be freed from the body and will live on consciously in the unseen world where I dwell, because your spirit is immortal and I cannot destroy it.’ No, but God said, ‘You [not your body, but you, the soul] were taken from the ground and to the ground you will return, for you [the soul] are dust and to the dust you [the soul under death sentence] will return.’

⁵⁷ As a living soul Adam was just some animated, quickened, enlivened or vivified dust molded together in a man’s form, just the same as the other land animals. To put the death sentence into force God drove the man out of the paradise of Eden. Why? “Jehovah God went on to say: ‘Here the man has become like one of us in knowing good and bad, and now in order that he may not put his hand out and actually take fruit also of the tree of life and eat and live forever,—’ With that Jehovah God put him out of the garden of Eden to cultivate the ground from which he had been taken [and to which he must now return]. And so he drove the man out and posted at the east of the garden of Eden the cherubs and the flaming blade of a sword that was turning itself continually to guard the way to the tree of life.” (Gen. 3:22-24, NW) God did not keep him away from the tree of life that Adam might die only as to his body but pass alive in spirit to a spirit world, beginning an immortal journey there, knowing more and being freer there and thus really benefiting by his having disobeyed his Creator and dying. God drove him out of the paradise of Eden away from the tree of life that the human soul Adam might not live at all anywhere but cease to exist, “positively die,” just the same as a brute beast.

58. How is Adam’s reported death at the age of 930 explained?

⁵⁸ Because he fell from human perfection, the human soul Adam lived many centuries even on the cursed ground outside the paradise of Eden. “Meanwhile he became father to sons and daughters. So all the days of Adam that he lived amounted to nine hundred and thirty years and he died.” (Gen. 5:4, 5, NW) On the very day that Adam sinned and God condemned him and drove him outside Eden’s paradise, Adam was dead from God’s viewpoint and so was dead in sin. He became a father of disobedience and produced sons of disobedience. For this reason the apostle Paul told the Christians: “You were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you at one time walked according to the system of things of this world, according to the ruler of the authority of the air, the spirit that now operates in the sons of disobedience.” (Eph. 2:1, 2, 5, NW) From that standpoint, too, Eve as well as Adam was “dead though she [was] living.” (1 Tim. 5:6, NW) Now being dead in sin was not the full measure of death for Adam and Eve, but when they ceased to breathe and when the spirit or life-causing active force returned to God who gave it to them, then the first two human souls, Adam and Eve, died. Adam lived seventy years less than a thousand years. So, if we take the apostle Peter’s time measurement, “One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Pet. 3:8), then Adam as well as Eve positively died “in the day” that he ate from the forbidden tree. He died in the first thousand-year day of humankind’s existence.

(To be continued in our next issue)

The Nazis Bluffed, but Not the Witnesses

The Theory and Practice of Hell is a book giving an analytical report of Nazi concentration camps. It was a best seller for years in Germany, and in April, 1955, an English edition was published. Of particular interest to readers of The Watchtower is what it has to say in the chapter “The Categories of Prisoners” about Jehovah’s witnesses, among which is the following:

“On September 6, 1938, the SS [Nazi elite guards] offered the witnesses [at Buchenwald] the chance to abjure their principles in writing, especially their refusal to swear oaths and render military service, and thus purchase their liberty. Only a very few failed to withstand this temptation. The others were henceforth subjected to savage pressure in order to break their spirit. On Easter Sunday of 1939 the Roll Call Officer of Buchenwald made another effort to persuade the Witnesses to acknowledge ‘State and Fuehrer.’ The success was nil. On Whitsunday all the Jehovah’s Witnesses again had to fall in on the roll-call area. A speech was delivered to them, and a fearful period of fatigue drill followed. For an hour and a quarter the wretched men had to roll about, hop, crawl and run while the boots of the Block Leaders helped them along.

“When the war broke out the Witnesses at Sachsenhausen concentration camp were invited to volunteer for military service. Each refusal was followed by the shooting of ten men from their ranks. After forty victims had been killed, the SS desisted. In Buchenwald this appeal to the Witnesses was made on September 6, 1939. First Officer-in-Charge Rödl told them: ‘You know that war has broken out and that the German nation is in danger. New laws are coming into force. If anyone of you refuses to fight against France or England, all of you must die!’ Two SS companies with full equipment were drawn up by the gate house. Not a single Jehovah’s witness answered the officer’s appeal. There was a brief silence and then came the order: ‘Hands up! Empty your pockets!’ The SS men began to assault them, robbing them of their last penny—a reprisal that seemed rather grotesque in view of what might have been expected. True, the witnesses were assigned to the quarry and during this entire time were barred from hospital treatment.

“One cannot escape the impression that, psychologically speaking, the SS were never quite equal to the challenge offered them by Jehovah’s Witnesses.”