The English word soul is somewhat problematic when translating a similar concept from the Hebrew and Greek. The English word soul comes from a root which means "to bind." The superstitious pagans would bind the bodies of their dead so that they couldn't return as the undead and harm the living.

The concept of the immortal soul comes, not from the Bible but rather from ancient Babylonian teachings. It was introduced into Jewish thinking, through Socrates, after Alexander the Great's visit to the temple of Jerusalem in 332 B.C.E.

http://www.pathwaymachine.com/images3/scriptureb.jpg
[Image: Alexander The Great In The Temple Of Jerusalem, by Sebastiano Conca: c. 1750]

200 years before the birth of Alexander the Bible had foretold of this conquest at Daniel 8:5-7, 20, 21 "And I, for my part, kept on considering, and, look! there was a male of the goats coming from the sunset upon the surface of the whole earth, and it was not touching the earth. And as regards the he-goat, there was a conspicuous horn between its eyes. And it kept coming all the way to the ram possessing the two horns, which I had seen standing before the watercourse; and it came running toward it in its powerful rage.

And I saw it coming into close touch with the ram, and it began showing bitterness toward it, and it proceeded to strike down the ram and to break its two horns, and there proved to be no power in the ram to stand before it. So it threw it to the earth and trampled it down, and the ram proved to have no deliverer out of its hand. The ram that you saw possessing the two horns [stands for] the kings of Media and Persia. And the hairy he-goat [stands for] the king of Greece; and as for the great horn that was between its eyes, it [stands for] the first king. And that one having been broken, so that there were four that finally stood up instead of it, there are four kingdoms from [his] nation that will stand up, but not with his power."

Since the Jews were warned of his approach they were more fortunate than those surrounding them. They opened their gates and surrendered to him and showed him the prophecy in their sacred texts. (Jewish Antiquities, XI, 337 [viii, 5]) With his conquest Alexander would also bring the influence of Greek philosophy to Jewish thinking. Including that of the immortal soul from Socrates.

Quoted by his pupil Plato Socrates said: "The soul, . . . if it departs pure, dragging with it nothing of the body, . . . goes away into that which is like itself, into the invisible, divine, immortal, and wise, and when it arrives there it is happy, freed from error and folly and fear . . . and all the other human ills, and . . . lives in truth through all after time with the gods." -- Phaedo, 80, D, E; 81, A.

This is pretty much what traditional apostate Christianity teaches to this day, although it is in stark contrast with the Bible's use of the Hebrew Nephesh and Greek Psykhe unhappily translated into the English word soul.

The Bible's teaching of the 'soul' is far more practical than some immortal part of a person that lives on. The Bible teaches that the soul is the life of any breathing creature. Its in their blood. Its their life, their experiences. It dies. (Ezekiel 18:4)

The New Catholic Encyclopedia: “Nepes [nephesh] is a term of far greater extension than our ‘soul,’ signifying life (Ex 21.23; Dt 19.21) and its various vital manifestations: breathing (Gn 35.18; Jb 41.13[21]), blood [Gn 9.4; Dt 12.23; Ps 140(141).8], desire (2 Sm 3.21; Prv 23.2). The soul in the O T means not a part of man, but the whole man - man as a living being. Similarly, in the N T it signifies human life: the life of an individual, conscious subject (Mt 2.20; 6.25; Lk 12.22-23; 14.26; Jn 10.11, 15, 17; 13.37)." -- 1967, Vol. XIII, p. 467.