times, and "heart" and "heartily" once. There are no exceptions in this case, no other word being

translated "soul" in the A.V.

These facts clear the ground for definite study, and an examination of these 857 occurrences will provide

a full, perfect and authoritative statement by the Creator and Redeemer of man as to its nature. One thing

we would state at once: in all the varied teaching of these 857 references there is not one that speaks of an

immortal or never-dying soul. While we may not be able to deal with this vast amount of material, we can

make a commencement with the book of Genesis.

"The moving creature that hath life (margin soul)" (Gen. 1:20).

"Every living creature that moveth (margin living soul)" (Gen. 1:21).

"Let the earth bring forth the living creature" (Gen. 1:24).

"Every thing ... wherein there is life (margin living soul)" (Gen. 1:30).

Here are the four passages in which nephesh occurs in Genesis 1. Creeping things, therefore, are souls;

great whales, called elsewhere "serpents" and "dragons", are souls, also cattle and beasts of the earth and

"Every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth,

wherein there is soul-life (margin a living soul)" (Gen. 1:30).

This will be news to many readers, and they may wonder why it is that their teachers have not made this

plain, or maybe they will come to the conclusion that their teachers are not prepared to take their stand

with an unpopular truth, and in this particular are not unlike the Romish priest who withholds the Word of

God from the people.

"Man became a living soul" (Gen. 2:7).

"Adam called every living creature" (Gen. 2:19).

Has the reader never heard it stressed that in the account of creation man alone is called "a living soul",

and that because "God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life"? He now knows that such teaching is

false and, even if unconsciously to the interpreter, in the interest of the devil's lie who said to our first

parents, "Ye shall not surely die".

A favourite argument of these teachers is that the Scriptures have no need to teach the immortality of

the soul, because it is universally believed! Apart from the saving grace of God, the whole world is under

the dominion of a lie, and that which is accepted among

men is an abomination before God. The Greeks held the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, yet what

does 1 Corinthians 1 say about the wisdom of the Greeks? Salvation by human merit is universal, but that

does not make it true. It is a poor shift to avoid the condemning fact that not one of 857 references

contains the idea. If man somehow and somewhere must live on for ever, how is it that we read the

following in Genesis 3:22,23?

"Lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and LIVE FOR EVER: therefore the

LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken".

If we approached this verse without bias, would we not receive from it the following facts:

Adam had not up till then eaten of the tree of life.

If he had he would have lived for ever in his sin.

The expulsion was to prevent that catastrophe.

Being expelled he did not live for ever.

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