The axiom of Genesis 3:19, “for dust you are and to dust you shall return,” and similar statements in the Hebrew Bible
a human is in no way better off than an animal. Everything goes to the same place: everything comes from the dust, and everything returns to the dust (Eccl 3:20)
a human being, he dies and dead he remains (Job 14:10)
a human being, once laid to rest will never rise again (Job 14:12)
is predicated on the ontological and empirical evidence that all men die, that Death, if we wish to personify it, comes to all, and that there is no returning from the grave, or Sheol as it is commonly referred to in the Bible. Nothing in the Hebrew Bible, in other words, prepares us for the New Testament’s declarations that, according to Paul, Christ’s sacrifice on the cross has defeated Death itself, that Death no longer exists or, in light of Paul’s historical context, is currently becoming extinct (Rom 6:21-22, 8:2; 1 Cor 15:26). Likewise, apart from a very brief one-liner in Daniel 12:2, a late text, there is nothing in the Hebrew Bible that paves the way for belief in resurrection—that is, in a post-mortem reanimated corporal rising from the grave and eternal existence on earth.
Like many of the contradictions contained within the Bible’s 66 different books, whose dates of composition span an entire millennium!, this one is the result of a long editorial process that brought together two vastly different texts, and whose dates of composition were centuries apart (read about Contradictions in the Bible). More so, it is the result of two vastly different religious ideas and belief systems. It would be preposterous to think that there were no religious changes and developments between texts written in the 7th century BC and those written in the 1st century AD, and under drastically different political and religious convictions. Just because the Bible preserves texts written in the 7th century BC and texts written in the 1st century AD does not mean that this so-called “Book” is representative of a continuos religious tradition safeguarded over, as many presume, a divine rational plan. This in itself is a later interpretive framework that was imposed upon these texts by readers and scribes, who much like modern readers, lived centuries after these texts were written and knew next to nothing about the historical circumstances that produced these texts, their authors, and their audiences. It is our task, here and now, to understand this, to lend an ear to these individual texts and their authors. (Read more about What the Bible is).
What follows is a chronological overview of the religious ideas of death and punishment, and their transformation into later ideas and beliefs about an afterlife and resurrection as it can be surveyed in the literature of the Bible itself.
Death for all and for good!: Death and Dying in the Hebrew Bible
Heaven is the abode of Yahweh. Sheol is were the life-spirit (nephesh) goes after death, for both the just and the unjust. There are no exceptions, well other than the mythic Enoch and Elijah. The idea and belief in resurrection would have been unheard of, even unimaginable, to the authors of the Pentateuch (the Yahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, and Priestly writer). In fact such an idea would have been unheard of, even blasphemous, to all the authors of the Hebrew Bible except the author of Daniel, the last text to be written. That is to say, not until the 2nd century BC does the idea of and belief in resurrection emerge in the biblical corpus! And as we shall see it emerges as a direct result of a very specific historical crisis. But let us back up a moment.
“I put before you life and death”: The theology of reward and punishment in the Old Testament
We must approach the topic of death and how it morphed into the creation of the idea of resurrection through a discussion of theodicy or divine justice (why there is evil) as it was conceived and portrayed by our various biblical authors. Because ideas and beliefs about divine justice and punishment changed—and the biblical record attests these changes—so too ideas and beliefs about dying and/or being resurrected (i.e., being vindicated).
In the earliest texts of the Hebrew Bible, those written before the 5th century BC, the problem of theodicy is answered in terms that would offend any sensible man or woman of today. It is a theology structured on empirical evidence!
If you or your nation are suffering evils or have been struck down, then it is because you have sinned against Yahweh and his Torah; if you or your nation are healthy and prosperous, then it is because you have keep Yahweh’s laws and statues and Yahweh has blessed you. This is what might be referred to as the Deuteronomic theology, since it is most visible in the Deuteronomic literature and throughout the Prophetic corpus. The quote above, “I [Yahweh is speaking] put before you life and death” (Deut 30:15) sums up this theology of reward and punishment. The reward for obedience is life and prospering on the land; the punishment for disobedience and apostasy is suffering, exile, illness, etc., and death. In other words, how do you know if someone is just or unjust in this theological system? Easy. Just look and see whether he or she is healthy and prosperous or suffering and misfortunate.
It is a retrojective theology. That is, it is dictated by the empirical evidences at hand, and the biblical writers used this to create powerful historicizied theological narratives as we will see in the next section. Certainly, later Biblical authors will questions, and disagree, with this theological interpretive grid, particularly the authors of Ecclesiastes and Job, but let us get there in due fashion.
God is sovereign! How Faith informs history writing for the just and unjust alike
This retrojective theology actually rested on another theological premise which was for our biblical writers an unshakeable given, namely that God is just. Too much lip service is given to this idea in modernity, without much understanding about what this meant in terms of the biblical writers. Even those that toot such axioms today are a far cry from what this theological premise meant for the biblical writers.
To assert that God is just is to expose our human tendency and desire to see and claim that the world operates according to principles of justice, that there is a divine, cosmic system of justice that permeates through the world, even if man cannot see it at times. This idea will become increasingly more important as we move from a religious system that assigns death as the ultimate punishment for transgressions to one that assigns a post-mortem existence in hell as the ultimate punishment. But to give up this premise is to assert that the world did not operate on just grounds. That our biblical authors could not do. So all problems pertaining to the question of why there is evil in the world had to be answered without altering this theological “given.”
This theological premise co-existed with another which was just as important, namely that Yahweh is sovereign. What that means to our biblical writers is that all events whether national or individual were Yahweh’s doing. Now that’s a hard pill to swallow. No devil had yet been created (another religious idea that emerges after the texts of the Hebrew Bible were written). Yahweh was sovereign, period. Here are some expressions of what this sovereignty meant to the biblical writers.
Should evil befall a city and Yahweh has not done it? (Amos 3:6)
I am Yahweh and there is none other; I fashion light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil. I am Yahweh who does all these things! (Isa 45:6-7)
Who makes a person dumb or deaf, gives sight or makes blind? Is it not I, Yahweh! (Ex 4;11)
Of course this meant that while evil comes from God, God is not the cause of one’s evils or suffering, the individual or nation is. Yahweh is just is the theological premise. The choice between life and death was theirs to make. In other words, these theological “givens” work in tandem. The two together create a powerful theological interpretive framework through which the world was seen, and history was recorded by our biblical scribes.
Thus, in the conceptual and theological framework of judgement, death was seen as the ultimate punishment for disobedience and apostasy. And Yahweh was the death dealer. This is perhaps nowhere more accentuated than in the Deuteronomic and Prophetic literature (e.g., Deut 13; 28-30; Is 28; Jer 20-2; Ezek 18; 33). Much of the Old Testament legislation also ordained death as the punishment for a number of sins and issues of impurity. In fact the over-reaching theology of the Old Testament is that disobedience and apostasy lead to death, while obedience and righteousness lead to life. The goal of existence was living a good life, not an afterlife reward, but for the rewards and comfort of this life. Remember, no such idea was even imaginable to our biblical writers.
Thus, under the Old Testament’s theological framework, an individual or nation that was blessed, was seen as being blessed not only on account of Yahweh, the bestower of those blessings, but more so on account of the individual’s or nation’s own obedience and righteousness. In other words, according to this Deuteronomic theology, the empirical reality of a good life was proof enough of the individual’s or nation’s obedience to Yahweh. For the author of Deuteronomy stipulated this to be so (Deut 28-30). Conversely, the opposite also holds true under this theological interpretive framework: namely if the empirical reality revealed suffering, destruction, exile, loss, and death, the evidence irrefutably pointed toward the individual’s or nation’s disobedience to Yahweh’s Torah. This too was written in the covenant theology of the Deuteronomic law code.
Nowhere is this theology more powerfully presented than in the prophetic literature. Israel’s destruction, loss of land, and death and exile of its people in 722 BC, and Judah’s destruction, loss of land, and death and exile of its people in 587 BC were reasoned to be the result of their disobedience to Yahweh and his Torah. Whether this was an historically valid reason or not for the fall of Israel in 722 and Jerusalem in 587 was not the point. The actual facts of history are never the point in ancient historiography; rather, the interpretive theological understanding was. Faith informed history.
Furthermore, Deuteronomic theology and that of the prophets as well would have seen those that forged this attack on Israel in 722 BC and Judah in 587 BC as servants of Yahweh, an instrument of his divine biding. Yahweh, and Yahweh alone was sovereign. This is what that means. Even the books of Daniel and Revelation, which create an interesting twist to this theology nonetheless see their unjust sufferings as a product of divine providence. To deny this theology for the biblical authors was to question the sovereignty of God!
As a side note, I should mention that this theological interpretation of history through the premise that one’s national deity was sovereign over all the events of history was shared by all ancient Near Eastern cultures. For the Babylonians, for example, Marduk was sovereign; he controlled all the events of history. In this light it’s interesting to compare Ezra 1 where it is claimed that Yahweh was the cause of the demise of the Babylonian empire and for allowing the Judean exiles to return (Yahweh is sovereign) and the Babylonian cylinder seal where it is claimed that Marduk caused the demise of the Babylonian empire because the people disobeyed his laws and commandments AND allowed the exiles to return! It’s the same theology. Aunt Martha isn’t the only one who can bake an apple pie!
Job questions the Deuteronomic theology of reward for the just and punishment for the unjust
Nevertheless this Deuteronomic theology—if an individual or nation is healthy and prosperous it is on account of their loyalty to Yahweh and his Torah, and conversely if an individual or nation is suffering evils, even exiled, it is on account of having transgressed Yahweh’s Torah—comes into question in later periods. It is not difficult to see why. What if an individual or a nation were truly pious and righteous according to the terms of the Torah but were suffering evils anyway—that is suffering unjustly! What then? Remember up to this point the idea of suffering unjustly did not exist. The theology which stipulated that Yahweh is just and Yahweh is sovereign insisted that if the empirical evidence indicated that you were suffering evil, destruction, oppression by your enemies, etc., then it was as clear as day that you have transgressed against Yahweh and his Torah.
The book of Job, written in the 3rd century BC, however, brings this theology into question. And rightly so. Yet even the author of Job is not going to give up the theological “givens” that Yahweh is just and Yahweh is sovereign. The conundrum was whether that theology rested on empirical evidence or not.
In fact, Job’s friends represent the old school theological reckoning which claims that since Job is suffering, since they can see it, he must have sinned; the empirical experience dictates the theology. Job insists, however, that he has not sinned. The reader also knows this to be the case. The book of Job, however, does not provide, nor attempt to provide, an answer to the question of Job’s suffering. It simple asserts that it is beyond human understanding. In other words, although we start to see the emergence of a culture that now questions the older Deuteronomic theology that basically says if you are suffering misfortunes it is because you have offend Yahweh, but it has failed to provide an answer. The first step is to question the old long-standing interpretive tradition, even if no answer is as of yet foreseeable.
Qoheleth concludes all is vain, the just and unjust suffer the same fate: Death comes to all
The picture becomes more dismal when we come to the book of Ecclesiastes, another late 3rd century BC text. Contrary to the aporia that the text of Job ends in, the author of Ecclesiastes does have an answer: the just and the unjust both suffer the same fate! Death. All is vain! What profit is there to man’s labors when all receive the same fate?
In the end, however, like the author of Job, Qoheleth concludes that he has no answer, and that it is nevertheless best to follow Yahweh’s Torah, even if the sun shines on both the just and unjust.
We start to see that the issue of theodicy (why is there suffering/evil) has intensified and that the Deuteronomic answer no longer satisfies. Finally we arrive at the book of Daniel, which is an even later book of the Hebrew canon that also questions this theological belief—well sort of—and postulates a catchy solution.
Daniel speculates the just will rise from the grave and be rewarded: A reply to unjust sufferings
Like many of the texts of the Bible, Daniel is written to address a very specific historical situation and thus attempts to offer a theological rationale for its occurrence and for its hoped for end. The specific historical circumstance that text of Daniel is responding to is persecution. Daniel is written during the persecution of the Jewish nation under the foreign monarch Antiochus Epiphanes IV, who came to power in 167 BC. The emergence and creation of the belief in resurrection, of a post-mortem eternal reanimated corporal existence on a just earth—we are still a long distance from the idea of heaven—can be pin pointed to a specific historical event. In other words, both the textual and historical evidence clearly indicate why and how belief in a post-mortem existence was born. There is both good literary and historical grounds for seeing the belief in resurrection emerging, that is being created, as a direct response to a very specific situation: persecution.
In fact, Antiochus forbade the practicing of Judaism, burnt all Torahs, killed mothers who circumcised their sons, and forced Jews to forsake the Torah and profane themselves by eating unclean foods, and basically outlawed Judaism and slaughtered those who still followed its tenets and rituals. In the end, he even set a statue of Zeus in the guise of himself in Yahweh’s Temple, Daniel’s “abomination of desolation.”
If, according to the older theological construct of the Deuteronomic theology, an individual’s or nation’s suffering and unjust treatment is due to former transgressions and sin, and thus the suffering is seen as divine punishment and retribution—often referred to as God’s wrath—then Daniel does not really question this difficult to swallow theological construct, even in the face of witnessing his Jewish brethren being persecuted and martyred! However, the author of Daniel did create and amend to this belief another, that of vindication in an eternal life. Let’s pause for a moment and think about this.
Under the old theological system, the goal was to obey Yahweh’s torah in order to live a prosperous and good life. There is no post-mortem existence here; a good life, which largely equated to keeping the land, was the goal. Additionally, under this older theological system heaven was seen as the abode of God, period. Sheol is where one goes upon one’s death, whether one has lived an evil existence or a good one. Thus why Qoheleth lamented that all was in vain.
The reader may be confused at this moment, so drawn in and persuaded by later Christian ideas of reward and punishment in a post-mortem existence. Yet we are in the midst of explaining how this system of ideas and beliefs were created, yes created. In the Old Testament there is no hell. In other words, to address this from the perspective of reward and punishment, which the theology of the Deuteronomic history certainly deals with, Old Testament theology does not conceive of this reward and punishment in terms of a post-mortem reward or punishment. No such thing existed. When one dies, sleeps, or goes down to Sheol, that’s it. “A man once laid in the grave, will never rise again” (Job 14:12). According to this theological system, reward was living!, living a blessed life per the covenantal stipulations of the Deuteronomic writers. Conversely, punishment was living a sufferable existence, like for example, in exile, having your lands destroyed by the Babylonians, having your family cannibally consumed, or having all the plagues of Egypt come upon your nation (Deut 28). Again, under this theological system, these horrid sufferings and experiences were empirical proof of one’s sin or apostasy and thus called for divine retribution.
One now sees why and how the author of Job questioned such a construct. Does reality really work this way? The author of Daniel, although agreeing in part with this theology, amends it as well. What if an individual or nation were truly righteous and piously followed Yahweh’s Torah, but were experiencing horrid sufferings or even persecution anyway? The author of Daniel responds, in accord with the reigning older theological paradigm: that individual or nation is paying for their forefathers’ punishments. Well if the reward for being loyal to Yahweh’s Torah was living itself, and presumably living a blessed life, then what about those who were actually loyal and obedient to the Torah but lived horrible lives under severe persecution and suffering as many did when the book of Daniel was being written? This is Job’s question that goes unanswered.
If the empirical data of the existence of a truly righteous and pious individual is that of unjust suffering and persecution, and even if this is because that individual or nation is still paying for the sins and transgressions of its predecessors, nonetheless, the author of Daniel affirms, there is a reward, and furthermore that reward for being loyal to Yahweh and his Torah is still living, but since living is now a matter of suffering and persecution it is no longer conceived of in terms of living this existence—how could it be when there is nothing but persecution and suffering—but living in a post-mortem existence.
For Daniel, the just, defined as Torah obedient Jews, even though living a sufferable existence under the severe persecution of Antiochus, nevertheless are vindicated for their loyalty to Yahweh through a post-mortem existence. They are rewarded even though the empirical reality of their current suffering and persecution would indicate otherwise. For they are rewarded in an eternal life, which was envisioned to commence at some imminent point in history. For the author of Daniel, it was envisioned to commence after the three and a half years wherein Antiochus persecuted the Jews and placed a statue of himself in the guise of Zeus in Yahweh’s temple, in other words in the year 163 BC!
The text of Daniel 12:2 claims that “of those who are sleeping in the dust will awaken, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting disgrace.” The resurrection, literally the raising of the body and its life-force from the grave, is seen as a solution to the irresolution created by the Deuteronomic theology. According to the authors of Daniel, those who have suffered persecution and martyred themselves and were indeed loyal to the Torah—a theme that rings throughout the book—will be raised from the grave to everlasting life. This is a reanimated body living in what is conceptualized in the literature as the kingdom of God. Most significantly this is an earthly kingdom that our author sees as imminently coming upon the demise of the last foreign kingdoms, specifically that of Antiochus’ evil rule. This post-mortem reanimated life is therefore perceived as the due vindication for the righteous and loyal who have died from Antiochus’ persecution. It is a martyr’s vindication—uniquely for those who have given their lives to remain loyal to the Torah of Yahweh. This is more explicitly portrayed in the books of 1 and 2 Maccabees which were written also in the context of Antiochus’ persecutions and provides us with a good amount of historical information about these persecutions. 2 Macc 7:1-11 brings home quite vividly this belief in resurrection for those who martyred themselves.
It happened also that 7 brothers and their mother were arrested and were being compelled by the king, under torture with whips and throngs, to partake of unlawful swine’s flesh. One of them, acting as their spokesperson, said “What do you intend to ask and learn from us? For we are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our ancestors.” The king fell into a rage and gave orders to have pans and caldrons heated. These were heated immediately and he commanded that the tongue of their spokesperson be cut out and that they scalp him and cut off his hands and feet, while the rest of the brothers and mother looked on.
And the second brother, when he was at his last breath said, “You accursed wretch, you dismiss us from this present life, but the King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting resurrection of life because we have died for his laws.”
And after him, the third was the victim of their sport. When it was demanded, he quickly put out his tongue and courageously stretched forth his hands and said nobly, “I got these from heaven and because of his laws I disdain them, and from him I hope to get them back again”
Bodily resurrection from the grave, and if necessary the recreation of lost limbs as seen in the above example, to an eternal corporal reanimated life was the theological solution for the righteous Torah-obedient Jew who suffered and was martyred for his god’s sake—a true vindication. More than describing the ontological constitution of reality, the tales of vindicated martyrs served a literary and historical purpose: to consol and praise those who died, and were dying for Yahweh and his Torah. Approximately 200 hundred years later, the same ideas and beliefs were to reappear in the book of Revelation, where also those who martyred themselves—and only the martyrs the text affirms—were to be vindicated in a reanimated post-mortem eternal or millennial life on earth.
Resurrection, Judgement, and the Just and Righteous in Jewish Intertestamental Literature
We do not have the time to review this large corpus of literature, but starting in the 2nd century BC, the notion that the just sufferer will be given his reward in a post-mortem resurrected existence spread like wildfire. It answered the question of theodicy while nevertheless kept intact the theological “givens” that Yahweh is just and sovereign. The book of Enoch, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and other texts expressed this same idea. Thus the belief in resurrection was something that Paul inherited from his Judaism; it was not born from his belief in Christ. Something else was however.
Paul proclaims the Resurrection has begun: Death is Dead!
Paul, who is the first author of what will become Christian literature, believes in the resurrection and most likely he was informed about such beliefs from these Jewish traditions that already existed in the Judaism of the 1st century AD. However, on account of his Christ-experience Paul also believed that the Resurrection, capital R, of the dead had begun! In other words, if Jewish tradition affirmed that on the day of Judgement, the God of the cosmos was going to raise up the bodies in the grave in order to pass judgement on them and assign everlasting life on earth to the righteous ones, then for Paul that moment had already commenced. This belief was predicated on the empirical fact, for Paul, that Jesus rose from the dead. In other words, and harmonious with the Jewish tradition Paul adopted, Paul deemed that Jesus’ resurrection from the dead was the sign that the Resurrection of all the dead had begun (1 Cor 15). In fact, Paul also seems to have firmly believed that he himself and other believers in Christ would not die! (1 Thess 4). That’s how much Paul was caught up in the belief that the day of Judgement and the Resurrection had already begun. Some of the righteous living during this event would not even die; their bodies will just be transformed and they will join those who are being raised from the grave, and apparently they will all sit down to a meal of French toast and Earl Gray (that last part is not in the Bible; it’s been a long night typing this up). This is exactly why Paul can also proclaim that Death is dead; it exists no more; that sin too is dead, that Torah obedience is gone, that we are all dead in fact—because what was happening was the beginning of a post-mortem existence awakening. Paul was witnessing this … or so he believed.
“There are some standing here who will not taste death!”
Paul’s belief that he was living in the midst of the Judgement and Resurrection, and that therefore he himself and others of the righteous would not die, was passed on to some of the writings of the early church. The quotation above (Mk 9:1; Matt 16:28; Lk 9:27) expresses this belief. Although placed on the lips of Jesus in these gospels, it most likely was the very words and beliefs of the authors who, much like Paul, believed that they were living in the midst of the Judgement, the second coming, and the Resurrection, so much so that some were thought not even to die!
“apparently they will all sit down to a meal of French toast and Earl Gray (that last part is not in the Bible”
Just typical! There’s no humour in the bible at all.
Rather than respond to the seeming contradictions here from an apologist standpoint (trying to unify the texts), I’d like to present alternative readings to some of these verses from the theological standpoint of the writer at the time.
In Ecclesiastes, the writer makes it clear in expressions like 3:20 and 9:5 that man dies just like the animals, ceasing to exist at that time. However, the ultimate thrust of this message of seeming futility is revealed in chapter 12 when the writer says that “the whole obligation of man” is to “fear the true God and keep his commandments” because he will be judged according to his actions. Nowhere in this book does the writer assert that God’s judgment will immediately lead to “exile, illness [or] death”; rather, “Solomon” speaks of the importance of serving God before one has passed from youth to old age (12:1). Then in 12:7 we are told that man’s spirit returns to God.
What do these concepts — (1) the return of man’s “breath” to God, and (2) the idea that man might live into old age even if he doesn’t serve God, to be judged at a future time — tell us about the writer’s view of man’s fate? A judgment at the end of one’s life would serve no purpose in a world without an afterlife or resurrection. Therefore, the message of Ecclesiastes could be considered to be this: no matter how a man lives, when he dies, he lies in his grave; however, if he served God, then God will see fit to judge/resurrect him. However, I admit that this is not spelled out explicitly.
Although Job seemed to reiterate the thought of Qoheleth when speaking in 14:12, he then goes on to say in verse 14, “If an able-bodied man dies can he live again? All the days of my compulsory service I shall wait, until my relief comes.” The RSV renders this last part as, “All the days of my service I would wait, till my release should come.” This is suggesting the view that, yes, man ceases to exist while dead, but after a ‘compulsory period’ is over, God can bring him back. This is why Job asks to be concealed in Sheol, the grave — not because he wants to cease existing, but because he wants his suffering to be over until it’s time to face God’s judgment.
Additionally, you state that there is an “aporia” in Job, which Google tells me is a puzzle or unresolved situation. I see the exact opposite. The account starts off by explaining that Satan is challenging God over whether man’s servitude to him is based on the rewards God gives in return, or on true loyalty (1:9-11). God agrees to let Satan “touch” Job in order to show that he is truly loyal to Him. This is a complete answer to the question of evil! (Also, you claimed that “no devil had yet been created” until “after the texts of the Hebrew Bible were written”, but here he is, right in Job 1.)
Finally, at the end of the story, God rewards Job by giving him twice what he had before the Devil took everything, with one notable exception. While his 7000 sheep became 14000, his 3000 camels became 6000, and his 500 she-asses became 1000, “he also came to have seven sons and three daughters”. That’s the same number he had before! Rather than getting twice the number of children, the fact that he received the same number indicates belief in a resurrection. How?
The animals, who God would not have reason to bring back to life, being lower than man, were replaced with double the number. But if God intended to bring back Job’s original 10 children, we see that by granting Job 10 more children, he was in fact doubling the number that would be given to Job upon resurrecting the original 10! There is no other logical reason that God would give back Job’s things in double except for his children, considering that the account also tells us that Job lived another 140 years, so it would hardly have been far-fetched if the writer wanted to tell us that Job conceived 20 more children in that time as a replacement for the 10 he lost.
I was going to write more (about Paul’s belief in the afterlife differing somewhat from your description of it), but I don’t want this to get any longer. Forgive me, but this was a long article, so it’s hard to respond briefly to it!
KW, you have voiced some thoughts I have had on this matter (as you have in other replies so far). I was hesitant to comment, as I’m not sure how to separate the wheat from the chaff : how do I trust my former understanding of scripture (which so far seems to align with yours) in light of ‘J’ and ‘P’ etc?
Steve, I’m worried about what to trust with these theories, just as I was with the various interpetations of scripture. My default position was the NT writers. Their understanding of the OT and how they ‘explain’ stuff from the OT, is what forms my understanding. Maybe all this won’t be clear until we come to the NT.
Catherine, you are not alone in the concerns you express. When all else fails, trust the texts—but through whose eyes or what later interpretive community might be the question. If we’re reading a text through the interpretive framework of the NT writers (who knew nothing about the original historical and literary contexts of the texts they were reading), then are we being honest to, say, the 8th c. BC author and the reasons that led him to write what he did and to whom he did? Is not such a reading rather placing the beliefs, views, interpretation, and reading of the NT writers’ before those of the actual authors of these texts?
Granted, I take the extreme position here: the meaning of these texts must, and can only, be understood with respect to who wrote them, in response to what historical circumstance, in dialogue with what literary texts, and to whom—regardless how these texts were viewed and re-interpreted by centuries-later reading communities. I’m interested in this, but only after we have established what these texts mean as products of their own historical and literary contexts. Then we as a culture can engage in the conversation of how (and why) these same texts were reread and (mis)understood when they were co-opted as part of a larger creation, “the Book,” a title which serves to impose an exterior interpretive framework onto these texts. In other words, such a label does not describe its contents, but prescribes how its content ought to be read, as a book. This belief, as well as the belief that this “Book” is the word of God are later interpretive frameworks that are imposed on these earlier texts—likewise, reading the earlier OT texts through the beliefs and interpretive framework of the NT. Here, we are trying to eliminate these later interpretive frameworks and get right to the texts, their authors, audiences, and historical contexts. This is no easy task. It is very complex.
The reading community that created “the Book/Bible” would have us believe that these texts were all written as part of, and to be part of “the Bible,” but this is merely the views and beliefs of that particular reading community itself. Studying the Bible and how and why it came to be is extremely complex. I think much of what we do here will become more clear, especially when we get to the book of Deuteronomy because we will see—it is transparent—how our author subverts earlier texts but at the same time introduces his new text and laws as the old tradition since that tradition is already authoritative. Later this text, Deuteronomy, that was written to replace how the “history” of Israel was told in the earlier traditions will be collected together with the very texts that he sought to replace, and then centuries later this and other books will be co-opted as part of an even larger re-interpretive process called “the Bible.” 99% of the contradictions that we are studying are the result of these different texts having been collected together as part of this so-called “Book.” In actuality, however, this “Book” contains numerous variant and contradictory stories and histories. It is this very fact which we as a culture need to start grappling with and conversing about. I hope this project here moves us toward that goal. And yes, these are difficult issues, and weigh heavily on us as a culture and as individuals.
Do not hesitate to express your concerns or questions. Having said that, you might find these helpful
What is the Bible, particuarly the last few sections
And How we know the biblical writers were not writing history.
Thanks Steve. I will read the links and as time allows, the other links too. Hopefully things will get clearer. Thank you again for your work.
Hi.
I am finding your writing very interesting, thank you for the time and effort.
I would like to hear the answer to the point raised in an earlier comment, that the devil clearly is spoken of in Job 1. Can you reconcile this with your statement about there being no mention of a devil in the hebrew scriptures?
Thank you for your encouraging words. Yes I can, and I was preparing a longer response to KW but got side tracked with other things. But, behold!, I have found it, so I’ve pasted that below as well.
Linguistically the Hebrew term is satan, and as in the Balaam story of Num 22-24, the satan figure is presented as Yahweh’s agent. In other words, the satan figure is presented as an adversary—the meaning of the Hebrew is adversary—to mankind, not God! Remember too that most of the Hebrew Bible is adamant about expressing the theological “given” that Yahweh is sovereign and this even includes when evil befalls a city (Amos 3:6; Isa 45:6-7), when hardships befall mankind (Job via Yahweh’s satan), or evil comes upon a king (Saul in Samuel). Later, however, this changes and satan becomes Satan, the adversary to God.
KW, this had been sitting on my computer. I think I was waiting to add some stuff, but it’s long enough.
Remember that the books of Ecclesiastes, Job, and Daniel are all late writings (4th-2nd c. BC) grappling with, each in their own terms, the Deuteronomic tradition that they inherited and its answer to the question of suffering, catastrophe, and evil. Even if you wished to see hints of the emergence of the idea of vindicating or justification in a post-mortem existence here, which I have more comfortably identified with Daniel, it still confirms the fact that such an idea is utterly absent, even unthinkable, for the writers of the Torah and most of the rest of the Hebrew canon.
In both texts, why would you assume that judgement is going to happen after death rather than during one’s life? Eccl 12 ends with the exhortation to, since all is vain, remember God when your young before the suffering and decrepitude of old age settle upon you. “The spirit (nephesh; this is not to be equated with soul, which is a Greek idea) was God’s to begin with (Gen 3). Also Eccl 9:5: “For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten” (cf. the quotes at the top of this post too). I don’t really see much here to suggest that this represents resurrection. However, I might add that, if I recall, the Septuagint version of Job, which is longer, does end with talk of resurrection. So such ideas were percolating in the 2nd c. BC.
The aporia that the book of Job ends with is that, now having dismissed the Deuteronomic’s explanation for why Job is suffering, as represented by his friends, the text does not answer the question from Job’s perspective, but leaves it as a mysterium dei. It is a divine mystery, an epistemological conundrum from man’s perspective.
“This is a complete answer to the question of evil!” – that Yahweh allows the satan (Adversary) to impart evil? Are you sure you want to go there? Indeed, in Daniel, and even as late as the book of Revelation, the “evil” that exists is said to exist because God has permitted it for a certain amount of time – epistemologically speaking it is unfathomable to man however. He cannot understand. My aporia is synonymous with an epistemological lack of understanding. This was not the case for the Deuteronomist’s theodicy. Thus in Job, Yahweh is still very much sovereign, the satan figure, like in Numbers 24, works for Yahweh. He is the adversary to man, not God. This all changes in later Jewish and early Christian tradition, where this now independent entity from God becomes the answer to suffering and evil. We see the steps that lead us here by arranging the biblical texts in chronological order. In short, that was my point. We’d have to take a good look at the Dead Sea Scrolls too. As I recall ideas of a separate entity, Belial, start to emerge in that literature as well (2nd -1st c. BC).
cheers
Ah, thanks for the response, I was wondering if I’d stumped you
I’ll grant you the Ecclesiastes argument, as nothing is clearly spelled out there with regards to a possible view on the afterlife. I do think, though, that the mention of a “judgment” in both 11:9 and 12:14 is very interesting. Also, the passage in ch. 3 surrounding verse 20 is rather strange, as it asserts that man is no different from beast and that they share the same eventuality; however in vs. 21 the writer asks who can know whether man’s spirit (which is ruach; nephesh is only used to refer to the fleshly man throughout Eccl.) might ascend upward while a beast’s spirit descends downward. It’s almost as if Qoheleth is considering, but skeptical of, the idea of an afterlife. I really don’t know what to make of it, esp. in light of 12:7.
I also grant you that the earlier OT books don’t seem to discuss the afterlife at all. I wasn’t technically arguing that they did; rather I was focusing on what the writers of Job and Ecclesiastes thought, but still that’s food for thought — that we’re seeing the evolution of a theology over time.
I didn’t realize that your aporia was in reference to the fact that Job himself gets no explanation for what happened. Of course this is true, and a rather odd fact about the book, considering that *we’re* told up front what is going on. But you stated emphatically that Job does not provide an answer to unjust suffering, and I still maintain that it does provide an answer to the reader as to why undeserved tragedies befall men. The reader is being told that he can blame has-satan for his own troubles.
I’m not sure that I see this “adversary” as working for God, but it might explain why Satan is reporting to God in heaven along with “ben Elohim”, the “sons of God”. As you know, Christians connect Satan with the temptation of Eve by the snake; that is, Satan *was* the serpent, and now he’s the Devil, and later he gets thrown from heaven for his crimes. I am still trying to come to terms with the notion that perhaps the snake was just a snake, and that Satan was initially just an angel that liked giving men a hard time, and later the two figures were connected by Jewish thinkers. Anyway,…
KW nice to hear from you. Looks like we’re in agreement then. I’ll cede the ruah/nephesh distinction to you, or leave it to those whose Hebrew is better than mine.
“His satan” is an interesting take on the Job. I can’t say whether the text supports this reading or not—I really can’t. It’s been awhile since I’ve read Job, and I won’t be getting to its contradictions until… well a couple of years! I still don’t see how Job or “his satan” is to blame. Doesn’t the text go out of its way to present Job as righteous, i.e., guiltless?
Check out the use of satan in Num 22:22: “God became enraged that he [Balaam] was undertaking the journey. The angel of Yahweh stationed himself on the road, confronting him as an adversary (satan).” Here it is explicit that Yahweh’s angel presents himself as an adversary. Interesting the text does not use, purposely?, the direct object, the adversary. I think, if I recall, in Job it is used that way. Satan is also used to reference a human adversary in political or military contexts (1 Kings 11:14; 5:3).
Again, I find the 3rd – 1st c. BC so fascinating because this is when religious ideas of resurrection, apocalypse, after-life, and an independent “evil” agent start to emerge, and these are all elements that relate in some for or another to theodicy.
Careful not to read later tradition back into these earlier texts. I don’t think the Hebrew text supports any notion of the serpent as Yahweh’s satan or Satan. As you properly note these are later interpretive traditions. So too is the myth of Satan’s fall. If you’re looking for a good read, get a hold of the text The Life of Adam and Eve, written sometime in the 2nd c. BC – 1st. AD. It’s a great read. It’s a discussion between Adam, Eve, and Satan after the expulsion. Eve gets duped again, and Adam finally confronts Satan and asks: What do you have against us? The response is this heart-felt story explaining Satan’s exclusive love for Yahweh, and thus his inability to love the human pair, and the reason for his expulsion. I’m not sure if this is the earliest version of this story. In fact, the text is actually about resurrection. Adam (Hebrew for mankind) preserves his right to be resurrected.
cheers
Hmm, looks like my last few words got cut off. Well, all I had written was “Anyway, I will continue to think about all this.” Guess I shouldn’t flirt with the character limit like that (the post I submitted was exactly 2500 characters
. It also stripped the links I provided to show where ruach and nephesh are used in Ecclesiastes. Oh well.
“I still don’t see how Job or “his satan” is to blame. Doesn’t the text go out of its way to present Job as righteous, i.e., guiltless?” Sorry, maybe I was unclear here. I was referring to “hassatan”, “the adversary” found in 1:6-9, 12, 2:1-4, 6-7. As far as I can tell, Job was written to give a reason why, even if someone keeps the commandment regarding sacrifice (1:5) and all the other commandments faithfully, bad things can still happen to him. The reason is precisely *because* of their faithfulness — that “the adversary” (has-sa-tan’) will call their motives into question if they have been blessed by God. (It almost makes one not want to be too successful or too faithful, to escape notice!) ‘Thus,’ the moral goes, ‘sometimes we all have to suffer in order to prove our good motives.’
As you noted, sometimes the word is used without the definite article or any article at all. In Num. 22:22 Balaam meets le-sa-tan’, “an adversary”. I think the distinction being made is that any angel might resist us if we’re disobeying God (or tempted to, as in Balaam’s case), but then there’s also *the* adversary who questions our motives before God and might lead to us being tested, as in Job’s case.
As you indicate, this seems to be the development of a new concept, which I suppose could be a response to people who said after the law was written, “Well, I’m keeping all these commandments and still suffering, so what gives? I’m not a sinner!” One could even speculate that the point was to provide an explanation for times when the nation as a whole or its king might suffer in some way. “It’s not because the king sinned! And don’t ascribe any bad to God or turn away from him when the nation suffers misfortune!”
Anyway, it seems we’re basically in agreement on all this. I hadn’t heard of The Life of Adam and Eve, will try to check that out.
“There are some standing here who will not taste death!”
I think this accurately sums up my thoughts on this post. Rip a text apart and it’s easy to claim a contradiction. If you read on, you will see the true quote is: “…there are some of those standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.” Letting the text speak for itself does wonders.
First off, I’ll comment that there is some truth to the fact that God’s revelation is progressive and, especially with the revelation through His Son (Hebrews 1:1-5), we are given a greater understanding of the truth.
However, I reject the idea that the Old Testament teaches contradictory things to the New. I’ll try to explain below, starting with theodicy:
The Bible as a whole gives a consistent message – God is in control of all things and for reasons known to Him (and sometimes revealed to us), He allows evil. Specifically, Isaiah 10 mentions God using Assyria to judge the Jewish people and then punishing Assyria for that very act, even though their action was decreed by God. Genesis 50 explains that God was in control of the action of Joseph’s brothers and He meant if for good while his brothers meant it for evil. Acts 2 refers to the predetermined plan of God in Christ dying on the cross, yet the individuals are still responsible for this action. Romans 9 discusses that God will have mercy on whom He desires and harden whom He desires. Paul answers the objectors similar to how Job is answered: ‘who are you O man to answer back to God?’.
I’m confused that you added Ezekiel 18 in your argument of Job’s ‘questioning’ previously held beliefs. Ezekiel chapter 14 verse 14 specifically mentions Job.
Time will fail me to reference all the eternal life passages in the Psalms. Proverbs 14:32 is also quite obvious. Many other passages allude to this (Jesus quotes from Exodus to prove resurrection to the Sadducees in Luke 20). It is interesting how you must completely disregard Enoch and Elijah in order to continue your claim.
So, while later revelation does indeed provide more information about eternal life, this is in no way contradictory to older revelation. Instead, it is an explanation of and elaboration on previous revelation. In regard to your title, men BOTH return to dust AND are resurrected.
Your quote from the gospel proves this post’s point, indeed I myself end with it! My goal here is to understand the texts and their authors each on their own terms and in their own historical and literary worlds. So the idea of resurrection would have been utterly inconceivable and unimaginable to the earliest authors of the Hebrew Bible. Job’s assertion “a human being, he dies and dead he remains” (Job 14:10); “a human being, once laid to rest will never rise again” (Job 14:12) explicitly lays this out. Whoever authored this passage, this was what he believed. You cannot change that. That is what I call be disrespectful to the text. Maybe, indeed, he was starting to question this, and sets Job up as a character who does just that. But you’re not even listening to the individual texts, because you’ve already prejudged them to be no individual texts at all.
Point in fact: the Bible as a whole does not give a consistent message. This is not my claim, but the 60+ texts and authors who wrote over a 1,000 year period under diverse political and religious convictions. You’re again favoring a later interpretive umbrella and disfavoring the individual texts. This is in fact, as you stated clearly in a previous comment—”I claim that the Bible as a whole (Law, Psalms, Prophets, and New Testament) are all written by a variety of individuals, yet are God-breathed and can also be considered as written by the Holy Spirit”—your interpretive “given,” inflexible. This is, however, the creation of later readers and crafted under the influence of their own historical needs, concerns, and perspectives. I can pinpoint in history when this idea emerges, just as the biblical texts tell us when the idea of resurrection emerged, and why! If you were educated, or desired to be such, then the natural response to me having just said that would be. “What is he talking about” And then go find out when later tradition labeled these texts as “the Book,” why and under what circumstances? Did the original authors think this? And where would I begin to research this? I myself ponder these very questions in What is the Bible? Thinking always starts by asking questions. The task of understanding how this complex piece of literature got assembled, labeled as “the Book,” and then decreed the infallible words of God are complex. We, all if us, must start be bringing into questions our presuppositions and inherited beliefs about what the Bible is, and then proceed to educate ourselves about the texts as products of their own historical and literary worlds.
The idea of revelation or a progressive divine plan is also a centuries-later creation and construct, and it was used to legitimate and authorize a particular readerships’ interpretation of the text or of history! These are all later subjective, i.e., from the vantage point of the readers, interpretive grids that then get retrojected back into the past and onto these texts. I too am interested in how and why these interpretive frameworks got created and ultimately how they affect our understanding and reading of these earlier texts which were not written under such presuppositions. But here, I have devoted this space to the texts themselves apart from later theological constructs about them. If you were inquisitive, you should also be asking yourself, “How can Dr. DiMattei say that these were not the original intentions of the writers of these texts? What evidence, textual (biblical and extra-biblical) is there for such a claim?
The Qur’an also speaks of revelation, and adopting your theological lens of a progress in God’s revelation, it is the next stage in God’s revelation! So heed your own words. But here you would argue that the Qur’an is a different source. Why? because it visible is a separate book? The literature of the Bible spans 1,000 years, 60+ authors, and 3 languages, but that’s all part of God’s plan because a later reading community told you it was? But an even later reading community is telling you that that magnificent divine plan has even progressed further into another collection of texts and in a yet forth language, the Qur’an. I’m sure, well maybe I’m not, that you might start to see the inherent flaw in your methodology. Exterior, subjective, and centuries-later theological claims are quite different from studying the actual texts on their own terms and in their own contexts, apart from these later theological assertions made to promulgate the particular agendas of later readers. The imposition of a subjective, i.e., reader-oriented, theological interpretive lens, onto these texts logically leads you to follow God’s revelation and accept the Qur’an. Your inability to do that reflects the subjective nature of your whole interpretive enterprise. You spout theology when it confirms to your beliefs, you disregard the same theological claims built on the same principals when it doesn’t confirm to your beliefs. This is the exact same methodology you have adopted when you engage with these texts. Here, belief is secondary. I’m not interested in your beliefs nor mine, nor any of my readers. I’m interested in the beliefs of the 60+ authors of these texts and why they believed what they did. But that inquiry cannot be answered by looking at these texts from a later vantage point. It must be tackled by looking at the texts, to the best of our ability, from their own historical and literary worlds. Jesus, nor any Jew of the first century, did not have access to the historical, archaeological, and extra-biblical knowledge, texts, and data, that we have today at out disposal. You yourself are probably unaware of the vast majority of this data; yet you feel competent to proclaim things about these texts not having all, not having any! of, the data at your finger tips. It is the texts that we study here as best we can, on their own terms and in their own historical and literary framework, not through the framework, nor limited knowledge, of later readers. You seem incapable of doing, and recognizing, this.
Steven,
I disagree that Job certainly does not believe in an afterlife. A mere 2 verses after 14:12 make that obvious. And if you would only read on in verse 14:12 itself you will see that it says: “So man lies down and does not rise. Until the heavens are no longer he will not awake nor be aroused out of his sleep.” Not quite so explicit when you actually read the whole text.
Also, you seemed to ignore my reference to Ezekiel. Clearly Ezekiel was written after Job which is quite the trouble spot for your theory.
I can only echo what Jesus said in John 5:46 – “For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”
Of course I do not deny that many people wrote the different books in the Bible, however, “men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” (2 Peter 1:21)
The Bible is a fantastic collection of writings, written over hundreds of years by many different writers yet somehow provides a consistent message of salvation from the Lord. “As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which have now been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven – things into which angels long to look.” (1 Peter 1:10-12).
Ignoring this aspect in the writings is ultimately futile as these supposed and easily refuted contradictions demonstrate.