The Bible teaches that Sheol(which is generally rendered in English translations as "hell") is the grave. The "hell" Christ spoke of in Matt. 10:28 is Gehenna, or "the lake of fire" as Revelation calls it. A wise person would look at the inspired Hebrew or Greek words to fully understand what is being taught instead of assuming they're right just because they lazily believe what uninspired translations say.
Also, the soul is not something a person has. As OP thoroughly proved, a living person/animal is a soul. Genesis does not show God cramming a soul into Adam or Eve. It literally teaches that God constructed those 2 from dirt and imparted physical life to them. As God said in Gen. 3, "you are dust".
Just because millions of other professing Christians through the ages agreed with your position, it doesn't make that position true. The Bible determines what is true, not deceived people.
The Bible warns that many would be deceived by false doctrines. One of those false doctrines is the pre-Christian heathen idea that man has a soul that will exist forever, which is the same lie Satan told Adam and Eve and spread to the rest of humanity through the false religions that spawned from Babylon. Paul clearly taught in 1 Tim. 6 that God alone possesses eternal life. Paul also taught in 1 Cor. and Rom. that the only way a person can exist forever is if God imparts immortality to them with His Spirit. God made man of the dust so he can be permanently destroyed if he refuses to surrender himself to God's authority. Revelation speaks of unrepentant people dying a second and permanent death, not existing as disembodied beings away from God. By subscribing to such obviously false theology, you are by default disagreeing with the Source of truth.
You say you stay away from cults, but you confidently subscribe to the doctrines of heathen cults and philosophers. The irony is extremely palpable. Playing the "you're a cult member" card is a sure sign that you know you can't prove your own theology is supported by the Bible, in which case you should just humbly accept the correction instead of vainly defending an unbiblical position. Accepting correction doesn't mean you're telling everyone you're stupid; it just means you value truth and you want to learn. Intellectual vanity is precisely why a lot of "Christians" don't really believe or practice what the Bible teaches.
Soul sleep is so easy to refute
The Bible makes it clear in 2 Corinthians ch. 5, that our body is only a home, that WE leave at death.
2Co 5:1 For we know that if our earthly HOUSE of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
2Co 5:6 Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are AT HOME in the body, we are absent from the Lord:
2Co 5:8 We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be ABSENT FROM the BODY, , and to be PRESENT with the Lord.
Scripture further makes that clear that at salvation, the Holy Spirit comes into our house, the body, and changes it from just a house, into the TEMPLE of the Holy Spirit.
1Co 6:19 What? know ye not that your BODY is the TEMPLE of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
It further makes it clear that our body is a house when Jesus gives an example of a demon possessed man, who had a demon cast out of him, but the demon went out and got more demons, and returned to the man, and found his HOUSE swept clean, and moved right back in and brought the other demons with him, so that man was worse off than he was before.
Mat 12:43 When the unclean spirit is gone OUT OF a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.
Mat 12:44 Then he saith, I will return into my HOUSE from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished.
Mat 12:45 Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they ENTER IN and DWELL there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.
In 1st or 2nd Kings, Elijah raises a dead boy. He stretched his body over the dead child and prayed three times for the dead child’s soul to come BACK into the child’s body. When the soul RETURNED to the body, the dead child came back to life.
The dead child’s soul wasn’t hanging around with the child’s body - the soul had LEFT and had to RETURN for the child to live again.
1Ki 17:21 And he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried unto the LORD, and said, O LORD my God, I pray thee, let this child's SOUL come into him again.
1Ki 17:22 And the LORD heard the voice of Elijah; and the SOUL of the child CAME INTO HIM AGAIN, and he revived.
Then there’s the fact that hell was originally created for satan and his angels, not for man. Jesus made it clear that the same everlasting fire that condemned humans go to, was created for the devil and his angels.
Mat 25:41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into EVERLASTING FIRE, prepared for the DEVIL and his ANGELS:
You think hell is the grave, yet it’s clear that hell is a PLACE that some of the fallen angels are in right now, in chains, awaiting judgment.
Jud 1:6 And the ANGELS which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting CHAINS under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
Fallen angels are spirits - they have no BODIES to bury in the dirt, but yet they ARE in a place called HELL right now.
2Pe 2:4 For if God spared not the ANGELS that sinned, but cast them down TO HELL, and delivered them into CHAINS of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
Notice that they aren’t SLEEPING in hell, or they wouldn’t need to be chained to prevent their escape.
Soul sleep is absolutely wrong doctrine. You’ve been misled.
Before Jesus came, there were two compartments in the heart of the earth at that time. One compartment, called Abraham’s bosom, aka paradise, held all of the righteous dead, because no soul could go to heaven until Messiah atoned for sins.
It was separated by a great chasm from the torments compartment that the damned were put in, called Hell.
Jesus tells us about this in Luke 16 starting in verse 19.
When Jesus died His spirit descended into the heart, middle of the earth, and He preached to those spirits held in captivity there, most likely telling them He is Messiah and the Son of God who died for sins.
1Pe 3:18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:
1Pe 3:19 By which also he went and PREACHED unto the SPIRITS in PRISON.
Eph 4:8 Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, HE LED CAPTIVITY CAPTIVE, and gave gifts unto men.
Eph 4:9 (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also DESCENDED first into the LOWER PARTS OF THE EARTH?
Eph 4:10 He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.)
When He rose from the dead he emptied out paradise and took their spirits with them, which is why many dead people also rose and went into the city, after His resurrection.
Mat 27:52 And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,
Mat 27:53 And came out of the graves AFTER HIS RESURRECTION , and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.
Now those who die in Christ go to heaven - He moved paradise from in the earth, to heaven because He atoned for sins.
John the revelator was caught up into heaven, and saw SOULS there.
Rev 6:9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the SOULS of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:
You think hell is the grave. It’s not. It’s a place in the earth that holds conscious beings in it, and when when every knee bows to Jesus on judgment day, even those in hell bow down.
Php 2:9 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:
Php 2:10 That at the name of Jesus EVERY knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and THINGS UNDER THE EARTH.
Php 2:11 And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Rev 5:3 And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither UNDER THE EARTH, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon.
Rev 5:13 And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, AND UNDER THE EARTH and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I SAYING , Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.
Hell is a place that Jesus said was originally created for satan and his fallen angels. And the damned are cast into that same place of everlasting fire.
Mat 25:41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
There are beings UNDER the earth who talk, thus are conscious - not buried in dirt while asleep in the grave.
Revelation 5:13
Moses has died, but Moses’ soul isn’t taking a snooze in the dirt, because he visited Jesus on the mount of transfiguration.
Mark 9:4
Soul sleep is simply wrong.
