In addition, the Hebrew Scriptures clearly show that the faithful men and women of old awaited a resurrection, even as Paul commented in Hebrews 11:35: “Women received their dead by resurrection [in certain miraculous cases]; but other men were tortured because they would not accept release by some ransom, in order that they might attain a better resurrection [to everlasting life].” Evidently they were not trusting in the “butterfly” myth of human philosophy.

However, down through the centuries there have been distinguished dissenters against the Greek concepts of an immortal soul. The Bible translator William Tyndale (c. 1492-1536) presented these comments on the issue: “In putting departed souls in heaven, hell, or purgatory you destroy the arguments wherewith Christ and Paul prove the resurrection . . . If the soul be in heaven, tell me what cause is there for the resurrection?” That is a logical question. If death is defeated by means of an ‘immortal and imperishable’ soul, then what purpose is served by the resurrection that Jesus taught and that the ancient Hebrew patriarchs believed in?​—Hebrews 11:17-19, 35; John 5:28, 29.

In his book The Agony of Christianity, Spanish writer Miguel de Unamuno struggled with this same conflict. He wrote regarding Christ: “He believed . . . in the resurrection of the flesh, according to the Jewish way of thinking, not in the immortality of the soul, according to the Platonic way of thinking.” He even went on to say: “The immortality of the soul . . . is a pagan philosophical dogma. . . . It is sufficient to read Plato’s Phaedo to be convinced of that.”

Even modern theologians are coming around to recognize this point, after centuries of Christendom’s immortal-soul teaching. For example, Catholic theologian Hans Küng writes: “When Paul speaks of resurrection, what he means is simply not the Greek idea of the immortality of a soul that has to be freed from the prison of the mortal body. . . . When the New Testament speaks of resurrection, it does not refer to the natural continuance of a spirit-soul independent of our bodily functions.”

The German Lutheran Catechism for Grown-Ups (Evangelischer Erwachsenenkatechismus) states regarding the body-soul split taught by Plato: “Evangelical theologians of modern times challenge this combination of Greek and Biblical concepts. . . . They reject the separation of man into body and soul. Since man as a whole is a sinner, therefore at death he dies completely with body and soul (full death). . . . Between death and resurrection there is a gap; the individual continues his existence at best in God’s memory.”

Jehovah’s modern-day Witnesses have been teaching this for over a hundred years! They never swallowed Plato’s pagan philosophy, for they knew very well that Jesus had taught: “Do not marvel at this, because the hour is coming in which all those in the memorial tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who did good things to a resurrection of life, those who practiced vile things to a resurrection of judgment.” (John 5:28, 29) The very expression “memorial tombs” implies that those dead persons are retained in the “memory” of God. He will restore them to life. There is the true hope for the dead that will be realized when this earth is under the full control of God’s Kingdom government by Christ.​—Matthew 6:9, 10; Revelation 21:1-4.