“There is a radical difference between the Christian expectation of the resurrection of the dead and the Greek belief in the immortality of the soul.. . . Although Christianity later established a link between these two beliefs, and today the average Christian confuses them completely, I see no reason to hide what I and the majority of scholars consider to be the truth.. . . The life and thought of the New Testament are entirely dominated by faith in the resurrection.. . . The whole man, who is really dead, is brought back to life by a new creative act of God.”

—  Oscar Cullmann

In the book Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead?

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Oscar Cullmann 7
French theologian 1902–1999

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“For the Greeks who believed in the immortality of the soul it may have been harder to accept the Christian preaching of the resurrection than it was for others.. . . The teaching of the great philosophers Socrates and Plato can in no way be brought into consonance [agreement] with that of the New Testament.”

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This belief had survived in early Christianity, although with other symbols. It is found as a promise, even in particular passages of the Gospels, most clearly in the Gospel according to John, as in Chapter 14:16-20. Jesus speaks to his disciples, as he takes leave of them:

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