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Growing in Accurate Knowledge of the TruthJehovah’s Witnesses—Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom
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How, then, did belief in the inherent immortality of human souls develop? Who was its author? After carefully examining both the Bible and religious history, Brother Russell wrote in the Watch Tower of April 15, 1894: “Evidently it came not from the Bible . . . The Bible distinctly declares that man is mortal, that death is possible to him. . . . Scanning the pages of history, we find that, although the doctrine of human immortality is not taught by God’s inspired witnesses, it is the very essence of all heathen religions. . . . It is not true, therefore, that Socrates and Plato were the first to teach the doctrine: it had an earlier teacher than either of them, and a yet more able one. . . . The first record of this false teaching is found in the oldest history known to man—the Bible. The false teacher was Satan.”g
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Growing in Accurate Knowledge of the TruthJehovah’s Witnesses—Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom
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g In a more detailed discussion of the subject, in 1955, the booklet What Do the Scriptures Say About “Survival After Death”? pointed out that the Bible record shows that Satan actually encouraged Eve to believe that she would not die in the flesh as a result of ignoring God’s prohibition on eating fruit from “the tree of the knowledge of good and bad.” (Gen. 2:16, 17; 3:4) In time, that obviously proved false, but there were further developments that had their root in that first lie. People adopted the view that an invisible part of man lived on. Following the Flood of Noah’s day, this was fortified by demonic spiritistic practices emanating from Babylon.—Isa. 47:1, 12; Deut. 18:10, 11.
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