Many ancient Greek philosophers adopted this Eastern concept of an immortal soul, it being finally defined by Plato in the fourth century B.C.E.

THE Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant churches have turned their backs on the clear Bible truths regarding the condition of the dead and the hope for life after death. They prefer the ancient unscriptural belief in an immortal soul. As we have seen, this belief originated in Babylonia and was streamlined by Greek philosopher Plato in the fourth century B.C.E.

Only a little over 20 years after Christ’s death and resurrection, the apostle Paul wrote from Ephesus to the young Christian congregation in Corinth, Greece: “Now if Christ is being preached that he has been raised up from the dead, how is it some among you [anointed Christians] say there is no resurrection of the dead?”​—1 Corinthians 15:12.

It may be that some of the Christians to whom Paul was writing in Corinth were still under the influence of Greek philosophy. A few years previously Paul had declared “the good news of Jesus and the resurrection” to Greek philosophers in Athens. But “when they heard of a resurrection of the dead, some began to mock.” (Acts 17:18, 32) The Epicureans and the Stoics had their own theories about what happened to the soul after death. Other Greek philosophers, who followed Socrates and Plato, believed in the immortality of the soul. None of them believed in the resurrection, as taught in the Bible.