Post one....of too many.....sorry.
As I said, I have no interest in what Jews said or didn't say (past or present) that is outside of scripture.
Taking scripture as coming from God, rather than from those of his errant nation, I can see quite clearly that
the Bible promotes NO belief in an afterlife.
Genesis 2:7....
"Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul".
Right from the creation of man, we see that God did not "give" man a soul, but that he "became" a soul with the breath of life. The creation account calls other lifeforms "souls" [
nephesh] as well. (Genesis 1:20-25) Do we imagine the souls of animals and birds and fish in heaven?
Using just the Bible.....from Genesis we see that when Adam and his wife sinned, there was no mention of heaven or hell or an afterlife of any description.
The penalty for eating the forbidden fruit was
death.....no place of conscious punishment was ever mentioned, nor was there a place of reward.....just life and death, and a return to the dust from which they were created if they disobeyed his command.
In sentencing the pair he said to Adam....
"By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:19)
If there was a possibility of an afterlife of punishment...wasn't before the act a good time to mention it?
The One who inspired the Bible is our Creator, and he should know whether our soul is immortal or not. Not once in the sixty-six books of the Bible does he inspire a Bible writer to testify that the human soul is immortal. On the contrary, the Bible repeatedly states that the soul dies. At Leviticus 23:30 God says:
“As for any person [nephesh, soul] who does any work on this same day, that person [nephesh] I will destroy from among his people.”
At Ezekiel 18:4, he also says:
"The soul [nephesh] who sins will die..” The "soul" is the "person", not something that inhabits the body as a separate entity.
Do those scriptures teach that the soul is immortal?
Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 9:5, 6, 10....
"For the living know they will die; but the dead do not know anything, nor have they any longer a reward, for their memory is forgotten. 6 Indeed their love, their hate and their zeal have already perished, and they will no longer have a share in all that is done under the sun..... Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might; for there is no activity or planning or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol where you are going."
Sheol is the grave. Everyone is going there sooner or later. But if there is conscious existence, which Solomon clearly states that there is no consciousness in death, then why has love part perished? It is God's most outstanding quality.
King David too knew that the grave was a place of silence.
Psalm 115:17...
"The dead do not praise Jah,
Nor do any who go down into silence".
Psalm 146:4
"His spirit [breath] departs, he returns to the earth;
In that very day his thoughts perish".
Dead people don't think.
Plato was convinced that he had an immortal soul. And his teachings soon began to convince others who revered him as a philosopher. As a consequence, Platonic philosophy was even accepted by second-century Christian writers.
The Encyclopædia Britannica states:
“The Christian Platonists gave primacy to revelation and regarded Platonic philosophy as the best available instrument for understanding and defending the teachings of Scripture and church tradition. . . . From the middle of the 2nd century AD, Christians who had some training in Greek philosophy began to feel the need to express their faith in its terms, both for their own intellectual satisfaction and in order to convert educated pagans. The philosophy that suited them best was Platonism.”
The Jews as well as others became infatuated with this notion of life after death. It was adopted in later periods and infiltrated Christianity too, but not till the second century. It is not a Bible teaching...and never was.
Regardless of what the apostate Jewish nation came to believe, and likewise the apostate Christian church....there is no life after death, except by resurrection.
Even Job believed in the resurrection..... at the height of his suffering Job asked...
"Oh that You would hide me in Sheol, [the grave]
That You would conceal me until Your wrath returns to You,
That You would set a limit for me and remember me!
14 “If a man dies, will he live again?
All the days of my struggle I will wait
Until my change comes.
15 “You will call, and I will answer You;
You will long for the work of Your hands." (Job 14:13-15)
What about Jesus? What did he have to say about the soul?
"Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. [gehenna] " (Matthew 10:28)
Do you see that God can "destroy" souls in "gehenna"...which is not "hell" but a symbol of everlasting death...the opposite of everlasting life.
Just using the Bible, and an understanding of the Hebrew language, can you find me any scripture that says we have an immortal soul?