[patinina34]

It was clearly understood in Old Testament Scripture that that which survived in death maintained a continuity of identity and, since Christ had not yet trampled down the bonds of death and appeared in the state of the reposed ("hades" not "hell"), it was conceived of as existing in a state of wordless, sightless repose. The soul evidently had some consciousness of future destiny, some active hope, and thus it was neither dead nor devoid of some sort of spiritual awareness, by grace.
Old Testament anthropology, like that of the New Testament, never conceived of a naturally immortal soul inhabiting a mortal body from which it might be liberated, but always conceived of a simple, non-dualistic anthropology of a single, psychophysical organism. An active, intellectual life or functioning of the soul alone could never be conceived in either Old or New Testament thought. For the soul to function, its restoration with the body as the "whole person" would be absolutely necessary.
sharp conflict between these two concepts: the Scriptural and the Hellenic, was clearly brought forth in the reaction to Paul's sermon to the Greeks, on the resurrection, found at Acts 17:16-34. Apart from the Stoics and a few others, few of the Greeks would have questioned a concept of the soul continuing to exist, and even being rewarded after death, but the idea of a bodily resurrection astounded them. Their astonishment was logical. In general, with some exceptions, they conceived that the soul was a prisoner of the body and escaped, or was liberated from the body by death, and that it gained its highest knowledge and awareness only then. Why, therefore, would anyone want to have the soul reunited with the body in a resurrection.
By contrast, there is a parable in the Talmud (the Hebrew commentaries on the "Old Testament") which gives a good example of the Old Testament understanding of the subject. This parable was given to explain the matter to the simple Jewish people. In it we read:
"There was a ruler who had an orchard. When he saw that the choice first-fruits were ripening, he set two watchmen over the orchard gate. The one was crippled in his legs, and the other was blind. The cripple, seeing the ripe and choice first-fruits, submitted to temptation. He said to the blind man: take me on your shoulders, I will guide you, and we will go to the best tree and take of the first-fruits and eat them. This they did. When the ruler came and saw that the choice first-fruits were gone, he questioned the two watchmen. The blind one replied, `Have I eyes that I could see to take the fruit?' The cripple replied, `Have I legs that I could go and get the fruit?' The ruler, perceiving the matter, made the cripple to sit on the shoulder of the blind man, and he judged the two as one. Even so shall the Holy-One, blessed be He, do on the last day. He will cast the soul back into its body, and He will judge the two as one."
The fathers of the Church have taught the same thing, telling us precisely that the soul cannot receive its reward without the body, as St Ambrose of Milan makes clear, saying:
"And this is the course and ground of justice, that since the actions of body and soul are common to both (for what the soul has conceived, the body has carried out), each should come into judgment...for it would seem almost inconsistent that...the mind guilty of a fault shared by another should be subjected to penalty, and the flesh, the author of the evil, should enjoy rest: and that that alone should suffer which had not sinned alone, or should attain to glory not having fought alone, with the help of grace."
St Irenae of Lyons is like-minded when he says:
"For it is just that in the very same condition in which they (the body and the soul) toiled or were afflicted, being proved in every way by suffering, they should receive the reward of their suffering...."
St Titus of Bostra, rebuking the Manicheans, confirms this thought in words quoted by St John the Damascene:
"For the soul cannot enjoy anything, or possess, or do anything, or suffer, except it be together with the body, being the same as it was created in the beginning, and thus it enjoys that which is proper to it. This state is lost in death through the disobedience of Adam, and again through the obedience of the one Christ, through hope it receives (in the resurrection) again the state of being a person."