text: what is the difference between my soul and my spirit?   first of all, you do not have and immortal soul, if you did, then why had no one gone to heaven before jesus came to the earth, 4000 years had came & gone since adam & eve, millions of people had died, what did jesus say to a man of the pharisees, nic·o·de'mus was his name, a ruler of the jews.  john 3:13 moreover, no man has ascended into heaven but he that descended from heaven, the son of man.  what is a soul? right in the very first book of the bible, genesis, we are told that the soul is not something you have, it is something you are. we read of the creation of adam, the first human being: “the man came to be a living soul.” (genesis 2:7) the hebrew word used here for soul, ne'phesh, occurs well over 700 times in the hebrew scriptures, never once conveying the idea of a separate, ethereal, spiritual part of man. on the contrary, the soul is tangible, concrete, physical.  look up the following cited texts in your own copy of the bible, for the hebrew word ne'phesh is found in each of them. they clearly show that the soul can face risk, danger, and even be kidnapped (deuteronomy 24:7; judges 9:17; 1 samuel 19:11); touch things (job 6:7); be locked up in irons (psalm 105:18); crave to eat, be afflicted by fasting, and faint from hunger and thirst; and suffer from a wasting disease or even insomnia as a result of grief. (deuteronomy 12:20; psalm 35:13; 69:10;) in other words, because your soul is you, your very self, your soul can experience anything you can experience.  does that mean, then, that the soul can actually die? yes. far from being immortal, human souls are spoken of in the hebrew scriptures as being “cut off,” or executed, for wrongdoing, being struck fatally, murdered, destroyed, and torn to pieces. (exodus 31:14; deuteronomy 19:6; 22:26; psalm 7:2) “the soul that is sinning—it itself will die,” says ezekiel 18:4. clearly, death is the common end of human souls, since all of us sin. (psalm 51:5) the first man, adam, was told that the penalty for sin was death—not transfer to the spirit realm and immortality. (genesis 2:17) and when he sinned, the sentence was pronounced: “for dust you are and to dust you will return.” (genesis 3:19) when adam and eve died, they simply became what the bible often refers to as ‘dead souls’ or ‘deceased souls.’  some people think that “spirit” is just another word for “soul.” however, that is not the case. the bible makes clear that “spirit” and “soul” refer to two different things. how do they differ?  bible writers used the hebrew word ru´ach or the greek word pneu´ma when writing about the “spirit.” the scriptures themselves indicate the meaning of those words. for instance, psalm 104:29 states: “if you [god] take away their spirit [ru´ach], they expire, and back to their dust they go.” and james 2:26 notes that “the body without spirit [pneu´ma] is dead.” in these verses, then, “spirit” refers to that which gives life to a body. without spirit, the body is dead. therefore, in the bible the word ru´ach is translated not only as “spirit” but also as “force,” or life-force. for example, concerning the flood in noah’s day, god said: “i am bringing the deluge of waters upon the earth to bring to ruin all flesh in which the force [ru´ach] of life is active from under the heavens.” (genesis 6:17; 7:15, 22) “spirit” thus refers to an invisible force (the spark of life) that animates all living creatures.