Judaism in Late Antiquity 4: Death, Life-After-Death, Resurrection and the World-To-Come in the Judaisms of Antiquity (HANDBOOK OF ORIENTAL STUDIES/HANDBUCH DER ORIENTALISTIK) 9004112626, 9789004112629

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JUDAISM IN LATE ANTIQUITY PART FOUR

DEATH, LIFE-AFTER-DEATH, RESURRECTION AND THE WORLD-TO-COME IN THE JUDAISMS OF ANTIQUITY

HANDBUCH DER ORIENTALISTIK HANDBOOK OF ORIENTAL STUDIES ERSTE ABTEILUNG

DER NAHE UND MITTLERE OSTEN THE NEAR AND MIDDLE EAST HERAUSGEGEBEN VON

H. ALTENMÜLLER · B. HROUDA · B.A. LEVINE · R.S. O’FAHEY K.R. VEENHOF · C.H.M. VERSTEEGH

NEUNUNDVIERZIGSTER BAND

JUDAISM IN LATE ANTIQUITY PART FOUR

DEATH, LIFE-AFTER-DEATH, RESURRECTION AND THE WORLD-TO-COME IN THE JUDAISMS OF ANTIQUITY

JUDAISM IN LATE ANTIQUITY EDITED BY

ALAN J. AVERY-PECK AND

JACOB NEUSNER

PART FOUR

DEATH, LIFE-AFTER-DEATH, RESURRECTION AND THE WORLD-TO-COME IN THE JUDAISMS OF ANTIQUITY

BRILL LEIDEN • BOSTON • KÖLN 2000

This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data (Revised for vol. 1) Judaism in late antiquity. (Handbuch der Orientalistik. Erste Abteilung, der Nahe und Mittlere Osten, 0169-9423 ; 16.-17. Bd.) Includes bibliographical references and index. Contents: pt. 1. The literary and archaeological sources.—pt. 2. Historical syntheses. 1. Judaism—History—Post-exilic period, 586 B.C.-210 A.D.—Sources. I. Neusner, Jacob. 1932– . II. Series : Handbuch der Orientalistik. Erste Abteilung, Der Nahe und Mittlere Osten ; 16.-17. Bd. BM176.J8 1994 296’.09’01594–30825 ISBN 90–04–10130–6 Die Deutsche Bibliothek – CIP-Einheitsaufnahme Handbuch der Orientalistik. – Leiden ; Boston ; Köln : Brill. Teilw. hrsg. von H. Altenmüller. – Teilw. hrsg. von B. Spuler. – Literaturangaben Teilw. mit Parallelt.; Handbook of oriental studies

Abt. 1. Der Nahe und Mittlere Osten = The Near and Middle East / hrsg. von H. Altenmüller … Teilw. hrsg. von B. Spuler Bd. 49. Judaism in late antiquity Pt. 4. Death, life after death, resurrection and the world-to-come in the Judaisms of antiquity. – 1999 Judaism in late antiquity / by Alan J. Avery-Peck and Jacob Neusner. – Leiden ; Boston ; Köln : Brill (Handbook of oriental studies : Abt. 1, The Near and Middle East ; …) Pt. 4. Death, life after death, resurrection and the world-to-come in the Judaisms of antiquity. – 1999 (Handbook of oriental studies : Abt. 1, The Near and Middle East ; Bd. 49) ISBN 90–04–11262–6

ISSN 0169-9423 ISBN 90 04 11262 6 © Copyright 2000 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Danvers MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS

TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface ........................................................................................ Introduction The Four Approaches to the Description of Ancient Judaism(s): Nominalist, Harmonistic, Theological, and Historical ..................................................................................... Jacob Neusner, University of South Florida and Bard College

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i. the legacy of scripture 1. Death and Afterlife: The Biblical Silence ............................ Richard Elliott Friedman, University of California, San Diego Shawna Dolansky Overton, University of California, San Diego

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2. Death and Afterlife in the Psalms ........................................ John Goldingay, Fuller Theological Seminary

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3. Memory as Immortality: Countering the Dreaded “Death after Death” in Ancient Israelite Society ............................. Brian B. Schmidt, University of Michigan 4. Death and Afterlife in the Wisdom Literature ..................... Roland E. Murphy, Whitefriars Hall

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ii. judaic writings in greek 5. The Afterlife in Apocalyptic Literature ................................ John J. Collins, University of Chicago 6. Judgment, Life-After-Death, and Resurrection in the Apocrypha and the Non-Apocalyptic Pseudepigrapha............... George W.E. Nickelsburg, The University of Iowa

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7. Eschatology in Philo and Josephus ....................................... Lester L. Grabbe, University of Hull

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iii. the dead sea scrolls 8. Death, Resurrection, and Life after Death in the Qumran Scrolls .................................................................................... Philip Davies, Sheffield University

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iv. earliest christianity 9. Resurrection in the Gospels ................................................. Bruce Chilton, Bard College

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v. rabbinic judaism 10. Death and Afterlife in the Early Rabbinic Sources: The Mishnah, Tosefta, and Early Midrash Compilations Alan J. Avery-Peck, College of the Holy Cross 11. Death and Afterlife in the Later Rabbinic Sources: The Two Talmuds and Associated Midrash-Compilations Jacob Neusner, University of South Florida and Bard College 12. Death and Afterlife: The Inscriptional Evidence ................ Leonard V. Rutgers, University of Utrecht

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13. The Resurrection of the Dead and the Sources of the Palestinian Targums to the Pentateuch ................................... Paul V.M. Flesher, University of Wyoming

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General Index ............................................................................ Index of Biblical and Ancient References .................................

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PREFACE The most puzzling problem in the study of Judaism in late antiquity arises out of the diversity of the literary evidence produced in the name of that religion, which, by any definition, riddled with contradictions, sustains a variety of propositions and their opposites. Everyone knows that the Hebrew Scriptures (“Old Testament”) yield diverse pictures of God and various accounts of the critical issues of ancient Israel’s world-view and way of life. From the closure of Scripture forward, moreover, for whatever issue we take up, we find that the writings authoritative for one group or another define in contradictory ways the critical components of Judaism, whether these pertain to matters of behavior or concern matters of belief. Not only in minor detail but in fundamental conviction, the written evidence presents us with directly contradictory propositions on pretty much everything that counts. The obvious point of division within ancient Israel, the familiar conflict between Torah and Christ, “Judaism” and “Christianity,” does not obscure the many other equally profound obstacles to the conception—the conviction, really—that all evidence produced by circles of Israelites attests to a single Judaism. Yet how to portray the full complexity of the problem, neatly phrased as “one Judaism or many,” not in normative, theological terms, but in analytical ones? To answer that question, one Judaism or many?, we devised a simple experiment and invited the participants in this volume to help us carry it out. We determined to describe the views on a single topic set forth by the various bodies of literary evidence deemed to speak for Israelites, thus to stand for the religion, Judaism. These groups of writings, respectively, are universally differentiated from all others deemed to belong to Israel, e.g., Scripture as a whole as against other Israelite writings; distinct parts of Scripture such as Psalms or the Wisdom literature; apocalyptic and the non-apocalyptic pseudepigraphic literature, Philo; Josephus; the Dead Sea Scrolls; earliest Christianity (the Gospels in particular); the Rabbinic sources; the Palestinian Targums to the Pentateuch; and, as a control out of material culture, the inscriptional evidence. While such a sample does not exhaust the possibilities among the writings of ancient Israelites to be differentiated from one another, it does represent a con-

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siderable selection. And, we think it is self-evident, no one in the academic world today would deem all of these bodies of writing to be interchangeable and mutually indistinguishable, so the sole given of the experiment is that the Dead Sea Scrolls may be read as a cogent statement distinct from Psalms or Philo or the Mishnah, and so throughout. Inviting specialists in the diverse bodies of written evidence to answer a single question out of the resources of the writings on which they concentrate, we simply said, “Here is a theme of considerable interest to most writers in the Israelite world of antiquity; tell us what the writers you know well have to say about it.” In the characterization of the views of clearly-differentiated bodies of writing, we anticipated we should lay out a very large sample of ancient Israelite thought that intersected on a single subject, and we expected that this collection of research-reports would produce—and here does produce in concrete terms—one of two results. It would place on display indicative components of Judaism in its full diversity and inner incoherence and show that the notion of a single, coherent religion, all parts of which attest a single cogent whole, falls of its own weight under the mass of documentary contradictions. Or the inner harmony that shines forth from the repertoire of the superficially-diverse data would emerge in the commonalities that prove blatant. This approach differs from one that would intentionally pick and choose and so create a harmony of all the evidence for a single, unitary, account—a definition of “the” view of the topic characteristic of all evidence, or of the main stream, or of the normative component thereof. Here, rather, having assembled the data, we lay it out for all to see. Colleagues may draw their own conclusions. Some may see in the repertoire of evidence from diverse sources large-scale unities, which then stand for that single “Judaism” that defines the common denominator among the various “sects” or “small groups.” So they will pursue the path of a single Judaism to be described as a core, or “an evolving tradition,” or any of the other solutions to the problem of diversity that have found favor in one circle or another. Yet others may accept that, in the case at hand, we cannot define a single, normative and authoritative Judaism. They will dismiss out of hand the possibility for ancient times of describing, analyzing, and interpreting the history of a single religious tradition, “Judaism.” Both approaches—the realist, the nominalist, in medieval terms—contain

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within themselves a variety of unsolved problems. For the moment, it suffices to lay out the results of the experiment, the research reports that comprise the present volume. Do these papers form a cogent book? Within the “realist” theory, they ought to, and perhaps they do. Within the “nominalist” theory, they ought not, and perhaps they do not. Those who read and use this book will form their own answer to that question. Were the editors to undertake to explain the cogency or to underscore the incoherence of the results of the research reports assembled here, they would close the very question they mean here to open and instantiate: how would we know whether in antiquity there was one Judaism or many? What evidence would point to an answer to that question, and how would that evidence, inevitably containing contradictions and flaws, be read to elicit that answer? Here we make possible an experiment in answering that critical question for the study of ancient Judaism. Among the approaches currently deemed persuasive, the editors, as a matter of fact, do choose one and reject others. But this book, and the series of which it forms a continuation, is intended to portray the state of learning, not to advocate a particular position within the contemporary debate or to demonstrate the correctness of that position and to instantiate the weakness of other approaches. Rather, we mean to open questions of method through the study of evidence and cases. That is why we leave it for readers to make use for their own purposes of these research reports, coherent as to theme, coherent or not as to results. The chapters in the shank of the book do not speak to a larger question of method, but they serve to illustrate one. It is, indeed, a question of method that even beginning students of Judaism in late antiquity (encompassing also formative Christianity) must address and, we hope, will find accessible through the case studies at hand. The question of method concerns definition: precisely what do we mean by the word “Judaism,” of what do we speak when we use that word, and how do we find out? No more fundamental question in the study of religion than what we mean by “religion” presents itself, and for a particular religion, the same is so. In late antiquity, two massive religious worlds, the ones we call “Judaism” and “Christianity,” took shape and defined themselves, both in relationship to one another and in their own, autonomous terms. So when we ask about questions of definition (including self-definition), when we speak of “one

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Judaism or many?,” we take up in academic terms precisely the critical issue to which, in one way or another, all of the data of Judaism in late antiquity ultimately pertain. Now how to proceed, not within, but beyond the limits of the research reports we have assembled here? Just now we referred by way of analogy to nominalism and realism, the medieval debate continuous with the philosophical tradition of antiquity. In fact, in contemporary scholarship, not two but four approaches to the diversity of the evidence presented by a single and distinct religious world dictate the character of learning, and each explains in its own way a given corpus of contradictory evidence put forward by a religion, a religious community or a religious tradition, as people prefer. These are [1] the radically-nominalist, [2] the radically-harmonistic, [3] the theological, and [4] the historical. In the Introduction they are fully spelled out, with a detailed account of the current books that embody them. Not only so, but our critique of those books and report of the method we think best serves, the historical,1 states in so many words how we think learning should proceed, and how other approaches than ours fail to accommodate the character of the evidence and satisfactorily resolve the contradictions posed to said approaches by that evidence. So we spell out what we think, and that further suggests how we approach the results of the research reports assembled in these pages. The editors express their gratitude to their academic foundations, The College of the Holy Cross for the first editor and the University of South Florida and Bard College for the second. Their work, severally and jointly, rests on the long-term commitment to their academic enterprise that is made—generously and consistently over the years —by these centers of higher learning. They further state their thanks to Brill Academic Publishers and its indefatigable, ever-solicitous staff, to editors who maintain a uniformly high standard of professionalism, making easy and felicitous the entire work of producing books. And, finally, to the authors of the papers included here, for the dedication to this project represented in But the second editor has also undertaken substantial work within the theological reading of ancient Judaism as well, in Jacob Neusner, Theology of the Oral Torah: Revealing the Justice of God (Montreal and Kingston, 1999), Theological Grammar of the Oral Torah (Binghamton, 1999), vols. I-IV, and related works. 1

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their prompt and conscientious work. We are proud that so many distinguished scholars have joined in this effort both to elucidate our particular topic and to facilitate a new approach to the larger question of whether, in antiquity, there was one Judaism or many. Alan J. Avery-Peck Kraft-Hiatt Professor of Judaic Studies College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts Jacob Neusner Distinguished Research Professor of Religious Studies University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida and Professor of Religion Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York

INTRODUCTION THE FOUR APPROACHES TO THE DESCRIPTION OF ANCIENT JUDAISM(S): NOMINALIST, HARMONISTIC, THEOLOGICAL, AND HISTORICAL Jacob Neusner University of South Florida and Bard College To place the present experiment in context, we outline the ways in which various scholars have addressed the same problem, that of the diversity of the evidence people suppose attests to a single Judaism. Four approaches have defined the modern and contemporary description of Judaism in late antiquity, of which the fourth is the one favored by the editors.1 These are (in our characterizations thereof) nominalist, harmonistic, theological, and historical. An account of the methodological choices currently adopted will place into perspective both the conflicts in contemporary scholarship and the challenge set forth by the repertoire of research reports laid out here. Nominalist: The first is the radically nominalist view that every Jew defines Judaism. Judaism is the sum of the attitudes and beliefs of all the members of an ethnic group; each member of the group serves equally well to define Judaism, with the result that questions of the social order—e.g., which particular group or social entity of persons held this view—are dismissed. All issues of philosophy and intellect then are dismissed, and the work of intellectual description and definition is abandoned before it is undertaken. This method, represented in the work of S.J.D. Cohen, yields the opposite of description and forestalls all analysis and interpretation. Harmonistic: If the nominalist description regards “Judaism” as the sum of everybody’s personal “Judaism,” the harmonistic finds its definition in the common denominator among the sum of all 1 See William Scott Green, “Ancient Judaism, Contours and Complexity,” in the James Barr Festschrift, to whom we owe the identification and classification of the first of the four. The second editor of this volume has elaborated his account of problems of method in the following books: The Ecology of Religion: From Writing to Religion in the Study of Judaism (Nashville, 1989), and Studying Classical Judaism: A Primer (Louisville, 1991).

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Judaisms. So the second is at the opposite extreme: all Jewish data— writings and other records—together tell us about a single Judaism, defined by appeal to the lowest common denominator among all the data. That is the view taken by E.P. Sanders in the 1992 version of his opinion. This is an approach that accomplishes description, but produces banality. Theological Judaism: Just as the first two approaches to the description of Judaism, or of Rabbinic Judaism, ignore all questions of context and deem irrelevant the inquiry into the relationship between the ideas people held and the world in which they lived, so the third equally takes its position in the idealist, as against the social, world of interpretation. This is the method of theological description followed by George Foot Moore, Joseph Bonsirven, Ephraim E. Urbach, and E.P. Sanders in the 1977 version of his views. This approach provides a well-crafted description but ignores all questions of context and social relevance. Its “Judaism” came into existence for reasons we cannot say, addressed no issues faced by ordinary people, and constituted a set of disembodied, socially-irrelevant ideas, lacking history and consequence. So it can be described and even analyzed, but not interpreted. Historical: The fourth position is the approach to description taken in this book: we work our way through the sources in the order in which, it is generally assumed, they reached closure, so finding the order and sequence in which ideas came to expression. This approach produces not only historical description and systemic analysis but also hypotheses of interpretation on the interplay of texts and contexts, ideas and the critical issues addressed by the people who put forth those ideas. Here we wish to identify three major problems in the approaches typified by Cohen, Sanders (in his version of 1992), and Moore, Urbach, and Sanders (in his version of 1977). These are conceptual, contextual, and historical. The conceptual problem is best illustrated by Cohen, who defines “Judaism” as the sum of the beliefs of all Jews. This simply evades the issues of the study of religion, to which Cohen scarcely claims to be party. He investigates religious writings without the tools of the academic study of religion. The contextual problem affects all the others treated here; it is, alas, paralyzing but ubiquitous. To do their work, everyone assumes that if a story is told, it really happened; if a saying is assigned to a

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named authority, he really said it, and his opinion, moreover, is shared by everybody else, so we have not his opinion but “Judaism.” The operative question facing anyone who proposes to translate writing into religion—that is, accounts of “Judaism,” as George F. Moore claims to give, or “The Sages,” that Ephraim E. Urbach imagines he has made, or Sanders’s charming, if puerile, “harmony of the sources”—is the historical one. It is this: how you know exactly what was said and done, that is, the history that you claim to report about what happened long ago? Specifically, how do you know he really said it? And if you do not know that he really said it, how can you ask the questions that you ask, which have as their premise the claim that you can say what happened or did not happen? We shall now see how prior scholars have described Judaism, or just “Judaism” including Rabbinic Judaism. This review of the other three approaches to the description of Rabbinic Judaism, or of all Judaisms of antiquity, takes the form of truncated reviews of the books of their principal proponents. In the course of these reviews, we characterize the method of the scholar under discussion and explain what is wrong with that method and its results. i. Nominalist: The Innumerable Judaisms of S.J.D. Cohen From the Maccabees to the Mishnah. By Shaye J.D. Cohen. Library of Early Christianity. Philadelphia, 1987: Westminster Press. Edited by Wayne A. Meeks. Cohen’s account reminds us of the prophetic description of Israelite religion, with its altars on every hilltop and at every street corner. For him, every Jew tells us about a Judaism, one by one. Cohen presents a textbook for college students on Judaism: “the goal of this book is to interpret ancient Judaism: to identify its major ideas, to describe its salient practices, to trace its unifying patterns, and to assess its relationship to Israelite religion and society. The book is arranged thematically rather than chronologically….” Cohen begins with a general chronology of ancient Judaism and offers definitions thereof. He proceeds to “Jews and Gentiles,” covering political matters, gentile domination, in that section: the Maccabean rebellion, the rebellion against the Romans, the wars of 115-117 and 132-135; cultural: Judaism and Hellenism, covering “Hellenism,” “Hellenization, and

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“Hellenistic Judaism and the like; social: Jews and gentiles, antiJudaism and “Anti-Semitism” and Philo-Judaism; then the Jewish “Religion” (his quotation marks), practices and beliefs, in which he defines “religion” (again, his quotation marks), practices, worship of God, ritual observances, ritual, ethics, and the yoke of the law, legalism, beliefs, kingship of God, reward and punishment, redemption. Then comes “the community and its institutions,” dealing with the public institutions of the land of Israel, the Temple and Sanhedrin, the public institutions of the diaspora, the synagogue, private organizations, sects, professional guilds, schools. Then he treats “sectarian and normative,” with attention to “sect and heresy,” “focal points of Jewish sectarianism,” “orthodox and “normative,” proto-sectarianism in the Persian period, Ezra and Nehemiah, Isaiah 65, Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes; other sects and groups, touching on “fourth philosophy,” Christians, Samaritans, and Therapeutae. This is followed by “canonization and its implications,” with attention to the history of the biblical canon. At the end is “the emergence of rabbinic Judaism,” with the main point “from second Temple Judaism to rabbinic Judaism.” All of these topics—and many more not catalogued—are covered in 230 pages, with a few pages of notes, and a few more for further reading. The book exhibits a number of substantial flaws in presentation, conception, and mode of argument. These are three, and each one is so fundamental as to turn the book into a good bit less than meets the eye. The first of the three is the one relevant to the problem of describing Rabbinic (or any other) Judaism, and the others connected to it. First, Cohen’s plan of organization yields pure chaos. Reading this book is like reading a sequence of encyclopaedia articles. That is why the first, and the principal, minus is the mode of organization, which separates important components of the picture at any given moment. That is to say, in one chapter, Cohen treats “Jews and gentiles,” in another, Jewish religion, yet in a quite separate chapter, “sectarianism,” and so on. In that way we are denied a sense of the whole and complete picture, at any one time, of the religious worldview and way of life of the Jews in the land of Israel. Within the chapters, too, we find the same incapacity at forming a cogent and coherent statement of the whole. “Jews and gentiles” covers separate matters of political, cultural, and social policy, one by one. But these are not separate matters and never were. Within poli-

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tics we move from Jeremiah to the Persians, the Maccabees, the Romans; then on the cultural agenda, we have Judaism and Hellenism, out of phase with the foregoing. And then we come to “social: Jews and gentiles,” and yet a fresh set of issues. So the book is chaotic in character. But that results from a more profound intellectual chaos, Cohen’s disciplinary inadequacy. The second principal failure of the book derives from a simple methodological incapacity. Cohen’s knowledge of the study of religion is remarkably undeveloped, with the result that he operates with unworkable definitions of principal categories and classifications. Though Cohen’s prior scholarship lies in history, not in religion, he proposes to speak not of Jews’ histories, or “the Jews’ history” in some one place or time, but of “Judaism.” By his own claim, then, he is to be judged; but he has not done his homework. He simply has not got the training in the field of the history of religion to develop an interpretive framework adequate to his task. As a result he is left to try to present cogently a vast array of diverse materials that are not cogent at all. With this he simply cannot cope, and the result is a series of rather unfortunate “definitions” that define nothing and lead nowhere. Let me give two probative examples. In both of them he substitutes classical philology for the history of religion. Nominalism takes over when Cohen wishes to define religion. This he does by asking what the word “religio” meant in antiquity. Using the words of Morton Smith, he says, “If a contemplative person in antiquity sought systematic answers to questions about the nature of the gods and their involvement in human affairs, he would have studied philosophy, not ‘religion.’” Placing religion in quotation-marks does not solve any problems left unsolved by this monumentally irrelevant definition. For when we study religion, it is within the definition(s) of religion that we have formed and introduced as the evidence we have identified as pertinent. That process is in part inductive and in part deductive, but it is never defined wholly within the definitions of another language and another age. There is a vast literature, from the Enlightenment forward, on the definition of religion, a literature in philosophy, history of religions, and a range of other fields. Cohen does not seem to have followed the discussions on the nature and meaning of religion that have illuminated studies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with the result that he does not know how to

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deal with the data he is trying to sift, organize, and present in a cogent way. As to “Judaism,” the word occurs on every page and in nearly every paragraph. It starts, “The goal of this book is to interpret ancient Judaism.” But we do not know what Cohen means by “Judaism.” Cohen recognizes that various groups of Jews formulated matters each in its own way, lived each in its own pattern, defined each its own “Judaism.” And yet from the opening lines, “Judaism” is an “it,” not a “they,” and Cohen tells us “its major ideas…its salient practices...its unifying patterns...its relationship to Israelite religion” (which then is another, different “it”). But that is only part of the story. Cohen recognizes that the data that fall into the category, “religion,” hence “Judaism,” are incoherent and diverse. He says so—but then he is stymied when he tries to justify treating many things as one thing. Cohen states: Second Temple Judaism was a complex phenomenon. Judaism changed dramatically during the Persian, Hellenistic, Maccabean, Roman, and rabbinic periods. Generalizations that may be true for one period may not be true for another. In addition, at any given moment, Jews practiced their religion in manifold different ways. The Jewish community of Egypt in the first century C.E. was far from uniform in practice and belief….

That then is the question. How is it answered? Here is the clear statement of that conceptual chaos that we call Cohen’s extreme nominalism: one Judaism per Jew. We underline the relevant language. What links these diverse phenomena together and allows them all to be called Judaism? [Italics his] The Jews saw (and see) themselves as the heirs and continuators of the people of pre-exilic Israel; the Jews also felt…an affinity for their fellow Jews throughout the world.... This selfperception manifested itself especially in the relations of Diaspora Jewry to the land of Israel and the Temple...Thus, like the bumblebee which continues to fly, unaware that the laws of aerodynamics declare its flight to be impossible, the Jews of antiquity saw themselves as citizens of one nation and one religion, unaware of, or oblivious to, the fact that they were separated from each other by their diverse languages, practices, ideologies, and political loyalties. In this book I do not minimize the varieties of Jewish religious expression, but my goal is to see the unity within the diversity.

That, sum and substance, is Cohen’s solution. What is wrong is that Cohen’s “unity” adds up to the sum of all diversities, the opposite of

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Sanders’s lowest-common-denominator-Judaism, which we shall examine presently. As a matter of fact, Cohen’s description of “Judaism” simply is wrong, because his data contradict his “method.” There were groups of Jews who regarded themselves as the only Jews on earth; everyone else was not “Israel” at all. The Essenes of Qumran saw themselves in that way. But so too did the authorship of the Pentateuch, which treated as normative the experience of exile and return and excluded from the normative experience of their particular “Israel” the Samaritans, who had not gone into exile, and the Jews elsewhere who never went back and who are totally ignored in the Pentateuchal statement of 450 B.C.E. So the allegation that Cohen knows what all the Jews thought of themselves is called into question by his rather blithe failure to conduct a survey of opinion, to the degree that we know opinion at all. As a matter of definition, Cohen does not really answer the question of defining a single Judaism at all. Here again, the absence of a theoretical system accounts for his failure. Historians do not ask the questions that historians of religion do. How people see themselves forms a fundamental fact for the description of their worldview—but not for the world they view. Cohen is correct to claim that the way in which a given group sees itself tells us something about their Judaism. But whether or not their views testify to other Judaisms he does not know. The reason is that he does not explain and unpack the theology within his allegations of a mutually-supportive society throughout the world. Cohen claims that “this self-perception manifested itself especially in the relations of Diaspora Jewry to the land of Israel and the Temple.” But diaspora Jews preserved a certain distance; they gave money to the Temple, but when the Jews of the land of Israel went to war, diaspora Jews remained at peace, within the same empire—and vice versa. That hardly suggests that the perceived “affinity” made much difference in public policy. What we have is an excuse for not investigating the answers to a well-asked question— but not an answer to that question. Cohen’s limited knowledge of the study of religion lies at the heart of the book’s failure. Lest Cohen’s difficulty at conceptualization seem one episode in an otherwise well-crafted work, let me point to yet another example of how he dismisses as trivial a central question of definition. Cohen needs to address the issue of “sects,” meaning (in my language) diverse Judaisms. He has to discern the difference be-

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tween the sectarian and the normative, and, to his credit, he devotes a whole chapter to the matter. But here too he appeals to ancient usage in the solution of a problem of conceptualization—as though anybody any more is bound to word-usages of Greek or Latin. He contrasts the negative use of “sect” and “heresy,” deriving from theology. “‘Sects’ and ‘heresies’ are religious groups and doctrines of which we disapprove.” That is true, but only for the uninformed. A vast literature on the definition of “sect” and “church” exists. Cohen does not use it. Here is his definition: “A sect is a small, organized group that separates itself from a larger religious body and asserts that it alone embodies the ideals of the larger group because it alone understands God’s will.” A sect then seems to me in Cohen’s mind to be no different from a religion, except that it is small (“small”) and differs from a group that is larger (“a larger religious body”). How the sect relates to the “larger religious body” we do not know. If the “sect” dismisses the “larger group” because the sect claims alone to understand God’s will, then why is the sect not a “religious body” on its own? It would seem to me to claim exactly that. Lest we appear to exaggerate the conceptual crudity at hand and to impute to Cohen opinions he does not hold, let me now cite his own words (including his italics): A sect must be small enough to be a distinctive part of a larger religious body. If a sect grows to the extent that it is a large body in its own right, it is no longer a sect but a “religion” or a “church.” The precise definition of “large body” and “church” is debated by sociologists, but that question need not be treated here.

This, we submit, is pure gibberish—and so is Cohen’s “Judaism.” A small group is a sect. A big one is a “religion” or a “church.” What has led Cohen to this impasse is simple. Since there is one “Judaism” we have to figure out some way to deal with all the other Judaisms, and by calling them “little” we can find a suitable pigeonhole for them; then we do not have to ask how “little” is different from “big” except that it is little. So much for unworkable classifications. There is no better exemplification of the radically-nominalist method in contemporary scholarship.

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ii. Harmonistic: The One Judaism of E.P. Sanders (1992) Judaism. Practice and Belief 63 B.C.E. - 66 C.E. by E.P. Sanders. London, 1992: SCM Press and Philadelphia, 1992: Trinity Press International E.P. Sanders has described “Judaism” twice, once intelligently, the other not. The intellectually challenging and perspicacious approach of 1977 is dealt with below as one of the principal examples of theological volumes; there he distinguishes among Judaisms, with special reference to the Dead Sea Scrolls and Rabbinic Judaism in comparison to Paul’s system, and he finds characteristics of a single Judaism—with special reference to what he calls “covenantal nomism”—shared among the carefully distinguished systems. That work presents problems of a historical and hermeneutical character. In the more recent volume, by contrast, Sanders joins all evidences concerning Judaic religious systems into a single, harmonious “Judaism,” the equivalent to the New Testament “harmonies of the Gospels” that people used to put together. Sanders claim to give us an account of a single, comprehensive Judaism underscores the profound misconstruction that emerges from the confusion of history and theology. So far as we know, he must be the first scholar in recent times to imagine that all sources produced by Jews, anywhere, any time, by any sort of person or group, equally tell us about one and the same Judaism. Schürer was far more critical nearly a century ago. The other major “Judaism”s— Bousset-Gressman’s, Moore’s, or Urbach’s for instance—select a body of evidence and work on that, not assuming that everything everywhere tells us about one thing, a single Judaism. True, to account for a single Christianity, Christian theologians have also to define a single Judaism, and that explains why Sanders has fabricated a single “Judaism” out of a mass of mutually contradictory sources. But others did the work with greater acumen and discernment, and, when we examine Sanders’s results closely, we see that here too is less than meets the eye. Sanders thinks that any and every source, whoever wrote it, without regard to its time or place or venue, tells us about one and the same Judaism. The only way to see everything all together and all at once, as Sanders wishes to do, is to rise high above the evidence, so high that we no longer see the lines of rivers, the height of mountains,

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the undulations of plains—any of the details of the earth’s true configuration. This conflation of all sources yields a fabricated Judaism, a “Judaism” that flourished everywhere but nowhere—Alexandria, Jerusalem, Galilee, Babylonia (to judge from the sources that the scholars who present this view have mixed together); a Judaism that we find all the time but in no one period—represented equally by the historical Moses and the Rabbinic one, the pseudepigrapha of the third century B.C.E. and the first century C.E., the Dead Sea Scrolls of the second and first centuries B.C.E., and, where Sanders has decided, the Mishnah of the early third century C.E. Sanders does not identify “the synagogue” where this Judaism offered up its prayers, the community that was shaped by its rules, the functioning social order that saw the world within its vision. And that failure of specificity attests to the good sense of the Jews of antiquity, who cannot have affirmed everything and its opposite: the sacrifices of the Temple are valid (as many sources maintain) and also invalid (as the Dead Sea Scrolls hold); study of the Torah is critical (as the Rabbinic sources adduced ad lib. by Sanders) and eschatological visions prevail (as many of the pseudepigraphic writers conceive). Philo’s cool, philosophical mind and the heated imagination of visionaries form for Sanders a single Judaism, but no single corpus of evidence, deriving from a particular place, time, circumstance, and community, concurs for “Judaism.” To refer to a single issue, baptism can have been for the eschatological forgiveness of sins, as John the Baptist and Jesus maintained; or it can have been for the achievement of cultic purity in an eternal rhythm of nature and cult, as the Pharisees and the Mishnah held; but not both. Sanders sees unities where find differences. The result of his Judaic equivalent of a “harmony of the Gospels” is a dreary progress through pointless information. Sanders’s relentlessly informative discourse persistently leaves open the question, so what? Throughout, readers will find themselves wondering why Sanders thought the information he set forth important, and the information he omitted unimportant. If we know that his conflationary Judaism prevailed everywhere, then what else do we know about the Judaisms to which each source in turn attests (as well)? Do all the writers subscribe to this one Judaism, so that we are supposed to read into each document what all the documents together supposedly affirm? He elaborately tells us why he thinks various documents tell, or do not tell, what really happened; he never explains why he maintains

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that these documents and artifacts of archaeology, often profoundly at variance with one another, attest to a single Judaism. Did all these Jews pray together in the same synagogue, did they eat together at the same table, did they give their children in marriage to one another as part of the same social entity? If he thinks that they did, then he contradicts a fair part of the evidence he allegedly reviews. Certainly the members of the Essene community at Qumran, for one example, did not regard the Jerusalem Temple as holy, and the Mishnah is explicit that its faithful are not going to eat supper with other Israelites, a view on which the Gospels concur as well. Not that capricious conflation of all the sources Sanders thinks fit together and silent omission of all the sources he rejects is something Moore, Schechter, and even Urbach never did. Urbach cited Philo but not the Dead Sea Scrolls, having decided that the one was kosher, the other treif. Sanders has decided there are no intellectual counterparts to dietary laws at all: he swallows it all and chews it up and spits out a homogenized “Judaism” lacking all specific flavor. Nor can we point to any other scholar of ancient Judaism working today who cites everything from everywhere to tell us about one and the same Judaism. The contrast between the intellectually rigorous thinking of James Dunn on defining “Judaism” in his Partings of the Ways and the conceptually-unrefined work of Sanders on the same problem—adding up all the sources and not so much finding as inventing what he conceives to be the common denominator—tells the story. This fabrication of a single Judaism is supposed to tell us something that pertains equally to all: the Judaism that forms the basis for all the sources, the common denominator among them all. If we know a book or an artifact is “Jewish” (an ethnic term, Judaic being the religious category) then we are supposed automatically to know various other facts about said book or artifact. But the upshot is either too general to mean much (monotheism) or too abstract to form an intelligible statement. Let me be specific. How Philo will have understood the Dead Sea Scrolls, the authors of apocalyptic writings, those of the Mishnah-passages Sanders admits to his account of Judaism, we are never told. Each of these distinctive documents gets to speak whenever Sanders wants it to; none is ever brought into relationship—comparison and contrast—with any other. The homogenization of Philo, the Mishnah, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Ben Sira, apocryphal and pseudepigraphic writings, the results of archaeology, turns out to yield generalizations about a reli-

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gion that none of those responsible for the evidence at hand will have recognized: lifeless, hopelessly abstract, lacking all social relevance, so stratospheric a level of generalization that all precise vision of real people practicing a vivid religion is lost. These remarks appear harsh and extravagant until we take up a concrete example of the result of this labor of homogenization. To understand what goes into Sanders’s picture of Judaism, let me now provide a reasonable sample (pp. 103-104), representative of the whole. This is the opening paragraphs of his discussion, Chapter Seven, entitled “Sacrifices:” The Bible does not offer a single, clearly presented list of sacrifices. The legal books (Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy), we know now, incorporate various sources from different periods, and priestly practice evidently varied from time to time. There are three principal sources of information about sacrifices in the first century: Josephus, Philo and the Mishnah. On most points they agree among themselves and with Leviticus and Numbers; consequently the main outline of sacrifices is not in dispute. Josephus, in my judgment, is the best source. He knew what the common practice of the priesthood of his day was: he had learned it in school, as a boy he had watched and assisted, and as an adult he had worked in the Temple. It is important for evaluating his evidence to note that his description of the sacrifices sometimes disagrees with Leviticus or goes beyond it. This is not an instance in which he is simply summarizing what is written in the Bible: he is almost certainly depending on what he had learned as a priest. Though the Mishnah is often right with regard to pre-70 Temple practice, many of the discussions are from the second century: the rabbis continued to debate rules of sacrifice long after living memory of how it had been done had vanished. Consequently, in reading the Mishnah one is sometimes reading second-century theory. Occasionally this can be seen clearly. For example, there is a debate about whether or not the priest who sacrificed an animal could keep its hide if for any reason the animal was made invalid (e.g. by touching something impure) after it was sacrificed but before it was flayed. The mishnah on this topic opens with an anonymous opinion, according to which the priest did not get the hide. R. Hanina the Prefect of the Priests disagreed: “Never have I seen a hide taken out to the place of burning”; that is, the priests always kept the hides. R. Akiba (early second century) accepted this and was of the view that the priests could keep the hides of invalid sacrifices. The Sages, however, ruled the other way (Zevahim 12.4). R. Hanina the Prefect of the Priests apparently worked in the Temple before 70, but survived its destruction and became part of the rabbinic movement; Akiba died c. 135; “the sages” of this passage are probably his contemporaries or possibly the rabbis of the next generation. Here we see that second century rabbis were quite willing to vote

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against actual practice in discussing the behavior of the priests and the rules they followed. The problem with using the Mishnah is that there is very seldom this sort of reference to pre-70 practice that allows us to make critical distinctions: not only are we often reading second-century discussions, we may be learning only second century theory. Philo had visited the Temple, and some of his statements about it (e.g. the guards) seem to be based on personal knowledge. But his discussion of the sacrifices is “bookish”, and at some important points it reveals that he is passing on information derived from the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (the Septuagint), not from observation. The following description basically follows the Hebrew Bible and Josephus, but it sometimes incorporates details from other sources. One may make the following distinctions among sacrifices: With regard to what was offered: meal, wine, birds (doves or pigeons) and quadrupeds (sheep, goats and cattle). With regard to who provided the sacrifice: the community or an individual. With regard to the purpose of the sacrifice: worship of and communion with God, glorification of him, thanksgiving, purification, atonement for sin, and feasting. With regard to the disposition of the sacrifice: it was either burned or eaten. The priests got most of the food that sacrifices provided, though one of the categories of sacrifice provided food for the person who brought it and his family and friends. The Passover lambs were also eaten by the worshippers. Sacrifices were conceived as meals, or, better, banquets. The full and ideal sacrificial offering consisted of meat, cereal, oil and wine (Num. 14:1-10, Ant. 3.233f.; the menu was sometimes reduced: see below).

We ask readers to stipulate that we can have cited numerous other, sizable instances of the same sort of discourse. Now let us ask ourselves, what, exactly, does Sanders wish to tell his readers about the sacrifices in this account of Judaism. Practice and Belief ? He starts in the middle of things. He assumes we know what he means by “sacrifices,” why they are important, what they meant, so all we require is details. He will deal with Josephus, Philo, the Mishnah, and Leviticus and Numbers. Does he then tell us the distinctive viewpoint of each? Not at all. All he wants us to know is the facts common to them all. Hence his problem is not one of description, analysis, and interpretation of documents, but a conflation of the information contained in each that he deems usable. Since that is his principal concern, he discusses “sacrifice” by telling us why the Mishnah’s information is useless, except when it is usable. But Sand-

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ers never suggests to his readers what the Mishnah’s discussion of sacrifice wishes to find out, or how its ideas on the subject may prove religiously engaging. It is just a rule book, so it has no ideas on the subject—so maintains Sanders. Philo is then set forth. Here too we are told why he tells us nothing, but not what he tells us. Then there follows the facts, the indented “with regard to” paragraphs. Sanders did not have to tell us all about how Leviticus, Numbers, Philo and Josephus and the Mishnah concur, then about how we may ignore or must cite the several documents respectively, if his sole intent was to tell us the facts of the “with regard to” paragraphs. And how he knows that “sacrifices were conceived…,” who conceived them in this way, and what sense the words made, “worship of and communion with God, glorification of him, thanksgiving, purification, atonement for sin, and feasting,” and to whom they made sense, and how other Judaisms, besides the Judaism portrayed by Philo, Josephus, the Mishnah, and so on and so forth, viewed sacrifices, or the Temple as it was—none of this is set forth. The conflation has its own purpose, which the following outline of the remainder of the chapter reveals: community sacrifices; individual sacrifices (“Neither Josephus, Philo, nor other first-century Jews thought that burnt offerings provided God with food…”), a family at the Temple, an example; the daily Temple routine. In this mass of information on a subject, one question is lost: what it all meant. Sanders really does suppose that he is telling us how things were, what people did, and, in his stress on a common-denominator Judaism, he finds it entirely reasonable to bypass all questions of analysis and interpretation and so forgets to tell us what it all meant. His language, “worship of and communion with God, glorification of him, thanksgiving, purification, atonement for sin, and feasting”—that Protestant formulation begs every question and answers none. But this common denominator Judaism yields little that is more than simply banal, for “common theology,” e.g., “The history of Israel in general, and of our period in particular, shows that Jews believed that the one God of the universe had given them his law and that they were to obey it” (p. 240). No one, obviously, can disagree, but what applies to everyone equally, in a nation so riven with division and rich in diversity, also cannot make much of a difference. That is to say, knowing that they all were monotheists or valued the Hebrew Scriptures (but which passages he does not identify, how he read them he does not say) does not tell us more than we knew about

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the religion of those diverse people than before. Sanders knows what people thought, because anything any Jew wrote tells us what “Jews” or most Jews or people in general thought. What makes Sanders’ representation questionable is that he proceeds to cite as evidence of what “Jews” thought opinions of Philo and Josephus, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Rabbinic Literature, and so on and so forth. The generality of scholarship understands that the Dead Sea Scrolls represent their writers, Philo speaks for Philo, Josephus says what he thinks, and the Mishnah is whatever it is and is not whatever it is not. To my knowledge no one until Sanders has come to the judgment that anything any Jew thought has to have been in the mind of all the other Jews. That is to treat the religion as a function of the sociology and culture of an ethnic group. It is another way of saying that there was (and is) no such thing as a religion, Judaism. There are only Jews, and the sum and substance of their opinions, if any, on topics generally regarded as religious comprise “Judaism.” Then, for Sanders, all the Jews thought one and the same thing, and what they all thought was this religion, Judaism. The result appears to present a caricature of both Judaism and also the study of religion. But it is only with that premise that we can understand the connections Sanders makes and the conclusions about large, general topics that he reaches. His juxtapositions are in fact beyond all understanding. Let me skim through his treatment of graven images, which captures the flavor of the whole: Comments by Philo and Josephus show how Jews could interpret other objects symbolically and thus make physical depictions acceptable, so that they were not seen as transgressions of one of the Ten Commandments, but as symbols of the glory of the God who gave them.

There follows a reference to War 5:214. Then Sanders proceeds: Josephus, as did Philo, found astral and other symbolism in many other things...

Some paragraphs later, in the same context, we have: The sun was personified and worshipped.… The most important instance was when Josiah...instituted a reform of worship...[now with reference to 2 Kings 23:4f]. This is usually regarded as having been a decisive rejection of other deities, but elements derived from sun worship continued. Subsequently Ezekiel attacked those who turned “their backs to the Temple of the Lord...” (Ez. 8:16). According to the Mishnah, at one point during the feast of Booths priests “turned their faces to the west,” recalling that their predecessors had faced east and

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introduction worshipped the sun and proclaimed that “our eyes are turned toward the Lord” (Sukkah 5:4). Despite this, the practice that Ezekiel condemned was continued by some. Josephus wrote that the Essenes ‘are particularly reverent towards the divinity.…

This is continued with a citation of the Qumran Temple Scroll and then the Tosefta: That the Essenes really offered prayer to the sun is made more probable by a passage in the Qumran Temple Scroll. Above we noted the floor of the synagogue at Hammath that had as its main decoration the signs of the zodiac in a circle.… This synagogue floor, with its blatant pagan decoration, was built at the time when rabbinic Judaism was strong in Galilee—after the redaction and publication of the Mishnah, during the years when the material in the Tosefta and the Palestinian Talmud was being produced and edited. According to the Tosefta, Rabbi Judah, who flourished in the middle of the second century, said that ‘If anyone says a blessing over the sun— this is a heterodox practice (T. Berakhot 6[7].6 In the light of the floor, it seems he was opposing contemporary practice.

Such “harmony yields chaos. And so, we think, would a “harmony” of the diverse views of death and life after death that are set forth in this book. iii. Theological: The Dogmatic Judaism of Moore, Urbach, and Sanders (1977) Among numerous descriptions of Rabbinic Judaism, or of ancient Judaism in general, that organize themselves around theological topics, ordinarily Protestant Christian theological categories, three serve to illustrate the state of the question, the first and most influential, George F. Moore’s, the Israeli version, Ephraim E. Urbach’s, and the American model, E.P. Sanders in the initial statement of his views. The source of the category-formation for all three is uniform. First, it does not derive from the documents of Rabbinic Judaism, which do not focus on the points of main concern to the theological dogmatics of Protestant Christianity that govern. Second, it does raise questions important to Pauline Christianity but hardly critical to Rabbinic or any other Judaism of this time. All three moreover claim to provide a historical description, but read the sources in an uncritical manner, believing all the attributions and treating as fact all the fables of all the Rabbinic documents, without discrimination.

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Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era. The Age of the Tannaim. By George Foot Moore. Cambridge, 1927: Harvard University Press. I-III. Moore’s description of “Judaism” invokes standard Protestant categories of dogmatic theology. Moore fails to tell us of whom he wishes to speak. So his repertoire of sources for the description of “Judaism” in the “age of the Tannaim” is awry. He makes use of sources that speak of people assumed to have lived in the early centuries C.E., even when said sources derive from a much later or a much earlier time. What generates this error is the problem of dealing with a category asymmetrical to the evidence. That is, an essentially philosophical-theological construct, an “ism,” “Judaism,” is imposed upon wildly diverse evidence deriving from many kinds of social groups and testifying to the state of mind and way of life of many sorts of Jews, who in their own day would scarcely have understood one another (for instance, Bar Kokhba and Josephus, or the Teacher of Righteousness and Aqiba). So for Moore, as for the others who have described “Judaism” solely in terms of theological dogmas without reference to the time, place, and circumstance of those who framed these dogmas, “Judaism” is a problem of ideas, and the history of Judaism is the history of ideas abstracted from the groups that held them and from the social perspectives of said groups. This seems to me a fundamental error, making the category “Judaism” a construct of a wholly fantastic realm of thought: a fantasy, we mean. What is wrong with the philosophical-theological description of “Judaism” is not only the failure to correlate ideas with the world of the people who wrote the books that contain those ideas. There are problems of a historical, and history-of-religions, character. Moore’s work to begin with is not really a work in the history of religions at all—in this instance, the developmental and formative history of a particular brand of Judaism. His research is in theology, and there is no social foundation for the theology he describes. The description of Judaism is organized in theological categories. Moore presents a synthetic account of diverse materials, focused upon a given topic of theological interest. There is nothing even rhetorically historical in the picture of opinions on these topics, no pretense of systematically accounting for development and change. What is constructed is a static exercise in dogmatic theology, not an account of

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the history of religious ideas and—still more urgent—their unfolding in relationship to the society of the people who held those ideas. Moore in no way describes and interprets the religious worldview and way of life expressed, in part, through the ideas under study. He does not explore the interplay between that worldview and the historical and political context of the community envisioned by that construction of a world. So far as history attends to the material context of ideas and the class structure expressed by ideas and institutions alike, so far as ideas are deemed part of a larger social system and religious systems are held to be pertinent to the given political, social, and economic framework which contains them, Moore’s account of dogmatic theology to begin with has nothing to do with religious history, that is the history of Judaism in the first two centuries of the Common Era. Moore describes the Judaism his sources set forth as “normative.” So far as that represents a descriptive, not an evaluative, judgment, Moore simply does not make the case. A brilliant critique of his view appeared in 1927, in the review of the work by F.C. Porter. Here is what he says: The Judaism which Professor Moore describes with such wealth of learning is that of the end of the second century of our era, and the sources which he uses are those that embody the interpretations and formulations of the law by the rabbis, chiefly from the fall of Jerusalem, 70 A.D., to the promulgation of the Mishnah of the Patriarch Judah, about 200 A.D. When Moore speaks of the sources which Judaism has always regarded as authentic, he means “always” from the third century A.D. onward. It is a proper and needed task to exhibit the religious conceptions and moral principles, the observances, and the piety of the Judaism of the Tannaim. Perhaps it is the things that most needed to be done of all the many labors that must contribute to our knowledge of that age. But Professor Moore calls this Judaism “normative”; and means by this, not only authoritative for Jews after the work of the Tannaim had reached its completion in the Mishnah, but normal or authentic in the sense that it is the only direct and natural outcome of the Old Testament religion. It seems therefore, that the task here undertaken is not only, as it certainly is, a definite, single, and necessary one, but that other things hardly need doing, and do not signify much for the Judaism of the age of Christian beginnings. The book is not called, as it might have been, “The Judaism of the Tannaim,” but Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era: The Age of the Tannaim. Was there then no other type of Judaism in the time of Christ that may claim such names as “normative,” “normal,” “orthodox”? The time of Deuteronomy was also the time of Jeremiah. The religion of revelation in a

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divinely given written law stood over against the religion of revelation in the heart and living words of a prophet. The conviction was current after Ezra that the age of prophecy had ended; the Spirit of God had withdrawn itself from Israel (I, 237). But if prophecy should live again, could it not claim to be normal in Judaism? Where, in the centuries after Ezra, are we to look for the lines of development that go back, not to Ezra and Deuteronomy, but to Jeremiah and Isaiah? R.H. Charles claims the genuine succession for his Apocalypses. The Pharisees at least had the prophets in their canon, and it is claimed by many, and by Moore, that the rabbis were not less familiar with the prophets than with the Pentateuch, and even that they had “fully assimilated” the teaching of the prophets as to the value of the cultus (II, 13), and that their conception of revealed religion “resulted no less from the teaching of the prophets than from the possession of the Law” (I, 235). Christians see prophecy coming back to Judaism in John the Baptist and in Jesus, and find in Paul the new experience that revelation is giving in a person, not in a book, and inwardly to each one through the in-dwelling Spirit of God, as Jeremiah had hoped (31:31-34). And now, finally, liberal Judaism claims to be authentic and normal Judaism because it takes up the lines that Jeremiah laid down. It would require more proof than Professor Moore has given in his section on “History” to justify his claim that the only movements that need to be traced as affecting religion are these that lead from Ezra to Hillel and Johanan ben Zakkai and Akiba and Judah the Prince. Great events happened during the three centuries from Antiochus IV to Hadrian, events which deeply affected Judaism as a religion. But of these events and their influence Moore has little to say. It is in connection with these events that the Apocalypses were written.

A proper description, by contrast, should invoke considerations of social circumstance and context, so as to yield a Judaism portrayed within a specific, socially-circumscribed corpus of evidence. Porter’s second criticism of Moore seems to me still more telling. He points out that Moore ignores the entire legal corpus, so that his “Judaism” builds upon categories alien, and not native, to the sources at hand. A principal flaw in theological description, affecting not only Moore, but the others who follow, flows from a category-formation awry to the sources; the category-formation is that of Protestant Christianity, not Rabbinic Judaism. This is how Porter states matters: In [Moore’s] actual exposition of the normative, orthodox Judaism of the age of the Tannaim comparatively little place is given to Halakah. One of the seven parts of his exposition is on observances; and here cultus, circumcision, Sabbath, festivals, fasts, taxation, and interdictions are summarily dealt with; but the other six parts deal in detail with the religion and ethics, the piety and hopes, of Judaism, matters about

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introduction which the Haggada supplies most of the material, and for which authority and finality are not claimed. The tannaite (halakic) Midrash (Mechilta, etc.) contains a good deal of Haggada together with its halakic exegesis, and these books Moore values as the most important of his sources (I, 135ff.; II, 80). The principles of religion and morals do indeed control the interpretation of certain laws, so that Halakah is sometimes a source for such teachings, and “is in many instances of the highest value as evidence of the way and measure in which great ethical principles have been tacitly impressed on whole fields of the traditional law” (I, 134). This sounds as if the ethical implications constituted the chief value of the Mishnah for Moore’s purposes. But these are not its chief contents. It is made up, as a whole, of opinions or decisions about the minutiae of law observance. It constructs a hedge of definitions and restrictions meant to protect the letter of the law from violation, to make its observance possible and practicable under all circumstances, and to bring all of life under its rule.... The Jewish scholar, Perles, in a pamphlet with which Moore is in sympathy, criticized Bousset, in Die Religion des Judentums, for using only books such as Bacher’s, on the Haggada, and for expressing a preference for haggadic sources; whereas the Halakah in its unity, in its definitive and systematic form, and its deeper grasp upon life is much better fitted to supply the basis of the structures of a history of the Jewish religion. Moore agrees with Perles’ criticism of Bousset’s preference for the later, haggadic, Midrashim; but it is not because they are halakic that he gives the first place to the early Midrash. “It is this religious and moral element by the side of the interpretation of the laws, and pervading it as a principle, that gives these works [Mechilta, etc.] their chief value to us” (I, 135). Perles insists on the primary importance of the Halakah, not only because it shows here and there the influence of prophetic ethics, but because throughout as it stands, it is the principal work of the rabbis, and the work which alone has the character of authority, and because, concerned as it is with ritual, cultus, and the law (Recht), it has decisive influence upon the whole of life. This applies peculiarly to the religion of the Tannaim. The Haggada neither begins nor ends with them, so that Bousset ought not, Perles thinks, to have used exclusively Bacher’s work on the Haggada of the Tannaim, but also his volumes on the Haggada of the Amoraim, as well as the anonymous Haggada which Bacher did not live to publish. It is only in the region of the Halakah that the Tannaim have a distinctive place and epoch-making significance, since the Mishnah, the fundamental text of the Talmud, was their creation. Would Perles be satisfied, then, with Moore’s procedure? Would he think it enough that Halakah proper, observances, should occupy one part in seven in an exposition of the Judaism of the Tannaim, considering that in their classical and distinctive work Halakah practically fills sixty-two out of sixty-three parts? Moore agrees with Perles that there is no essential distinction between earlier and later Haggada (I, 163), and

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that the teachings of the Tannaim about God and man, morals and piety, sin, repentance, and forgiveness are not only also the teachings of the later Amoraim, but run backward, too, without essential change into the Old Testament itself. There is no point at which freedom and variety of opinion and belief, within the bounds, to be sure, of certain fundamental principles, came to an end, and a proper orthodoxy of dogma was set up. But orthodoxy of conduct, of observance, did reach this stage of finality and authority in the Mishnah; and the tannaite rabbis were those who brought this about. It is in accordance with Moore’s chief interests in haggadic teachings that he does not confine himself to sayings of the Tannaim, but also quotes freely from the Amoraim; how freely may be seen by the list that ends Index IV. Professor Moore’s emphasis upon his purpose to present normative Judaism, definitive, authoritative, orthodox, would lead one to expect that he would give the chief place to those “juridic definitions and decisions of the Halakah” to which alone, as he himself sometimes says, these adjectives strictly apply. We should look for more about the Mishnah itself, about its systematic arrangement of the laws, its methods of argument and of bringing custom and tradition into connection with the written law, and more of its actual contents and total character, of those actual rules of life, that “uniformity of observance” which constituted the distinction of the Judaism of the rabbis.

It is not possible to improve on Porter’s critique. The halakhic materials address the issues of the social order in relationship to the intellectual structure and system of the documents themselves. Neglecting the contents and categories of the legal documents, the Mishnah, Tosefta, Yerushalmi, and Babli, results in ignoring of the social context of a religious structure and system. For the law deals precisely with that—the construction of society, the formation of a rational, public way of life. The history of a religion should tell how a religion took shape and describe its concern for a relationship to the concrete historical context in which that religion comes to full expression. These simply are not topics that form part of the hermeneutical framework of Moore’s book. The critical issue is the relationship between a religion, i.e., the worldview and way of life of a coherent social group, and history, i.e., the material, economic, and political circumstance of that same social group. This history in Moore simply is not addressed. True, the history of a religion and the dogmatics of that religion are going to relate to one another. But a description of dogmatics of seven centuries or more and an account of the contents thereof simply do not constitute a history of the religion which comes to formal ideological expression in dogmatic theology. So Moore did not do what the title

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of his book and of his professorship (“professor of the history of religion”) promises, even though in his work he discusses numerous matters bearing historical implication. Moore’s failure flows from two contradictory facts. First, he believes everything he reads, so his “history” is gullible. Second, he forgets the work of historians, which is to tell us not only exactly how things were, but why. His history is not history, and anyhow, it lacks all historical context. The Sages. Their Concepts and Beliefs. By Ephraim E. Urbach. Translated from the Hebrew by Israel Abrahams. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, The Hebrew University, 1975. Two volumes—I. Text: pp. xxii and 692. II. Notes: pp. 383. Ephraim E. Urbach, the late professor of Talmud at the Hebrew University and author of numerous articles and books on the Talmud and later Rabbinic literature, here presents a compendious work intended “to describe the concepts and beliefs of the Tannaim and Amoraim and to elucidate them against the background of their actual life and environment.” The work before us has been accurately described by M.D. Heer (Encyclopaedia Judaica 16:4): “He [Urbach] outlines the views of the rabbis on the important theological issues such as creation, providence, and the nature of man. In this work Urbach synthesizes the voluminous literature on these subjects and presents the views of the talmudic authorities.” The topics are as follows: belief in one God; the presence of God in the world; “nearness and distance—Omnipresent and heaven;” the power of God; magic and miracle; the power of the divine name; the celestial retinue; creation; man; providence; written law and oral law; the commandments; acceptance of the yoke of the kingdom of heaven; sin, reward, punishment, suffering, etc.; the people of Israel and its sages, a chapter which encompasses the election of Israel, the status of the sages in the days of the Hasmoneans, Hillel, the regime of the sages after the destruction of the Temple, and so on; and redemption. The several chapters, like the work as a whole, are organized systematically, consisting of sayings and stories relevant to the theme under discussion, together with Urbach’s episodic observations and comments on them. It is clear that he has taken over, but improved upon, the description of “Judaism” as dogmatic theology set forth by Moore. Urbach’s categories, like Moore’s, come to him from dogmatic

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theology, not from the sources on which he works. For let us ask, does the worldview of the talmudic sages emerge in a way that the ancient sages themselves would have recognized? From the viewpoint of their organization and description of reality, their worldview, it is certain that the sages would have organized their card-files quite differently. We know that is the case because we do not have, among the chapters before us, a single one that focuses upon the theme of one of the orders, let alone tractates, within which the rabbis divided and presented their various statements on reality, e.g., Seeds, the material basis of life; Seasons, the organization and differentiation of time; Women, the status of the individual; Damages, the conduct of civil life including government; Holy Things, the material service of God; and Purities, the immaterial base of divine reality in this world. The matter concerns not merely the superficial problem of organizing vast quantities of data. The talmudic rabbis left a large and exceedingly complex, well-integrated legacy of law. Clearly, it is through that legacy that they intended to make their fundamental statements upon the organization and meaning of reality. An account of their concepts and beliefs that ignores nearly the whole of the halakhah surely is slightly awry. How Porter will have reviewed Urbach’s book is readily imagined: he would have said of Urbach exactly what he said of Moore, with the further observation that Israeli Orthodox Judaism should produce greater appreciation for the halakhic embodiment of theology than Urbach here shows. Not only so, but Urbach’s “Judaism” is, to say the least, eclectic. And it is not historical in any conventional sense. Urbach’s selection of sources for analysis is both narrowly canonical and somewhat confusing. We often hear from Philo, but seldom from the Essene Library of Qumran, still more rarely from the diverse works assembled by R.H. Charles (and vastly expanded in the modern edition organized and edited by James Charlesworth) as the apocrypha and pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, and the like. If we seek to describe the talmudic rabbis, surely we cannot ask Philo to testify to their opinions. If we listen to Philo, surely we ought to hear—at least for the purpose of comparison and contrast—from books written by Palestinian Jews of various kinds. The Targumim are allowed no place at all because they are deemed “late.” But documents that came to redaction much later than the several Targumim (by any estimate of the date of the latter) make rich and constant contributions to the discussion.

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Within a given chapter, the portrayal of the sources will move rapidly from biblical to Tannaitic to Amoraic sources, as though the line of development were single, unitary, incremental, and harmonious, and as though there were no intervening developments that shaped later conceptions. The uniformities are not only temporal. There is no differentiation within or among the sayings Urbach adduces in evidence: all of them speak equally authoritatively for “the sages.” Urbach takes with utmost seriousness his title, the sages, their concepts and beliefs, and his “history,” topic by topic, reveals remarkably little variation, development, or even movement. That is because his skill at organization and arrangement of materials tends to outrun his interest in differentiation and comparison within and among them, let alone in the larger, sequential history of major ideas and their growth and coherent development over the centuries. One looks in vain for Urbach’s effort to justify treating “the sages” as essentially a coherent and timeless group. Readers will hardly find surprising the judgment that Urbach’s “history” is uncritical. He never deals with the question, how do we know that what is attributed in a given document, often redacted centuries after the events of which it speaks, to a named authority really was said by him? Yet we must ask, if a saying is assigned to an ancient authority, how do we know that he really said it? If a story is told, how do we know that the events the story purports to describe actually took place? And if not, just what are we to make of said story and saying for historical purposes? Further, if we have a saying attributed to a first-century authority in a document generally believed to have been redacted five hundred or a thousand years later, how do we know that the attribution of the saying is valid, and that the saying informs us of the state of opinion in the first century, not only in the sixth or eleventh in which it was written down and obviously believed true and authoritative? Do we still hold, as an axiom of historical scholarship, ein muqdam umeuhar (“temporal considerations do not apply”)—in the Talmud?! And again, do not the sayings assigned to a first-century authority, redacted in documents deriving from the early third century, possess greater credibility than those first appearing in documents redacted in the fifth, tenth, or even fifteenth centuries? Should we not, on the face of it, distinguish between more and less reliable materials? The well-known tendency of medieval writers to put their opinions into the mouths of the ancients, as in the case of the Zohar, surely warns us to be cautious

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about using documents redacted, even formulated, five hundred or a thousand or more years after the events of which they speak. Urbach ignores all of these questions and the work of those who ask them. The result is a reprise of Moore: not history but dogmatic theology. But the theology is not done the right way, because it is in the end not theology at all, but a mere filling in of the blanks: doctrine of this, these sayings, doctrine of that, those sayings. The work of theological analysis is not undertaken, because Moore, though doing theology, thought of himself as a historian. Paul and Palestinian Judaism. A Comparison of Patterns of Religion. By E.P. Sanders. London: SCM Press, 1977. Pp. xviii+627. So far as Sanders’s earlier book has a polemical charge, it is to demonstrate (pp. 420-21) that “the fundamental nature of the covenant conception...largely accounts for the relative scarcity of appearances of the term ‘covenant’ in Rabbinic literature. The covenant was presupposed, and the Rabbinic discussions were largely directed toward the question of how to fulfill the covenantal obligations.” This proposition is then meant to disprove the conviction (“all but universally held”) that Judaism is a degeneration of the Old Testament view: “The once noble idea of covenant as offered by God’s grace and obedience as the consequence of that gracious gift degenerated into the idea of petty legalism, according to which one had to earn the mercy of God by minute observance of irrelevant ordinances.” Once more, issues of Protestant theological concern govern the category-formation for a book on Judaisms. Still, what Sanders did wrong in his 1992 work, he did right in his 1977 book. That is, he differentiated carefully among the diverse Judaisms. He isolated the evidence pertinent to group. Then he described them one by one, every Judaism in its own terms. There is no better systematic reading of the Judaism of the Dead Sea Scrolls than his. Given the enormous problem of determining the social foundations of the documents collected in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, moreover, his account of that Judaic system (if it is a single system at all, subject to coherent description) is plausible and worth serious attention. Thus his “Palestinian Judaism” is presented through three bodies of evidence, described, quite properly and intelligently, one by one: Tannaitic literature, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, in that order. The excellence of this

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earlier work lies in its explicit recognition that we may describe “Judaisms,” each Judaic system attested by its own canonical writings. Here is no single, unitary, incremental, harmonious, lowestcommon-denominator “Judaism,” such as Sanders in 1992 has given us. But as we saw at the outset, the work on the model of Moore and Urbach still is organized around Protestant Christian theological categories. To each set of sources, Sanders addresses questions of systematic theology: election and covenant, obedience and disobedience, reward and punishment and the world to come, salvation by membership in the covenant and atonement, proper religious behavior (so for Tannaitic sources); covenant and the covenant people, election and predestination, the commandments, fulfillment and transgression, atonement (Dead Sea Scrolls); election and covenant, the fate of the individual Israelite, atonement, commandments, the basis of salvation, the gentiles, repentance and atonement, the righteousness of God (Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, meaning, specifically: Ben Sira, I Enoch, Jubilees, Psalms of Solomon, IV Ezra). This is not to suggest that Sanders’s covenantal nomism is a fabrication of his own; on the contrary, the datum he proposes can certainly be shown to accord with sayings here and there. At issue is whether he has formed a judgment of proportion and consequences. Is this issue the generative concern, the governing consideration, in the Judaic systems the documents of which Sanders reads? Sanders’ search for patterns yields a common pattern in “covenantal nomism,” which, in general, emerges as follows (p. 422): The “pattern” or “structure” of covenantal nomism is this: (1) God has chosen Israel and (2) given the law. The law implies both (3) God’s promise to maintain the election and (4) the requirement to obey. (5) God rewards obedience and punishes transgression. (6) The law provides for means of atonement, and atonement results in (7) maintenance or re-establishment of the covenantal relationship. (8) All those who are maintained in the covenant by obedience, atonement, and God’s mercy belong to the group which will be saved. An important interpretation of the first and last points is that election and ultimately salvation are considered to be by God’s mercy rather than human achievement.

Anyone familiar with Jewish liturgy will be at home in that statement. Even though the evidence on the character of Palestinian Judaism derives from diverse groups and reaches us through various means, Sanders argues that covenantal nomism was “the basic type of religion known by Jesus and presumably by Paul….” And again,

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“covenantal nomism must have been the general type of religion prevalent in Palestine before the destruction of the Temple.” But whether the various Judaisms of the time and place will have found in these ideas the center of their statement, whether this common denominator really formed the paramount agenda of thought and of piety, is a different question. My account of Rabbinic Judaism answers that question in the negative; Rabbinic Judaism had other concerns than those of Protestant Christianity; it solved other problems; its theology and law made a statement that attended to different issues altogether, even though, on the issue important to Sanders, the writers can have concurred, casually and tangentially, with what he thought they should think on the questions critical to his polemic. That is how Sanders imposes on his evidence a Liberal Protestant theological agendum, defending his particular Judaism from Protestant condemnation. Accordingly, he simply does not come to Rabbinic Judaism to uncover the issues of Rabbinic Judaism. He brings to the Rabbinic sources the issues of Pauline scholarship and Paul. This blatant trait of his work, which begins, after all, with a long account of Christian anti-Judaism (“The persistence of the view of Rabbinic religion as one of legalistic works-righteousness,” pp. 33-58), hardly requires amplification. In fact, Sanders does not really undertake the systemic description of earlier Rabbinic Judaism in terms of its critical tension. True, he isolates those documents he thinks may testify to the state of opinion in the late first and second centuries. But Sanders does not describe Rabbinic Judaism through the systemic categories yielded by its principal documents. While we think he is wholly correct in maintaining the importance of the conceptions of covenant and of grace, the polemic in behalf of Rabbinic legalism as covenantal does not bring to the fore what Rabbinic sources themselves wish to take as their principal theme and generative problem. For them, as he says, covenantal nomism is a datum. So far as Sanders proposes to demonstrate the importance to all the kinds of ancient Judaism of covenantal nomism, election, atonement, and the like, his work must be pronounced a success but trivial. So far as he claims to effect systemic description of Rabbinic Judaism (“a comparison of patterns of religion”), we have to evaluate that claim in its own terms. The Mishnah certainly is the first document of Rabbinic Judaism. Formally, it stands at the center of the system, since the principal

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subsequent Rabbinic documents, the Talmuds, lay themselves out as if they were exegeses of Mishnah (or, more accurately, of MishnahTosefta). It follows that an account of what Mishnah is about, of the system expressed by Mishnah and of the worldview created and sustained therein, should be required for systemic comparison such as Sanders proposes. Now if we come to Mishnah with questions of Pauline-Lutheran theology, important to Sanders and New Testament scholarship, we find ourselves on the peripheries of Mishnaic literature and its chief foci. True, the Mishnah contains a very few relevant, accessible sayings, for example, on election and covenant. But on our hands is a huge document that does not wish to tell us much about election and covenant and that does wish to speak about other things. Sanders’s earlier work is profoundly flawed by the category-formation that he imposes on his sources; that distorts and misrepresents the Judaic system of those sources. To show that Sanders’s agendum has not been shaped out of the issues of Rabbinic theology, we shall now adduce negative evidence on whether Sanders with equal care analyzes the inner structure of a document of Rabbinic Judaism. Throughout his “constructive” discussions of Rabbinic ideas about theology, Sanders quotes all documents equally with no effort at differentiation among them. He seems to have culled sayings from the diverse sources he has chosen and written them down on cards, which he proceeded to organize around his critical categories. Then he has constructed his paragraphs and sections by flipping through those cards and commenting on this and that. So there is no context in which a given saying is important in its own setting, in its own document. The diverse Rabbinic documents require study in their own terms; the claim to have presented an account of “the Rabbis” and their opinions is not demonstrated. We hardly need dwell on the fact that Sanders has not shown how systemic comparison is possible when the issues of one document, or of one system of which a document is a part, are simply not the same as the issues of some other document or system; he is oblivious to all documentary variations and differences of viewpoint. That is, while he has succeeded in finding Rabbinic sayings on topics of central importance to Paul (or Pauline theology), he has ignored the context and authentic character of the setting in which he has found these sayings and has not even asked whether these sayings form the center and core of the Rabbinic

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system or even of a given Rabbinic document. To state matters simply, How do we know that “the Rabbis” and Paul are talking about the same thing, so that we may compare what they have to say? And if it should turn out that “the Rabbis” and Paul are not talking about the same thing, then what is it that we have to compare? We think, nothing at all. But if Sanders’s results prove flawed, his basic approach—treat each Judaism in its own terms—does match the challenge of this book. iv. Historical: The Documentary Description of Rabbinic Judaism Clearly, prior descriptions of Rabbinic Judaism are characterized by one or more of these flaws: [1] Earlier scholars ignore the task of describing the sources, that is to say, the documents, their traits and perspectives. Documentary analysis is commonplace in Tanakh scholarship, J, E, P, and D rarely being invited to testify in common to a unitary account of the historical unity of the Torah, for example. No picture of Pentateuchal religion comprised of a harmony of the sources, or the lowest common denominator among the sources, or a sum of all sources, is apt to gain a solemn hearing in biblical studies. In New Testament scholarship it is routine to recognize that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John formulated distinctive statements, and nobody harmonizes sayings from this, that, and the other gospel into a harmonious account of what Jesus really said. We doubt that a “Christianity” written the way Sanders has written his two “Judaisms” will exercise much influence. [2] They take for granted the historicity of stories and sayings. The critical-historical program of the nineteenth century has made no impact at all. We challenge Cohen and Sanders to point to a single work in ancient Israelite history that uses scriptural sources the way they use Rabbinic ones. In New Testament scholarship people routinely call into question the historicity of sayings and stories and devise methods for distinguishing the authentic from the fabricated. [3] But they all ignore the historical setting and context in which the ideas of a given “Judaism” took place. The social-historical program of the twentieth century humanities, with its interest in the relationship between text and context, idea and the circumstance of

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those who held that idea, has contributed nothing. So ideas exist disembodied, out of all relationship to the lives of those who held them or later on preserved the documents that present them. [4] And they all invoke for their category-formations classifications alien to the sources, instead of allowing the documents to dictate their own generative and definitive categories of thought and inquiry. Categories, the sense of proportion and of structure and order, are lifted from one world and parachuted down upon the data of another. The recognition that one category-formation cannot be imposed upon the data of a different culture—surely commonplace among historians of all periods, aware as they are of anachronism— has yet to register. The program of cultural anthropology has not made a mark. That is why we can insist the rabbis of the Mishnah tell us their views concerning propositions important to Paul, even though they may have said nothing on the topics to which Paul accorded critical importance. Now to turn to the documentary approach used in this book, which provides a solution to these problems. [1] It asks about the circumstances, traits, and generative problematic of the several writings that attest to forms of Judaism. In that way, each document is read in its own terms and setting. [2] This method dismisses as not subject to falsification or verification attributions of sayings to named masters, allowing documents as wholes to speak of the period in which they were composed. [3] But, treating the document as irrefutable evidence of the viewpoint of those who compiled it, the documentary method asks about the context in which a given document’s contents found consequence. [4] And the documentary method formulates issues as these are defined by the respective documents: their concerns, their problematic, their categorical structure and system. It further proceeds to the question of how several documents relate to one another, in the aspects of autonomy, connection, and continuity, as we shall explain. The pictures of the Judaisms given here provide a history of ideas based on the sequence of documents and their intellectual relationships. It goes without saying that each author relies for facts concerning a given time and its issues upon the character of the documents, not on the attributions of sayings or the narratives of stories alleged to have been said or to have taken place at a given time prior to the closure of the document itself. The result is description of one aspect

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of Judaism, the theory of death and life after death, that pays close attention to the formulation of distinct sets of ideas at determinate times and in specific contexts. Readers will judge for themselves the utility of the four models set forth here.

I. THE LEGACY OF SCRIPTURE

1. DEATH AND AFTERLIFE: THE BIBLICAL SILENCE Richard Elliott Friedman University of California, San Diego and Shawna Dolansky Overton University of California, San Diego We have few unquestionable references to life after death in the Hebrew Bible. Our problem, though, is not only that we have so little to go on. The problem is also that this silence on such a common concern of religion is mysterious itself. We know that ancient Israel’s religion was monotheistic, though we may debate exactly when that monotheism began. We know that it had a hereditary priesthood, a link between religion and law, a concept of divine-human covenant, and doctrines concerning patriarchs who migrated to the land from Mesopotamia and of slavery and exodus from Egypt. We know that it involved circumcision, animal sacrifice, forbidden and permitted animals, seasonal holidays, a sabbath, a Temple, opposition to idols, and the composition of sacred texts. Despite limitations of sources and the distance in time, we know a variety of facts, central and peripheral about the Israelites’ religion. Yet we have been uncertain about what they—from the person in the street to the High Priest— believed happens after death. Though belief in an afterlife was part of Mesopotamian religion to the east and is probably the most famous aspect of Egyptian religion to the west, it has been an enigma for Israel. The average Jewish or Christian layperson today has no idea what ancient Israelites believed; and scholars are uncertain, being dependent on relatively few passages from the text, which we have barely begun to study systematically. It is not as if death were an uncommon occurrence in ancient Israelites’ experience. Men’s average survival was only in the forties. Women’s was in the thirties. Women’s death in childbirth was almost fifty percent. Anyone who would reach middle age would have lost most of his or her immediate family. Death was so common, so familiar. Why, then, are there so few texts showing any interest in humans’ fate after dying? It would almost be better if there were no texts at all. Then we

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could conceive of a systematic rejection of such things by the biblical authors over the millennium that it took to compose the Hebrew Bible. There are, however, just enough suggestive texts to confuse the issue. So rather than biblical silence perhaps we should say that it is just a whisper. This whisper is faint enough to make people, especially non-specialists, imagine that there was virtually no belief in afterlife in constitutive biblical religion or in early biblical Israel thereafter. So, most recently, Neil Gilman, in a book on death in Judaism, asserts firmly and repeatedly that death was seen as final by the biblical writers, with no more than three possible exceptional passages in the entire Hebrew Bible. But we know that there was belief in an afterlife in Israel. The combination of the archaeological record and the references that we do have in the text leave little room for doubt. Archaeological data indicate the nature of such beliefs. J.W. Ribar1 identified tomb installations that appear to reflect the existence of a cult of the dead and attendant beliefs that the deceased continued some form of existence after death. Ribar noted tombs that had apertures cut into their ceilings through which it would be possible to give offerings to the dead or that had storage jars placed directly over the heads of the corpses. Ribar’s examples include the Grabkammer II tomb from Megiddo (MB II B-C), Megiddo Tomb 234 (MB II), Hazor’s “porcupine Cave” (MB II), and the caves in Area E, Gezer (late LB-Iron 1), the Double Tomb 6-7 from Tell Abu Hawam’s cemetery (LB II), Tombs I (Iron IIB) and II (Iron IIC) at Beth-Shemesh, and one bench tomb from Sahab in Trans-Jordan (Iron IIC). Similar findings were made at a Late Bronze installation at Dothan. Although the Dothan material remains largely unpublished, R.E. Cooley2 has reported concerning Tomb I (c. 1400-1200/1100): An auxiliary opening or circular window was positioned on the front side directly above one of the chamber niches. Outside the chamber and below the opening two large storage jars had been placed. Each jar contained a dipper juglet for the dead to receive the contents.... Such provisions give sufficient evidence for the concern of the living to provide the dead with refreshing drinks. It is also possible that the Dothan 1 J.W. Ribar, Death Cult Practices in Ancient Palestine. Diss. University of Michigan, 1973, pp. 45-71. 2 R.E. Cooley, “Gathered to His People: A Study of a Dothan Family Tomb,” in M. Inch and R. Youngblood, eds., The Living and Active Word of God (Winona Lake, 1983), pp. 50-51.

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installation was used for libations.... At Dothan water would be poured into the chamber through the window opening and then the vessels placed along the stone retaining wall of the shaft. This would account for the large number of vessels found outside the chamber. Few Palestinian sites have yielded such apparatus to supply water for the thirst of the dead. The ritual purpose of these devices is clearly evident.

Extensive excavations in Judah have produced an abundance of evidence surrounding Judahite burial practices, even more than have been recovered from northern Israel. Elizabeth Bloch-Smith’s detailed and comprehensive study is particularly valuable. To summarize: there were several different methods of interment, though the most common one for Iron Age Judah was the bench tomb. Despite much diversity in choice of specific goods provided for the deceased, all burials, bench-tomb or otherwise, contained the same categories of goods at comparable relative frequencies. Ceramic vessels and jewelry were most common, while personal items and tools were less so. Bloch-Smith explains that the abundance of ceramic vessels indicates that “nourishment in the afterlife was of paramount importance. An open vessel such as a bowl or crater for food, and a pilgrim flask, chalice or jar for liquids, were the most common forms, frequently accompanied in highland burials by a lamp for light.”3 Beginning in the tenth century B.C.E., bowls, storejars with dipper juglets, plates/platters, cooking pots, wine decanters and amphoras were widely adopted into the mortuary repertoire. Apparently, these new vessel forms functioned in the preparation, serving and storing of food and liquids. Numerous examples of food remains are further evidence of offerings to the dead.4 Additionally, Bloch-Smith cites the use of jewelry and amulets as evidence of the deceased’s need for protection via sympathetic magic.5 Recall also that the oldest known text of a portion of the Bible, an inscription of the Priestly Blessing from Num. 6:24-26, was found inscribed in silver foil which was rolled and placed on a body in an Iron Age Judean tomb. 6 Bloch-Smith further suggests that the presence of female pillar figurines in many tombs is best explained as 3 Elizabeth Bloch-Smith, Judahite Burial Practices and Beliefs about the Dead (JSOT Supplement Series 123, Sheffield, 1992), p. 141. 4 Ibid., pp. 103-108. 5 Ibid., pp. 81-86. 6 Gabriel Barkay, Ketef Hinnom: A Treasure Facing Jerusalem’s Walls (Jerusalem, 1986). On the following, see Bloch-Smith, op.cit., pp. 94-100.

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an appeal to sympathetic powers in which the dead were thought to intercede on behalf of surviving family members. Israel’s grave goods are similar to those of its neighbors whose afterlife beliefs are well-known. Egypt’s cult of the dead is familiar through pyramids, mummification, and the Book of the Dead. Egyptians’ central concerns were with providing the proper provisions for the deceased, especially of royalty and nobility, so that they might live comfortably in the afterlife and bestow blessings upon the living. Mesopotamian literature also indicates a vibrant cult of ancestral veneration. Within each family, a “caretaker” (paqidu) was responsible for the care of the ghost (etemmu) of his deceased ancestor. This included performing such important services as making funerary offerings (kispa kasapu), pouring water (me naqu), and invoking the name (šuma zakaru).7 Necromancy was also a well-developed and intricate art. Magical literature mentions the restless ghost who returns to haunt the living, and works such as The Descent of Ishtar and The Epic of Gilgamesh demonstrate the belief in human afterlife in a world of dust. At Ugarit, too, there are comparable facilities for providing for the continuing well-being of the dead, and there are parallels with allusions to after-death experiences in the Bible. Excavations at Ras Shamra have revealed the use of pipes leading from ground level down into the tomb, which may have been used to provide the deceased with water.8 Although Pitard9 disagrees that such libation installations existed at Ras Shamra, claiming that they have been misidentified, he nevertheless affirms that, “There is no doubt that food and drink offerings were placed in the tomb at the time of each burial.”10 KTU 1.161 describes a liturgy of a mortuary ritual directed toward the deceased royal ancestors, some of whom are called rapi’uma (see our discussion of repa’îm below). The deceased are invoked to assist in bestowing blessings upon the reigning king. Other texts (KTU 1.6.6.45-49; 1.113) refer to the deceased as gods, ilu (see the discussion of ’elohîm below). Some scholars argue that the marzea½ Miranda Bayliss, “The Cult of Dead Kin in Assyria and Babylonia,” in Iraq 35:1973, p. 116. 8 Theodore Lewis, “Ancestor Worship,” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York, 1992), vol. I, p. 241. 9 Wayne T. Pitard, “The ‘Libation Installations’ of the Tombs at Ugarit,” in Biblical Archaeologist 57, 1994, pp. 20-37. 10 Ibid., p. 35, n. 1. 7

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at Ugarit and elsewhere was “a feast for and with departed ancestors corresponding to the Mesopotamian kispu.”11 The importance of ancestor worship is also seen in the phrase ’il ’ib, the “divine ancestor,” which occurs at the head of pantheon lists as well as in epic texts and sacrificial and offering lists.12 Especially important are recent studies that have advanced our understanding of ancestor veneration among the ancient Israelites as well. Albright began to make the case for ancestral sacrifices in 1957, when he suggested that this was one of the functions of the bamôt in ancient Israel. He concluded that “biblical references to veneration of heroic shrines (e.g., Rachel and Deborah), cult of departed spirits or divination with their aid, and high places in general add up to a much greater significance for popular Israelite belief in life after death and the cult of the dead than has hitherto appeared prudent to admit.”13 Since then, a number of scholars have pursued this line of inquiry. In particular, H.C. Brichto has gathered an abundance of evidence demonstrating the persistence of ancestor veneration in ancient Israel, focussing mainly on the importance of land ownership in connection with the continuation of a lineage. He stresses the prohibition against selling one’s land forever, stating that with land remaining the property of a family in perpetuity, it belongs “to the dead ancestors and to their unborn descendants—it is a sine qua non of their stake in immortality.”14 The dead were buried on their land, and their descendents were responsible for the maintenance of the grave. Similar to what we know of ancient Mesopotamian practices, Brichto claims that the condition of the dead in the afterlife is “connected with proper burial upon the ancestral land and with the continuation on that land of the dead’s proper progeny.”15 Bloch-Smith agrees, stating that “an ancestral tomb, whether located on inherited land or in the village cemetery, served as a physical, perpetual claim to the patrimony. Family proximity to the tomb facilitated caring for Marvin Pope, “The Cult of the Dead at Ugarit,” in G.D. Young, ed., Ugarit in Retrospect (Winona Lake, 1981), p. 176. 12 Theodore J. Lewis, Cults of the Dead in Ancient Israel and Ugarit. (Atlanta, 1989), p. 70. 13 William Foxwell Albright, “The High Place in Ancient Palestine,” in Volume du Congres Internationale pour l’Etude de l’Ancien Testament, VTSup 4, 1957, p. 257. 14 Herbert C. Brichto, “Kin, Cult, Land and Afterlife—A Biblical Complex,” in Hebrew Union College Annual 44, 1973, p. 9. 15 Ibid., p. 23. 11

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and venerating the dead. These functions of the tomb, in addition to the attributed powers of the deceased, made the cult of the dead an integral aspect of Israelite and Judahite society.” 16 The powers of the dead to which Bloch-Smith is referring would include the ability to know the future as well as to bestow blessings upon one’s descendants, assuming proper obeisance was made to the ancestors. Homage was paid through correct burial, maintenance and care of the grave, and offerings of food, libations, and incense to appease the dead spirits. Deut. 26:14 explicitly disallows offering the dead tithed food; but, as many scholars have observed, this prohibition is not against making other offerings of food to the dead. Brichto points out that “not only does this verse attest to the practice, as late as the time of Deuteronomy, of offerings made to the dead; it attests that normative biblical religion accorded them the sanction of toleration.”17 T.J. Lewis concurs, pointing out that scholars for over a hundred years have suggested that this passage in Deuteronomy may allude to offerings to the spirits of the dead “for the purpose of rendering them propitious to the survivors.”18 Baruch Halpern has identified the historical context within which ancestor veneration thrived for centuries and then was forcibly diminished as an increasingly radical monotheistic urban elite gained ascendancy in Judah under Kings Hezekiah and Josiah. Prior to the devastation of the Judean countryside by the Assyrian emperor Sennacherib during the time of Hezekiah, the bulk of the population lived in the rural areas outside Jerusalem and maintained traditional clan and kinship-based communities, largely removed from political influences within Jerusalem. “Along with blood claims and claims on the land, the clan sector (mišpa½â) shared its ancestry. Indeed, ancestry and the common treatment of the ancestors were a language in which claims to property could reliably be lodged.” The orientation of each individual kinship community was inward as members of each community shared ancestry and property, and this common heritage formed the basis for such annual ancestral sacrifices as described in 1 Sam 20:6, where this event is David’s pretext for taking Bloch-Smith, op. cit., p. 146. Brichto, op. cit., p. 29. 18 See Samuel R. Driver, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Deuteronomy (New York, 1916), pp. 291-292, whom Lewis, p. 103, cites, though note Driver’s reservations. 16 17

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leave of Saul. Burial customs reflected this, as Israelite rock-cut tombs prior to the seventh century were multi-chambered, with room for at least four generations of male offspring. Halpern emphasizes the prereformation state of Judah’s intra-clan sense of community and continuity with the statement that “the Israelite inherited the house of his ancestors, the fields of his ancestors, the tools of his ancestors, the gods of his ancestors, and, in the end, the place of his ancestors in the tomb.”19 Halpern’s work is a powerful merging of the archaeological evidence and the textual evidence to capture the place of ancestor veneration in ancient Israel. There is further internal evidence from the biblical text that coincides with the broader external picture from archaeology regarding the afterlife. First, there is a bank of terminology, some of it obvious, some of it not so obvious. The term that occurs most often in connection with after-death existence is Sheol. It appears sixty-five times in the Hebrew Bible. The book of Job refers to it many times, as do the narrative books, Psalms, Proverbs, and some of the prophets. Although most scholars think that it is a name for the netherworld, it is still an enigmatic term in that its original meaning and etymology are in dispute. It is not found in any of the cognate languages. Many suggestions have been made regarding the origin of this word, ranging from a speculative Akkadian šu’alu, meaning “underworld,” which most agree is a misanalysis of the Akkadian, to a theoretical proto-Hebrew še’ô (root: š’h), which could best be translated as “nothingness.”20 Stronger conjectures have been made by Albright, who first suggested Akkadian origins in the word ša’alu, making Sheol a “place of decision (of fates)” and later settled on a new analysis of Sheol as a place of ordeal or examination, arising out of Hebrew š’l, “to ask,” in the context of inquiry referring to the practice of necromancy.21 Oppenheim compares the roles of the ša’iltu-priestess in Akkadian. McCarter’s analysis of the river or-

19 Baruch Halpern, “Jerusalem and the Lineages in the Seventh Century BCE: Kinship and the Rise of Individual Moral Liability,” in Baruch Halpern and Deborah W. Hobson, eds., Law and Ideology in Monarchic Israel, JSOT Supplement Series 124 (Sheffield, 1991), pp. 57-59. 20 Theodore J. Lewis, “Dead, Abode of the,” The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York, 1992), vol. II, p. 102. 21 William Foxwell Albright, “The Etymology of Še’ol,” in AJSL 34, 1918, pp. 209-210.

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deal in ancient Israel led him to speculate that Sheol might originally have meant “the place of interrogation.”22 Another important term is repa’îm, which occurs infrequently but seems to denote denizens of the netherworld in Is. 14:9; 26:14 and Ps. 88:11. In other places in the Bible we have references to the Valley of the repa’îm (Josh. 15:8; 18:6; 2 Sam. 5:18, 22; 23:13) and to the repa’îm as one of the indigenous peoples of Canaan (Gen. 14:5, Deut. 2:11,20; Deut. 3:13), but in the Isaiah passages and Ps. 88 the repa’îm are the dead, continuing some sort of existence in an underworld (see also Prov. 2:18; 9:18; 21:16; Job 26:5). Given this confusing assortment of meanings for the word, it is fortunate that fifth century Phoenician inscriptions attest to the repa’îm as those whom the living join in dying (KAI 13:7-8, 14:8). As we have seen, it is also found in Ugaritic (KTU 1.61), connoting a line of dead kings and heroes (cf., Is. 14:9). Alan Cooper23 traces the etymology of repa’îm to Ugaritic Rp’u, a chthonic deity and patron god of the King of Ugarit, associated with healing in the sense of granting health, strength, fertility, and fecundity; hence the Hebrew rapa’, “to heal.” This is important in discussing ancestor veneration in the ancient Near East, as the purposes for revering one’s dead ancestors were often requests for health, strength, and progeny. The term terapîm is another relevant one, appearing in a number of passages in the context of divination. The etymology of terapîm points to an origin in Hittite tarpis, “spirit.”24 On the basis of Mesopotamian evidence, K. vander Toorn interprets the terapîm as ancestor figurines which would have been used both at home and in the public cult for divination.25 According to C. Kennedy, the terapîm were ancestral images that could be life-size, as in 1 Sam. 19:13, or as small as a mask; and he notes that the Septuagint translates terapîm in the case of Rachel’s theft from her family in Gen. 19:31 as eidolon, i.e., an image 22 A. Leo Oppenheim, “The Interpretation of Dreams in the ANE with a Translation of an Assyrian Dream Book,” in TAPhS N.S., 46, 1956, pp. 179-373; P. Kyle McCarter, “The River Ordeal in Israelite Literature,” in Harvard Theological Review 66, 1973, pp. 403-412. 23 Alan Cooper, “MLK ‘LM: ‘Eternal King’ or ‘King of Eternity’?” in J.H. Marks and R.M. Good, eds., Love and Death in the Ancient Near East: Essays in Honor of Marvin H. Pope (Connecticut, 1987), pp. 3-4. 24 Harry A. Hoffner, Jr., “Hittite tarpis and Hebrew teraphim,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 27, 1968, pp. 61-68. 25 Karel Vander Toorn, “The Nature of Biblical Teraphim in the Light of Cuneiform Evidence,” in Catholic Biblical Quarterly 52, 1990, p. 211.

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of the dead.26 In 2 Kgs. 23:24 they are listed as one of the divinatory and idolatrous items destroyed by Josiah in the course of his reform. Ezekiel envisions the king of Babylon’s consulting them in tandem with the employment of divination by casting arrows (belomancy) and by reading livers of sacrificed animals (hepatoscopy) in order to obtain an oracle (21:26), and Zechariah has the terapîm speaking in parallel to the diviners who relate false visions (10:2). Brichto employs this idea of the terapîm as ancestral figurines to support his controversial view of another term, stating that “the physical representations of the household gods…are universally presumed to be designated by the Hebrew word terapîm. If this presumption is correct, these representations may be present elsewhere masked under the more general term ’elohîm, ‘gods,’ as they are clearly designated in Gen. 31:30, where Laban uses the expression ‘my gods’ for the teraphim filched by Rachel.”27 Brichto and others28 have put forth the disputed notion that sometimes when the word ’elohîm appears in the Bible it refers to the spirits of dead ancestors rather than to God. Their best example of this is in 1 Sam. 28:13, where the word ’elohîm is taken by some to refer to the ghost of Samuel. It has been suggested that Is. 8:19-21 also appears to use the term ’elohîm in this way. Bloch-Smith takes this further and postulates that the terms ’elohîm and ’elohê ’abîw often mean “divine ancestors” rather than “God” or “god of his father,” and infers from this that passages such as Gen. 28:22; 31:52-54; and 46:1 are actually describing an oath sworn on deceased ancestors and sacrifices being made to ancestral deities.29 Lewis observes30 that Ps 106:28 contains the curious expression ‘sacrifices of the dead’ (zib½ê metîm). It is proposed above that the traditional explanation of this phrase as referring to ‘dead idols’ is inadequate. Num. 25:2 served as a source for the psalmist who consciously picked up on the phrase zib½ê ’elohêhen with his wording zib½ê metîm. It is the view of the present work that the key to understanding zib½ê metîm lies in recognizing the parallel between ’elohîm and metîm. These two terms, which occur in parallel elsewhere in Ugaritic and Hebrew, can designate the spirits of the dead. Charles A. Kennedy, “Dead, Cult of the,” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York, 1992), vol. II, p. 106. 27 Brichto, op. cit., p. 46. 28 Bloch-Smith, Judahite Burial Practices, pp. 122-123; Lewis, Cults of the Dead, p. 175; Vander Toorn, op. cit., pp. 210-211. 29 Judahite Burial Practices, p. 123. 30 Cults of the Dead, p. 175. 26

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In the cases considered here, it is possible that ’elohîm was meant to designate spirits of the departed, though, in most occurrences of the word, ’elohîm certainly should be understood to mean “God.” The word ’ittîm appears only once in the Bible, in a passage in Isaiah (19:3), who seems to have a large vocabulary of words that refer to after-life experience. According to Tzvi Abusch, ’ittîm is cognate with Akkadian etemmu: ghost, shade, or spirit31—which is consistent with the context in Isaiah, which mentions the consultation of ’obôt and yidde‘onîm as well as of ’ittîm. In several places in which wizards, sorcerers, and other practitioners of forbidden magic are mentioned, we also find the phrase ’ôb weyidde‘onî(m) (Deut. 18:11; 1 Sam. 28; 2 Kgs. 23:24; Is. 8:19). Although the precise meaning of each term is uncertain, the phrase is almost always understood as “necromancer” or “medium.” The term ’ôb is particularly ambiguous because it is found in a variety of contexts in which it can be understood as “spirit, ancestral spirit, the person controlled by a spirit, a bag of skin, the pit from which spirits are called up, a ghost, or a demon.”32 It has also been suggested that its etymology should be sought in the Ugaritic phrase il ’ib, usually understood as cognate to Hebrew ’elohê ’abîw but plausibly meaning “god of the pit” rather than “god of the father(s).” 33 Although ’ôb is often found on its own (usually when it means “pit” or “bag of skin”), the word yidde‘onî(m) occurs only in tandem with ’ôb. Some scholars take the phrase as a hendiadys while others, along with most translations, see it as referring to separate persons (e.g., medium and wizard).34 The root seems to be yd‘, but what remains unclear is whether the “one who knows” is the spirit being consulted or the necromancer who does the consulting. This phrase is also frequently translated as “one who has a familiar spirit.” No matter how these words are translated, each translation conveys the basic idea of communication between the living and the dead. The term marzea½, referring to a sort of funerary society, cognate to

Tzvi Abusch, “Etemmu,” in Karel vander Toorn, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. van der Horst, eds., Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (New York, 1995), p. 588. 32 Joanne K. Kuemmerlin-McLean, “Magic,” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York, 1992), vol. IV, p. 469. 33 William Propp, personal communication. 34 Kuemmerlin-McLean, op. cit., p. 469. 31

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the Ugaritic mrz½ (see above), occurs twice in the Hebrew Bible (Jer. 16:5; Amos 6:7).35 Additionally, there are terms that usually do not refer to afterlife but which do have such meaning in particular, specialized contexts. Alan Cooper’s treatment of the word ‘ôlam in Ps. 24 is an important example of such a case. Cooper argues convincingly that Ps. 24:7-10 is a fragment of a descent myth “in which a high god, forsaking his ordinary domain, descends to the netherworld, where he must confront the demonic forces of the infernal realm.” He sees two possible interpretations: (1) God’s entry into the netherworld to combat Death; and (2) God’s victorious emergence from the netherworld after subduing Death. One of Cooper’s main arguments is that the pit½ê Æôlam are the same as the Egyptian gates of the netherworld. He lists other mentions of the gates of the netherworld in the Hebrew Bible: Is. 38:10; Jonah 2:7; Ps. 9:14; 107:18; Job 38:16-17.36 Beyond the collection of terms such as these are the cases in which afterlife is explicitly expressed. The late book of Daniel speaks of those who sleep in the dust who will wake (12:2). Centuries earlier, Isaiah speaks of the dead awaking and living, using similar language to that of Daniel, as well as referring to the repa’îm (Is. 26:19). And a century earlier than that, 1 Sam. 28 recounts the story of the woman of En-Dor raising Samuel, who complains about being disturbed, criticizes Saul (as usual), and tells the future (Saul’s demise). (On the date of the work to which the En-Dor story belongs, see below.) The terms and explicit references to afterlife occur early and late, in poetry and prose, distributed through the course of the Hebrew Bible. While arguments from silence must be taken with the usual cautions, we should still note that the Bible has no criticism of any pagan society for belief in afterlife. Its attack on their icons is so common as to be well known to any Sunday school child. Its attacks on their sexual practices and on their human sacrifices (right or wrong) are numerous in the texts as well. But the closest it comes to polemic about the afterlife is to say that in a particular instance the Egyptians will turn to such sources for help but that this will not help them. 35 See Baruch Halpern, “A Landlord-Tenant Dispute at Ugarit?,” in Maarav 2, 1979, pp. 121-140; Richard Elliott Friedman, “The Mrz½ Tablet from Ugarit,” in Maarav 2, 1979-1980, pp. 187-206, for discussion and bibliography. 36 Alan Cooper, “Ps 24:7-10: Mythology and Exegesis,” in Journal of Biblical Literature 102, 1983, pp. 43 and 48, note.

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Biblical law forbids Israelites from consulting a medium, but that is not a denial of the efficacy of what a medium does nor a criticism of the pagans for doing it. Similarly, the Torah forbids Israelites to practice magic, but it still depicts Egyptian magicians as able to turn sticks to snakes and water to blood. Indeed, all of the usual cautions apply, of course. The passages in Isaiah and Daniel are poetry. Sheol might just mean the grave or generically and indefinitely the place where one lies when one dies, without meaning that one has consciousness there. And Samuel in the En-Dor episode, likewise, may simply be understood to be disturbed from eternal unconscious rest rather than from a place where persons are conscious after death. We may take the narrowest view possible of each case and term, but the nature and quantity of them is still too much to write off as a mass of uncertain instances. And, when taken with awareness of the historical and archaeological record, they add up to evidence of belief in an afterlife. (Thus Gilman’s insistence that biblical Israel knew no afterlife is based on such a taking of the narrowest view in every case that he considers and then holding that view to be determinative. Where he treats three cases of explicit reference to afterlife, he says: But that is only three cases—and the text in Daniel is late. And he does not deal with all of the applicable terms. And he does not deal with the archaeological evidence.) Both in the ground and on the parchment, we have reason to recognize that there were beliefs in life after death in biblical Israel. The question, then, is how to reconcile the biblical whispers with the evidence. How do we reconcile our knowledge that Israelites believed in an afterlife with the relative rarity of textual references? This requires an examination of authorship. One of the by-products of recent research by one of the authors of this article is some new data that may contribute to the solution of the present question. This research indicates that there is a continuous work of literature that is embedded among the narrative books of the Hebrew Bible. Its beginning is in Genesis, and it ends in 1 Kings 2. In the Torah it includes all of the text that has been known for over a century as J. J flows beyond the Torah, taking up portions of the books of Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and the first two chapters of 1 Kings. It is thus the first lengthy work of prose known on earth. It tells a continuous story with hardly a single gap between the Torah and Kings, and it was composed by a single author, probably in the ninth century

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B.C.E.37 Now, the relevance of this to the matter of afterlife is that part of the evidence for identifying this work as a unity is the fact that certain terms and themes occur disproportionately in this work—or only in this work and nowhere else in biblical prose. Among the bank of such characteristic terms, we find that of the nine references to Sheol in all the prose of the Hebrew Bible, all nine are in this group of texts, and none in the rest of biblical prose (Gen. 37:35; 42:38; 44:29; 44:31; Num. 16:30, 33; 2 Sam. 22:6; 1 Kgs. 2:6,9). Of twelve references to teraphim, eight are in this group of texts, and four in all of the rest of biblical prose. It is not just a matter of the terminology employed. The author of this work uses imagery that none of the other biblical prose authors use. In the episode of the rebellion against Moses and Aaron in Num. 16, this author’s story of Dathan and Abiram has been combined by an editor with the parallel story of Korah from P, but the two stories have notably different endings. In the P Korah account, Korah’s followers are burned; but in the J account (16:30-34), Dathan and Abiram along with their families and possessions are swallowed up by the ground and go down to Sheol alive. It is also in this author’s narrative that the story of the medium at En-Dor’s communicating with the deceased Samuel occurs. It is also in this work that the story of Israel’s heresy at Baal Peor occurs (Num. 25:1-5), involving the possible case of “sacrifices of the dead,” (zib½ê metîm/zib½ê ’elohêhen), as discussed above. And many times in this work there are reports of a man’s being buried in his father’s tomb: Gideon (Judg. 8:32), Samson (16:31), Asahel (2 Sam. 3:32), Ahitophel (17:23), and Saul and Jonathan (21:14). The words “He was buried in his father’s tomb” do not occur anywhere else in the Hebrew Bible. And it is also this work that notes in the account of Moses’ death that “no man knows his burial place to this day” (Deut. 34:6). The fact that this author is concerned with the location of the grave is notable because ancestor veneration is crucially linked with the actual grave site. As Halpern has shown, the forced separation of the people from these sites in Hezekiah’s reign was a turning-point in the triumph of Israelite monotheism and centralization of worship. This report that no one 37 This was developed in an unpublished paper: Richard Elliott Friedman, “The First Great Writer,” read at the Biblical Colloquium and in colloquia at Cambridge, Yale, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, University of California, Berkeley, and University of California, San Diego. It now appears in R.E. Friedman, The Hidden Book in the Bible (San Francisco, 1998).

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knows Moses’ burial place has been taken to “emphasize the very finality of the death of this man,”38 but it is a stretch to imagine an author’s choosing to raise this fact in order to convey that message. In a world in which ancestor veneration is practiced, we would more readily expect this report to mean just the opposite, emphasizing that the non-knowledge of the burial place is a striking fact because ancestor veneration must be linked to a burial place. And all of the other reports about burials in the family tomb in this work support the likelihood that this is the author’s concern. Now, none of the other sources of the Torah has any of this terminology or this imagery. What is the difference between this author and the authors of all of the rest of the Torah? The most prominent distinction that comes to mind is that this author is a layperson while all of the others are priests. 39 The authors who are priests do not discuss conceptions of the afterlife except in the context of prohibitions. Restrictions against contact with the dead and involvement in certain mortuary practices can be found in both the Deuteronomistic legal material and the Holiness Code: Deut. 18:1011 and Lev. 19:31, 20:6, and 20:27 prohibit the consultation of dead ancestors either directly or through necromancers and other intermediaries. Deut. 26:14 forbids feeding the dead tithed food, and Deut. 14:1 and Lev. 19:27-28 and 21:5 all object to engaging in the selflaceration rituals employed in Canaanite death cult practices. Lewis observed that “priestly material seems almost preoccupied with the defiling nature of the corpse, the bones, and the grave. This preoccupation stands out in contrast to the surrounding cultures of the ancient Near East and may indeed be a reflection of an attempt to combat a cult of the dead.”40 But, again, this does not necessarily deny that such mechanisms of communicating with the dead are effective. Brichto, too, notes that “the prohibition of recourse to the dead for oracles is in no way a denial of their existence in an afterlife, of their accessibility to the living and of their interest in them.”41 This is why it would have been in the priests’ interest to suppress the proliferation and undermine the legitimacy of cults of the dead. These cults were not limited to the employment of necromancers. Gilman, op. cit., p. 64. Richard Elliott Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible? (New York, 1987; 2nd ed., San Francisco, 1997), pp. 72-74, 79, 83, 85-86, 120-124, 128, 188, 210-211, 214. 40 Lewis, Cults of the Dead, p. 175. 41 Brichto, “Kin, Cult, Land and Afterlife, p. 8. 38 39

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Indeed, specialists were not needed at all to propitiate the good will of the deceased and accrue blessings. The best way for an ancient Israelite to ensure health, prosperity, and fertility was to propitiate the family’s dead ancestors. This did not require a priest, it brought no income to the priesthood, and it could even compete with priests’ income and authority. The authors of the Priestly portions of the Torah (P) promoted precisely the opposite idea: the only legitimate avenue to the deity is the priests. In the Priestly work there are no angels, no dreams, no talking animals. There are not even prophets. The very word “prophet” occurs only once, and there it refers figuratively to the High Priest, Aaron (Exod. 7:1). There are no accounts of sacrifices prior to the inauguration of Aaron as High Priest. And no formal worship is permitted outside of the Tabernacle—which means the Temple, either really or symbolically. There is no description of the creation of any realm of the dead in the Priestly creation account in Gen. 1. (There is none in the J account in Gen. 2 either, but that account does not pretend to be a picture of all of creation in the way Gen. 1 is; thus it also does not include the creation of the heavenly bodies or the seas.) For P, there is one God, one Temple, one altar, one sanctioned priesthood. When the Priestly narrative deals with a family tomb—specifically, in the case of the cave of Machpelah—the focus is explicitly on the purchase of the cave and the land surrounding it, both in the original story (Gen. 23), where the transaction is described in detail and the purchase price is specified, and in every mention of the cave thereafter (Gen. 49:29-33; 50:12-13). Rather than relating to ancestor veneration, this focus serves the function of establishing the legitimacy of Israel’s ownership of Hebron, the locale of the cave, which was a city assigned to the Aaronid priests, the group who produced the Priestly narrative (Josh. 21:8-11). Though most of the field of biblical scholarship continues to date the Priestly texts to the post-exilic period, the weight of the current evidence, particularly the linguistic evidence, points to the time of the First Temple.42 The Hezekian dating of these texts naturally connects them with the centralization of the Israelite religion that is ascribed to that king’s reign. It also corresponds to Halpern’s historical descrip42 Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible?, pp. 161-216; “Torah,” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York, 1992), vol. VI, pp. 605-622.

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tion of the religious and political change that followed the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel and Sennacherib’s campaign against the southern kingdom of Judah. The devastation of the countryside made possible the idea of centralizing the priestly authority in Jerusalem. This was precisely the era of the end of the local ancestral veneration sites. But ancestor veneration must be on the site (so Brichto, Halpern, and Bloch-Smith). A combination of Sennacherib’s campaign and Hezekiah’s political ingenuity put an end to this traditional community in rural Judah. According to Halpern, in order for Hezekiah to justify sacrificing the outlying communities’ lands to Sennacherib’s armies, he had to desacralize the land itself by discrediting traditional ancestral worship; this in turn allowed him to accomplish the centralization of worship in Jerusalem.43 “For Hezekiah’s purposes, it had been essential to amputate the ancestors, those responsible for the bestowal of rural property to their descendants: they, and they alone, consecrated the possession of land.”44 Without their traditional ancestral lands, the people’s ties and sense of community were of necessity transferred to the monarchy, and competition between ancestor veneration and centralized worship at the Temple in Jerusalem was eliminated. This understanding is corroborated by the advent of a new type of burial, in which individuals, married couples, and occasionally nuclear families were buried in a communal necropolis rather than in family crypts.45 The Priestly (P) narrative and laws thus reflect this stage in the history of the religion of Israel, when a centralized priesthood displaced local worship that had included ancestor intercession. The sources of the Torah known as E and D reflect the same concerns as P. Their authors appear to come from a different priestly house, identified in some recent scholarship as Shilonite or Mushite,46 but their interests on this point are the same. They were probably against local ancestor veneration from the beginning—as reflected in E, which is from the time of the divided monarchy (pre-722 B.C.E.), and in the oldest portions of the Deuteronomic law code (which may be even older than E)—because it was performed at home, with no 43 Halpern, “Jerusalem and the Lineages in the Seventh Century BCE: Kinship and the Rise of Individual Moral Liability,” pp. 26-27, 73-76. 44 Ibid., p. 74. 45 Ibid., p. 73. 46 Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Cambridge, 1973).

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need of an altar or a priest as intermediary. They were certainly against it from the time of King Josiah, whose religious reform was even more radically centralizing than Hezekiah’s had been. The Shilonite/Mushite priesthood came to power with Josiah, and D is traced to that period. As Halpern has characterized Josiah’s reform: “It was a systematic effort to erase from the nation’s history the memory not just of a royal predecessor but of a whole culture.”47 By the time of Josiah, this centralizing tendency had heightened as the state religious practice became the moral norm, and the assault on kinship grew more radical, particularly because Manasseh’s intervening reign had allowed the re-establishment of many of the traditional high places and centers for non-Jerusalem religious activity.48 By the time of Josiah, no such activity was tolerated outside the Temple; as Halpern states, “the state, now, acted as a surrogate for the old tribal institutions, while professing all the while the ideology of those institutions.”49 Thus E and D also avoid the issue of life after death, except to prohibit contact with the dead in several passages of Deuteronomy. Like P, they are by priests; and, like P, they are silent on life after death. When we move on from the Torah to the histories, the situation is the same. The full Deuteronomistic history, which extends from Deuteronomy through 2 Kings, comes from the same hands as Deuteronomy itself, and those are the hands of priests, the Mushite or Shilonite priests who rose with Josiah. And the Deuteronomistic historian is silent on afterlife. Where the history includes anything to do with this subject, it is found in a passage that is manifestly from one of the historian’s sources, not from the historian himself. The story of the medium at En-Dor, for example, belongs to the source work that we described above. It does not contain any of the characteristic language of the Deuteronomistic historian himself. Similarly, there are the three resuscitation stories in the books of Kings. Elijah and Elisha each participate in bringing a dead boy back to life (1 Kgs. 17, 2 Kgs. 4), and a chance contact with Elisha’s bones 47 Baruch Halpern, “Sybil, or the Two Nations?,” in J.S. Cooper and G.M. Schwartz, eds., The Study of the Ancient Near East in the Twenty-First Century (Winona Lake, 1996), p. 329. 48 Halpern, “Jerusalem and the Lineages in the Seventh Century BCE: Kinship and the Rise of Individual Moral Liability,” p. 74. 49 Ibid. 76.

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revives a dead man on his way to burial (2 Kgs. 13). One may say that these stories do not necessarily imply the existence of any realm of conscious afterlife in any case; but, even if we take the view that they do imply some such realm of post-mortem existence, they, too, contain no characteristic Deuteronomistic language. They rather belong to one of the Deuteronomist’s sources, a chronicle of the northern kingdom of Israel. The same applies to the story of Elijah’s ascent in a whirlwind in 2 Kgs. 2. The story is often taken to mean that Elijah does not die. Alternatively, it may be precisely the account of his death. Either way, it belongs to the source, not to the historian’s own composition. One may ask why the Deuteronomistic historian retained these stories if they presented things in which he did not believe. The long answer would involve a proper analysis of how each of the biblical editors and historians worked and what their respective attitudes were toward their sources. The brief answer for our present purposes is that the Deuteronomistic historian included lengthy source texts without apparently feeling the need to make constant interruptions and cuts, so long as he could compose the introduction, framework, and conclusion to set the history in his particular perspective.50 The other major historical narrative, the Chronicler’s Work, comprising the books of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, is commonly associated with the same priestly community that produced the Priestly Work (P), i.e. the Aaronid priesthood. It should come as no surprise that the Chronicler’s Work, like other priestly products, does not deal with afterlife. This same distinction between lay and priestly writers prevails in the Major Prophets. Jeremiah and Ezekiel are priests. Jeremiah is associated with the priestly house that produced the Deuteronomistic texts; Ezekiel is associated with the Aaronid priestly house that produced the P texts. Neither of them is known for afterlife terminology. The book of Jeremiah in particular does not include occurrences of terminology associated with post-mortem existence. Ezekiel has the famous dry bones that become animated, but it is not at all clear that this points to any Jewish belief in afterlife in that period. In the first place, it is just a metaphor within a vision, used to express the possi50 Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible, pp. 130-145; “The Deuteronomistic School,” in Beck, Astrid, et al., eds., Fortunate the Eyes That See, David Noel Freedman Festschrift (Grand Rapids, 1995), pp. 70-80

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bility of regeneration of Israel after a national catastrophe. Second, it refers to resurrection, not to the existence of a post-mortem realm. Third, and above all, it may just as likely be evidence against belief in afterlife as for it. One could argue that it shows that Jews believed in such things, or one could just as easily argue that it is presented as something extraordinary and unanticipated, something that was not commonly believed. Meanwhile, the prophecy of (First) Isaiah, who is not a priest, is filled with allusions to afterlife experience, employing such terms as še’ôl, repa’îm, and ’ittîm. This is surprising in that Isaiah is presented as a supporter of Hezekiah, the king in whose reign the centralization of religion triumphed and the Aaronid priesthood achieved ascendancy over other priestly houses and the sites of ancestor veneration were wiped out. It may be, nonetheless, that the prophet could consistently both support all of the royal ideology and still speak of afterlife as a phenomenon. As a layperson, he would not necessarily have the same stake as a priest in actively suppressing any talk of afterlife in his writings. Why would priests in general be so averse to discussing anything regarding after-death experience, while someone like the author of J incorporates it as though taking for granted that it was part of his or her readers’ world view? First, as we discussed above, local ceremonies for dead ancestors did not require a priest, brought no income to the priesthood, and could even compete with priests’ income and authority. The priests’ livelihood was dependent on sacrifices to YHWH, and the priestly laws were designed in such a way as to ensure that all aspects of interaction with the divine were conducted only through the priests. If a belief in an afterlife was encouraged, and necromancy was given legitimacy as a means for knowing the divine will, then the priests would be ceding a portion of the control of the religion. In this vein, it is important to note that in the story of the woman of En-Dor, Saul is seeking a necromancer precisely because “Saul saw the Philistines’ camp and was afraid, and his heart trembled very much. And Saul asked of YHWH, and YHWH did not answer him, neither through dreams nor through Urim nor through prophets” (1 Sam. 28:5-6). Thus, although he has banished all necromancers from the land in accord with the law, in order to learn his fate, Saul must turn to one of them for answers; and she is able to conjure up Samuel. Thus, through the necromancer, Saul succeeds in circum-

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venting YHWH’s silence. The dead Samuel has access to knowledge regarding the will of YHWH and is able to predict Saul’s future for him. The inherent lesson in this is that one need not go through priests and legitimate means of inquiry regarding the divine will so long as one has recourse to inquiring of the spirits of the deceased. Since the priests were not necromancers, this was not an aspect of religion that they could control. It is thus natural that they not grant it legitimacy by even hinting at the existence of an underworld or an afterlife in their writings, despite the fact that such beliefs may have been popular and widespread. A second explanation of the priesthood’s opposition to afterlife beliefs is related to the hypothesis that the priestly group, the Levites, originally came from outside the land. On this hypothesis, the Levites were the Israelites who had experienced the enslavement and exodus and who then entered Israel and merged with the tribes who already resided there. They therefore did not have ancestral territory, which is essential to local veneration practices. (That is why the Levites receive ten percent of the other tribes’ produce; it is in lieu of land.) Their ancestors were presumably buried back in Egypt. Even if they had originated in Canaan prior to their sojourn in Egypt, they were long cut off from the burial sites of their ancestors. A third possibility is that perhaps the laws forbidding contact with the dead for priests were in place before necromancy and such things were popular or before the Levitical priests came into contact with this type of religion, and so priests could not have anything to do with those practices. Another possibility is that the Levites, coming from the Egyptian experience, were reacting against Egyptian religion’s obsession with the dead. To find the origin of an antipathy to such beliefs and practices, we might be best advised: Go back to Egypt—and to the founder. If a historical Moses really was offended by all of that concentration on death, he might well have bequeathed to his followers and successors a strict rejection of the entire scheme. These possibilities are all speculative, and we raise them only to establish that there are in fact historical scenarios in which we can conceive of a priesthood that is at odds with the masses regarding afterlife. And we know of the historical scenario in which the religion of Israel was centralized—first in the reign of Hezekiah and then more thoroughly in the reign of Josiah—which would have made it possible for the priests’ view to predominate over the popular view.

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We therefore advise caution against taking what appears to be a thin distribution of references to afterlife as evidence that there was little belief in it. Similarly, we caution against scholarly models of linear progressions, seeing Israel as moving from periods of belief to complete rejection (Job 14:12-14; Ec. 9:5-10) to a final full-blown belief (Dan. 12:2—“those who sleep in the dust will wake...”).51 The problem with both of these positions is that they do not take sufficient account of the specific background and situation of each of the biblical authors. It makes a difference whether the author was a layperson or priest. And the historical events that led to religious centralization made a difference in who had the opportunity to tell the story—and how each would tell it. It is difficult to state with any degree of certainty that the texts cited as evidence of such radical changes in perspective in a linear progression, such as Job, Ecclesiastes, and some of the Psalms, were representative of the views of a community. To claim that the skepticism of Job and Ecclesiastes with regard to consciousness in Sheol signified a shift in cultural conceptions of the afterlife simply makes too much out of the points of view of individual writers. Even assuming, as many scholars seem to, that these texts were written during roughly the same period, the fact that they both question the existence of life after death cannot be taken as representative of growing doubt on the part of the entire society. And the caution that we are advising here with regard to the wisdom literature applies at least as much to the Psalms. The notorious difficulty in dating the Psalms should make one slow to construct any linear progression of beliefs about the afterlife through them. Even more caution is called for when bringing the book of Daniel into the progression. There are references to resurrection or resuscitation in various places in the Hebrew Bible: the three Elijah-Elisha cases, Is. 26, Hos. 6:2, and the dry bones metaphor in Ezek. 37. Yet, in order to make their linear progression of ideas viable, scholars discount or downplay each one until Daniel. Then, “those who sleep in the dust will wake...” is cited as representative of a change in Israelite conceptions of death and after-death experience that, ac51 Klaas Spronk, Beatific Afterlife in Ancient Israel (AOAT, 219, 1986), NeukirchenVluyn; Bernhard Lang, “Afterlife; Ancient Israel’s Changing Vision of the World Beyond,” in Bible Review 4, 1988, pp. 12-23; Wayne T. Pitard, “Afterlife and Immortality; Ancient Israel,” in B.M. Metzger and M.D. Coogan, eds., The Oxford Companion to the Bible (Oxford, 1993), pp. 15-16.

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cording to this line of thinking, began to take place during the second and first centuries B.C.E. as a reaction to the idea that there was no conscious existence in Sheol, and from there led directly into the formation of Christianity. But the history of thought rarely moves in a precise linear progression, and those references cannot be completely excluded. At minimum they suggest that the concept was a familiar one in Israel for a long time. The fact that it is so explicitly portrayed in Daniel cannot be taken as indicative of a sea change in Jewish thought of the second century B.C.E. As R. Martin-Achard put it, “Texts relating to resurrection in the Old Testament are rare and dissimilar; they come from different horizons and we cannot simply examine them in chronological order to retrace the history of this theme in the mind of Israel.”52 The truth of this statement has become apparent, and not only with regard to the concept of resurrection; none of the ideas connected with afterlife beliefs can be traced in a linear historical progression. We have too few literary voices remaining from each time period to hope that each could represent the thoughts and beliefs of the aggregate accurately. We have seen that there is not simply one view of the afterlife that can be generalized for all of ancient Israel over the thousand year period of the Hebrew Bible’s composition. On the contrary, conflicting views can prevail simultaneously. Rather than attempting to extract a single, unified notion of the afterlife in ancient Israel that progresses linearly through time, we must instead investigate each reference to mortuary rites, the netherworld, veneration of deceased ancestors, necromancy, and resurrection within its own literary-historical framework, with the understanding that each author, within his or her own political and spatio-temporal context, might have a distinct idea of what happens to humans after they die, what they become, and what the proper relationship should be between the living and the dead. Bibliography Abusch, Tzvi, “Etemmu,” in vander Toorn, Karel, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. van der Horst, eds., Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (New York, 1995), pp. 588-594. 52 Robert Martin-Achard, “Resurrection,” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York, 1992), vol. V, pp. 683.

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Albright, William Foxwell, “The Etymology of Še’ol,” in AJSL 34, 1918, pp. 209-210. Albright, William Foxwell, “The High Place in Ancient Palestine,” in Volume du Congres Internationale pour l’Etude de l’Ancien Testament, VTSup 4, 1957, pp. 242-258. Bailey, Lloyd R., Biblical Perspectives on Death (Philadelphia, 1979). Barkay, Gabriel, Ketef Hinnom: A Treasure Facing Jerusalem’s Walls (Jerusalem, 1986). Bayliss, Miranda, “The Cult of Dead Kin in Assyria and Babylonia,” in Iraq 35, 1973, pp. 115-125. Blenkinsopp, Joseph, “Deuteronomy and the Politics of Post-Mortem Existence,” in Vetus Testamentum 45, 1995, pp. 1-16. Bloch-Smith, Elizabeth, Judahite Burial Practices and Beliefs about the Dead, JSOT Supplement Series 123 (Sheffield, 1992). Brichto, Herbert C., “Kin, Cult, Land and Afterlife—A Biblical Complex,” in Hebrew Union College Annual 44, 1973, pp. 1-54. Cooley, R.E., “Gathered to His People: A Study of a Dothan Family Tomb,” in Inch, M., and R. Youngblood, eds., The Living and Active Word of God (Winona Lake, 1983), pp. 47-58. Cooper, Alan, “MLK ‘LM: ‘Eternal King’ or ‘King of Eternity’?” in Marks, J.H., and R.M. Good, eds., Love and Death in the Ancient Near East: Essays in Honor of Marvin H. Pope (Connecticut, 1987), pp. 1-8. Cooper, Alan, “Ps 24:7-10: Mythology and Exegesis,” in Journal of Biblical Literature 102, 1983, pp. 37-60. Cross, Frank Moore, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Cambridge, 1973). Driver, Samuel R., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Deuteronomy (New York, 1916). Friedman, Richard Elliott, “The Mrz½ Tablet from Ugarit,” in Maarav 2, 1979-1980, pp. 187-206. Friedman, Richard Elliott, Who Wrote the Bible? (New York, 1987; 2nd ed., San Francisco, 1997). Friedman, Richard Elliott, “Torah,” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York, 1992), vol. VI, pp. 605-622. Friedman, Richard Elliott, “The Deuteronomistic School,” in Beck, Astrid, et al., eds., Fortunate the Eyes That See, David Noel Freedman Festschrift (Grand Rapids, 1995), pp. 70-80. Friedman, Richard Elliott, The Hidden Book in the Bible (San Francisco, 1998). Gilman, Neil, The Death of Death (Woodstock, 1997). Halpern, Baruch, “Jerusalem and the Lineages in the Seventh Century BCE: Kinship and the Rise of Individual Moral Liability,” in Halpern, Baruch, and Deborah W. Hobson, eds., Law and Ideology in Monarchic Israel, JSOT Supplement Series 124 (Sheffield, 1991), pp. 11-107. Halpern, Baruch, The Constitution of the Monarchy in Israel (Atlanta, 1981). Halpern, Baruch, “A Landlord-Tenant Dispute at Ugarit?,” in Maarav 2, 1979, pp. 121-140. Halpern, Baruch, “Sybil, or the Two Nations?” in Cooper, J.S., and G.M. Schwartz, eds., The Study of the Ancient Near East in the Twenty-First Century (Winona Lake, 1996), pp. 291-338.

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Hoffner, Harry A., Jr., “Hittite tarpis and Hebrew teraphim,” in Journal of Near Eastern Studies 27, 1968, pp. 61-68. Kaufmann, Yehezkel, The Religion of Israel, trans. and ed., Moshe Greenberg (Chicago, 1960). Kennedy, Charles A., “Dead, Cult of the,” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York, 1992), vol. II, pp. 105-108. Kuemmerlin-McLean, Joanne K., “Magic,” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York, 1992), vol. IV, pp. 468-471. Lang, Bernhard, “Afterlife; Ancient Israel’s Changing Vision of the World Beyond,” in Bible Review 4, 1988, pp. 12-23. Lang, Bernhard, “Life After Death in the Prophetic Promise,” inVTSup 40 Congress Vol., Jerusalem, 1986, pp. 144-156. Lewis, Theodore J., “Ancestor Worship,” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York, 1992), vol. I, pp. 240-242. Lewis, Theodore J., “Dead, Abode of the,” The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York, 1992), vol. II, pp. 101-105. Lewis, Theodore J., Cults of the Dead in Ancient Israel and Ugarit. (Atlanta, 1989). Martin-Achard, Robert, “Resurrection,” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York, 1992), vol. V, pp. 680-684. Meyers, Eric M., Jewish Ossuaries: Reburial and Rebirth (Biblica et Orientalia 24, Rome, 1971). McCarter, P. Kyle, “The River Ordeal in Israelite Literature,” in Harvard Theological Review 66, 1973, pp. 403-412. Oppenheim, A. Leo, “The Interpretation of Dreams in the ANE with a Translation of an Assyrian Dream Book,” in TAPhS N.S., 46, 1956, pp. 179-373. Pitard, Wayne T., “Afterlife and Immortality; Ancient Israel,” in Metzger, B.M., and M.D. Coogan, eds., The Oxford Companion to the Bible (Oxford, 1993), pp. 15-16. Pitard, Wayne T., “The ‘Libation Installations’ of the Tombs at Ugarit,” in Biblical Archaeologist 57, 1994, pp. 20-37. Pope, Marvin, “The Cult of the Dead at Ugarit,” in Young, G.D., ed., Ugarit in Retrospect (Winona Lake, 1981), pp. 159-179. Pope, Marvin, Song of Songs (The Anchor Bible, New York, 1977). Ribar, J.W., Death Cult Practices in Ancient Palestine, Diss. University of Michigan, 1973. Richards, Kent H., “Death (OT),” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York, 1992), vol. II, pp. 108-110. Schmidt, Brian B., Israel’s Beneficent Dead: Ancestor Cults in Ancient Israelite Religion and Tradition (Tübingen, 1994). Smith, Mark S., “Rephaim,” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York, 1994), vol. V, pp. 674-676. Smith, Mark S., and Elizabeth M. Bloch-Smith, “Death and Afterlife in Ugarit and Israel,” in Journal of the American Oriental Society 108:1988, pp. 277-284. Spronk, Klaas, Beatific Afterlife in Ancient Israel (AOAT, 219, 1986), Neukirchen-Vluyn.

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Tromp, N.J., Primitive Conceptions of Death and the Nether World in the Old Testament, Biblica et Orientalia 21, 1986. Van der Toorn, Karel, “The Nature of Biblical Teraphim in the Light of Cuneiform Evidence,” in Catholic Biblical Quarterly 52, 1990, pp. 203222.

2. DEATH AND AFTERLIFE IN THE PSALMS John Goldingay Fuller Theological Seminary Significant recent scholarship emphasizes the material and biblical evidence for the assumption within regular Israelite piety that the living may seek to relate to the dead, to contribute to their needs, and to benefit from their knowledge and powers; that clearly implies that the “dead” are in some sense actually alive.1 In light of this possibility, we will here reconsider the attitudes to death and afterlife expressed in the piety of the Psalms. According to a traditional critical understanding of this matter, generally these writings assume that this life is the only worthwhile life we have, though a small number of passages speak explicitly of a worthwhile afterlife.2 Mitchell Dahood interpreted a much larger number of passages that speak of “life” as referring to an afterlife,3 but this thesis has not carried conviction. The present writer’s conclusion is that even passages that have been more commonly understood to refer to a worthwhile afterlife do not do so. The Psalter’s consistent hope is for fullness of life in this life, and it continues to maintain that hope even when it is most severely threatened; it is the same hope as is assumed by Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes. These strands of Israelite faith implicitly or explicitly opposed belief in a positive afterlife.

1 For varying views see, e.g., H.C. Brichto, “Kin, Cult, Land, and Afterlife,” in Hebrew Union College Annual 44 (1973), pp. 1-54; K. Spronk, Beatific Afterlife in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East (Neukirchen, 1986); B. Lang, “Life after Death in the Prophetic Promise,” in J.A. Emerton, ed., Congress Volume: Jerusalem 1986 (VT Sup. 40, 1988), pp. 144-156; T.J. Lewis, Cults of the Dead in Ancient Israel and Ugarit (Atlanta, 1989); E.M. Bloch-Smith, “The Cult of the Dead in Judah,” in Journal of Biblical Literature 111 (1992), pp. 213-224; Judahite Burial Practices and Beliefs about the Dead (Sheffield, 1992). For a more questioning view, see B.B. Schmidt, Israel’s Beneficent Dead (Tübingen, 1994; new ed., Winona Lake, 1996). 2 See recently J. Day, “The Development of Belief in Life after Death in Ancient Israel,” in J. Barton and D.J. Reimer, eds., After the Exile (Macon, 1996), pp. 23-57. 3 See his Psalms (Anchor Bible 16, 17, 17a; Garden City, 1965, 1968, 1970), esp. vol. III, pp. xli-lii; also Proverbs and Northwest Semitic Philology (Rome, 1963).

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What happens when someone dies? What happens after death is pictured in a way that reflects what happens to the body in particular.4 When someone dies, their body becomes lifeless and incapable of activity, though it does not cease to exist. Yahweh who gave their breath now takes it away (Ps. 104:29). Normally and ideally the body is put into a pit or a cave, where it joins the remains of members of the person’s family who have already died, or into a communal grave. Where necessary, the remains of the existent bodies, from which the flesh is now gone so that they comprise only bones, are moved to make room for the new corpse; the pit or cave is then re-closed. So death involves going down to the soil (‘apar; 22:16, 30 [15, 29]), back to that from which we came (90:3)—deathly soil (22:16 [15]), where the worm consumes (Job 17:14). We go to destruction (Ps. 88:12 [11]).5 We go down to the pit (Ps. 28:1; 30:4, 10 [3, 9]; 88:5 [4]; 143:7). We go down to silence (115:17), to a place of darkness (49:20 [19]; 88:7, 13 [6, 12]; 143:3) like that of a deep ravine (23:4). Death is like an extreme form of sleep (13:4 [3]; 76:6-7 [5-6]; 90:5 MT). Job 3:11-19 especially emphasizes the point, no doubt with some irony: death is above all a place of rest, not least for people such as the tired, the prisoner, and the slave—and a sufferer such as Job. It is a sleep from which one never wakes (14:12). Ec. 6:4-5 also sees death as a place of darkness and rest but adds that there are advantages to never having seen what happens on earth (4:1-3). 6 Presumably the empirical evidence for the fate of the outer person suggests the conceptualization for the fate of the inner person or the 4 See classically N.J. Tromp, Primitive Conceptions of Death and the Nether World in the Old Testament (Rome, 1969); also O. Keel, Die Welt der altorientalischen Bildsymbolik und das Alte Testament (Neukirchen, 1972), translated as The Symbolism of the Biblical World (London and New York, 1978), chap. ii, 1; M. Krieg, Todesbilder im Alten Testament (Zurich, 1988), 2 vols. 5 NRSV transliterates as Abaddon, but the word has the article here, though not at Job 26:6; 28:22; 31:12; Prov. 15:11; 27:20. 6 On the ambivalent attitude to death in Ecclesiastes (and Job), see J.L. Crenshaw, “The Shadow of Death in Qoheleth,” in J.G. Gammie, et al., eds., Israelite Wisdom (Missoula, 1978), pp. 205-216 = Crenshaw, Urgent Advice and Probing Questions (Macon, 1995), pp. 573-585. J.C. de Moor, “Lovable Death in the Ancient Near East,” UF 22 [1990], pp. 233-245, describes a parallel ambiguity elsewhere; cf., also T. Jacobsen, “Death in Mesopotamia,” in B. Alster, ed., Death in Mesopotamia (Copenhagen, 1980), pp. 19-24.

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inner fate of the person. It is this fact that underlies similarities with the conceptualizations of other peoples,7 as much as direct influence of one culture on another. At death the inner person also becomes lifeless and incapable of its distinctive activities, such as knowledge, thinking, and worship. According to Ps. 39:14 [13] death means, “I depart and am no more” (‘enenni), but the general assumption is that at death the inner person no more ceases to exist than the outer person does, and perhaps the idea in Ps. 39 is “I am here no more.” It too joins the remains of other dead people, specifically one’s family, in a non-physical equivalent of their pit or cave or the communal grave, a place of silence and darkness. This can be referred to as Death, as if that is a place (e.g., Ps. 6:6 [5]): it is difficult to be sure precisely when to capitalize the word, but to do so sometimes seems appropriate, and the same is true of the related terms. But the one proper name for the abode of the dead is Sheol (e.g., 6:6 [5]); the name’s etymology is a matter of speculation and does not seem to affect its meaning in the Hebrew Bible. Sheol is located beneath the ground, like the grave, so that one goes down there or would have to rise from there (88:11 [10]) or be lifted from there (9:14 [13]); but once you go down to Sheol, you do not come back up (Job 7:7-10; cf., 14:7-14; 16:22). The reference to going back to Sheol in Ps. 9:18 [17]) is likely metonymy for going back to the soil (see above), an instance of the interpenetration of the ideas of what happens to the outer person and to the inner person. For “the ideas of the grave and of Sheol cannot be separated” 8 though neither can they be simply identified. Their relationship indeed mirrors that of the outer person and the inner person. Parallelism and content similarly indicate that many references to a/the Pit and to Destruction allude to the location of the dead person rather than that of merely the dead body (e.g., 16:10). Sometimes it is difficult to be sure whether “the pit” refers to something physical or metaphysical (e.g., 49:10 [9]); perhaps the better way to make the point is to say that the text may not always make a distinction between these two aspects of that pit to which the person goes. References to “the depths of the earth” (63:10 [9]; cf., 71:20), “deepest Sheol” (86:13), “the lowest pit, the darkest depths” (88:7 [6]), or the 7 E.g., Greek as well as middle eastern: see O. Kaiser and E. Lohse, Tod und Leben (Stuttgart, 1977), pp. 7-80, 143-157; translated as Death and Life (Nashville, 1981). 8 J. Pedersen, Israel: Its Life and Culture I-II (London, 1926), p. 461.

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grave-pit (55:24 [23])9 may reflect the belief that there are gradations in Sheol (cf., Ezek. 31:18), but in this context they are more likely rhetorical devices.10 In Ps. 18:5-6 [4-5], beliyya‘al appears in parallelism with Death and Sheol. Its etymological implication is “Worthlessness,” though this makes poor sense as a term equivalent to Death and Sheol. It is probably a secondary pointing of a proper noun that had a more sinister meaning, though there is insufficient evidence for us to decide what the noun meant or what kind of noun it was (see, e.g., B. Otzen in TWAT). In later Jewish writings, Belial became a term for Satan (see references in The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew), but there is no indication of this usage in the Hebrew Bible; here Worthlessness is personified like Death and Sheol, but not hypostasized. Like the grave, Sheol is a place of silence (31:18 [17]; cf., 94:17; 115:17). Among the dead there is no commemorating of God (6:6 [5]), no testimony or thanksgiving for what God has done (6:6 [5]; 30:10 [9]; 88:11 [10]), no making known or telling of God’s faithfulness or commitment or just acts (30:10 [9]; 88:12-13 [11-12]), no praising of God (115:17). YHWH does not work wonders there (88:11, 13 [10, 12]), so there is nothing to commemorate, give thanks for, make known, or tell of. The dead are people who are put out of God’s mind and are (therefore) cut off from the activity of God’s hand (88:6 [5]); in context, Ps. 31:13 [12] also seems to refer to being put out of God’s mind and therefore not being people for whom God acts. Death is a land that YHWH puts out of mind (88:13 [12]). It is his collocation of ideas, which explains why there is no praise in Sheol, not the fact that the dead are tainted, to which idea the Psalms do not allude. The dead cannot commemorate and give praise for YHWH’s deeds not because they stand outside the orbit of worship but because they stand outside the orbit in which YHWH acts; they therefore have no deeds to commemorate or give praise for. 11 9 M.E. Tate (Psalms 51-100; WBC 20; Dallas, 1990) suggests “pit of corruption,” following LXX. NRSV renders “the lowest pit.” 10 Indeed, perhaps we should not press the picture in Ezek. 31, any more than that in Is. 14: “Isa 14:9-21 no more than Lk 16:19-31 had as its purpose to offer a serious [i.e., literal—it was very serious] description of the geography or other circumstances of the afterworld” (B. Vawter, “Postexilic Prayer and Hope,” in Catholic Biblical Quarterly 37 [1975], pp. 460-470 [see p. 469]). 11 Contrast B.S. Childs, Memory and Tradition in Israel (London, 1962), p. 71; G. von Rad, Theologie des Alten Testaments (Munich, 1962), vol. 1, p. 381; translated as Old Testament Theology (Edinburgh and New York, 1962), vol. 1, p. 369. Von Rad later hints at the second understanding (p. 401, English translation: p. 389).

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The point is put even more sharply by Ecclesiastes, for whom death itself is a major theme, the reality in whose light all life must be lived (7:1-4). The substance of the book closes by pressing the nature of old age and death, much of it in picture language that puzzles interpreters (11:7-12:7). The most systematic and straightforward treatment comes in 9:1-12. Death is indiscriminate and unpredictable: it comes to all, no matter the moral or religious commitment, and we have no control over it (vv. 1-3, 11-12; cf., 2:14; 3:19-21; 8:8). Death means the end of hope (v. 4), knowledge (vv. 5, 10), reward (v. 5), being remembered (v. 5), feeling (v. 6), sharing in what happens (v. 6), work (v. 10), thought (v. 10), and wisdom (v. 10). Life is short (2:3) and death is long (11:8). Death relativizes all human achievement (5:12-15 [13-16]). While the Psalms most commonly express this awareness of the nature of death in the context of reference to the early death of the wicked or of someone being treated as if they were wicked (e.g., Ps. 6), there is no hint that the experience of eventual death on the part of the righteous is different, though it may be more acceptable. Indeed, the idea that death ideally occurs when one is “full of days” (Job 42:17) suggests not merely resigned acceptance of death’s inevitability but willing acceptance of its appropriateness; one has had enough and death’s time has come. Even if death is seen as a regrettable end to life, there is no indication that people feared death. “Fear” and “death” come together only in the context of discussion of the apparent greater vulnerability of the less wealthy and powerful (Ps. 49:6, 17 [5, 16]). The “terrors of death” in Ps. 55:5 [4] do recall the characterization in the Assyrian “Vision of the World Below” (ANET, pp. 109-110), but in context the phrase more likely refers to the personified assaults of God’s wrath that threaten and bring death than to death itself12 (indeed “the terrors of death” may in any case be “deadly terrors”).13 Death was a sad but natural and not frightening end to life.14 To say that “the Psalms only knew terror of the grave”15 is quite misleading. Indeed, Job 7:14-15 sees death as an escape from frightening dreams and visions. See Tate, pp. 403-404. So D.W. Thomas, “A Consideration of Some Unusual Ways of Expressing the Superlative in Hebrew,” in Vetus Testamentum 3 (1953), pp. 209-224 (see p. 221). 14 See J. Barr, The Garden of Eden and the Hope of Immortality (London, 1992), pp. 2156. 15 Pedersen, p. 463. 12 13

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The dead are called repa’im in Ps. 88:11 [10] (also Job 26:5; Prov 2:18; 9:18; 21:16). The word’s etymology and/or its usage in Ugaritic might suggest entities who are faded and powerless or alternatively might suggest heroes with healing powers, but the context of its usage in the Hebrew Bible gives no clue as to its connotations there. 16 So Death cuts us off from God. This is not to say that Death is a power of its own or a realm YHWH cannot enter. If YHWH is the one who kills and enlivens, then evidently Death is not a power to rival YHWH, and demons need not be feared (Ps. 91:5-6). It is YHWH who determines that people go to Sheol; the torrential waters that overwhelm the Israelite are YHWH’s torrential waters (42:8 [7]). YHWH can reach into Sheol at will, so that one could not escape YHWH in Sheol; YHWH would be there (Ps. 139:8). Sheol and Destruction are naked and defenseless before God (Job 26:6; cf., Prov 15:11). “Mwt is in the employ of God.”17 The Realm of Death. Sometimes Death is pictured as a city with gates, corresponding to Zion’s city with its gates (Ps. 9:14-15 [13-14]; 107:18).18 It is so in the Assyrian story of Ishtar’s Descent to the “Land of No Return” with its seven gates (ANET, pp. 106-9). We do not know whether Israelites also told colorful and specific stories about Sheol like those of other peoples or whether this note in the Psalms is an isolated motif. There is some indication elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible that life in Sheol partly mirrors life on earth. Kings on earth are also kings in Sheol, though this does them little good (like being a king after the nuclear holocaust). Indeed positions may be reversed. This may be the point of the statement in Ps. 49:15 [14] that “the upright will rule over them at morning,” though “at morning” usually denotes the moment of God’s intervention in this life (cf., 30:6 [5]); perhaps the text has been repointed to introduce a reference to something happening after death (compare NRSV). Death is also a raging torrent that overwhelms people (18:5, 17 [4, See Schmidt, pp. 267-273. H.J. Kraus, Psalmen: 1. Teilband (Neukirchen, 1978); translated as Psalms 1-59 (Minneapolis, 1988), on 49:15 [14]. 18 There was no way out of this city except by a miracle, but this hardly indicates that reference to gates with bars in itself suggests that Sheol is thereby described as a prison: so W. Eichrodt, Theologie des Alten Testaments (3 vols.: Leipzig, 1933, 1935, 1939; rev. ed., 2 vols., Stuttgart, 1957, 1961), vol. 1, p. 58; translated as Theology of the Old Testament (London and Philadelphia, 1961, 1967), vol. 2, p. 95. 16 17

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16]). Other references to deep waters and tumultuous waves or rivers (e.g., 88:8 [7]) may also suggest the torrents of Death, though torrents and tumultuous waters can stand more generally for supernatural forces of disorder (e.g., 42:7); the overlap parallels that between the Ugaritic story of Baal and Death and that of Baal and Sea. In Ps. 69:15-16 [14-15], three descriptions of death interweave: it involves being overwhelmed by torrents, being overcome by enemies, and having the Pit close its mouth. In Ps. 18:5-6 [4-5], Death, Worthlessness, and Sheol are equipped with ropes and snares designed to catch people as well as torrents to overwhelm them. Ps. 116:3 adds the “straits of Sheol,”19 but neither the word’s etymology nor the other occurrences of this or related words suggest physical pain in particular, and “straits” well fits the other occurrence in Ps. 118:5 with the contrast with “a broad place.” Although it might have been natural to imagine the process of decomposition as involving pain and therefore by analogy to think of Sheol as a place of pain, this inference is not generally drawn. Ps. 116:3b may imply at least “anguish” if not “pangs” in verse 3a, which will then be a metonymy for the anguish of this kind of death, after undeserved affliction. The converse is the regret in Ps. 73:4 (MT) that the wicked die an easy death.20 Some of these statements in Pss. 18 and 69 picture Sheol or Death as not so much a place as a person; in Ps. 116, too, the straits of Sheol “find” the psalmist, which is at least a personification. In Ps. 49:15 [14], Death shepherds people (or feeds on them), leading them to Sheol. More vividly, in Ps. 141:7 “our bones are strewn at the mouth of Sheol,” where the monster Death has left them after consuming the flesh.21 Sheol and Destruction are never satisfied (Prov 27:20). This is at least a vivid declaration that death is unavoidable: is it more? In the background of the statements in Ps. 18, too, one can see the imagery of belief in the gods Death and Sea, and subsequent reference to the “many waters” from which YHWH rescues the psalmist is combined with reference to the psalmist’s “strong

Cf., BDB on me×ar; NRSV renders “pangs” (cf., JPS). The line may be another reference to the fetters of Death: see M. Mannati, “Les adorateurs de Môt dans le Psaume lxxiii,” in Vetus Testamentum 22 (1972), pp. 420-425. 21 See J.B. Burns, “An Interpretation of Psalm cxli 7b,” in Vetus Testamentum 22 (1972), pp. 245-246. 19 20

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enemy” (vv. 17-18). In Job 18:13-14, similarly, the Firstborn of Death or Firstborn Death consumes the wicked, who appear before Death as “king of terrors.”22 On the other hand, Ps. 18 goes on to refer to “those who hated me” who were “too mighty for me” and later speaks further in the plural (vv. 38-49 [37-48]). The enemy might thus be the psalmist’s human adversary rather than Death. The terms in vv. 5-6 [4-5] are then comments on or metaphors for the strength of the forces against which the psalmist was fighting, forces that are more consistently described as human and physical. Two conceptualities also appear in Ps. 63:10-11 [9-10], here in tension with each other, for the language moves from going down into the depths of the earth to being slain in battle and left unburied and therefore not even properly at rest in Sheol. Conversely Ps. 124:3-5 begins by speaking of enemies swallowing us alive, recalling the story in Num. 16, but goes on to speak of a torrent of seething water overwhelming us and carrying us off, which more explicitly recalls the torrents of Death (cf., Exod. 15:12, where talk of “earth swallowing them” comes in the context of a narrative that speaks of waters overwhelming people; also Is. 5:14). Another reminder of the story in Num. 16 comes in a weird wish that the psalmist’s enemies may “go down to Sheol alive” (Ps. 55:16 [15]: the preceding clause is obscure). It is a very vivid image for sudden death, death that comes so quickly that people are, as it were, still alive when they die (cf., Prov. 1:12). The alternation between “my enemy” and “my adversaries” also features in Pss. 13 and 31. While we may thus allow for the presence of Death, it seems unwise to exclude the human adversaries in such passages by interpreting the plural as a plural of majesty that also refers to Death (so Dahood). More likely, such passages reflect an assumption that the conflict involved both human and supernatural forces. But the Psalms are characteristically restrained or reticent in articulating a view of their nature, compared with other middle eastern texts. L.R. Bailey argues that the latter attach more literal significance to their references to death’s deities, demons, and ghosts and to the fears these aroused.23 The Psalms’ combining of motifs that recall the conflict of Baal and Sea and that of Baal and Death supports the idea that they also utilize motifs for death in a way more parallel to 22 23

See D.J.A. Clines, Job 1-20 (WBC 17; Dallas, 1989), on the passage. See Biblical Perspectives on Death (Philadelphia, 1979), pp. 5-21.

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the way English may speak of “being at death’s door,” of death’s “taking” someone from us, or of “fighting death.” Fullness of Life and Death in Life. The poetic books talk much of illness, depression, and defeat and, naturally enough, picture these experiences as taking us near death: I have been dying all my life, Ps. 88:16 [15] declares. They also picture these experiences as resembling death: to lie ill, incapable of much movement or thought and not knowing God’s presence to deliver and therefore not being able to worship is to experience something like death. They also go beyond that in picturing them as actual experiences of death.24 Ps. 88, the psalm most dominated by death, puts matters in all three ways: “my life has arrived at Sheol.... I have become...like the slain that lie in the grave.... You have put me in the deepest Pit” (vv. 4-7 [3-6]: Hopsi in v. 6 [5] is a puzzle). For the first verb, NRSV’s “draws near” undertranslates naga’, which suggests reaching the gates (cf., 107:18) even though still being outside the city. The experience of being on the edge of death is vividly portrayed in verses noted above: “Death’s ropes encompassed me, the torrents of Worthlessness were overwhelming me, Sheol’s ropes surrounded me, Death’s snares confronted me” (18:5-6 [4-5]). Ps. 69:2-3 [1-2] takes the picture further. The waters have not only come up to my neck—they have overwhelmed me, and I am drowning. With superficial contradiction, the psalm later urges that the waters should not overwhelm me or (to change the imagery) the Pit close its mouth over me (vv. 1516 [14-15]). Ps. 143:3, 7, too, uses the imagery of actual death (he has crushed my life to the earth), of an experience like death (making me dwell in darkness like those long dead), and of being near death (I shall be like those who go down to the Pit). The vivid image of the scattering of bones near Sheol’s mouth (141:7) relates to an experience within life. Corresponding to Ps. 88, Ps. 30 is the most systematic description of deliverance from death, which means both deliverance from the company of those who have gone down to the Pit (v. 4 [3]) and deliverance from the prospect of going down to the Pit (v. 10 [9]). As death involves a downward movement into the Pit, so restoration to 24 See classically C. Barth, Die Erretung vom Tode in den individuellen Klage- und Dankliedern des Alten Testaments (Zollikon, 1947); A.R. Johnson, The Vitality of the Individual in the Thought of Ancient Israel (Cardiff, 1949; 2nd ed., 1964).

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life involves an upward movement from Sheol (v. 4 [3]), a lifting up like that of a pail from the waters (v. 2 [1]; cf., 71:20). The different ways of putting the matter suggest that we should be neither too literal nor too figurative in interpreting the Psalms’ language. The language of actual death suggests the deathly awfulness of what has happened, but the comparison and the talk of death’s nearness imply that this is metaphor and also leave open the possibility of YHWH’s intervening. It is not the case that the Psalms’ language reflects “primitive thinking” that did not really distinguish between life and death.25 Yet there is a sense in which life and death are more like overlapping experiences than watertight compartments. To put it another way, life itself is a spectrum of experiences: there is ordinary life, there is living death, and there is fullness of life. The opposite of God’s abandoning us to Sheol and causing us to see the Pit is God’s making known to us the living journey and our discovering that there is joyful fullness in YHWH’s presence and that delights are ever at YHWH’s right hand (16:10-11). It is to know YHWH’s deliverance and blessing in the land of the living. Lasting Life. Associated with fullness of life is life l‘olam. Indeed, according to Ps. 21:5 [4], in response to a prayer for “life,” YHWH granted the king length of days ‘olam wa‘ed (NRSV: “forever and ever”). In what sense? If the Hebrew Bible wanted to suggest something like eternity, for instance in affirming that YHWH was without beginning and without end, had always existed and always would exist, it could well use the terms ‘olam and ‘ed. Thus Ps. 90:2 describes the Lord as being God before the world’s creation, m‘olam ‘ad-‘olam. Coincidentally (?), the Psalter’s last use of this language draws attention to a distinction between the totality of YHWH’s life and the totality of the worshipper’s. I will praise YHWH all my life (146:2); but YHWH will reign l‘olam (v. 10). But such words’ characteristic usage is more limited in its reach. Retrospectively, Ps. 143:3 refers to the “long dead [mete ‘olam]” (cf., Lam. 3:6). Prospectively, Amos describes Edom as holding onto anger “ceaselessly [l‘ad]” (1:11, JPS). When Ps. 52:10-11 [8-9] speaks of trusting YHWH ‘olam wa‘ed and praising YHWH l‘olam, then, that 25 See, e.g., C.C. Broyles, The Conflict of Faith and Experience in the Psalms (Sheffield, 1989), pp. 84-89.

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can naturally denote the whole of the person’s life; the same is true of an expression such as lador wador (e.g., 89:2 [1]). There is no need at all for this to suggest the whole of eternity, nor for such phrases to be understood as hyperbolic royal or implicitly messianic language (cf., among many passages, 15:5; 30:7, 13 [6, 12]; 37:27-29 [26-28]; 61:5, 7-9 [4, 6-8]; 73:12, 26; 112:3, 6, 9; 121:8; 145:1-2, 21). Ps. 48:15 [14] (MT) may make the point explicit: YHWH is “our God l‘olam wa‘ed ; he will lead us on ‘al-mut.” While A. Weiser translates the last phrase “beyond [über] death,”26 and S. Mowinckel offers “against Death,” KJV more plausibly understands “until death.”27 But LXX’s eis tous aionas may imply the pointing ‘olamot (the reading of many medieval Hebrew MSS.); BHS suggests further possibilities. If Ps. 72:5 should be emended so as to constitute a prayer that the king lives as long as sun and moon (e.g., NRSV), then this will be a hyperbole, but the hyperbole would be unparalleled and this may suggest that MT should stand. The delights that are ever at YHWH’s hand (16:11) are thus the enjoyment of the righteous throughout their lives. There are no grounds for extending the “ever” (nesah) beyond death. The idea in Ps. 21 is similarly that the king will enjoy life for the greatest possible fullness of time and not experience it cut off before its time (v. 5 [4]), and throughout that long time will experience the blessings of divine strength, help, honor, majesty, joy, and security (v. 7 [6]). In Ps. 41:913 [8-12]. Being enabled to stand before YHWH’s face l‘olam is one aspect of being restored to this-worldly life. The face or presence of YHWH can be located in heaven (e.g., 18:7 [6]), or in YHWH’s earthly shrine (e.g., 24:6; 42:3 [2]), or in life in the world (e.g., 9:4, 20 [3, 19]; 31:17 [16]; 34:17 [16]; 44:4 [3]; 56:14 [13]; 116:9; 140:14 [13]). The link between these is suggested by Ps. 50:1-6. In Ps. 41, as in many other passages, the phraseology suggests living the whole of one’s life before YHWH’s face and thus with YHWH’s protection and blessing—or YHWH’s attack, in the case of the wicked (9:4 [3]; cf., Lam 4:16). Early Death. In the Psalms, the dominant question regarding death is whether the wicked die before their time, as they should, and 26 See on this passage Die Psalmen (Gottingen, 6th ed., 1963; translated (5th ed.) as The Psalms (OTL; London and Philadelphia, 1962). 27 The Psalms in Israel’s Worship (Oxford and Nashville, 1963; English translation of Offersang og sangoffer (Oslo, 1951), p. 182.

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whether the just escape early death and live long lives, as they should (e.g., 26:9; 28:1-3; 31:18 [17]; 33:18-19; 37:35-38; 55:24 [23]; 56:14 [13]; 102:24-25 [23-24]; cf., Job, e.g., 20:1-29; 21:1-34; Prov 11:4). The Psalter indeed opens with a promise that the wicked will not be able to stand in court; YHWH recognizes (yada‘) the journey of the just, whereas the journey of the wicked fades away (1:5-6). If the “court” or “judgment” (mishpat) there refers to YHWH’s judgment on the wicked, then presumably like all other references to this court in the Hebrew Bible, this is not a “Final Judgment” (Dahood) but YHWH’s judgment worked out in life. But the parallelism may suggest that the court is the Israelite assembly (cf., 111:1) in which the wicked will have no share because they will be swept away. The Psalter follows this opening with an exhortation to kings to serve YHWH with reverence lest YHWH become angry and they indeed fade away on their journey (2:11-12). Ps. 9:18 [17] declares that “the wicked will depart to Sheol, all the nations that put God out of mind,” which might suggest that the just will never so fade away, but the context has made clear that this is not the issue. The psalm’s topic is God’s involvement in political events in the now, bringing death to the wicked and deliverance to the weak (vv. 4, 13, 18 [3, 12, 17]). It is in this sense that death results from YHWH’s anger (e.g., 2:12) and that YHWH is one who kills (78:31, 34) and enlivens (30:4 [3]; 80:19 [18]). Ps. 39:5-7 [4-6] is widely regarded as a reflection on the brevity of human life in general and as making a request (“make known to me my end”) that is essentially rhetorical, for the psalmist goes on to demonstrate possession of the requested knowledge. This understanding seems incoherent in itself and makes for an incoherent understanding of the psalm as a whole. The psalm’s problem is again the experience of life-threatening illness, which is brought about by God as a chastisement for wrongdoing (vv. 9-11 [8-10]). The psalmist believes that the right response to divine chastisement is silent submission (v. 10 [9]) but has a hard time maintaining this stance in the presence of a/the wicked person (vv. 2-4 [1-3]), apparently someone more scandalously wicked than the psalmist. Perhaps this points to the frequently expressed conviction that the psalmist’s experience is not fair when contrasted with that of people who live happy and full lives despite their wickedness, though the reference is allusive. The plea “YHWH, make known to me my end, what is the measure of my days” (v. 5a [4a]) is indeed then a rhetorical one, but verses

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5b-6a [4b-5a] provide not its answer but its background. Given that the psalmist is threatened by death, the plea asks how long it will be before the psalmist’s illness issues in death. Like a rhetorical question, the plea neither expects nor wants an answer: its real purpose is to motivate YHWH to respond to the appeal in vv. 9, 13-14 [8, 12-13] and invalidate whatever would be the literal implicit answer to the question by delivering the psalmist. The general reflection in vv. 6b7 [5b-6] then concerns the general vulnerability of human life, which the psalmist’s experience has brought home. It does not concern the general shortness of human life: this is an irrelevant theme and one that obscures the psalmist’s problem, which is the fact that a person may lose his or her life without reason to expect this. The problem in v. 6b [5b] is thus the one pressed by Ecclesiastes (e.g., 6:1-2), that you may work hard to accumulate wealth but never have chance to enjoy it. Even the bitterness of death (Ec. 7:26) is, in the context, the bitterness of being snatched by death “unfairly” (cf., the comments on bitterness and death in 1 Sam. 15:32; Amos 8:10). There is little evidence that “Israel joined in the lament made by all religions and cultures over the bitterness of dying.”28 The same is true of Ps. 144. This reworking of Ps. 1829 incorporates in vv. 3-4 a comment on the brevity of human life that itself reworks Ps. 8:5 [4] and 39:6-7 [5-6] and perhaps 102:12 [11]. In the context it is a comment that relates to someone’s being threatened with death before their time. The same is true of the reworking of Ps. 8 in Job 7:17-18. Another mark of the Psalter’s focus on early death is the observation that the death of a whole nation or the death of the wicked means that their name is blotted out or fades away (9:6 [5]; 41:6 [5]; 83:5 [4]; 109:13). In itself, death would not mean this (see, e.g., Deut. 25:5-7; 2 Sam. 18:18); one’s name and one’s memory would be preserved in one’s family. Thus Ps. 102:24-29 [23-28] contrasts YHWH’s willingness to shorten the psalmist’s life with YHWH’s own longevity and then closes by rejoicing in the fact that at least one’s descendants live on securely before YHWH. Different dynamics attach to discussion of the question of early death and long life in a society in which many people died of illness (or through accident or battle) long before they reached “seventy 28 29

Von Rad, p. 402 (English: p. 389). On the psalm, see L.C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC 21; Waco, 1983).

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years, or perhaps eighty” (Ps. 90:10). This forms part of the background to the fact that many expressions of the view that life in general is inherently empty and meaningless are comments that relate to the experience of life’s not working out as it should, rather than the reflections of people who live healthy and peaceful lives. The emphasis on the inherent hardness and emptiness of life characteristic of Job (e.g., 7:1-6) fits into this pattern. Fullness of Life after Death? We have noted that Mitchell Dahood found many references to eternal life in the Psalms and elsewhere, often in the consonantal rather than the vocalized text and often on the basis of a comparison with Ugaritic texts. There are a number of difficulties with his thesis in principle.30 It presupposes that the Masoretes’ pointing was innovative (and therefore quite likely wrong) rather than traditional (and therefore more likely right). In assuming that Ugaritic grammar and meanings apply to Hebrew along with Hebrew grammar and semantics as already understood, it assumes that Hebrew was characterized by a much greater degree of syntactical and semantic variety and ambiguity than had previously been thought. And, in doing so, it ignores the distance of time and place between second millennium Ugarit and first millennium Israel. In addition, it frequently has to rely on understandings of the Ugaritic texts that are themselves hypothetical.31 These difficulties make it appropriate to be hesitant in accepting Dahood’s new interpretations of texts. For instance, Dahood reworks the introduction to Ps. 18 to read “from the hand of Sheol” rather than “from the hand of Saul.” He avoids emendation in Ps. 22:30 [29] by inferring usage of the Ugaritic/Aramaic relative pronoun dî. He declares that some references to YHWH’s house allude to YHWH’s heavenly abode: e.g., Ps. 27:4 “is a prayer for eternal bliss with Yahweh in heaven.” He assumes that statements about divine immortality in Ugaritic texts can be used to illumine statements about human life that is explicitly not immortal. He postu30 See, e.g., P.C. Craigie, Psalms 1-50 (WBC 19; Waco, 1983), esp. pp. 48-56, and his references. 31 See, e.g., O. Loretz’s comments on life after death in the Ugaritic texts and in the Psalms in Die Psalmen: Teil II (Neukirchen, 1979), pp. 462-468.

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lates a word rega‘ meaning Death in passages such as 6:11 [10] (repointed) and 30:6 [5], or a word ’ur (repointed), which means “[Elysian] field” in passages such as 36:10 [9]. Such procedures seem arbitrary.32 Fortunately, in many cases Dahood offers a variant “take” on passages other critical scholars also have believed to refer to a positive afterlife. This means that, when we consider these latter examples, we are also considering texts that illustrate Dahood’s approach. My conclusion is that an examination of the key passages in the Psalms in their context makes it unlikely that any of them refer to a positive afterlife. Psalms 11, 16, and 17. Before Dahood, for instance, BDB (p. 302) had already suggested that Pss. 11 and 17 refer to a seeing of God after death. Both understand the affliction of the righteous as YHWH’s testing; they thus represent Job in miniature and recall the enigmatic reference to seeing God in Job 19:26-27. 33 Ps. 11:6-7 contrasts the fates of the wicked and the upright. YHWH will rain fire and sulfur on the former, while the latter will see YHWH’s face. That precise expectation reappears in 17:15, though it is otherwise rare. But similar expressions occur in other Psalms, such as seeking God’s face, appearing before God’s face, God’s face shining, and the common plaint concerning God’s face being hidden (e.g., 27:8-9; 31:17 [16]; 42:3 [2]). Elsewhere seeing God is the distinctive privilege of Moses (e.g., Num. 12:8) and the elders at Sinai (Exod. 24:11), but such passages do suggest that if the seeing of God takes place at all, it is an experience on earth. In light of later theologies, one might re-read Ps. 11 as referring to 32 J.F. Healey has argued that the king had a distinctive place in the Ugaritic realm of the dead (“Underworld and Afterlife in the Ugaritic Texts;” Diss., London, 1977) and then that Ps. 36 is among a number of psalms that refer to the king’s immortality (“The Immortality of the King,” in Orientalia n.s. 23 (1984), pp. 245-54); Day (p. 235) comments, “most of these psalms contain no clear reference to the afterlife and most of them have no obvious reference to the king either.” 33 While there are irresolvable uncertainties about the translation of this passage, its setting in Job points conclusively to a concern with an experience on earth. It has been reinterpreted to refer to a belief in a future redeemer and to a seeing of God after death; but neither of these ideas is required by the words, fits the narrow context (see v. 27b), makes sense in the light of the rest of Job’s speeches, or coheres with the rest of the book. Elihu also speaks of seeing God’s face after being restored from near-death (Job 33:26: NRSV’s intransitive rendering “comes into his presence” is odd).

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the fires of hell and the seeing of God in heaven. But in its context in the Hebrew Bible, it denotes the earthly punishment of the wicked and the earthly joy of the upright who are delivered from danger and survive testing to see God’s face. Again, in later parlance, “seeing God’s face” might refer to a religious experience (e.g., in the Temple), but there is no clear parallel for that in the Hebrew Bible. When God’s face turns to us it means that God acts, and “seeing God’s face” implies “seeing God act with favor” and refers not to the consequence of being vindicated and restored to full life but to that vindication and restoration itself in this life. Ps. 17:14 speaks of the wicked as people “whose portion in life is in this world” (NRSV) or “whose reward is in this life” (NIV), which could be understood as pointing to a contrast with the just as people who have a portion or reward in another life or world. But the line is obscure; JPS renders “whose share in life is fleeting.” The psalm goes on to draw a contrast: “I myself will behold your face in justice. I will be filled with your image in waking.” NRSV and NIV plausibly imply that the verb “behold” continues its force into the second colon, so that the line may reduce prosaically to “When I myself behold your face/image, justified and awake, I will be filled.” The expectation of seeing YHWH’s image (temunah) is even more extraordinary than that of simply seeing YHWH’s face, as is appropriate in the second colon in parallelism. The word usually denotes something forbidden (Exod. 20:4; Deut. 4:12-25; 5:8), but again seeing YHWH’s image is once the distinctive privilege of Moses (Num. 12:8), and there too the word is associated with seeing YHWH’s face. As in Ps. 16:11, the emphasis in Ps. 17 is as much on the fullness of joy as on the fact of seeing. In context, it is unlikely that “waking” denotes waking from ordinary sleep or that it refers to YHWH’s waking (the psalmist has not accused YHWH of sleeping). In Job 14:12, it denotes waking from death as something Job knows will not happen, while in Dan. 12:2 it denotes something that will indeed happen (cf., Is. 26:19, perhaps metaphorically). Dahood takes it in this sense here. But the context works against this. The whole psalm has worked with a contrast between the just and the wicked that manifests itself in this life; to introduce an after-death awakening in the last line is to take the psalm in an alien direction. Rather, the last verse restates the hope of recovering from a “living death” experience. The reference to “justice” suggests the vindication of the righteous; the word forms an

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inclusion with the psalm’s opening line and matches the concern of the psalm as a whole with the testing of the righteous. To think of this as a vindication after death (Dahood) is again to introduce an incoherence into the psalm. Like Job’s, this vindication is a thisworldly matter. As in Ps. 11 and Job 19, “seeing God’s face” refers to the experience of God’s acting, healing, and vindicating, which indicate that God’s face is turned back to us and is not hidden, and the fullness that comes from that. We have noted that the wording of Ps. 16:11 suggests that joyful fullness in YHWH’s presence and lasting delights at YHWH’s right hand belong to this life. Dahood comments on v. 10 that “the psalmist firmly believes that he will be granted the same privilege accorded Enoch and Elijah; he is convinced that God will assume him to himself without suffering the pains of death.” While it is entirely plausible that an individual Israelite might have become convinced that God would do this, such a conviction is only too falsifiable and, in the psalmist’s case, presumably was falsified. It seems implausible that the compilers of the Psalter would have encouraged such expectations on members of the community. To believe in resurrection is at least to commit oneself to a belief that has the advantage and disadvantage that it is in this life unfalsifiable. Psalms 27 and 36. Ps. 27 begins by affirming that YHWH is “the stronghold/refuge of my life” or “my living stronghold/refuge,” midway looks to “dwell in YHWH’s house all the days of my life, to behold YHWH’s delight and to inquire in his temple,” and closes by affirming that “I shall see YHWH’s goodness in the land of the living.” That final phrase might be rendered “in the land of life.” Even so, the whole context of the psalm points to a reference to this life, not a future one (against Dahood). “Dwelling in YHWH’s house all one’s life” is admittedly a puzzling phrase. Dahood again refers it to heaven, but once more this ill fits the context. Semantically “YHWH’s house” could perhaps denote YHWH’s land or YHWH’s household, but the parallelism implies that it denotes the Temple; more likely “dwelling” is clarified by the parallel verb to mean “lingering/staying” in the Temple from time to time to seek YHWH’s guidance and help. Either way, it is in YHWH’s powerful and merciful intervention in the land of the living, which the psalmist seeks in the Temple, that the psalmist beholds YHWH’s delight (cf., 90:17) or sees YHWH’s goodness (cf., 4:7 [6]; 16:2; 21:4 [3]; 23:6; 34:9-13 [8-12]; 65:12 [11]).

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The same point is made in yet further terms in Ps. 36. Once again the wicked threaten the psalmist, who declares that YHWH’s faithfulness and justice are then our refuge (vv. 2-8, 11-13 [1-7, 10-12]). In the midst of this declaration is the assertion “in your light we see light” (v. 10 [9]): when YHWH’s light shines brightly, deliverance comes (cf., 4:7 [6]; 27:1; 43:3; 44:4 [3]; 89:14-18 [13-17]; 97:11). YHWH is thus “the fountain of life.” In this context the “abundance of your house” and the “river of your delights” may refer to the enjoyment of Temple festivities that are the signs and promises of YHWH’s provision in everyday life, or they may be metaphors. In the latter case, they are metaphors not for a religious experience in worship but for YHWH’s bountiful provision of protection and deliverance in life outside worship (cf., 65:10-14 [9-13]; Neh. 9:25). Psalm 49. Ps. 49 speaks of being persecuted by wealthy people who are confident of surviving a time of trouble (vv. 6-7 [5-6]). They ignore the fact that wealth cannot provide a way to evade death, even for the wise and famous (vv. 8-15 [7-14]). Once more, the psalm is not a general reflection on mortality but an Ecclesiastes-like comment on the way in which disaster and unexpected death are a reality for the wise and wealthy as much as for anyone else. Not even verse 10 [9] refers to never seeing the Pit (contrast NRSV, JPS) but to not seeing the Pit when this experience threatens, so that one is able to live on to the end, that is, for the rest of one’s expected life (lane×a½: cf., 16:11). The rich and arrogant fool cannot buy a way out of the threat of early death, and even wisdom is of limited value in this connection. But, the psalmist declares, “God will ransom my nepesh; from the hand of Sheol, yes, he will take me” (v. 16 [15]). The line is one of the passages that have commonly been understood to denote the hope of a deliverance from Sheol in order to join God in heaven. But read against the background of the rest of the Psalms and of other parts of the Hebrew Bible, there is little to point in this direction. Commentators appeal to the fact that YHWH “took” Enoch (Gen. 5:24) and Elijah (2 Kgs. 2:3, 5, 9), but there are several difficulties with this appeal. First, the verb is so common that it seems questionable whether one can infer an allusion to those stories; “take” is far from being a “technical term.”34 But second, even if one does compare the passages, the verb there suggested 34

Against B. Lang, “Afterlife,” in Bible Review 4/1 (1988), pp. 12-23 (see p. 23).

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taking the person away from his people rather than out of a situation of trouble; thus NIV renders “took away” in Gen. 5, while it is the hiphil of ‘alah that refers to taking Elijah to heaven in 2 Kgs. 2:1. Third, a better parallel for YHWH’s “taking” the psalmist is thus Ps. 18:17 [16], where YHWH “takes” from deathly peril in the same sense that we infer here, as elsewhere YHWH “rescues” from Sheol in this life in the sense of restoring from illness or attack (86:13), or “restores” (ga‘al) one’s life from the Pit (103:4). Fourth, what happens to Enoch and Elijah is translation to heaven from this earth rather than ascension or assumption (Dahood) from Sheol. To appeal to these parallels thus proves too much, as was the case with Ps. 16. And if that is to press the linguistic parallel too much, then the appeal to these parallels fails to have significant value.35 But in any case, the combination of the recurrence of the ransom image (which referred to something in this life in v. 8 [7]) with the parallel with Ps. 18 points to a deliverance in this life. The psalmist’s security with God more than counterbalances the security wealth gives the rich, for the confidence generated by this wealth proves false both in the short and long run (vv. 17-21 [16-20]). The psalm does not contrast the rich, who stay in death, and the wise, who do not.36 Psalm 73. Once again the psalm relates the experience of being assailed with punishment despite being of unsullied mind and life, whereas there are people who behave oppressively and arrogantly who do well in life and come to an easy death. The psalmist did not know how to live with this problem “until I went into God’s sanctuary and considered their end” (v. 17). NIV “understood their final destiny” and JPS “reflected on their fate” indicate two different understandings of this clause. The verb bîn can denote either realizing something for the first time or paying attention to something already known. The noun is ‘a½arit, which denotes the end of life (Prov. 5:11) or specifically death (Num. 23:10; cf., Prov. 5:4-5). In a similar wisdom-like comment, Jer. 17:11 declares that the unjustly wealthy will lose their wealth in mid-life and “at their end will prove 35 Thus Lang’s assumption (“Afterlife,” p. 23) that the psalmists are reusing the language used of Enoch and Elijah to signify reception into heaven after death builds inference on inference. 36 So von Rad, p. 419 (English: p. 406).

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fools.” In some way the psalmist’s visit to the sanctuary reinforces the orthodox conviction that these “wicked” will also fall. What of the psalmist? “I have been continually with you. You have held my right hand” (v. 23). The expression “with” (‘im) you is an unusual one, though a key one in this psalm (see vv. 22, 25);37 it recurs in Ps. 139:18, though the line is obscure. In 1 Sam. 2:21 it denotes being with God in the sanctuary. We might then compare the expression ‘et-penei yhwh in 1 Sam. 2:18, which recurs in Pss. 16:11; 21:7 [6]; 140:14 [13]. These parallels then suggest that BDB is right that “with you” suggests “in your thought and care” in the sense suggested by those other passages. This thought and care might naturally be associated with YHWH’s presence in the sanctuary, though here the contrast between the visiting of the sanctuary (v. 17) and the “continually” suggests rather an awareness of having lived the rest of life “with” God even if one did not realize this. The God who dwelt there has also been looking after the psalmist’s welfare and providing protection and blessing in a way that recent experience of affliction has made the psalmist forget. And this is what is also suggested by “you have held my right hand” (cf., Is. 41:13; 45:1; also Ps. 16:8; 109:31; 110:5; 121:5; 142:5 [4]). I have assumed that the qatal verb following the one in v. 22b refers to the past, upon which the psalmist continues to reflect in v. 23; the two qatal verbs suggest that the intervening noun clause also be rendered with a past verb. JPS goes on to render the succeeding yiqtol verbs in v. 24 as past, like those in vv. 21-22a, but this implies that the experience of affliction is over, which is not the impression one received earlier. On the other hand, guiding with God’s counsel is what the psalmist has been experiencing through the visit to the sanctuary, and a purely future reference (KJV) is thus unlikely. “You guide me with your counsel” is the most plausible understanding. The parallel phrase is a notorious problem. MT might be construed to mean “and toward/with honor you [will] take me” (cf., JPS), but this requires an idiosyncratic significance for ‘a½ar. More likely it means “and afterwards you [will] take me [to/with] honor.” The verb “take” recurs from 49:16 [15]. If it suggested afterlife, here this might take the form of translation rather than assumption after death (but not resurrection or immortality of the soul), but the argument for 37 See M. Mannati, “Sur le quadruple avec toi de Ps. lxxiii 21-26,” in Vetus Testamentum 21 (1971), pp. 59-67.

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referring it to rescue in this life again holds. The word kabod commonly refers either to God’s honor or to human earthly honor (e.g., 84:12 [11]; 112:9) and never to a human share in God’s heavenly glory in the manner of doxa in the New Testament. The statement declares a confidence that God does or will restore the psalmist to honor. As in other cases, if this verse did “represent a tentative venture to go beyond the then current beliefs,” 38 the psalm would be broken-backed. “Whom do I have in heaven? And with you I desire nothing on earth” (v. 25) then declares the conviction that in this connection the psalmist needs no other helper either in heaven or on earth. Thus “when my body and my mind have wasted away, God is my mind’s rock and my share for ever” (v. 26). God is regularly the people’s rock, their means of earthly security and refuge (e.g., 18:3, 32 [2, 31]); God is also their share, their means of sustaining their earthly destiny (16:5; 119:57; 142:6 [5]; Lam. 3:24), and this will be true for the psalmist’s whole life. Verses 27-28 sum up the point: the psalmist is newly convinced that the flourishing of the wicked will not last and that nearness to God puts one in touch with protection which issues in actions on one’s behalf and will thus give material for praise. Psalms 89 and 90. Ps. 89:48-49 [47-48] does involve a move from concern with the early death of the person praying to the sense in which death makes all human life pointless. It then explicitly denies the possibility of escaping the power of Sheol. It is with long life that those who call on YHWH come to be satisfied; it is in this that salvation consists (cf., 91:16; cf., 21:5 [4]). There are no grounds for seeing anything “eschatological” or “messianic” in such a passage (see Tate’s comments). It is “open” to such interpretations only in the sense that words such as “salvation” were later used with a different meaning that can be read into texts in which that meaning was not present, neither for the individual psalm’s author, in the context of the canonical Psalter, nor in the canonical context of the Hebrew Bible as a whole. The just flourish to old age: this is the gift of YHWH’s uprightness as our rock (92:13-16 [12-15]). YHWH delivers people from death so that they may walk before YHWH (that is, with YHWH’s protection and blessing) in the land of the living 38 A.A. Anderson, Psalms (NCB, 2 vols.; London, 1972, and Grand Rapids, 1981), p. 535.

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(116:8-9). The recurrent plea “enliven me” in Pss. 119:25, 37, 40, 88, 107, 149, 154, 156, 159 (cf., vv. 50, 77, 93, 116, 144, 175) implies an act of God that replaces affliction with proper earthly life. Ps. 90 works in the converse way to Ps. 89. Its actual opening is ambiguous.39 It declares that YHWH has been the people’s home or refuge (there are two textual traditions) generation after generation: do the words imply that this still is so or that now it is not? In vv. 26, the psalm works out a contrast between the longevity of God and the God-imposed brevity of human life (cf., 103:14-17). Verses 7-12 then move from generality (‘enosh, benei-’adam, the suffix on zemartam) to the experience of the psalmist’s own community (“we/our” recur) and add talk of divine wrath and human sin that did not appear in the earlier talk of divine sovereignty and the brevity of human life. But the “for” in v. 7 implies a link between the two sections: even vv. 2-6 turn out to be a reflection on the experience of the psalmist’s own community. This second section thus clarifies the ambiguity in v. 1, which turns out to have been a wry reflection on how things were for many generations before the psalmist’s day. It thereby compares with the opening of Ps. 44,40 though it contrasts with that psalm in going on to acknowledge that YHWH’s ceasing to be the people’s home or refuge is the result of our own wrongdoing. Verses 7-12 thus view the life of the psalmist’s people in particular not only as ultimately terminated by God (which is not linked with God’s wrath here or elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible; even Gen. 3 talks in terms of God’s curse, not in terms of wrath) but also as characterized by sin, wrath, and trouble even if it lasts seventy or eighty years. Verses 13-17 then ask for God to turn back to the people and restore their joy and favor. Divine wrath is expressed in affliction in this life and in the early terminating of that life, but not in the fact of death, which eventually takes all human beings. Conclusion Some Psalms thus recognize that death relativizes the significance of life, yet they also illustrate a persistent focus on enjoying a long and 39

267).

Cf., H.-P. Muller, “Der 90. Psalm,” in ZTK 81 (1984), pp. 265-285 (see pp. 266-

40 Cf., G. von Rad, Gottes Wirken in Israel (Neukirchen, 1974), pp. 268-83 (see p. 271); translated as God at Work in Israel (Nashville, 1980), pp. 210-223 (see p. 213).

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happy life on earth. Some later Jewish writings such as Wisdom affirm the hope that one may continue to relate to God after death. If texts such as Ps. 73 belong to the same period, that heightens the significance of the fact that the hope of the Psalms, Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes is of fullness in this life (as “the response of Ben Sira was a fairly intransigent adherence to the old perspective”).41 If Proverbs, Job/Ecclesiastes, and Wisdom represent thesis, antithesis, and synthesis (there is cosmic order in this world, this does not work, there is cosmic order if we include an afterlife) (Day, p. 248), then the Psalms move between thesis and antithesis; none reach synthesis. To use the terms of a later context, their stance is that of the Sadducees rather than that of the Pharisees. Jesus will argue that once God enters into a relationship with someone, that person can hardly cease to exist: God is not God of the dead but of the living (Mark 12:2627). This theological argument is of a piece with the Psalms’ affirmations about life with God, but it is not expressed, required, or warranted by them. Their hope is, for instance, that one may see Jerusalem faring well all the days of one’s life and see one’s children’s children (128:5-6). It is to come to one’s grave in a ripe old age, as a shock of grain comes to the threshing floor in its season (Job 5:26). With that, one would be satisfied; and that is where the story of Job, for its part, concludes. “A fulfilled human life is a finite life.”42 This combination parallels the stance of Ecclesiastes. Although there the gloomy implications of death have much more prominence, they do not overcome the conviction that life is worth living and is to be enjoyed as God’s gift. It is there that one lives with the face of YHWH (Ps. 140:14 [13]). Ecclesiastes can envisage the possibility of the human spirit’s having a different destiny from an animal’s but knows that there is no evidence that it does (3:21; cf., Ps. 104:29). Interpreters often have seen the affirmation of a positive afterlife that they found in passages such as Pss. 49 and 73 as a bold advance of faith (e.g., Anderson, p. 380). Rather, the implicit bold determination of faith of the Psalms, Proverbs, and Job, as well as Ecclesiastes, is to affirm an understanding of life and death that makes no appeal 41 B. Vawter, “Intimations of Immortality and the Old Testament,” in Journal of Biblical Literature 91 (1972), pp. 158-171 (see p. 162). 42 H.W. Wolff, Anthropologie des Alten Testaments (Munich, 1973), p. 169; translated as Anthropology of the Old Testament (London and Philadelphia, 1974), p. 112.

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to encouraging hopes for which there is no evidence. To be more accurate, in the community’s history and in the lives of individuals they believe they have evidence of YHWH’s activity that they allow to override the evidence to the contrary. They thus determine to continue to affirm that YHWH unfailingly protects those who “live in the shelter of the Most High” (Ps. 91) rather than indulge in what might be a flight of fancy without evidence at all. In subsequent centuries, it would be suggested that believing in an afterlife can encourage people to give up on this life and cease to insist on justice being worked out in this life. If this is so, the Psalms subvert this instinct and insist that the believing community take this life with absolute seriousness. Whereas they see human wickedness and divine wrath as the cause of early death, they do not see these as the cause of death itself.43 Indeed, they do not attempt to reflect on why life ends in death and why YHWH is involved with the former and not the latter. The implicit or explicit rejection of worship and prayer that involved the dead, and the declaration that worship was impossible in Sheol, may have resulted from the conviction that YHWH alone should be worshipped.44 But by asserting that YHWH was not involved with the dead and that the dead were not in a position to relate to YHWH or to anyone else, the Psalter implicitly discouraged the natural human instinct (evidenced from our knowledge of religious practice in Israel) to seek to maintain contact with the dead, pray for them, seek their guidance or help, or revere a deity who was the distinctive Lord of Death.45 Instead of being sacralized, the realm of Death is made taboo.46 Among some contemporary peoples, life and death were part of the experience of deity itself; Baal knew death as well as life. YHWH is rather the living God (e.g., Ps. 42:3)—though G. Gerleman in THAT notes that this is a rare statement in the Hebrew 43 Compare W.G. Lambert’s comments on the need to distinguish “natural” death and violent death if we are to understand the theology of death in Mesopotamia (“The Theology of Death,” in Death in Mesopotamia, pp. 53-66). 44 So, e.g., B. Lang, “Life after Death in the Prophetic Promise,” pp. 144-156 (see p. 149). 45 E. Bloch-Smith (Judahite Burial Practices, pp. 131-32) sees the curtailing of the death cult as designed to bolster the position of the Jerusalem cultic personnel. The Psalms do not seem to offer any specific pointers in this direction. 46 U. Kellermann, “Uberwindung des Todesgeschicks in der alttestamentlichen Frommigkeit vor und neben dem Auferstehungsglauben,” in ZTK 73 (1976), pp. 259282 (see p. 260).

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Bible, perhaps precisely because it tends to be at home in the context of statements about beings who experience both death and life. G. von Rad comments that Ps. 16:10-11 became a locus classicus for the doctrine of the resurrection, at the latest in Acts 2:25-36, and adds that we gain little by asking what the poet originally meant by the language of such psalms; “practically everything depends on the meaning and sense in which they were prayed and repeated on each occasion.”47 Two comments are appropriate. First, Acts 2 is not a declaration of a doctrine of resurrection but a testimony to something new that people believe has happened, for which the Psalms provide its witnesses with language. It is this thing that they believe has happened to Jesus that adds to the empirical facts in the light of which the followers of Jesus consider the meaning of death. Second, there is a difference between the meaning of the text in itself and in its context in the Psalter, and the significance it came to have for later Jews and Christians. A.F. Kirkpatrick once noted that Pss. 16, 17, 49, and 73 “adapt themselves so readily to Christian hope that we are easily led to believe that it was there from the first.” 48 In the same way they adapt themselves so readily to Ugaritic hope that we are easily led to believe that this was still there. But in both cases it was not.

47 Theologie, p. 418; English: p. 405. Cf., the argument of J.F.A. Sawyer, “Hebrew Words for the Resurrection of the Dead,” in Vetus Testamentum 22 (1972), pp. 218234. 48 The Book of Psalms (Cambridge, 1902), p. xcv.

3. MEMORY AS IMMORTALITY: COUNTERING THE DREADED “DEATH AFTER DEATH” IN ANCIENT ISRAELITE SOCIETY Brian B. Schmidt University of Michigan The topics of death and afterlife have long held central place in modern reconstructions of the religious traditions of ancient Mediterranean West Asian cultures or the Levant. Those of Iron age Israel (1200-600 B.C.E.) are no exception. Several factors have undoubtedly influenced this state of affairs, but one that clearly stands out above the others is the western or, more specifically, Judeo-Christian preoccupation with humanity’s physical fate beyond death. In fact, early modern scholarly interest in Levantine cultural traditions had as its major impetus the elucidation of the Christian Old Testament/ Jewish Tanakh. Thus, the resultant descriptions of early Israelite beliefs about death and afterlife would on occasion closely mirror later Christian and Jewish conceptions as preserved in the New Testament and in Jewish writings of the Second Temple period (cf., e.g., the socalled Old Testament Apocrypha). When it came to the topics of death and afterlife, however, the majority of scholars also detected remnants of an aboriginal Israelite death or ancestor cult in the biblical texts. These data were viewed as reminiscent of more ancient “primitive” religious thought and practice among the early Israelites. Yet this judgment comprises another mode of comparison that, upon closer scrutiny, is likewise unwarranted by the data, and it finds its precedent in many early modern, western accounts of distant cultures. In other words, where the evidence from another culture resisted the encroachment of a distinctly Judeo-Christian re-interpretation, that cultural tradition could be— and often was—categorized as uncultivated either in terms of its inferior intellectual merit or its inadequacy with regard to religious virtue. Thus, ancient and foreign cultures that embraced alien religious beliefs or observed exotic religious practices could be characterized as deficient in evolutionary development and therefore “primitive.” In the case of ancient Mediterranean West Asian cultures, death cult and ancestor cults became the sine qua non of “primitive” religion, and Israel’s earliest religious traditions were no exception.

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Having said all this, there remains something of value in those earlier studies, for they recognized in the world of pre-exilic Israel a very different world from that of later Judaism and Christianity as regards beliefs and rituals associated with death and the afterlife. This remains so regardless of their tendency to articulate wrongly such differences along lines of primitive vs. advanced religion. More recently, disparity in scholarly opinion has since focused on more minor questions concerning the time at which such transformations in afterlife beliefs took place and whether they took place relatively early or late in Israelite/Jewish religious history. Also occupying researchers has been the search to identify the catalysts for such transformations and whether they were internal or foreign influences and, if the latter, whether they were from the local region (i.e., Canaanite) or from further afield (e.g., Egyptian, Mesopotamian, or Persian). In what follows, the abode of the dead, the inhabitants of the netherworld, the observance of mortuary cults beyond burial, and the later transformations in beliefs and rituals pertaining to the dead will be discussed. The aim will be to articulate what constituted a fulfilling life and an “acceptable” death in ancient Mediterranean West Asia and in Iron age Israel. The Abode of the Dead In the Hebrew Bible, various terms like še’ol, “sheol,” mawet, “death,” æeres, “earth,” ša½at, “pit,” bor, “pit,” and ‘abaddon, “place of destruction,” could be employed to refer to the netherworld or abode of the dead. Some of these terms are further qualified by the Hebrew ta½tit or its various forms signifying “the lowest parts.” Sheol is the term used most often to designate the netherly regions, although it has few, if any, cognates in the ancient Near East, making its etymological origins all the more obscure (but, cf., the oblique reference in an Aramaic papyri, Cowley #71). Of course, even if we were able to uncover its full etymological history, it would not necessarily clarify the significance or function of Sheol. Nonetheless, it apparently does have its semantic cognates and conceptual parallels that are well attested in the comparative evidence. Like its Near Eastern counterparts, the netherworld in ancient Israelite tradition is typically portrayed as a place to which one must descend. It is dark, dusty, and a place of silence. It can be connected

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with the waters of chaos over which one typically traveled to enter the netherworld. Sheol in particular is described as possessing bars, gates, ropes and snares, all of which suggest the unlikelihood of ever completely escaping from the netherworld—at least not in the full capacity one possessed before death—and this approximates what we know to be the case in Mesopotamian tradition, wherein the netherworld is depicted as the “land of no return.” Although the ghost of a person could apparently leave the netherworld when distraught over being neglected or when assisted by the chthonic gods in necromantic ritual, one could never return to the land of the living in one’s former full capacity. The netherworld could also overlap in its boundaries with the “grave” (qeber) in the Hebrew Bible and in the broader ancient Near Eastern traditions. This suggests that the grave was conceived of as having been incorporated into the larger realm of the netherworld or Sheol. Indeed, one could enter Sheol from one’s grave, indicating that it was thought to function as an entry way to the netherworld. Lastly, in biblical poetic contexts, the netherworld takes on various elements of personification. Sheol has an insatiable appetite and swallows up everything. It can grasp one with such relentless force that it never releases its victim. These elements highlight something of the permanence and pervasiveness of death in early Israelite society. The Inhabitants of the Netherworld Those who inhabit the netherworld in ancient Israel were most often referred to by the terms metim, “dead ones,” and repha’im or Rephaim (cf., esp., Ps. 88:11, Is. 26:14). The term repha’im (or consonantal rp’m) is used in two sixth century B.C.E. Phoenician texts to denote simply the dead (KAI 13:7-8 and 14:8-9). The ghosts of the dead are repeatedly designated as “the knowing ones” or yiddeÆonim and “the ones who return” or æobot in rather late biblical texts, wherein the practice of necromancy is also taken up for the first time as an adaptation from Mesopotamia. On one occasion, Is. 19:3, they are referred to as the æittim, or “ghosts,” which is in all likelihood the Hebrew equivalent of Akkadian e_emmu (but note the doubled t). It is often claimed that the dead could be referred to as “gods” or æelohim, based on a questionable translation of the Deuteronomistic text, 1 Sam. 28:13-

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14, and the dubious assumption that ghosts and gods were equated in Mesopotamian and in Israelite tradition. In Akkadian texts, the term ilu, “god,” and the term e_emmu, “ghost,” do appear in close proximity on more than one occasion, but the exact nature of their connection can only be explained on the basis of context. In some cases, it appears that two classes of otherworldly beings are in view, the family or personal gods on the one hand (i.e., ilu or ilanu) and, on the other, the ghosts of deceased relatives (e_emmu). In a few cases, their exact connection remains elusive, but what is clear is that their simple equation, god = ghost, cannot be assumed as more likely explanations do present themselves (see below for other instances of the coupling of chthonic gods and the dead). The terms metim, “dead,” and æelohim, “gods,” likewise occur in close proximity in one passage, Is. 8:19, which in turn has led to their erroneous equation. Again based on similar occurrences in comparative materials the two terms more likely refer to two distinct groups of otherworldly beings, as attested in Mesopotamian necromantic traditions; the chthonic gods summoned to assist in the retrieval of a conjured ghost and the ghost itself. With these considerations in mind, an alternative translation of 1 Sam. 28:13-14, a sixth century B.C.E. composition concerned with necromancy, might be rendered as follows: ...The king said to her (the witch of Endor), ‘be not afraid, what do you see?’ And the woman said to Saul, ‘I see chthonic gods [‘elohim] coming up from the earth.’ Then he said to her, ‘(Now) what have you perceived?’ And she said to him, ‘An old/upright man coming up from the earth and he is wrapped in a robe (= Samuel).

In the first half of king Saul’s inquiry, the woman makes reference to the appearance of the gods from the netherworld that were typically invoked in Mesopotamian necromantic rituals for their ability to assist in the retrieval of a particular ghost. In the second part of the inquiry, the woman refers to the ghost of Samuel that the gods have brought up with them to the land of the living for her to consult. In other words, the “gods” here are not to be equated with Samuel’s ghost as a reference to its divine status (= the deified dead). The text, rather, preserves an echo of a ritual tradition involving two groups of otherworldly beings that typically participated in necromancy, the chthonic gods and the conjured ghosts whom the gods assisted in retrieving from the netherworld. Now the term repha’im or Rephaim actually appears in one of two

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contexts in the Hebrew Bible: in the narrative texts of the Pentateuch and Deuteronomistic History as giants and as representative of the autochthonous populations of Palestine/Israel and in the prophetic, poetic, and sapiental traditions as the weakened dead. Their similarity in form has led to the speculation that there is some organic connection between the two uses of Rephaim. Like their Ugaritic counterparts, the rp’im qdmym, “the ancient Rapi’uma,” the biblical Rephaim of the netherworld are powerless (in biblical tradition they have been democratized to include the commoner as well as the elite). In the royal coronation litany from Ugarit, KTU 1.161, the rp’im qdmym function in the netherworld as feeble ghosts who receive the newly arrived ghost of the recently deceased king in order to accompany him to his new netherly abode. They do not demonstrate any supernatural powers otherwise (and see further below). In the non-narrative contexts of the Hebrew Bible, the term Rephaim designates the dead in their post-mortem, weakened state. Nowhere are they identified as superhuman, warrior heroes of hoary antiquity—living or dead—as is so often assumed. Like their Ugaritic counterparts, the Rapi’uma, the ghosts of the Israelite departed or Rephaim who dwell in the netherworld or Sheol, are devoid of any of the powers characteristic of the gods and are characteristically weak and frail. Is. 14:9, perhaps the earliest biblical reference to the Rephaim as ghosts, states that the fallen king of Babylon will become, at death, weak like all the ghosts of former kings who passed away previously (cf., v. 4). The writer’s polemic in vv. 4-21 exposes the loss at death of any powers—supernatural or otherwise—to which a living king might have formerly aspired. Thus, death becomes the great equalizer. Not only can this tyrant no longer pose a threat to the living, but he is weakened just like all the other worldly kings who, having died, experienced the same ignominious physical afterlife. The Rephaim of the narratives, however, do take on mythic and heroic dimensions as the most ancient living inhabitants of Palestine and, in this respect, find their analogues in the rp’um traditions at Ugarit (which are to be kept distinct from the Ugaritic rpim qdmym). In KTU 1.161, the Ugaritic rp’um or Rapi’uma (unqualified by the term qdmym) represent a living warrior and nobility elite at Ugarit who adopted the Rapi’uma designation as a means of identifying themselves with the mythic or heroic traditions. Such a heroic tradition is not only presumed in the biblical historical narratives, but polemicized against via the designation yelide harapah, “sons of the Weak One.”

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In the final analysis, any supposed connection between the two biblical Rephaim traditions, the heroic traditions of the narratives and the post mortem traditions of the poetic, prophetic, and wisdom texts remains enigmatic. The point to be underscored is that nowhere are the Rephaim attributed supernatural post mortem powers in the Hebrew Bible. Moreover, such powers are not disparaged. The biblical polemic against the Rephaim traditions is restricted to their former mythic, heroic stature as living inhabitants of the land of Canaan wherein they have been re-interpreted as “the sons of the Weak One.” The Mortuary Cults of Early Mediterranean West Asia The discoveries from Ugarit well illustrate how the scholarly bias briefly described in the introductory section might manifest itself. In the early stages of research on the artifacts and texts discovered at the ancient Late Bronze age city of Ugarit, scholars like Mitchell Dahood of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome interpreted many of the rituals preserved in the epigraphic archives as evidence for a belief in a blessed physical life after death. The resultant description of Ugaritic beliefs about death and the afterlife—like their early Israelite analogues—resembled later Christian and Jewish ideas. Claude Schaeffer, the first excavator of Ugarit, identified what he thought to be cemeteries within the city, complete with various tubes, jars, open gutters, and feeding windows either in or near the tombs. These he understood as reflective of an elaborate cult designed for the worship of the departed ancestors, a death cult or an ancestor cult if you will. To be sure, several tombs have been found at Ugarit, but they merely highlight the Ugaritian concern for proper funerary ritual and burial. In other instances, however, what Schaeffer identified as a cemetery has been, following further analysis, identified as a complex of domestic dwellings and the associated tubes and conduits as channels for carrying water in and out of those buildings. Schaeffer’s tomb windows were apparently used only at the time of inhumation and never reused on a subsequent ritual occasion. Some were blocked off and others opened only to an area outside the tomb, but in neither case did the window open to the surface, allowing for ritual activity by the living subsequent to burial. Now death and ancestor cults as typically defined by early

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moderns—and their intellectual descendants—presupposed a morbid fear of and superstition regarding ghosts. Hence the so-called primitive nature of these cults and their respective cultures. This fear was given expression in regular acts of worship by the living directed toward the dead who, it was believed, possessed powers equal to those of the gods. As such powers often led to the deification of the dead, the associated rituals served either to appease the divine-like malevolence of the dead or to access their supernatural benevolence. In fact, many early modern intellectuals viewed this fear and its attendant cult as providing the impetus underlying the origin of religious thought among all early humanoids. In other words, the fear of the recently departed led to their reverence which presupposed the new acquisition of superior powers on the part of ghosts, ergo the eventual birth of deities and demons from dead humans. This is undoubtedly a variation on the ancient theory of euhemerism (for an early modern application of this theory as applied to ancient Rome, cf., the 1864 work by Numa Denis Fustel de Coulange, La cité antique). Other factors also contributed to the tendency to translate the cultural artifacts of Ugarit in this manner. The discoveries were characterized from the outset as reflective of the larger orbit of second millennium B.C.E. “Canaanite” culture known first and foremost from the Christian Old Testament/Jewish Tanakh. Keeping in mind that Scripture depicts the Canaanites as the nemesis, if not the arch enemy, of the early Israelites, one had at one’s disposal all the components necessary to malign the ancient Canaanite culture before it ever had the chance to be understood adequately on is own merit. Unfortunately, the same can be said with regard to the interpretation of Phoenician artifacts discovered over the past few centuries. These were long thought to be representative of the same recalcitrant Canaanite culture. With the discovery of the ancient city of Ugarit, long held assumptions about the inferior character of Canaanite culture only found further confirmation. With these considerations in mind, one can readily understand how the material cultural remains from Ugarit as well as its epigraphic archives could be subjected to such an interpretive matrix. If a morbid fear of the dead did not provide the impetus underlying the beliefs pertaining to death and the afterlife for the people of Ugarit, what then did they believe with regard to such notions? The textual corpus suggests that rather than adhering to some type of

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“proto” Judeo-Christian belief in a blessed afterlife or embracing some uncivilized, primitive worship and deification of the dead, the Ugaritians developed quite a sophisticated means of coping with death’s reality. It comprised the rather ingenious notion of commemoration of the dead (or what anthropologists such as the British Africanist, Meyers Fortes refer to as geneonymy). In addition to sustaining the memory of the deceased in the minds of the living—those of both family and community—, these rituals or commemoration cults, when performed publicly and on family property, could legitimate the living’s claims to birthright and land ownership. The public recitation of the names of the deceased confirms that at the heart of the observance of mortuary rites for at least the elites of Ugarit lie the perpetuation of the deceased’s memory and the maintenance of the dead’s genealogical ties with living family members. This is well illustrated by a tablet containing a royal king list from Ugarit (RS 24.257) wherein the names of several of the Ugaritic kings are listed, each successively associated with the dynastic personal god known by all and so designated by the generic term “god” (Ugaritic, æil ). Thus, the phrase “the god of (king) So-and-so” is repeated several times in the text with a different accompanying royal name, in each instance suggesting that the deceased kings’ names were recited in succession together with the name of the dynastic personal god as an act of commemoration. Such a ritual was perhaps designed to sustain the divine legitimization of the current dynasty. In the third millennium B.C.E. archives from the ancient city of Ebla in northwest Syria, a close parallel to the king list discovered at Ugarit has been preserved and published by the Italian excavation’s epigrapher Alphonso Archi. What is clear from the Eblaite king list is that the name of each deceased king is preceded by the Sumerian sign designating a god, in this case, the dingir sign, the semantic equivalent of Ugaritic æil (and Akkadian ilu), and the corresponding phrase dingir + royal name is to be translated as “the god of (king) So-and-so” as was proposed for the similar phrase æil + royal name attested in the Ugaritic king list. The fact that the Sumerian sign is written in its own case makes this the most likely interpretation of its function. When the dingir sign accompanies one of the deities later in the text, it is not written in its own case and thereby designates the deified status of the following named entity, e.g., di-da-kul. The fact that the king list from Ebla is much older than that from Ugarit suggests that commemoration as a means of legitimization was a long

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standing tradition in the region of ancient Mediterranean West Asia. Finally, it might be the case in both instances, Ugarit and Ebla, that the ritual presupposed the presence of votive statues of the dead kings placed in a temple to which commemorative offerings were made. If contemporary practice in ancient Mesopotamia is at all relevant here, these statues probably stood at a lower elevation facing another statue depicting the seated dynastic personal god to whom exclusive worship could be directed. Another ritual text from the ancient city of Ugarit should be mentioned here. It comprises a royal coronation litany with an accompanying funerary liturgy (RS 34.126). The occasion for its recitation was the ultimate demise of the king and the coronation of his successor. Apparently, it was composed on the occasion of king Ammurapi’s coronation as suggested by his being mentioned in the closing line of the text. This apparently took place immediately following the death of his father and former king of Ugarit, Niqmaddu. The living warrior-nobility and dignitaries are called to assemble on this momentous day to witness the coronation of the new king as genealogical heir to the recently deceased monarch. As mentioned previously, these living elites are collectively referred to by the rubric “the Rapi’uma of the land” (rpi’ æar×). In this text, ghosts of the former kings are indeed mentioned, but they are merely summoned to assemble down below in the netherworld to await the arrival of the recently deceased and his throne in order to accompany him to his newly appointed place in the world below. The dead warrior nobility are referred to by the collective “the ancient Rapi’uma” (rp’im qdmym); they play no further role in the ceremony other than to assist the ghosts of dead kings in their function as escorts. They lack the ability to exercise any beneficent powers on behalf of the living. In sum, ghosts of the dead at Ugarit appear in the typical portraiture of Canaanite ghosts: weak, frail apparitions lacking any supernatural powers. Now for the commoner at Ugarit, such a physical fate probably posed less of an enigma than it did for royalty and the privileged, for, following death, the latter stood to lose all station they had achieved, inherited, or obtained in this life. This might partially explain the Ugaritic royalty’s preoccupation with what might well have constituted elaborate commemoration cults. For the elites, such cults served as a counterbalance to any loss, whether of a physical, social, or material nature, that was thought to be suffered at death. In the

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end, however, commemoration served both commoner and elite alike by offering the possibility of averting the relegation of one’s deeds or personhood to eternal anonymity or the dreaded “death after death.” Transformations in Late Israelite Tradition In the period following the Babylonian exile of 586/587 B.C.E., significant transformations took place vis-a-vis Israelite/Jewish beliefs about death and the afterlife. Notions about bodily resurrection, ascension, and immortality apparently take root in Jewish traditions at this time. This has been explained as the result of a combination of factors: foreign religious influence—Persian, Greek or otherwise—, social and individual crises, and the inadequacy of traditional constructs of theodicy. The resurrection of the body becomes the dominant expression of a blessed afterlife in Second Temple Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible there is at least one very late text that scholars generally recognize as indicative of this concept, Dan. 12:2, which was composed following the persecution of the Jews in 165 B.C.E. Other passages have been cited as examples of the existence of this belief in earlier Israelite tradition, e.g., Ezek. 37, Is. 26:19, and Is. 53. Opinion is divided however as to whether these passages presume a belief in bodily resurrection or whether they employ “dying and rising god” or fecundity imagery to metaphorically refer to the historical restoration of the nation. The most likely scenario is one in which these passages informed developments that eventuated in the belief given clear expression later in Dan. 12. Furthermore, they might very well have derived their impetus from the dying and rising god imagery contained in a much earlier text, Hos. 13-14, which in turn might indicate at least partial dependence upon older Canaanite imagery. These factors coupled with the possible influence of Persian religion and, in particular, the Zoroastrian belief in bodily resurrection during the post-exilic period, might have culminated in the later Jewish belief in bodily resurrection such as that given expression in Dan. 12 and other Jewish apocalyptic sources. In this same time period from roughly the sixth century B.C.E. onwards, other significant transformations took place in Israelite religion with regard to beliefs about death and afterlife. It is at this time

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that notions about ascension and immortality also find their way into Jewish traditions and texts. Passages like Gen. 5:24—a late priestly text—and 2 Kgs 2:1-12—a Deuteronomistic production—preserve traditions concerning bodily ascension to heaven without passing through death as in the cases of such heroic figures as Enoch and Elijah. Enoch shows a number of amazing parallels with figures known from Mesopotamian sources, Enmeduranki, an anti-diluvian king, and Utnapishtim, a flood hero, who were either directly admitted into the presence of the gods or translated bodily into heaven. In sum, while notions of immortality were possibly afloat in various periods of Israelite religious history, only with the passage of time were certain forms singled out for fuller elaboration and development. Second Temple Jewish wisdom literature preserves elements of the immortality of the soul as a reward for the righteous. Works like 4 Maccabees, Jubilees, and 1 Enoch all point in this direction. The wisdom of Solomon, a work composed in approximately 100 B.C.E., repeatedly addresses the topic of immortality (1:15, 3;4, 4:1, 8;17, 15;3) while never explicitly taking up the topic of resurrection, and some have seen a strong influence from Greek Platonic philosophy here. The immortality of the soul has also been identified in two postexilic wisdom Psalms, 49 and 73. The case is certainly stronger for Ps. 49 as the wording in the relevant verse of Ps. 73 (v. 24) is more problematic. Ps. 49:16 (JPS) states, “But God will redeem my life from the clutches of Sheol, for He will take me.” Now this poses a direct contrast to vv. 8-10, where it is claimed that no man can redeem himself so as to live forever and never see the grave. If one were to apply a rigid standard of consistency in the use of contrast here, then v. 16 would make better sense if God is viewed here as being attributed that power that no man can exercise on his own behalf: the power to bestow immortal life. Conclusion All indications are that during the Iron age the dead of ancient Mediterranean West Asia and in ancient Israel were perceived as weak and frail and their material persistence beyond this life was characterized at best by a shadowy and silent existence and at worst by neglect on the part of the living. In Mesopotamian tradition, such

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neglect might result in the ghost’s maleficence, requiring exorcistic rituals to counter such behavior. Similarly, the ghosts of those who died an untimely or violent death might require ritual forms of control on the part of the living. Nonetheless, in Mediterranean West Asian sources such ghostly malevolence remains unattested. To be sure, there are instances wherein demons of various and sundry sorts must be averted by ritual means, but incantations and the like that were directed specifically toward hostile ghosts of the human dead are nowhere to be found in the archaeological, epigraphic or literary sources recovered from Mediterranean West Asia (cf., the Arslan Tash incantations and some recently discovered Ugaritic incantations, both of which lack any mention of ghosts). To be sure, there apparently existed the belief that in the case of neglect, one might expect the angry reprisal of the deceased’s ghost, but this hardly necessitated or presumed that the living worship or venerate the dead. Rather, it demanded persistence in caring and feeding of the otherwise feeble dead, and, on the rare occasion that negligence had taken place, rites to ward off or appease the ghost, i.e., exorcistic rituals, might be enacted (unfortunately, the primary data on this score for ancient Israel is all but entirely lacking). Furthermore, it is only in the latter stages of pre-exilic Israelite religion that the practice of necromancy was introduced, which in turn explains its occasional mention in late texts of the holiness code, wisdom traditions, and later prophetic, and Deuteronomistic additions. The prohibition against necromancy in such texts as Deut. 18:11; 1 Sam. 28:3-25; 2 Kgs. 21:6, 23:24; Is. 8:19, 19:3, and 29:4 finds it impetus in the adaptation of Mesopotamian necromancy to late Iron age pluralistic Israelite religion. It was artificially or rhetorically attributed a “Canaanite” origin, a polemical strategy aimed at disparaging competing Israelite religious practices while avoiding the consternation of Israel’s Mesopotamian overloads. A handful of other texts have been identified in past treatments as pertaining to death and ancestor cult practices per se (not to be confused with those having to do with necromancy). But in actuality, these address the observance of mourning rites and so contribute nothing to the question of whether or not the ancient Israelites observed death and ancestor rites. For example, Deut. 14:1 and 26:14 refer not to death or ancestor cult practices but to mourning rites of tonsure and gashing and the prohibition against using the tithe as a gift of consolation for those in mourning. Similarly, Amos 6:7 and

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Jer. 16:5 mention the marzea½, which concerns an association organized for the purpose of advancing economic transactions among the upper echelons of society, and an association which in the exceptional instance might also seek to acknowledge the death of one of its members by observing a funeral. On occasion, some of its attendants might indulge themselves to the point of inebriation during such a funeral. Contrary to the scholarly consensus, the marzea½ has nothing to do with death or ancestor cults and only an occasional connection with funerary concerns. Indeed, the evidence suggests that what occupied a more central place in the thought and action of ancient Israelites as they contemplated their prospects beyond the grave was the concern to perpetuate the memory of the deceased in the minds of the living. Prior to the exile, the ancient Israelites, like many of their ancient Near Eastern neighbors, placed primary, if not sole, emphasis on the perpetuation of the memory of the family dead and on making the best of life on this side of the grave. Both commoner and elite went to some length to insure that the family name epitomized by the multigenerational graves containing the bones of family dead and located on family land would never be neglected, let alone forgotten. By regularly performing various communal and public rituals, the names and memories of deceased kin were preserved from oblivion, thereby avoiding the dreaded “death after death.” The associated words and deeds comprised what has been described by anthropologists as the commemoration of the dead. Worship, veneration, or morbid fear of the dead had no necessary part to play in this complex of rites as so long assumed. The idea that the ancient Israelites observed a longstanding death or ancestor cult as conventionally understood (to include the worship or veneration of the dead) simply has no basis in reality. It was founded upon outmoded anthropological assumptions, cultural biases, and questionable or forced interpretation of texts. What the ancient Israelite did fear was the dreaded “death after death,” the possibility that the memory of his name and the recollection of his deeds accomplished while living might be forever forgotten by his descendants, his community, or, in the case of the royalty, even his nation. This coupled with an emphasis on making the best of life on this side of the grave—a long and healthy life span, sufficient material resources, many children, relatives and friends, minimal pain and suffering—presented one with the prospect of obtaining a significant measure of fulfillment in this life.

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While it may be difficult, if not impossible, for us as moderns to imagine, let alone embrace, a world where physical continuance persists beyond the grave merely as a shadow of our former existence, the inhabitants of ancient Israel, Ugarit, and Ebla could not only conceive of, but openly embrace, the belief in such a physical existence. A shadowy, feeble, physical existence in the netherworld was a given. It was acceptable because it did not constitute the central focus of their efforts in constructing a worthwhile life beyond death. The energy and resources of the living, in anticipation of death, were concentrated instead on establishing, even institutionalizing, one’s immortality by the preservation of one’s deeds, position, or personhood in the mind of those one left behind long after one’s departure from this world. This form of immortality—supported by institutional infrastructures—political, legal, and religious—served to counter the dreaded “death after death” in ancient Mediterranean West Asian societies. Suggested Bibliography Barth, Carl, Die Errettung vom Tode in den individuellen Klage- und Dankliedern des Alten Testaments (Zollikon, 1947). Day, John, “The Development of Belief in Life after Death in Ancient Israel,” in Barton, J., and D.J. Reimer, eds., After the Exile: Essays in Honour of Rex Maso (Macon,1996), pp. 231-257. Pardee, D., “Marzihu, Kispu, and the Ugaritic Funerary Cult: A Minimalist View,” in Wyatt, N., W.G.E. Watson, and J.B. Loyd, eds., Ugarit, Religion and Culture: Proceedings of the International Colloquium on Ugarit, Religion and Culture. Edinburgh, July, 1994. Essays Presented in Honour of John C.L. Gibson (Muenster, 1996), pp. 273-287. Schmidt, B.B., Israel’s Beneficent Dead: Ancestor Cult and Necromancy in Ancient Israelite Religion and Tradition. Forschungen zum Alten Testament 11. Herausgegeben von B. Janowski and H. Spieckermann (Tübingen, 1994, and [revised] Winona Lake, 1996).

4. DEATH AND AFTERLIFE IN THE WISDOM LITERATURE Roland E. Murphy Whitefriars Hall The parameters of this essay are set by the three traditional wisdom books of the Hebrew Bible: Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes. But to capture the thrust of biblical wisdom, Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon, the “deuterocanonicals “ or “apocrypha,” must also be included; they are an important complement to the three books of the Tanach. Wisdom influence on other parts of the Bible (e.g., Pss. 37, 49) will not be treated here. In view of varying concepts concerning death and afterlife,1 the presuppositions of this essay need to be stated. Death is understood as physical death unless indicated otherwise (a metaphorical usage, yielding a qualitative meaning, or “living death,” as illustrated by the use of sheol in Ps. 30:4, is also possible). Afterlife is understood to be what is beyond death, i.e., it is “afterdeath.” What reality awaited the dead Israelite? The answer: “non-life.” This “non-life” is described as a condition or a place that is generally called sheol and usually localized in the belly of the earth. Death and sheol are frequently paired together in the Bible. Both have a an extended meaning, beyond mere place; they are also personified as dynamic powers that pursue human beings in this life.2 Thus the psalmist can pray to be delivered from the power (yad, or “hand”) of sheol (Ps. 89:49, with “death” in parallelism), or give thanks because of having been brought up from sheol (Ps. 30:4, with “those who go down to the pit” in parallelism). This particular metaphorical usage, which will not concern us here, is significant for the meaning of sheol as adversity, suffering, and so forth. It is an anticipation of afterdeath, of the “non-life” that is to come. One cannot speak of “afterlife” without agreeing on the usage of the term, “life.” In the wisdom literature, life means significantly Cf., T. Lewis in Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. II, pp. 100-105. Cf., Chr. Barth, Die Errettung vom Tode in den individuellen Klage und Danklieder des Alten Testaments (Zolliko, 1947). 1 2

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more than biological life, although “length of days” (Prov. 3:2), as opposed to a premature death, is considered one of the blessings that result from wise conduct. A true measure of life is its quality: dignity, prestige, reputation, prosperity, a large family. This ambience constitutes real life for a person; life is a network of proper relationships to God, to other human beings, and to nature. These are the elements that make life worth living; they are the “life” that is the kerygma of Wisdom herself (Prov. 8:35).3 Although the sages do not give a definition of life, they employ significant symbols (tree of life, fountain of life, etc.) that convey its positive value. By contrast, these characteristics are not to be found in descriptions of sheol. Hence it cannot be truly called Afterlife; basically it is “non-life.” Correspondingly, there will be symbols for this type of “existence,” such as watery darkness or the absence of a loving contact with the Lord. This condition may be found with descriptions of an “I” who “exists” in sheol, and who even speaks of fellow travelers (Job 3:13-19) or “shades” (repa’im, Prov. 2:18; 9:18). But such passages do not really designate survivors in an afterlife. They are imaginative, mythological ways of speaking of the “afterdeath” that was the lot of every Israelite and every one else. They are bleak and murky portrayals of a reality the Israelites were completely ignorant of. No one ever returned (not even Samuel!) to tell them about it. Another important fact is that there is no speculation about “who” or “what” is in sheol. The Hebrew conception of the make-up of a human being was very simple and direct: a person is breathed-upon matter (Gen. 2:7; Eccl. 12:7). The breath of life is taken back by God and the matter corrupts in the grave (Gen. 3:19). Some would say this amounts to total extinction (see the discussion of Eccl. 12:7 below). Be that as it may, such a speculative conclusion the Israelites did not make, even if it seems “logical” to the western mind. The most that could be said is that someone is in sheol (equivalently, David speaking of his dead son, 2 Sam. 12:23). It is the final curtain on existence. Some scholars would insist that afterlife is affirmed by the descriptions of sheol where shades “exist.” But the term “existence” cannot be applied meaningfully to this “afterlife.” The insistence with which some scholars affirm true existence in sheol seems to derive from a literal understanding of the biblical descriptions of 3 R.E. Murphy, “The Kerygma of the Book of Proverbs,” in Interpretation 20, 1966, pp. 3-14.

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sheol, or in some cases from a rigid view of biblical inspiration/ inerrancy that will not tolerate in the Bible an expression of a total blackout of existence.4 Not only is sheol portrayed as a place/condition of unsubstantial, shadowy, existence, but its boundaries are not clearly defined. Does it begin with interment in a grave? This may be suggested by the “pit” into which one is doomed to go down (Prov. 1:12). And we have noted above the metaphorical usage (a dynamic power in pursuit of human beings). This preliminary discussion of the paradoxical nature of death/sheol is necessary for a meaningful presentation of “afterlife” in the wisdom literature. Proverbs.5 A negative view of the afterlife is envisioned; death (with which sheol is often the parallel expression) is the end for a human being. The terms are used to designate the particular lot of the foolish and wicked (Prov. 7:27; 14:12 = 16:25). Such are the ways of the “strange” woman or any false paths against which the sage warns. In particular, marital infidelity can lead to death/sheol (5:5), and to vengeance on the part of the aggrieved husband (6:32-35). Death has its “snares” (13:14; 14:27; in both cases, the “fountain of life” is the antithesis). The threat of death carries weight insofar as it can be premature (Eccl. 7:17), or simply a calamity because it deprives one of a positive good, or because it separates one from prized possessions (Eccl. 5:15; Sir. 11:18-19; Ps. 49:17-20), and especially from that most highly prized, life itself. Its meaning is filled out by its opposite, “life,” and the two metaphors frequently associated with it: “tree of life” (e.g., Prov. 3:18; 11:30; 13:12) and “fountain of life” (10:11; 4 See H.C. Brichto, “Kin, Cult, Land and Afterlife—A Biblical Complex,” Hebrew Union College Annual 44, 1973, pp. 1-54. He discusses whether “death represented a dissolution of being or a transition to a different kind of existence” (p. 3; cf., p. 53). He argues for a continuation of life after death, and takes issue with B. Vawter, “Intimations of Immortality in the Old Testament,” Journal of Biblical Literature 91, 1972, pp. 158-171; but Vawter is correct in maintaining that life in the Old Testament is to be understood as “meaningful existence.” However, scholars of the stature of J. Barr speak of “a sort of continuance” in Sheol; cf., The Garden of Eden and the Hope of Immortality (Minneapolis, 1993), p. 30. I do not think that the biblical language should be interpreted to mean “continuance.” Neither does it authorize the conclusion of extinction; at least no biblical writer concludes to extinction. See n. 5 below. 5 Cf., V. Cottini, La vita futura nel libro dei Proverbi (Jerusalem, l984). He provides a fairly complete history of exegesis of Prov. 12:28; 14:32; 15:24; 23:17-18; 24:19-20. While his emphasis is upon the hermeneutical presuppositions at work, his own stance seems to affirm a positive “future life” in these texts (cf., p. 388).

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16:22). Concretely, life means enjoying a long life, with prestige and dignity, a large family and great possessions (see the description in Job 29:2-20). These are the signs of divine blessing. Hence death and sheol derive their sting from the deprivation of the positive values of life in the here and now. The striking spatial metaphor in Prov. 15:24 (the path of life leads upward in order to avoid sheol below) indicates the superiority of life as opposed to death; it does not imply a change in the lot of the individual. Equally important are certain statements about death that suggest a surplus of meaning. For example, Prov. 10:2 (see also 11:4) announces that “righteousness delivers from death.” This is opposed to the failure of ill-gotten treasures to yield profit. While the literal historical sense urges honesty as a means of avoiding some unnamed disaster (premature death?), was the saying always understood that way? For those of a later generation who were already convinced of a positive notion of an afterlife, such a saying could be invested with another meaning: death in an eschatological sense, death followed by a reward. In other words, virtue leads away from the finality of death/sheol to a significant life beyond it, however that be envisioned (life with God, etc.). We shall return to this idea in the Wisdom of Solomon (e.g., Wis. 1:15). The same perspective is opened by such a saying as Prov. 24:14 (cf., 23:18), which speaks of an “after” (’a½arit) and a “hope” (tiqwa). While these concepts are literally meant for this life, they are in themselves open-ended expressions and hence susceptible to development at a later period. Associated with this line of thinking is the antithesis between Woman Wisdom and Dame Folly. The invitation of the former is to life: “Whoever finds me finds life” (Prov. 8:35), and the invitation of the latter, to death: “her guests are in the depths of sheol” (9:18)— with the “shades.” Again, this is to be understood in context on the level of sheer physical life/death (nor can a metaphorical meaning be ruled out, i.e., a condition of serious distress or a “living death”). Yet, when the figure of Woman Wisdom, who plays such a large role in the wisdom literature, is given its full measure, there is a certain patina of meaning suggested. Ultimately Woman Wisdom seems to be promising more than prosperity in the here and now, a life that transcends the death/sheol that is associated with her opposite number, Dame Folly (Prov. 9:1-6; 13-18). The surplus is not specified, but there is a hint of something special. In brief, one may characterize the afterlife in Proverbs as the tra-

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ditional understanding of death/sheol which has been described above. This is what one would expect from collections of sayings that gained currency during a long span of Israelite history. Anyone who would insist that there is a real afterlife by the very fact that one goes to sheol (only to eke out a shadowy existence, largely undefined because simply unknown) is grasping at straws. This view fails to take seriously the historical development of the notion of the afterlife that will eventually emerge. The open-endedness will not be overlooked by later readers. Job. The well-known story of Job need not be retold. The issue is: how does the author, through the various voices heard in the book, portray death and the afterlife? As is to be expected, the book reflects the basic understanding that we have already indicated. But there are also examples of creative usage. Thus in Job’s famous lament (Job 3:11-23), sheol and death are welcomed! This vivid contrast to the usual view is caused by Job’s suffering. At least in sheol, the reasoning goes, he would enjoy rest, compared to the trouble he is now having. With a certain panache, he describes how the great and the humble of this world, as well as the wicked, enjoy a rest. In contrast, those who suffer in this world yearn ardently for death and even rejoice in its coming. Death is the great leveler, but paradoxically it provides a comparative surcease from suffering. For Job, anything is better than the present situation. The mythological understanding of death/sheol enables the author to develop this theme. In his speeches, Job lectures the three friends, but he prays to God, and in a tender aside he ventures to suggest that God will miss him when he is gone (7:8, 21): like a fading cloud, the one who goes down to sheol does not come up; his very place knows him not (7:9-10). He begs for respite not only in view of his brief life-span, but because he is going to the place of no return (cf., 16:22), the land of darkness and gloom, “where darkness is the only light” (10:21-22). The same despondent air fills 17:13-16, where Job addresses corruption (or “pit,” sa½at) as father, and maggots as mother and sister. He has no hope (tiqwa), or at least, if any, it will go down with him to sheol. All of these statements should be enough to motivate God to put an end to Job’s suffering. Thus the view of afterlife presented in Job 3:23 is given various spins in Job’s later pleas. The most difficult and the least understood passage, and yet the

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most famous, is Job’s declaration in 19:25-27. There is no certain translation of these lines, but some clear points can be gleaned. First, Job affirms faith in a go’el, or Vindicator, who will stand up for him (is this Eloah? cf., v. 26b). Second, there is a threefold statement of seeing this champion, and in the end Job does see the Lord (42:5). Third, the timing of the vision(s) is not clear: does Job indicate that it will be in this life, or afterward? There is no certain answer, but what cannot be denied is Job’s tremendous act of faith in a Vindicator who will appear to him personally and prove him right. The view of the friends is a wooden presentation of the orthodox view of death and the afterlife. God is on the side of the wise and virtuous, who will enjoy the good life as their portion (Eliphaz in 5:22-27). The wicked shall be in torment all their days in this life (Eliphaz in 15:20-34). The tragic life and end of the wicked is also described by Bildad in 18:5-21. They perish without a name or survivor. Again the perspective is this life: “Such is the place of the one who knows not God”—that is it, there is no place. The ephemeral character of the life of the wicked is also vividly described by Zophar: “the triumph of the wicked is short...the eye that saw him does so no more, nor shall his dwelling again behold him” (20:5-9). Again no place in this world; no memory, nothing to show for existence. The concern of Elihu is to defend the divine honor which, as he sees it, has not been done by the three friends. There is no need to repeat the general lessons that are extensions of the points made by the three. He affirms that God will deliver the repentant person from the “pit” (ˆsa½at, four times in 33:18, 22, 28, 30), which is of course a metaphorical understanding of sheol as the distress of the wrongdoer. The virtuous will enjoy a long blessed life. It should be noted too that Elihu reflects the standard biblical conception of the human composite: if the Almighty ever recalled his spirit and breath, all flesh would perish and humankind return to the dust (34:14-15; cf., 33:4). As is well known, the speeches of the Lord (chaps. 38-42) have been scored as irrelevant. From the point of view of this essay, it should be noted that there is not even the slightest hint of a change in the divine handling of sheol and the afterlife. Indeed, Job is given a new lease on life in the here and now. And he dies “full of years,” one hundred and forty years later! This is typical of the traditional emphasis on this life and its rewards. As one looks back on this book, it is clear that there is no change in the general Israelite understanding of sheol and the afterlife. But the imaginative use of the human

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condition in the complaints of Job is striking. Whatever their limitations, Hebrew poets know how to make the most of the many disparate ideas current in their time. Qoheleth. In general, the people of the Bible betrayed a remarkably resigned attitude to the finality of death. Human mortality, in the sense of ephemeral existence here and the shadowy “existence” in sheol, was put to various uses in pleas to Almighty God, but it was never deplored as unjust fate; it was simply accepted (2 Sam. 14:14). The allotted time for existence was a given, and within that span happiness was to be achieved, if possible. Qoheleth forms an exception to this rather steady voice. Compared to Job, he displays little passion; instead, there is much analysis and many statements about the human condition. But one exclamation does present a rare view of emotion on this issue: “How can the wise die just like the fools? So I hated life...” (Eccl. 2:17). In this text Qoheleth’s objection to death is not explicitly due to what follows after death; it is centered on death itself; there should be some distinction between the wise and the fool. Instead, miqreh (happening, or lot, in the sense of death; it occurs seven times in Ecclesiastes; cf., 3:19; 9:2-3) afflicts everyone. According to the tradition, the just are “remembered” (Prov. 10:7). But not in Ecclesiastes; they are not remembered. This lack of remembrance is his particular grief at this point (2:16; cf., 1:11). Elimination by death is the “work of God,” mysterious and unintelligible (7:13; 8:7). The human lot appears again in 9:1-3. It is no consolation for the just to be “in the hands of God;” this only means they are subject to the will of a God who deals with them according to the divine pleasure. The brutal fact is that no one knows from experience whether God loves or hates them. The supreme manifestation of this is shown by the same “lot” (miqreh) that comes to all—death. Here human death appears to be blamed upon an arbitrary God, who makes no distinctions between people, as also in 2:15-16. We have been considering Qoheleth’s attitude toward death. What about the aftermath, Qoheleth’s view of afterlife? Death and aftermath are ultimately inseparable for him. In a striking passage (3:19-21), he compares humans and beasts in terms of death and also destiny. The two are alike in that they have the same miqreh and also the same breath (rua½). Hence both go to the same place: from and to the dust. There is nothing new here, as comparisons with Eccl. 12:7

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and Job 34:14-15 (cf., also Sir. 40:11, Hebrew text) demonstrate. In his day, there was apparently an effort to distinguish between the spirit of humans that went up, and that of beasts, which went down. The distinction does not tell us much, but some kind of differentiation is intended (and a similar line of reasoning may lie behind the masoretic vocalization of 3:19). To this Qoheleth says: “who knows...?” It is his way of dismissing an issue in the negative. There is no contradiction between 3:2l and 12:7 which says that the breath returns to God. In both instances it is question of returning to the source: God—just as the dust returns to earth. This hardly justifies the view of C. F. Whitley (adopted by A. Schoors also) that “for Koheleth death seems to indicate complete extinction....” What “seems” to be a logical conclusion for us is not necessarily so for Qoheleth, whose understanding of death is dire enough.6 Other statements of Qoheleth indicate that he shared in the general notion that the living are eventually going to sheol. Of course, this is the “non-life” that we have seen is the general notion of the afterlife: “All that your hands find to do, do with might, because there is no action, or answer, or knowledge, or wisdom in sheol where you are going” (9:10). Some have pointed to 9:4 as exceptional, the only time in the book that “hope” is mentioned. In 4:2-3, Qoheleth praises the dead because they are dead—as opposed to the living who have their lives ahead of them. Then: the one who is better off than both is the one who has never lived (and thus has not been exposed to the evils of this life). In 9:4, by contrast, he seems to attach some value to hope. Hope in what? Some kind of reward, trust in God? M. Fox has caught the nuance here: “Bitta½on is not ‘hope’ (knowing that one will die is not a ‘hope’) or a feeling of security, but rather something that can be relied on, something that one can be certain about (cf., Is. 36:4).” 7 Indeed, there is bitter irony here: the advantage of the living is to know... that they are going to die! Then he tosses off an implicit comparison in what seems to have been a saying that ostensibly favors life but really undermines the hope of humans: “a live dog is better than a dead lion.” Dogs had no value in the ancient world, and there is a touching pungency in the recalling of the “dead lion.” 6 Cf. C.F. Whitley, Koheleth: His Language and Thought (Berlin, 1979), pp. 151, 167; A. Schoors, “Koheleth: A Perspective of Life after Death?” Ephemerides theologicae lovanienses 61, 1985, pp. 295-303. 7 M. Fox, Qohelet and His Contradictions (Sheffield, 1989), p. 258.

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Despite the foregoing discussion, some scholars still insist that Qoheleth somehow has a positive notion of the afterlife. G. Ogden thinks that it is “the earliest Old Testament document to express, albeit in a tentative manner, the thought that there is something beyond death, at least for the wise. Qoheleth then marks one of the earliest formal steps in the formulation of the thesis of the resurrection to life beyond the grave, at least for the wise.” He claims that “Qoheleth can only intimate his belief. By opting for the questionform (1.3, etc.), Qoheleth is indicating that he cannot prove that yitron will be granted beyond the grave, but he insists that it is at least a possibility, an extension of the goodness the wise may enjoy now.”8 Another commentator, D.A. Garrett, remarks concerning Eccl. 3:1822 that “while these verses may appear to be a categorical denial of afterlife, such an interpretation would miss the mark.... Ecclesiastes does not deny afterlife but does force the reader to take death seriously.”9 Both of these views are strictly in the minority, and their mistake probably consists in the fact they consider “non-life” in sheol as some kind of afterlife. Sirach. This book has had an unusual history. It was written originally in Hebrew and this text practically dropped out of existence, at least for the western world, for about fifteen centuries. The book was known mainly from the Greek and other ancient translations. Then portions of Hebrew text were discovered in a Cairo geniza at the end of the nineteenth century, and this brought about a flurry of studies at the time. Since then more discoveries of the Hebrew text occurred, but it is only relatively recently that one can speak of another renaissance in Sirach studies.10 A fundamental reason for the uneven treatment that the book has received is the difficulty of establishing a critical text. About twothirds of the Hebrew text has been recovered to date. Hence the problem arises of judging when to follow the Hebrew or when to correct it in the light of the Greek or other ancient versions. In neither the Hebrew nor the Greek tradition does a uniform text exist. In both traditions there are two distinct forms of the text, one more G. Ogden, Qoheleth (Sheffield, 1987), pp. 15, 25. D. Garrett, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs (Nashville, l993), pp. 304-305. 10 For the complicated history of the transmission of this book, see Patrick W. Skehan and A. di Lella, The Wisdom of Ben Sira (New York, 1987), pp. 51-62. 8 9

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expanded than the other. In addition, there are other ancient versions, such as the Old Latin, which are quite valuable because the Old Latin was made from the Greek text very early on. The Old Latin reflects the expanded Greek text and adds many expansions of its own, calculated to be about seventy-five instances. Hence the several witnesses to the original text also increase the problem of translation and interpretation. During most of this century vernacular translations were simply based upon the Greek. Now expert critical translations have appeared and readers can feel more secure that they are reading what Ben Sira wrote.11 The history of the text provides important background for the discussion of his attitude towards death and the afterlife. In the expanded Greek tradition, there are statements about the afterlife that go beyond what we find in the Hebrew text, and so also for the Old Latin. The Book of Sirach (also called “Ecclesiasticus,” probably meaning “church” book) was favored by a valuable prologue to the Greek version done by Sirach’s grandson, the translator. In it the grandson gives us enough data to indicate the terminus ante quem of the book. We can gather that the translation was made sometime after 132 B.C.E. when he says he migrated to Egypt (probably to Alexandria, which was home to a large portion of the Jewish Diaspora). Calculating backward one may infer that Ben Sira was active around 200 B.C.E., and this date would fit with his description of Simon the high priest in Sir. 50:1-21. Hence the year 180 is the approximate date given by most scholars for the writing of the book. The importance of the dating for our particular interest is clear: did Ben Sira share in some ideas about the afterlife that were current at this time? He wrote before the outbreak of the Maccabean rebellion around 165 B.C.E. What was his attitude to the Hellenistic culture that pervaded Palestine? We can subscribe to the words of his translator who underscores the familiarity of Sirach with Hebrew traditions: “So my grandfather Jesus, who had devoted himself especially to the reading of the Law and the Prophets and the other books of our ancestors, and had acquired considerable proficiency in them, was himself also led to 11 The basic edition of the Greek text by J. Ziegler is to be corrected in the light of the recovered Hebrew text. Such a critical translation is not easy, but see the version of Skehan and Di Lella. In any case, the numbers of the versification by Ziegler are to be followed.

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write something pertaining to instruction and wisdom...” (prologue, NRSV). The book is steeped in the biblical tradition, despite whatever single instances of extra-biblical evidence may be alleged. The mention of the Law and the Prophets along with the “other books” is one of the first signs of the eventual tripartite division of the Hebrew Scriptures. Extravagant claims for Sirach’s knowledge of Greek authors have been advanced.12 There may be some evidence for a knowledge of Theognis and a late Egyptian work, known as Papyrus Insinger. But the real source of Sirach’s thought remains the Bible, especially the Book of Proverbs. However, it is striking to read Sirach after Qoheleth and Job. Apparently he did not find there what modern scholars find: books that are allegedly on the edge of Israelite belief. He has no doubts about divine retribution. He allows that there will be testing “when you come to serve the Lord,” but one should trust in God (Sir. 2:1-6; cf., 33:1). He is fascinated by the polarity that he sees in the world, and he seems to find here some kind of argument on which a theodicy might be built. However, it fails to answer the real problems. The polarity is stated more than once, and then exemplified: “Look at all the works of the Most High; they come in pairs, one the opposite of the other” (Sir. 33:15). “The works of God are all of them good” (39:16, 33; cf., 42:15-25). Included in this polarity are good as opposed to evil, life as opposed to death, and the godly as opposed to the sinner. For the good all the divine benefits are good, but for the wicked they turn out badly (39:25, 27). Such sayings can hardly be classified as theodicy; they are affirmations of faith. The optimism of Ben Sira is the optimism of traditional wisdom. Although Ben Sira does not introduce new ideas about death and the afterlife, his use of the traditional doctrine is creative in view of the topics he is dealing with. He echoes the well-known statement of various psalmists that there will be no praise of the Lord in sheol. This motif is not used, as in the Psalter (Pss. 6:6; 30:10, etc.), as a plea to be delivered from death (in the form of sickness or some distress). Ben Sira uses it as a motif for repentance: because there will be no opportunity to praise the Lord in sheol, one should turn now to the merciful Lord (17:25-32) for forgiveness. He even reflects something of the carpe diem of Qoheleth (Eccl. 9:7-10): “My child, treat yourself 12 Cf., T. Middendorp, Die Stellung Jesus ben Siras zwischen Judentum und Hellenismus (Leiden, l973). Middendorp’s views have been contested by many other scholars.

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well, according to your means, and present worthy offerings to the Lord. Remember that death does not tarry... Give, and take, and indulge yourself, because in Hades [= sheol] one cannot look for luxury” (14:11-16). In this context he calmly accepts the ancient law—that all must die (14:17). The same unruffled spirit appears in another context, that of mourning. Some might judge that his advice is even cold. “Do not give your heart to grief; drive it away, and remember your own end. Do not forget, there is no coming back; you do the dead no good and you injure yourself” (38:20-21). By modern taste, he may seem too practical and expedient in the above quoted verses, but in the context he is reasonable. There is an ironic twist given to the consideration of the death of a wise father who concentrates on the training of his son. When he dies, he will not seem to be dead because he has left after himself one who so closely resembles him (30:4). Such an experience gives joy in life, and even in death one is without regret (30:5). This softening of the pang of death is unusual; one’s progeny is a kind of Doppelgänger. This motif is related to the “good name” that the virtuous will leave after death (41:11-13) Already in Proverbs (10:7; cf., 22:1) it was stated that the memory (zeker) of the just serves as a blessing, but the name (šem) of the evil rots. In the passage from Sirach, the “name” is repeated three times. “A virtuous name will never be annihilated” (41:11). This emphasis on an “immortality” of name or reputation is not unprecedented, but the emphasis placed upon it by Ben Sira is striking. It has been claimed that it is a sign of Greek influence, perhaps from Egypt, but the evidence is far from clear.13 It is not an adequate solution for the problem of existence in an afterlife. But neither was it to be neglected within the limited perspective of Sirach. One of the most moving passages on death is found in Sir. 41:1-4, which serves as a kind of pendant to a description of the miseries of life in 40:1-17. There is no direct bearing here on the afterlife, but the reality of sheol must be kept in mind in assessing the descriptions of death/life. Ben Sira begins by affirming that it is God who is responsible for the allotment of grief and anxiety that constitute the human condition. Everyone, from king to pauper, is subject to the troubles that life brings. This is true of “all flesh, human and beast, and for sinners seven times more” (40:8); it is necessary to keep the 13 Cf., L. Schrader, Leiden und Gerechtigkeit: Studien zu Theologie und Textgeschichte des Sirachbuches (Frankfurt am Main, 1994).

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distinction between the just and the wicked! In this context he repeats the familiar distinction between the return of the life breath “above” to God and the return of dust to dust (40:11; cf., Eccl. 12:7; Job 34:14-15). With the injustice of the godless he now contrasts the power of virtue: ½esed and ×edaqa will last forever. The temporal aspect is not to be exaggerated; the perspective is still in this world. At the same time, one may recall that according to Prov. 10:2 it is ×edaqa that delivers from death. There is a continuity here that will eventually culminate in Wis. 1:15 (see below). Another passage betrays Ben Sira’s acute perception of various reactions to death, depending on the quality of life that one has enjoyed: it is bitter for the prosperous, welcome to the weak (41:1-2). The same contrast is found in Job 21:23-26, but in Sir. 41:2-3 it is followed by a kind of meditation on death as a “decree” (½oq, twice), presumably from God. The adequacy of the traditional compensation of a long life is passed over (apparently without regret). In sheol, there will be no “arguments” (elegmos; tw½qwt) about life. This very realistic appraisal reverts to the basic fact: the will of God. Ben Sira goes on to describe the unhappy lot of the wicked in this life (41:5-9) and to promise an “eternal” name (41:13) to the virtuous. In this he is traditional, although the emphasis on the good name is more pronounced than elsewhere. A recurring phrase in the Bible is the “evil day” (yom ra‘a). This can stand for other things besides death. It is used in Prov. 16:4 to designate some kind of divine judgment, and this may include disasters short of death. However, the evil day par excellence is the day of death. The wicked may escape due punishment, but eventually that day catches up with them. In a sense it is the day of truth. Thus Sirach characterizes it: “It is easy for the Lord on the day of death to reward people according to their conduct.… Call no one happy before death, because by how he ends, a person is known” (Sir. 11:26-28; Qoheleth would agree with this; cf., Eccl. 7:1). Such a dire portrayal is balanced by emphasis on the mercy and forgiveness that the Lord extends to those who turn to him: “He sees and understands that their end (katastrophð, overturning) is evil (ponðra), so he forgives them all the more” (18:12). It is worthy of note that human death can even be considered as a motive for divine mercy. This notion emerges from the theme of human evanescence and frailty that appears so frequently in the Bible (e.g., Ps. 90) and is also part of Ben Sira’s thought (e.g., Sir. 14:17-19). On the whole, it is somewhat surprising

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to read that the fear of the Lord offsets this evil day: “Those who fear the Lord will have a happy end; on the day of their death they will be blessed” (Sir. 1:13). This is not a reference to a blessed afterlife; it is a recognition of what fear of the Lord has brought to such a person during this life and to which he can look back: glory, gladness, joy, length of days (1:11-13). Such statements are to be interpreted from the perspective of Sirach, but what about later readers of the Bible? Were there expressions in Sirach that induced them to break through the limitations of traditional wisdom that Sirach inherited? It would not be appropriate to leave this book without indicating something of its Nachleben in the various translations that mark a continuing interpretation of the work. A new and different understanding of the afterlife emerges, as several studies have shown. We wish merely to indicate some instances of such expansions from the Greek and Old Latin tradition. One must keep in mind the complicated history of the early recensions of Sirach, both in Hebrew (H I and II) and in Greek (G I and II). As far as the eschatological references are concerned, these appear especially in G II, to which our remarks will be confined. In Sir. 7:17, there is an addition of “fire” to the “worms” that await human beings in the afterlife. Worms cause no surprise; they formed part of the imaginative personification of death/sheol that begins in the grave. But fire is probably an addition that comes from a mentality that distinguished between reward and punishment in the next life. Again, in 16:22, there is a Greek addition (placed in the margin of the NRSV) that modifies the impact of v. 22 by pointing to a scrutiny that awaits all. We can adopt here the summary of the eschatology of Greek II and the Old Latin presented by C. Kearns: “after death there is to be for each individual a day of judgement on which God will ‘visit’ him and make enquiry into all his actions. For the wicked it will be a day of wrath and vengeance.... For the just it will mean entrance into the Future World, the Holy World, the ‘lot’ of truth. There they will enjoy eternal life....”14

14 Kearns has summarized his views in his comment on Sirach in A New Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture (London, 1969), pp. 541-562; the quotation is from p. 549. See also F.V. Reiterer, “Deutung und Wertung des Todes durch Ben Sira,” in J. Zmijewski, ed., Die alttestamentliche Botschaft also Wegweisung (H. Reinelt Festschrift; Stuttgart, 1990), pp. 203-236.

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The Wisdom of Solomon. This is an intensely Jewish book, but at the same time a very Greek work. The author was an erudite Jew of the diaspora, probably living in Alexandria, the center of a large Jewish population. It is difficult to fix the date, but sometime around the beginning of the first century B.C.E./C.E. seems likely. His work is concerned with three main topics: the gift of immortality, a description of Woman Wisdom, and a kind of midrash on the Egyptian plagues recorded in Exodus. His view of the afterlife of the just is ultimately very clear and firm. Their righteousness is “undying” (athanatos, Wis. l:15), and they are accounted among the sons of God, the members of the heavenly court (5:5). The afterlife of the wicked is not a topic that the author is really interested in. It is one of punishment, but this description is filled with the cliches familiar to the wisdom literature (4:18-19). The reasoning of the author is not as simple as these flat statements suggest. M. Kolarcik15 has pointed out the ambiguity of death in chaps. 1-6. Physical death, or simple mortality, is ambiguous. In itself, it is a simple limitation of human existence. But it is also “a condition from which the just realize their union with God through a virtuous life; for the wicked it is a condition which signifies ultimate meaninglessness.” For the wicked employ the carpe diem motif to deny ultimate death, and hence they hate and want to kill the righteous who is a contradiction to all they stand for. Then there is ultimate death—the death not made or willed by God (Wis. 1:13) but which the devil introduced into the cosmos for his followers to experience (2:24). The striking scene of the judgment separates the wicked from the righteous. The former cry out in grief as they recognize that the just one whom they persecuted is now counted among the sons of God, members of the divine family (5:5). It is clear that there is a break-through on the issue of human immortality. Is this an immortality that is inherent to humans, due to the “immortality” of the soul? Many claim that this is so, and that the author is indebted to Greek thought.16 That could very well be. But it M. Kolarcik, The Ambiguity of Death in the Book of Wisdom 1-6 (Rome, 1981). D. Winston in Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. VI, p. 123b, insists on the primacy of the Greek understanding of soul and its immortality in the Book of Wisdom. Contrast C. Larcher, Etudes sur le livre de Sagesse (Paris, 1969), pp. 237-327, whose treatment of the question is detailed and nuanced. He grants that the author knew the Greek views about the survival of the soul, but he does not repeat them as such. “For him the soul is taken back, gathered by God, and immortality is both a sanction of righteousness and a favor given to the ‘chosen’” (p. 314). Larcher grants that the 15 16

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is not at all evident that he reaches his conclusion by way of the Greek understanding of the human composite. He writes: righteousness (not: the soul) is undying (1:15). It is obvious that he is aware of Greek philosophy and the distinction between the body and the soul (Wis. 3:1; 9:15). But his understanding of the Greek psychð is not clear, even when he says that the “souls of the just are in the hand of God” (3:1). Does the term “soul” in 3:1 translate more than the Hebrew nepeš? He does not reason from the nature of the soul to a blessed immortality; he states that righteousness (a relationship with God) is undying, i.e., as long as that relationship perdures. The very existence of the wicked implies that the relationship can be rejected by human beings. Bibliography Amir, Y., “The Figure of Death in the ‘Book of Wisdom,’” in Journal of Jewish Studies 30, 1979, pp. 154-178. Collins, J.J., “The Root of Immortality: Death in the Context of Jewish Wisdom,” in Harvard Theological Review 71, l978, pp. 177-192. Cottini, V., La vita futura nel libro dei Proverbi (Jerusalem, 1984). Grelot, P., De la mort à la vie eternelle (Paris, 1971). Hamp, V., “Zukunft und Jenseits im Buche Sirach,” in Alttestamentliche Studien (F. Nötscher Festschrift; Bonn, 1950), pp. 86-97. Kaiser, O., and E. Lohse, Death and Life (Nashville,1981). Kolarcik, M., The Ambiguity of Death in the Book of Wisdom 1-6 (Anchor Bible 127; Rome, 1991). Larcher, C., “L’immortalité de l’âme et les rétributions transcendantes,” in Larcher, C., ed., Etudes sur le livre de la Sagesse (Paris, l969), pp. 237-327. Nickelsburg, G.W., Resurrection, Immortality, and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism (Cambridge, l972). Reiterer, F. V., “Deutung und Wertung des Todes durch Ben Sira,” in Zmijewski, J., ed., Die alttestamentliche Botschaft als Wegweisung (H. Reinelt Festschrift; Stuttgart:, 1990), pp. 203-236. Taylor, R.J., “The Eschatological Meaning of Life and Death in the Book of Wisdom I-V,” in Ephemerides theologicae lovanienses 42, 1966, pp. 72-137. Tromp, N.J., Primitive Conceptions of Death and the Nether World in the Old Testament (Rome, l969).

special nature of the soul (to survive the body) is presupposed. But “the author explicitly attaches his doctrine of immortality to previous biblical data. He speaks of a qualified immortality that is the privilege of just souls” (p. 299).

II. JUDAIC WRITINGS IN GREEK

5. THE AFTERLIFE IN APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE John J. Collins The University of Chicago The apocalyptic literature was a new phenomenon in Judaism in the Hellenistic period.1 Some of its distinctive characteristics can be found already in the late prophetic literature of the Second Temple period, which is sometimes called “proto-apocalyptic” literature.2 But the apocalypses of the third and second centuries B.C.E., written in the names of Enoch and Daniel, have a significantly different worldview from the Book of Zechariah or the incorrectly labeled “Apocalypse of Isaiah” (Is. 24-27). The difference appears precisely in the understanding of life after death. Hope for a differentiated afterlife, where the good are rewarded and the wicked are punished, first appears in Jewish tradition in the apocalypses of Enoch and Daniel, and it is in this area that the apocalyptic literature makes its most significant contribution to Jewish tradition.3 Resurrection in late prophetic texts The language of resurrection can be found already in prophetic texts of the exilic and early post-exilic periods. The most famous example is found in Ezekiel’s vision of a valley full of dry bones (Ezek. 37). The interpretation of the vision is quite explicit, however: “these bones are the whole house of Israel” (37:11). The resurrection, then, is 1 J.J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination (2nd ed.; Grand Rapids, 1998); “The Place of Apocalypticism in the Religion of Israel,” in idem, Seers, Sibyls and Sages (Leiden, 1997), pp. 39-58. 2 P.D. Hanson, The Dawn of Apocalyptic (Philadelphia, 1975). 3 J.J. Collins, “Apocalyptic Eschatology as the Transcendence of Death,” in Seers, Sibyls and Sages, pp. 75-98. For surveys of apocalyptic texts dealing with resurrection or eternal life, see G.W. Nickelsburg, Resurrection, Immortality and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism (Cambridge, 1972); G. Stemberger, Der Leib der Auferstehung: Studien zur Anthropologie und Eschatologie des palästinischen Judentums im neutestamentlichen Zeitalter (Rome, 1972); H.C. Cavallin, Life after Death: Paul’s Argument for the Resurrection of the Dead in 1 Cor 15 (Lund, 1974); E. Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens en la Vie Future: Immortalité, Résurrection, Vie Éternelle? (Paris, 1993), pp. 99-154.

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metaphorical, although the passage would be interpreted literally in the Dead Sea Scrolls (4Q385) and later tradition. What is at issue is the restoration of the people of Israel. This is most probably also the case in the so-called “Apocalypse of Isaiah.” Is. 26:19 declares: “your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise. O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a radiant dew and the earth will give birth to those long dead.” Some scholars think that this passage reflects a belief in actual resurrection.4 Those who will rise, however, are contrasted with another group, of whom it is said: “The dead do not live; shades do not rise—because you have punished and destroyed them and wiped out all memory of them. But you have increased the nation, O Lord...you have enlarged all the borders of the land” (26:15). In view of the contrast between the dead who do not rise and the nation that is enlarged, it is likely that the resurrection is the resurrection of the people, as in Ezekiel.5 Is. 25:6 promises that God “will swallow up Death forever,” an allusion to an old Canaanite myth that said that Death (Mot) swallowed the God Baal. That passage would seem to imply that at some future time there will be no more death, but not necessarily that those who have died will rise again. The fact that the language of resurrection is introduced in these texts may be due to the acquaintance of Jews with Persian thought, where resurrection had an integral place in future expectation. 6 But belief in actual resurrection of individuals was not accepted widely if at all in Judaism in the Persian period. One of the passages that is most frequently dubbed “proto-apocalyptic is Is. 65:17-25, which begins: “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth.” In this new creation, one who dies at a hundred will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. Life will be longer and better, but it will still be mortal. This remained the standard Jewish eschatological expectation down to the Hellenistic period.

Nickelsburg, Resurrection, p. 18; Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, pp. 66-73; G.F. Hasel, “Resurrection in the Theology of Old Testament Apocalyptic,” in ZAW 92, 1980, pp. 267-284. 5 J. Day, “Resurrection Imagery from Baal to the Book of Daniel,” in J.A. Emerton, ed., Congress Volume 1995 (Leiden, 1997), pp. 125-134. 6 B. Lang, “Street Theater, Raising the Dead, and the Zoroastrian Connection in Ezekiel’s Preaching,” in J. Lust, ed., Ezekiel and His Book (Leuven, 1986), pp. 297-316. 4

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The Book of the Watchers This expectation is changed radically in the Enochic literature. The Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1-36) is a composite text, which took shape in the third or early second centuries B.C.E. These chapters show no awareness of the Maccabean revolt and were probably written prior to it. Enoch ascends to heaven to present the petition of the Watchers, or fallen angels. The petition is rejected, because angels should intercede for men, not men for angels (15:2). The Watchers had abandoned a spiritual, eternal life to have intercourse with human women and produce children of flesh and blood, “as those do who die and are destroyed” (15:4). One of the essential contrasts throughout the Enoch literature is between the spiritual, eternal life, on the one hand, and the fleshly, mortal life on the other. The fall of the angels is a fall into mortality, while conversely the ascent of Enoch is an ascent to eternal life. After Enoch is given the reply to the Watchers, he is taken on a guided tour to the ends of the earth, in which he sees the mysteries of the cosmos. In the course of this tour he sees “in the west a large and high mountain, and a hard rock and four beautiful7 places” (1 Enoch 22:1). The angel Raphael explains that these places were created that “the spirits, the souls of the dead might be gathered into them.” There they would be kept until the day of judgment. The different compartments are meant to separate the souls of the dead: “And thus the souls of the righteous have been separated; this is the spring of water, and on it is the light. Likewise a place has been created for sinners when they die and are buried in the earth and judgment has not come upon them during their life...and thus a place has been separated for the souls of those who complain and give information about their destruction, when they were killed in the days of the sinners. Thus a place has been created for the souls of men who are not righteous but sinners, accomplished in wrongdoing, and with the wrongdoers will be their lot. But their souls will not be killed on the day of judgement, nor will they rise from here” (22: 9-14). There is no close parallel to this passage in other Jewish apocalyptic writings, not even in the other Enochic books.8 Various traditions The Ethiopic here appears to be a misreading of the Greek word for “hollow.” The closest parallel is found in the fragmentary Apocalypse of Zephaniah. See further below. 7 8

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about the afterlife are reflected in it.9 The location of the chambers of the dead inside a mountain recalls the Epic of Gilgamesh, where Gilgamesh has to enter the base of a mountain to reach the Netherworld. The motif of water and light is associated with the afterlife of the blessed in Orphic tradition. The main significance of the passage is that it shows distinctions between the fate of the righteous and of sinners, in a manner not attested in earlier Jewish tradition.10 These chambers, however, are only the waiting places. Enoch goes on to see a mountain “whose summit is like the throne of the Lord” (25:3). This, he is told, is the throne where the Lord will sit when he comes down to visit the earth for good. It is surrounded by fragrant trees, one of which is the tree of life that will be given to the righteous. “It will be planted in a holy place, by the house of the Lord, the Eternal King. Then they will rejoice with joy and be glad in the holy place; they will each draw the fragrance of it into their bones, and they will live a long life on earth as your fathers lived” (25: 5-6). It is not clear that they will enjoy strictly eternal life; the language suggests extremely long lives like the first patriarchs. Elsewhere in the Book of the Watchers we are told that the Watchers hoped “for eternal life, and that each of them would live five hundred years” (10:10). The location of the tree of life is separate from that of the tree of wisdom from which Adam ate, which is in the Garden of Righteousness, far away to the east (chap. 33). Enoch further sees “an accursed valley” (Gehenna?) which is for “those who are cursed for ever; here will be gathered together all who speak with their mouths against the Lord words that are not fitting and say hard things about his glory” (27:2). The Watchers, in chapter 10, are imprisoned under the hills of the earth for seventy generations and then condemned to the abyss of fire for all eternity (10:13). In chapter 21, Enoch sees the fiery prison of the angels, where they are held forever (cf., 18:14-16). We have here the beginnings of the idea of Hell, even though the valley of the accursed is not explicitly said to be fiery.11 There is a precedent for the prison of the host of heaven in M.T. Wacker, Weltordnung und Gericht. Studien zu 1 Henoch 22 (Würzburg, 1982). T.F. Glasson, Greek Influence in Jewish Eschatology (London, 1961), pp. 8-19, argues for Greek influence in this respect. On the detail of the distinctions see Nickelsburg, Resurrection, pp. 134-137. 11 For a general treatment, see A.E. Bernstein, The Formation of Hell. Death and Retribution in the Ancient and Early Christian Worlds (Ithaca, 1993). 9

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Is. 24:22 (“they will be shut up in a prison, and after many days they will be punished”), but the prison there is not fiery. The idea of Hell as a place of fiery punishment, which became standard in Christianity, seems to have been first developed in Judaism. The idea of a place of punishment in the Netherworld is found in Plato (Republic 10.614-21; Gorgias 523) and is thought to derive from Orphic teachings. In Persian eschatology, the wicked were destroyed by a stream of molten metal (Bundahishn 34). The idea of eternal punishment by fire, however, first appears here in 1 Enoch. There was a precedent in Is. 66:24, where we are told that dead bodies of people who rebel against God will be on permanent display: “their worm shall not die and their flame shall not be quenched.” It is not suggested, however, that they are alive to experience everlasting torment. Other Enochic apocalypses The Book of the Watchers has the most elaborate mythical geography of the early Enoch apocalypses. Some of the other booklets that make up 1 Enoch also have important ideas about life after death. The “Animal Apocalypse” in 1 Enoch 85-90 presents an allegorical account of the history of Israel, in which the Israelites are represented as sheep and the nations as predatory animals.12 Adam and the prediluvian patriarchs are bulls. The fallen angels of Gen. 6 are stars that fall from heaven. Noah is born a bull but becomes a man. Moses is a sheep at first but becomes a man. Otherwise, men in this apocalypse symbolize angels. The seventy shepherds that rule over the sheep in the post-exilic period are most plausibly interpreted as the patron angels of the nations. The “man” who records all their deeds (90:14) is a recording angel. The history culminates in a judgment, when “the Lord of the sheep” is enthroned in “the pleasant land” (Israel), and the sealed books are opened. The fallen angels and the seventy shepherds are condemned, and thrown into “a deep place full of fire, burning and full of pillars of fire” (90:25). The “blind sheep” (Jewish apostates) are likewise thrown into an abyss of fire. All that had been destroyed and scattered are reassembled (90:33: probably a reference to the resurrection of the dead). Finally the sheep are all transformed into white bulls, the pristine Adamic form of exist12

P.A. Tiller, A Commentary on the Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch (Atlanta, 1993).

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ence. The emphasis here seems to be on the transformation of the elect rather than restoration to a previous form of existence. The Epistle of Enoch (1 Enoch 91-105) also predicts resurrection at the end of history. The Lord will execute judgment and the idols of the nations will be destroyed in a judgment of fire. Then “the righteous will rise from sleep, and wisdom will rise and will be given to them” (1 Enoch 90:9-10). Elsewhere, however, the Epistle asserts the future vindication of the righteous in terms that do not suggest bodily resurrection but the transformation of the spirit after death: 13 Do not be afraid, you souls of the righteous, and be hopeful, you who have died in righteousness. And do not be sad that your souls have gone down into Sheol in sadness, and that your bodies did not obtain during your life a reward (102: 4-5)...much good will be given to you in recompense for your toil, and your lot will be more excellent than that of the living. And the spirits of you who have died in righteousness will live, and their spirits will rejoice and be glad, and the memory of them will remain” (103:3-4)

Sinners will be committed to “darkness and chains and burning flames” (103:8), but the righteous “will shine like the lights of heaven and will be seen, and the gate of heaven will be opened to you...for you will have great joy like the angels of heaven...for you shall be associates of the host of heaven” (104: 2-6). The reward of the righteous is to share the eternal, spiritual life of the angels in heaven. This is not the Greek idea of immortality of the soul, but neither is it the resurrection of the body. Rather it is the resurrection, or exaltation, of the spirit from Sheol to heaven. The bodies of the righteous will presumably continue to rest in the earth. A similar understanding of the resurrection is found explicitly in the Book of Jubilees, another writing from the second century B.C.E. that may be some decades later than the Epistle of Enoch. There we are told that at a future time when people return to the path of righteousness their lives will grow longer until the number of their years becomes greater than once was the number of their days. After that “their bones shall rest in the earth, and their spirits shall have much joy” (Jub. 23:26-31). The theme of angelic transformation is continued in the latest section of 1 Enoch, the Similitudes (1 Enoch 37-71), which probably dates from the first century C.E. The focus of this text is on the day 13

Nickelsburg, Resurrection, pp. 112-129.

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of judgment, when the appearances of the present will be reversed.14 Sinners will be confounded by the apparition of the heavenly Righteous One, who is identified as “that Son of Man” by allusion to the vision of “one like a son of man” in Dan. 7. The sinners have denied the existence of this heavenly vindicator and also of the resting places of the righteous after death. Enoch claims to have seen these resting places in a vision: “there my eyes saw their dwelling with the angels and their resting-places with the holy ones.... And I saw their dwelling under the wings of the Lord of Spirits, and all the righteous and chosen shone before him like the light of fire, and their mouth was full of blessing” (1 Enoch 39:5-7). When “that Son of Man” appears, “he will cast down the faces of the strong, and shame will fill them, and darkness will be their dwelling, and worms will be their restingplace; and they will have no hope of rising from their resting-places” (45:5). Another section of the Similitudes looks forward to a general resurrection: “And in those days the earth will return that which has been entrusted to it, and Sheol will return that which has been entrusted to it, that which it has received” (51:1). In his visions, Enoch sees “the angel of punishment going and preparing all the instruments of Satan” (53:3) and a deep valley of burning fire that is prepared for the hosts of Azazel (chapter 54). The sinners also expect a fiery punishment. When they are confronted by the Son of Man, they confess: “Our souls are sated with possessions gained through iniquity, but they do not prevent our going down into the flames of the torment of Sheol” (53:10). Here it appears that Sheol has become identified as a place of punishment. The sinners cannot hope to rise from there. The righteous, in contrast, may expect eternal life in the company of the Son of Man: “with you will be their dwelling, and with you their lot, and they will not be separated from you, for ever and ever and ever” (71:16). The resurrection in Daniel The exaltation of the righteous after death to join the host of heaven is also fundamental to the understanding of the resurrection in the 14

See Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination, pp. 177-193.

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Book of Daniel.15 The prediction of resurrection in Dan. 12:1-3 comes at the end of a long revelation to Daniel by the angel Gabriel, which outlines the course of Hellenistic history in the form of a prophecy after the fact. This history reaches its climax in the career of Antiochus Epiphanes and his persecution of the Jews. Daniel incorrectly predicts that the king will meet his death in the land of Israel, but the real climax of history comes after that (Dan 12:1-3): At that time Michael will arise, the great prince who stands over your people. There will be a time of distress such as had not been from the beginning of the nation to that time. At that time your people will be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book. Many of those who sleep in the dusty earth will awake, some to everlasting life and some to reproach and everlasting disgrace. The wise will shine like the splendor of the firmament, and those who lead the common people to righteousness like the stars forever and ever.

This is the only passage in the Hebrew Bible that clearly predicts the resurrection of individuals. It does not predict universal resurrection: many of those who sleep will arise, but not all. Those who are raised are the very good, for their reward, and the very bad, for punishment. The phrase “dusty earth” (‘admat ‘apar) may refer either to the grave or Sheol or both. It does not necessarily imply that the resurrection must be physical; it may be a resurrection of the spirit from Sheol. The fate of the sinners is expressed briefly by means of an allusion to Is. 66:24. Daniel does not refer to the fiery abyss that is the standard place of punishment in the Enoch literature. The description of the eternal life of the righteous is equally terse. We are told only that the wise (maskilim) will shine like the stars. The maskilim were the heroes who stood fast in the time of persecution (11:33-35) and instructed the people, even though some of them lost their lives. The elevation to the stars has overtones of astral immortality, the belief that the dead become stars, which was widespread in the Greco-Roman world.16 In the context of Jewish apocalyptic literature, however, the stars are the host of heaven, or the angelic host. The destiny of the wise in Daniel, then, is exactly the same as that of the righteous in the Epistle of Enoch: to become companions of the host of heaven. The angelic host looms large in the visions of Daniel, J.J. Collins, Daniel (Minneapolis, 1993), pp. 390-398. F. Cumont, Lux Perpetua (Paris, 1949), pp. 142-288; M.P. Nilsson, Geschichte der griechischen Religion (3rd ed.; Munich, 1967), vol. 2, pp. 470-471. 15 16

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which often involve angelic activity and always require an angelic interpreter. The resurrection is ushered in by the victory of the archangel Michael in his battle against the patron angels of Persia and Greece (Dan. 10). In chapter 7, Israel is called “the people of the holy ones,” or the people who are the earthly counterpart to the heavenly host. Sources of the belief The books of Enoch and Daniel may be regarded as the formative documents of Jewish apocalyptic tradition. The belief in a blessed afterlife for the righteous and eternal punishment for the damned is an integral part of that tradition and is one of the factors that distinguishes apocalypticism from earlier Jewish tradition. In the case of Daniel, the hope for resurrection resolves a problem arising from religious persecution. In traditional Israelite belief, the righteous were rewarded in this life, by prosperity and longevity. During the persecution of the Maccabean era, however, it was precisely the righteous who lost their lives. Faith in the justice of God could be maintained if the righteous could hope for a reward after death. It would be too simple, however, to view the apocalyptic hope for the afterlife entirely as a response to the problem of persecution. The Book of the Watchers is certainly older than the Maccabean era. The Epistle of Enoch may be older too. Neither of these books is set in a time of persecution, but both depict a world out of joint. The Book of the Watchers describes a world turned upside down by the Watchers, who taught humanity charms and spells and also the making of weapons and the arts of ornamentation: “and the world was changed. And there was great impiety and much fornication, and they went astray, and all their ways became corrupt.” (1 Enoch 8:2). The account of the Watchers can be read plausibly as an allegory for the Hellenistic age, and the impact of western culture on a traditional Near Eastern society.17 If this is correct, the apocalypse was written as a response to cultural trauma and offered an alternative reality in its visions of hidden places and life beyond death. The Epistle of Enoch and the later Similitudes place the emphasis rather on social tensions: 17 G.W. Nickelsburg, “Apocalyptic and Myth in 1 Enoch 1-11,” in Journal of Biblical Literature 96, 1977, pp. 383-405.

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“Woe to those who build their houses with sin, for from their whole foundation they will be thrown down, and by the sword they will fall, and those who acquire gold and silver will quickly be destroyed in the judgment. Woe to you, you rich, for you have trusted in your riches but from your riches you will depart, for you did not remember the Most High in the days of your riches” (1 Enoch 104:7-8). In the Similitudes, the wicked who are discomfited on judgment day are “the kings and the mighty.” Here again the hope for life beyond death can be correlated with dissatisfaction with life in the present. Other nations in the ancient Mediterranean world had well developed notions of life after death. These notions were perhaps best developed in Egypt, where portrayals of the judgment of the dead date back to the dawn of history.18 Greek ideas of reward and punishment after death are associated with Orphic religion and are documented in the dialogues of Plato and now in the gold tablets from burial sites in Italy.19 Neither the Egyptians nor the Greeks conceived of an end of history that might be the occasion of a general resurrection. Such an idea was, however, an integral part of Persian eschatology and can be documented already in Hellenistic times.20 There is surely some influence from these sources on the early Jewish apocalypses. (The overtones of astral immortality in Dan. 12 provide a case in point). But the ideas of immortality that we find in these texts can not be categorized as simple borrowings. They adapt motifs from the surrounding cultures, but they re-configure them in a distinctive way. Immortality in these apocalypses is primarily life with the heavenly host, the holy ones known from Near Eastern mythology since the second millennium B.C.E. The notion of a fiery hell is more novel, but here again the novelty is achieved by bricolage. The Orphics did not conceive of fire as the main means of punishment in the afterlife. Persian eschatology knew the idea of a fiery destruction of the world, and the Stoics had their own conception of a final 18 J.G. Griffiths, The Divine Verdict. A Study of Divine Judgement in the Ancient Religions (Leiden, 1991), pp. 160-242. 19 E. Rohde, Psyche, The Cult of Souls and Belief in Immortality among the Greeks (New York, 1925); F. Graf, “Dionysian and Orphic Eschatology. New Texts and Old Questions,” in T.H. Carpenter and C.A. Faraone, eds., Masks of Dionysus (Ithaca, 1993), pp. 239-258. 20 On Persian eschatology, see A. Hultgård, “Persian Apocalypticism,” in J.J. Collins, B. McGinn and S. Stein, eds., The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism (New York, 1998), vol. 1, pp. 39-83. The Persian belief in resurrection is corroborated by Theopompus in the third century B.C.E. (Diogenes Laertius, Proem 6-9).

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conflagration or ekpyrosis. The notion of a fiery Hell, however, appears to be a Jewish invention, which was later elaborated by Christianity. It is often claimed that Jews believed in resurrection of the body, while Greeks believed in immortality of the soul.21 Such a claim fails to do justice to the books of Enoch and Daniel. What we find in these apocalypses is the resurrection of the spirit. It is not the Greek idea of the soul, but neither is it a physical body. In the terminology of St. Paul, it might be described as a spiritual body (cf., 1 Cor. 15:44). Ideas of physical resurrection also gained currency in Judaism in the second century B.C.E., as can be seen from the account of the martyrdoms in 2 Mac. 7. But restoration of the body was only one of a number of ways in which the resurrection could be imagined. It was never the sole, nor even the dominant, concept of afterlife in ancient Judaism. The spread of beliefs in afterlife The ideas of afterlife that we find in the early apocalypses were adapted in other bodies of literature that are reviewed elsewhere in this volume. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, the fellowship with the angels, which was reserved for life after death in Enoch and Daniel, is conceived as a present possibility. 22 In Alexandrian Judaism, the resurrection of the spirit is reconceived as the immortality of the soul.23 Ideas of resurrection spread to different segments of Jewish society around the turn of the era. The Pharisees accepted them; the Sadducees did not.24 Belief in a judgment of the dead ceased to be a distinctive characteristic of apocalyptic movements. We do, however, have two clusters of apocalyptic texts from the late first or early second centuries C.E. that show significant developments in Jewish conceptions of afterlife.

21 E.g., O. Cullmann, “Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead,” in K. Stendahl, ed., Immortality and Resurrection (New York, 1971), pp. 9-35. See the comments of Nickelsburg, Resurrection, pp. 177-180. 22 J.J. Collins, Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls (London, 1997), pp. 110-129. 23 J.J. Collins, Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenistic Age (Louisville, 1997), pp. 185-187. 24 Puech, La Croyance, pp. 201-242.

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The first cluster is found in the apocalypses of 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch, written after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E., towards the end of the first century. In 4 Ezra, an angel assures Ezra that the time will come when the messiah will be revealed and will rule for four hundred years. After the messianic age, the world will be turned back to primeval silence for seven days. Then it will be roused again, and “that which is corruptible shall perish. And the earth shall give up those who are asleep in it, and the dust those who dwell silently in it; and the chambers shall give up the souls which have been committed to them” (4 Ezra 7:30-33). Then follow judgment and recompense. “Then the pit of torment shall appear, and opposite it shall be the place of rest; and the furnace of hell shall be disclosed, and opposite it the paradise of delight” (7:36). Ezra asks about the interval, “whether after death, as soon as everyone of us yields up his soul, we shall be kept in rest until those times come when thou wilt renew the creation, or whether we shall be tormented at once” (7:75). He is told that the souls of the unrighteous do not immediately enter into habitations but wander grieving in torments, because they realize the error of their ways. The righteous immediately see the glory of God and rejoice. Their face is to shine like the sun, and they are to be made like the light of the stars. There will no longer be any intercession on the day of judgment, but everyone will be judged on his or her own merits. Ezra objects that “there are more who perish than those who will be saved as a wave is greater than a drop of water” (9:15-16). But Ezra’s angelic dialogue partner offers little consolation on this issue: “The Most High made this world for the sake of many, but the world to come for the sake of few. But I will tell you a parable, Ezra. Just as, when you ask the earth, it will tell you that it provides very much clay from which earthenware is made, but only a little dust from which gold comes; so is the course of the present world. Many have been created, but few shall be saved” (8:1-3). The roughly contemporary apocalypse of 2 Baruch also predicts a messianic age, when the earth shall yield its fruit ten thousand-fold (29:3). Then, when this age has run its course, the messiah will return in glory (to heaven), and then all who have died and set their hopes on him will rise again. Then the treasuries where the souls are preserved will be opened, the righteous will rejoice, and the wicked will be discomfited (2 Bar. 30). Later, Baruch asks the Lord, “in what

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form will those live who live in thy day, and what will they look like afterwards?” (2 Bar. 49:2). He is told: “the earth will certainly then restore the dead it now receives so as to preserve them: it will make no change in their form, but as it has received them, so it will restore them, and as I delivered them to it, so also will it raise them. For those who are still alive must be shown that the dead have come to life again, and that those who had departed have returned” (2 Bar. 50:2-3). After the judgment, however, appearances will be changed. “The appearance of the evil-doers will go from bad to worse, as they suffer torment” (51:2), but the righteous “will assume a luminous beauty so that they may be able to attain and enter the world which does not die, which has been promised to them” (51:3). “Time will no longer age them, for in the heights of the world shall they dwell, and they shall be made like the angels and be made equal to the stars” (51:10). The extent of paradise will be spread before them, and in fact they will exceed even the splendor of the angels (51:12) These apocalypses stand in the tradition of Daniel, insofar as there is a general resurrection at the end of history, and the righteous are eventually transformed to shine like the stars. Unlike the Enoch tradition, they pay little attention to the torment of the damned and the fires of Hell. But they have given thought to some of the problems involved in resurrection. At this point, what is envisioned is a bodily resurrection, to facilitate recognition of the dead. Ultimately, however, the emphasis is on transformation, as the body is then made luminous in an angelic state. Apocalyptic writings from the diaspora A different view of the afterlife can be found in the sub-genre of apocalypses that takes the form of ascent of the visionary through the heavens.25 This kind of apocalypse was pioneered in the Book of the Watchers, but there Enoch did not ascend through multiple heavens, but, rather, traveled outward to the ends of the earth. The first case of an ascent through multiple heavens is found in the Aramaic Levi 25 M. Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (New York, 1993); A. Yarbro Collins, “The Seven Heavens in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses,” in eadem, Cosmology and Eschatology in Jewish and Christian Apocalypticism (Leiden, 1996), pp. 21-54.

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document from Qumran (4Q213a).26 In the later, Greek, Testament of Levi, in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, this ascent is stylized. In one recension, Levi ascends through three heavens, in another through seven. Even the longer Greek recension, however, makes no mention of the abodes of the dead in any of the heavens. In contrast, we find considerable attention to the dead in the ascent apocalypses of 2 Enoch and 3 Baruch. 2 Enoch is preserved only in Slavonic and is notoriously difficult to date.27 Most scholars opt for a date no later than the first century C.E. because of the importance attached to animal sacrifice. It is located in Egypt, on the basis of allusions to Egyptian mythology and some affinities with Philo and other diaspora writings. 28 Nonetheless, the provenance of this apocalypse is far from certain. The situation is further complicated by the existence of two recensions, one of which is much longer than the other. Two kinds of material, cosmological and eschatological, are emphasized in the account of Enoch’s ascent. The descriptions of the first, fourth, and sixth heavens are concerned with the regulation of the heavenly bodies and the order of the universe. The second, third, and fifth heavens are the scenes of eschatological rewards and punishments. The second heaven contains the prison of the rebellious angels, who are tormented unceasingly. The third is the location of Paradise. The tree of life is there, and the Lord takes a rest under it whenever he walks in Paradise. Enoch is told by his angelic guide, Uriel, that this place has been prepared for the righteous. In the north of the third heaven, however, is “a very frightful place, and all kinds of torture and torment are in that place, cruel darkness and lightless gloom. And there is no light there, and a black fire blazes up perpetually, with a river of fire that comes out over the whole place...and very cruel places of detention and dark and merciless angels, carrying instruments of atrocities, torturing without pity” (2 Enoch 10:2-3). This place has been prepared for the punishment of sinners. In the sixth heaven, Enoch encounters the Grigori, or Watchers, who are distinguished from the rebel angels of the second 26 M.E. Stone and J.C. Greenfield, “Aramaic Levi Document,” in G. Brooke, et al., eds., Qumran Cave IV-XVII (DJD XXII; Oxford, 1996), pp. 30-31. 27 F. Andersen, “2 Enoch,” in J.H. Charlesworth, ed., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (New York, 1983), vol. 1, pp. 91-221. 28 C. Böttrich, Weltweisheit, Menscheitsethik, Urkult: Studien zum slavischen Henochbuch (Tübingen, 1992), p. 192.

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heaven. They are dejected, but not in torment, and at Enoch’s exhortation they perform a liturgy of praise to God. Two features of this heavenly eschatology are noteworthy. First, Paradise is not located in the highest heaven, in the presence of the Lord. We have noted that one recension of Aramaic Levi has only three heavens, and this was the most conventional number of heavens in traditional Babylonian cosmology.29 The Hebrew Bible often refers to the “heaven, and the heaven of heavens,” which could also be interpreted as three heavens. It would seem that the third heaven was at one time the highest, and this would account for the location there of Paradise. When Paul claims to “know a person in Christ who...was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows” and that he was also “caught up into Paradise” (2 Cor. 12:2-4), he is not referring to two different raptures; Paradise was located in the third heaven. More surprising than the location of Paradise is the location of Hell. Three of the seven heavens contain places of punishment, and the place of human sinners is located like Paradise in the third heaven. In earlier Jewish, and general Near Eastern tradition, the abode of the dead who were not beatified was always in the Netherworld. Hellenistic cosmology, however, had no place for a Netherworld, and so philosophical authors increasingly located Hades in the heavens.30 2 Enoch represents a Jewish adaptation of the new cosmology, in which all the dead ascend to the heavens, regardless of their destiny. One other feature of 2 Enoch is significant for the understanding of the afterlife. When Enoch reaches the seventh heaven, he is transformed at the command of God: “Michael extracted me from my clothes. He anointed me with the delightful oil, and the appearance of that oil is greater than the greatest light, its ointment is like sweet dew, and its fragrance like myrrh; and its shining is like the sun. And I gazed at all of myself, and I had become like one of the glorious ones, and there was no observable difference” (2 Enoch 22:9-10). It is not apparent in 2 Enoch that all the righteous are so transformed, 29 Yarbro Collins, “The Seven Heavens,” pp. 27-28. Seven heavens are also attested as early as the second millennium B.C.E. 30 M.P. Nilsson, Geschichte der griechischen Religion (3rd ed.; Munich, 1974), pp. 240241. The earliest authority for the new location was Heracleides Ponticus, a pupil of Plato.

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but the episode recalls the account of the resurrection in Dan. 12, where the wise are said to shine like the stars.31 Like 2 Enoch, 3 Baruch is generally believed to come from Egyptian Judaism, because of affinities with other Egyptian Jewish writings. The apocalypse begins with Baruch’s lamenting the fall of Jerusalem, a setting that suggests the book was written in the years after 70 C.E. Unlike 2 Enoch, 3 Baruch has undergone a clear Christian redaction, but the core of the book is recognized as Jewish. It is preserved in Greek and also in Slavonic.32 The extant text of 3 Baruch mentions only five heavens. Whether this number is original, or is an abbreviation of a seven-heaven schema, is disputed. It has been argued that the author was familiar with the seven-heaven cosmology, but that Baruch’s ascent is aborted to make the point that humans cannot attain full unmediated access to the divine.33 Unlike Enoch, Baruch is not transformed to angelic status. The first two heavens are occupied respectively by those who built the tower of Babel and those who gave counsel to build the tower. They now have hybrid animal forms (faces of oxen, horns of stags, etc.) but are not otherwise in torment. The third heaven contains complex cosmological mysteries. The abode of righteous souls is apparently in the fourth heaven,34 where they appear as a multitude of birds, singing the praises of the Lord. The gate to the fifth heaven is closed until Michael opens it to receive the prayers of humanity. He takes human merits up to God in a higher heaven and returns with rewards for the righteous and a stern insistence that those without merits have only themselves to blame. There is no vision of Hell, but in 4:16 the angel warns that sinners “will secure for themselves eternal fire.” This passage, however, may be part of the Christian redaction of the book. The transfer of Hell to the heavens was not universally followed. The Apocalypse of Zephaniah, which is preserved in a single Akhmimic manuscript from the fourth or fifth century C.E., seems to

See further Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven, pp. 47-71. D.C. Harlow, The Greek Apocalypse of Baruch (3 Baruch) in Hellenistic Judaism and Early Christianity (Leiden, 1996). 33 Ibid., pp. 34-76. 34 3 Bar. 10. The Greek text reads “third heaven,” but this is evidently a mistake or scribal alteration, since Baruch proceeds from there to the fifth heaven. 31 32

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be a Jewish Egyptian work of much earlier date.35 It describes a tour of the abodes of the dead by Zephaniah. First he is taken to the abode of the righteous, which is full of light: “for where the righteous and saints are there is no darkness, but they are always in the light” (1:5). He also sees the punishment of the wicked and a host of punishing angels. Then he follows his guide through metal gates into a beautiful city. But the gates begin to breathe out fire, and he sees a sea of fire coming against him. Then he encounters a great angel, whom he mistakes for the Lord Almighty. He is told: “I am the great angel Eremiel, whose place is in the world below, and I have been appointed over the abyss and hell, in which all souls have been imprisoned from the end of the flood, which was upon the earth, until to-day” (2:12).36 He informs Zephaniah that he is now in Hell and identifies the accuser, who has a catalogue of everyone’s sins. Because of his righteousness, however, Zephaniah is allowed to come up from Hell and to cross at the ferry place to the land of the living. In some respects, the picture of the Netherworld given here is quite primitive. It parallels the Book of the Watchers, insofar as the spirits of the dead are held in waiting for the judgment day, and the righteous are in a place of light.37 But the fiery picture of Hell is developed beyond what we find in 1 Enoch. The uncertainty about the provenance of this apocalypse unfortunately undercuts its value for tracing the development of beliefs about the afterlife. The apocalypses we have reviewed from the diaspora, originally written in Greek, show no interest in a general resurrection at the end of history but focus on the fate of the spirit or soul after death. There was a tradition of historical eschatology in the diaspora, which finds expression in the Sibylline Oracles. These typically review the rise and fall of kingdoms and culminate either with a glorious kingdom or with cosmic destruction. The main Sibylline books that can be ascribed to Egyptian Judaism, books 3 and 5, are remarkably void M. Himmelfarb, Tours of Hell. An Apocalyptic Form in Jewish and Christian Literature (Philadelphia, 1983), pp. 13-14. There are two fragments, of which only the shorter mentions Zephaniah. The identification of the longer fragment, which is cited here, seems probable but is not certain. See K.H. Kuhn, “The Apocalypse of Zephaniah and an Anonymous Apocalypse,” in H.F.D. Sparks, The Apocryphal Old Testament (Oxford, 1984), pp. 915-925. 36 An angel named Jeremiel converses with Ezra about the chambers of the dead in 4 Ezra 4:36. 37 Himmelfarb, Tours of Hell, pp. 151-153. 35

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of interest in resurrection or afterlife. The fourth book has a different character, and probably comes from a different location (perhaps Syria) in the late first century C.E. Here history ends with a conflagration, but after God extinguishes the fire he “will again fashion the bones and ashes of men, and he will raise up mortals again as they were before” (Sib. Or. 4:179-82). Sinners are banished to Gehenna, but the righteous will live on earth again and enjoy the light of the sun. The physical, earthly character of the resurrection here is remarkable in a text from the diaspora written in Greek but goes to show that Hellenistic culture did not always give rise to a belief in immortality of the soul, any more than Semitic culture necessarily gave rise to belief in resurrection of the body. One final text from the diaspora requires mention here although its apocalyptic character is questionable. The Testament of Abraham, written in Egypt in the late first or early second century C.E., is primarily a narrative about the death of Abraham.38 (He conspicuously fails to make a testament). When it was time for Abraham to die, God dispatches the angel Michael to fetch him. But Michael can not bring himself to break the news, and when Abraham finally learns it, he is reluctant to go. So Abraham is given a tour of the heavens and allowed to witness the judgment of the dead. There is then an apocalyptic judgment scene of considerable interest embedded in the narrative.39 Abel, son of Adam, presides over the judgment, like a son of God. He is attended by recording angels and by an angel who holds a balance. A fiery angel Purouel tests the work of mortals through fire. Those whose works are burnt up are condemned to torment, while those whose works withstand it are saved. Unlike the judgment in 4 Ezra, intercession is possible here. The judgment scene in the Testament of Abraham is exceptional insofar as it emphasizes the mercy of God and qualifies the strict dichotomy of righteous and wicked that is characteristic of most apocalypses.

38 For the text, see E.P. Sanders, “The Testament of Abraham,” in J.H. Charlesworth, ed., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (New York, 1983), vol. 1, pp. 882-902. 39 See G.W. Nickelsburg, “Eschatology in the Testament of Abraham. A Study of the Judgement Scenes in the Two Recensions,” in idem, ed., Studies on the Testament of Abraham (Missoula, 1976), pp. 23-64.

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Conclusion The earliest Jewish apocalypses, in the Books of Enoch and Daniel, conceive of a resurrection of the dead at the end of history. While there is some variation among the different texts, the righteous are typically exalted to share the life of the angels, while the wicked are condemned to a fiery Hell. (Daniel is less explicit than Enoch about the punishment of the damned). These apocalypses envision a resurrection of the spirit or spiritual body, and its relation to the physical body that died is not clarified. The apocalyptic writings of the first and early second centuries C.E. adapt this tradition in two quite different ways. 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch look for a general resurrection at the end of history. 2 Baruch is especially clear on the form of the resurrection. Those who rise must be recognizable as those who have died, but they are subsequently transformed by the glory or the torment that they attain. The discussion in these apocalypses helps illuminate the background of Paul’s discussion of the resurrection in 1 Cor. 15. Paul sees the resurrection of Christ as harbinger of the general resurrection, but he insists that the body that is raised is not that which was buried but rather a spiritual body. We also find a general resurrection, in explicitly physical terms, in Sibylline Oracles 4, which was written in Greek in the Diaspora (probably in Syria). The more typical form of apocalypse from the diaspora, however, is the heavenly ascent. Here considerable attention is paid to the reward and punishment of the dead, but there is no expectation of a general resurrection. The focus on individual afterlife in these apocalypses was compatible with the Greek belief in the immortality of the soul, but it is expressed in mythological rather than philosophical idiom. In most of the texts we have discussed, the belief in judgment after death serves the purpose of theodicy by upholding the ultimate justice of God. It thereby provides hope to the oppressed and relieves the resentment caused by injustice in this life. The judgment scene could, however, be also used for other purposes, as we see in the Testament of Abraham, which encourages compassion for human sinners and insists on the mercy as well as the justice of God.

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Andersen, F., “2 Enoch,” in Charlesworth, J.H., ed., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (New York, 1983), vol. 1, pp. 91-221. Bernstein, A.E., The Formation of Hell. Death and Retribution in the Ancient and Early Christian Worlds (Ithaca, 1993). Böttrich, C., Weltweisheit, Menscheitsethik, Urkult: Studien zum slavischen Henochbuch (Tübingen, 1992). Cavallin, H.C., Life after Death: Paul’s Argument for the Resurrection of the Dead in 1 Cor 15 (Lund, 1974). Collins, John J., Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls (London, 1997). Collins, John J., Daniel (Minneapolis, 1993). Collins, John J., Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenistic Age (Louisville, 1997). Collins, John J., Seers, Sibyls and Sages (Leiden, 1997). Collins, John J., The Apocalyptic Imagination (2nd ed.; Grand Rapids, 1998) Collins, Yarbro A., “The Seven Heavens in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses,” in eadem, Cosmology and Eschatology in Jewish and Christian Apocalypticism (Leiden, 1996), pp. 21-54. Cullmann, O., “Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead,” in Stendahl, K., ed., Immortality and Resurrection (New York, 1971), pp. 9-35. Cumont, F., Lux Perpetua (Paris, 1949). Day, J., “Resurrection Imagery from Baal to the Book of Daniel,” in Emerton, J.A., ed., Congress Volume 1995 (Leiden, 1997), pp. 125-134. Glasson, T.F., Greek Influence in Jewish Eschatology (London, 1961). Graf, F., “Dionysian and Orphic Eschatology. New Texts and Old Questions,” in Carpenter, T.H., and C.A. Faraone, eds., Masks of Dionysus (Ithaca, 1993), pp. 239-258. Griffiths, J.G., The Divine Verdict. A Study of Divine Judgement in the Ancient Religions (Leiden, 1991). Hanson, P.D., The Dawn of Apocalyptic (Philadelphia, 1975). Harlow, D.C., The Greek Apocalypse of Baruch (3 Baruch) in Hellenistic Judaism and Early Christianity (Leiden, 1996). Hasel, G.F., “Resurrection in the Theology of Old Testament Apocalyptic,” in ZAW 92, 1980, pp. 267-284. Himmelfarb, M., Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (New York, 1993). Himmelfarb, M., Tours of Hell. An Apocalyptic Form in Jewish and Christian Literature (Philadelphia, 1983). Hultgård, A., “Persian Apocalypticism,” in Collins, John J., B. McGinn, and S. Stein, eds., The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism (New York, 1998), vol. 1, pp. 39-83. Kuhn, K.H., “The Apocalypse of Zephaniah and an Anonymous Apocalypse,” in Sparks, H.F.D., The Apocryphal Old Testament (Oxford, 1984), pp. 915-925. Lang, B., “Street Theater, Raising the Dead, and the Zoroastrian Connection in Ezekiel’s Preaching,” in Lust, J., ed., Ezekiel and His Book (Leuven, 1986), pp. 297-316.

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Nickelsburg, George W.E., “Apocalyptic and Myth in 1 Enoch 1-11,” in Journal of Biblical Literature 96, 1977, pp. 383-405. Nickelsburg, George W.E., “Eschatology in the Testament of Abraham. A Study of the Judgement Scenes in the Two Recensions,” in Nickelsburg, George W.E., ed., Studies on the Testament of Abraham (Missoula, 1976), pp. 23-64. Nickelsburg, George W.E., Resurrection, Immortality and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism (Cambridge, 1972). Nilsson, M.P., Geschichte der griechischen Religion (3rd ed.; Munich, 1967). Puech, E., La Croyance des Esséniens en la Vie Future: Immortalité, Résurrection, Vie Éternelle? (Paris, 1993). Rohde, E. Psyche, The Cult of Souls and Belief in Immortality among the Greeks (New York, 1925). Sanders, E.P., “The Testament of Abraham,” in Charlesworth, J.H., ed., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (New York, 1983), vol. 1, pp. 882-902. Stemberger, Gunter, Der Leib der Auferstehung: Studien zur Anthropologie und Eschatologie des palästinischen Judentums im neutestamentlichen Zeitalter (Rome, 1972). Stone, M.E., and J.C. Greenfield, “Aramaic Levi Document,” in Brooke, G., et al., eds., Qumran Cave IV-XVII (DJD XXII; Oxford, 1996), pp. 30-31. Tiller, P.A., A Commentary on the Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch (Atlanta, 1993). Wacker, M.T., Weltordnung und Gericht. Studien zu 1 Henoch 22 (Würzburg, 1982).

6. JUDGMENT, LIFE-AFTER-DEATH, AND RESURRECTION IN THE APOCRYPHA AND THE NONAPOCALYPTIC PSEUDEPIGRAPHA George W.E. Nickelsburg The University of Iowa 1. Context: God’s justice and judgment 1.1. God as judge Jewish beliefs in a substantial life-after-death, as they develop in the Persian, Hellenistic, and early Roman periods, are tied uniformly to the biblical belief in the justice of the God of Israel and its enactment in the lives of individuals and the historical existence of the nation. Statements about God’s justice and judgment are articulated, especially, within the framework of God’s covenant with Israel.1 This, in turn, is most clearly explicated in Deuteronomy, especially chapters 28-31. God has called Israel into a unique relationship, laid out the stipulations of the covenant in the form of Torah, and promised blessing to those who obey and curses on those who disobey. Both blessing and curses, which are epitomized as “life” and “death” (Deut. 30:15), are enacted in this life and this world. Blessing comprises a long life, safety and prosperity, and fertility. The covenantal curses involve infertility, suffering at the hands of a foreign invader, captivity, sickness, and a premature death. The covenantal framework, moreover, is presumed in the “lawsuits” that the prophets hurl out against a disobedient Israel.2 The Deuteronomic formulation is reiterated by the prophet Jeremiah and shapes the recitation of Israelite history in “the Deuteronomic History” (Joshua, Judges, 1-2 On the literary form that embodies the structure of the covenant, see George E. Mendenhall, Law and Covenant in Israel and the Ancient Near East (Pittsburgh, 1955) and Klaus Baltzer, The Covenant Formulary (Philadelphia, 1972). 2 On the lawsuit and its expression in Deut. 32, see G. Ernest Wright, “The Lawsuit of God: A Form-Critical Study of Deuteronomy 32,” in Bernhard W. Anderson and Walter Harrelson, eds., Israel’s Prophetic Heritage (New York, 1962), pp. 26-67. For the form in the classical prophets, cf., Is. 1. 1

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Samuel, 1-2 Kings) and its reworking in the Chronicler and EzraNehemiah.3 In the Hellenistic period, the Deuteronomic scheme of sin-punishment-repentance-salvation regularly shapes accounts of Israelite history, especially recent history.4 The Writings provide a second biblical locus for the discussion of God’s judgment. In the Psalter, the psalms of individual lament and individual thanksgiving focus on the problem of the suffering righteous one and the anticipated or accomplished alleviation of that suffering.5 The faithful complain that their wicked enemies lord it over them, but they believe that a just God will reverse their fortunes; in time, they thank God for that deliverance. Notions of retribution also appear in the wisdom tradition. Speaking in the idiom of the “two-ways” tradition, the Psalm that heads the Psalter contrasts the “way” of the righteous, who delights in the Torah and flourishes like a living tree, with the “way” of the sinner, who perishes like dead chaff. Psalm 119 is an extensive elaboration of the theme. Psalm 128 promise fertility to the family of those “who fear the Lord.” The Book of Proverbs also sees happy or disastrous consequences following from upright or sinful deeds. The correlation of action and consequence, however, is not necessarily tied to notions of covenant and Torah,6 although later tradition surely interpreted Proverbs’ “wisdom” and “uprightness” in the framework of the covenant (see below 2.2.2). 1.2. Exceptions and voices of protest If the reign of divine justice and its Deuteronomic articulation are the rule, the canon of the Hebrew Bible also allows exceptions to the 3 For a discussion of the relationships between Jeremiah and the Deuteronomic tradition, see William L. Holladay, Jeremiah 2 (Minneapolis, 1989), pp. 53-64. On the Deuteronomic tradition in Ezra-Nehemiah, see Rodney A. Werline, Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism: The Development of a Religious Institution (Atlanta, 1998). 4 For examples of the use of the Deuteronomic scheme, cf., the Testament of Moses and Jubilees 23:12-31 and the discussion of these texts in George W.E. Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature Between the Bible and the Mishnah: A Historical and Literary Introduction (Philadelphia, 1981), pp. 77-82. 5 For a brief discussion of some of these issues in the psalms of lament, see Patrick D. Miller, Jr., Interpreting the Psalms (Philadelphia, 1986), pp. 48-63. 6 In part, the lack of clear references to the covenant in the Book of Proverbs is due to the work’s dependence on non-Israelite wisdom traditions. On the international character of wisdom, see R.B.Y. Scott, Proverbs - Ecclesiastes (Anchor Bible 18; Garden City, 1965), pp. xi-lii.

the apocrypha and the non-apocalyptic pseudepigrapha 143 rule, and voices of protest remind one that, in fact, “bad things happen to good people.” In a text that will be foundational for later tradition, the anonymous author of the last “Servant Song” (Is. 52:13-53:12) critiques the judgment that the Servant was stricken and smitten by God, and concludes that through his suffering “he bore our griefs and carried our sorrows...and gave his life as a ransom for many.” Similarly, the poetic sections of Job stand in stark contrast with the prose Deuteronomic story of the suffering and restored righteous one that frames it. Although God finally silences Job, one cannot miss the voice of one who protests the simplistic notions of retribution expressed by his “friends.” The author of Ps. 73 is more ambiguous, admitting that he had been troubled by the prosperity of the wicked. Perhaps vv. 23-24 express an intimation of immortality; they are later interpreted in this way (see below, n. 61). Chief among the biblical voices of protest is the pseudo-Solomonic author of Qohelet (Ecclesiastes), who proclaims, perhaps in the voice of Greek cynicism,7 that there is no distinction; the fates of the righteous and the wicked are the same, and, indeed, there may be an inverse correlation between one’s deeds and one’s fate (1:3; 3:9; 7:15; 8:14). In these voices of protest, which eloquently express the problem of theodicy (Is God, in fact, just?), we find the seeds of a counter-protest. When God’s judgment is not enacted in this life and this time, divine justice will prevail in an existence after death, in a world or age to come. 2. Divine justice and judgment according to the Apocrypha 2.1. The corpus The “Apocrypha of the Old Testament” are an artificially constructed collection of Jewish writings that were composed during the Hellenistic and early Roman periods. They are defined both by what they are and what they are not. All of them were included in manuscripts of the Greek translation of “the Old Testament” but not in the Hebrew canon established by the rabbis. In recognition of the latter fact, the Christian church father, Jerome, gathered them in one place 7

130.

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in his Latin translation of the Bible (the Vulgate).8 They are important for our purposes here, because: a) they derive from the time when Jewish beliefs in life-after-death are developing; b) they focus on the issue of God’s justice and thus document the transition from the traditional Deuteronomic view to innovative beliefs in a substantial life-after death; and c) they indicate how these beliefs were seen to derive from biblical texts. 2.2. Texts that express the traditional view 2.2.1. The Book of Tobit This tale of the diaspora explicitly presents the problem of the righteous sufferer.9 Tobit, the protagonist, is a God-fearing Israelite, who, alone among his compatriots in the northern kingdom, offers tithes and makes pilgrimages to Jerusalem (1:1-8). His piety notwithstanding, he is taken into captivity along with the rest of the Israelites. Here he comes into favor with the king and rises to prominence in the court (1:10-12). Now his piety is actually the cause of his suffering. When he buries the corpses of his compatriots who have been executed by the king, he must flee for his life, and he loses his wealth (1:16-20). Eventually, he is restored, but again his piety is his problem and directly results in his blindness and further domestic misery (2:114). After many more episodes, Tobit regains his sight and has his wealth restored (chaps. 11-12). Thus, the Deuteronomic viewpoint falls into place. As Tobit articulates it to his son, in the sapiential idiom of the two-ways:10 Do righteousness all the days of your life, and do not walk in the ways of injustice; for those who do the truth will prosper through their deeds.... 8 On the Apocrypha as a collection and the complicated issues relating to their authority or non-authority in the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions, see the excellent introduction by Bruce M. Metzger in idem., ed., The Apocrypha of the Old Testament: Revised Standard Version; The Oxford Annotated Apocrypha (New York, 1977), pp. xi-xx. It appears also in full editions of the Oxford Annotated Bible and the New Oxford Annotated Bible. 9 See George W.E. Nickelsburg, “Stories of Biblical and Early Post-Biblical Times,” in Michael E. Stone, ed., Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period, Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum 2:2 (Assen and Philadelphia, 1983), pp. 40-46; or Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature, pp. 30-35. 10 Translations are based on the longer text form of the Greek Tobit (Sinaiticus and Old Latin) emended with material from the shorter text form.

the apocrypha and the non-apocalyptic pseudepigrapha 145 Do not turn your face away from any poor person, and the face of God will not be turned away from you.... So you will be laying up good treasure for yourself against the day of necessity; for charity delivers from death and keeps you from entering the darkness (4:5-6, 7, 9).

There is deep irony in these words, however; for Tobit utters them precisely at the moment of his deepest despair, after he has prayed for death as a release from the misery of his life. He hopes that things will go better for his son. Set within the context of his account of his own righteous life, the words of Tobit’s prayer are especially revealing for our topic: And now deal with me according to your pleasure; command my spirit to be taken may be taken up from me, that I may be removed from the face of the earth and become dust... Lord command that I be removed from this distress; take me to the eternal place; do not turn your face from me (3:6).

Tobit’s reference to God taking his spirit, notwithstanding, he expects that his death will take him to Sheol, “the eternal place.” This belief is also expressed in the prayer of Sarah, his troubled future daughter-in-law, who also prays for death, but dismisses the idea of suicide, because it would “bring down the old age of my father, with grief, into Sheol” (3:10). As a text from the third century B.C.E., when a belief in resurrection is already being articulated in 1 Enoch (a text with some relationship to Tobit), this book’s attitude about death is noteworthy.11 The disparity between his righteous life and his miserable fate does not lead Tobit to posit a blessed afterlife as the solution to the problem. It is the restoration of his health that eventually provides the resolution.12 The book is, in the final analysis, “the story of Job told from the viewpoint of Job’s friends.” 13

On the date of Tobit, see Nickelsburg, “Stories,” p. 45. On the dating of the various parts of 1 Enoch, see idem, Jewish Literature, p. 48. For a discussion of the parallels between Tobit and 1 Enoch, see idem, “Tobit and Enoch: Distant Cousins with a Recognizable Resemblance,” in David J. Lull, ed., Society of Biblical Literature 1988 Seminar Papers (Atlanta, 1988), pp. 54-68. 12 Contrast Tob. 3:10 and its language with 1 Enoch 102:4-103:4. 13 I owe the quip to Prof. John Strugnell. For the similarities between Job and Tobit, see Devorah Dimant, “Use and Interpretation of Mikra in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha,” in Jan Mulder, ed., Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation 11

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2.2.2. The Wisdom of Joshua b. Sira In this collection of proverbs, written between 198 and 175 B.C.E., the Jerusalem scribe expounds his understanding of the relationship between action and consequence.14 Different from the canonical Book of Proverbs, wisdom is here explicitly identified as a heavenly entity that has become resident in the Mosaic Torah and its exposition by the Temple scribes (chap. 24). Although ben Sira deals with many practical, non-religious topics, he also instructs his audience about righteous and sinful deeds and the divine rewards and punishments that follow from them.15 This reward and punishment is played out in this life. Sheol is the place of forgetfulness, the residence of “the dead,” as opposed to “those who are alive” (17:27-28). 2.2.3. Baruch This pseudonymous work, attributed to the scribe of Jeremiah, probably dates from the mid-second century B.C.E.16 Like the two previous texts, it focuses on the issue of divine retribution, and each of its three major sections draws on an appropriate form of biblical tradition. In spite of its date, its allusions to the Antiochan persecution, and its emphasis on divine judgment, it never indicates a belief in a substantial life-after-death.17 Reflecting on the recent disasters in Jerusalem, Bar. 1:1-3:8 prescribes two prayers of repentance, cast in the Deuteronomic tradition and reminiscent of Dan. 9:4-19. They describe the Exile as punishment for the nation’s violations of the Mosaic Torah (Bar. 1:20; 2:2, 28) and envision restoration as the consequence of repentance.18 Especially noteworthy for our purposes is 3:14, which describes Exile as death: “O Lord Almighty, God of Israel, hear the prayer of the dead of Israel and of the sons of those who sinned before you.” The idiom recalls Ezek. 37, where death and resurrection are a metaphor for of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity (Assen and Philadelphia, 1988), pp. 417-419. 14 On the form, content and date of Sirach, see Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature, pp. 55-65. 15 See, e.g., 3:1-16; 5:1-7; 29:11-13. 16 On the date of Baruch, see Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature, pp. 113-114. 17 For a discussion of Jewish apocalyptic texts that posit a form of life-after-death as a response to the persecution by Antiochus, see George W.E. Nickelsburg, Resurrection, Immortality, and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism (Cambridge, 1972), pp. 1145, 76-79. 18 On this prayer and Dan. 9, see Werline, Penitential Prayer, pp. 65-108.

the apocrypha and the non-apocalyptic pseudepigrapha 147 exile and restoration. The text then takes up the idiom of both the sapiential tradition and Deuteronomy (3:9-4:4). Israel is defiled with the dead and counted among those in Sheol, because they have forsaken the fountain of wisdom. The solution to the nation’s death in exile is for them to “hear the commandments of life” and “walk in the way of God” (3:9-13). An extensive exposition on the problem of finding wisdom (3:13-35) concludes with language akin to Sir. 24:811, 23. Wisdom appeared on earth and lived among humanity (Bar. 3:36-37). She is the book of the commandments of God, and the law that endures forever. All who hold fast to her will live, and those who forsake her will die (Bar. 4:1).

The third section of Baruch provides a transition from the language of Deuteronomy (Bar. 4:4-8; cf., Deut. 33:29; 32:16-18) to the idiom of Third Isaiah (Bar. 4:5, 8-5:9), where exile and return are depicted as the departure and return of the children of Mother Zion.19 If Israel repents, blessing will be restored, and they will return to their home. As we shall see below, 2 Macc. 7 uses this same tradition to describe the death and resurrection of the mother’s seven sons. In Baruch, the metaphor complements Bar. 3:4-11, where death and new life are a metaphor for exile and return. In 2 Macc. 7, language about exile and return become a metaphor for death and resurrection. 2.2.4 1 Maccabees This Hasmonean court history, composed between 100 and 63 B.C.E., provides a foil for our comments on the resurrection texts in 2 Maccabees.20 Like other texts concerned with the persecution by Antiochus Epiphanes, 1 Maccabees understands that persecution of faithful Jews as the result of the sins of the nation in general (1:11-64). Different from apocalyptic texts dealing with this period, 1 Maccabees does not posit life-after-death as a means of dealing with the unjust deaths of the righteous.21 Similarly, the deaths of Judas and his brothers receive no post-mortem vindication. The patriarch Matta19 For details, see Nickelsburg, Resurrection, pp. 106-107; idem, Jewish Literature, pp. 11-13. 20 On the date of 1 and 2 Maccabees, see Jonathan A. Goldstein, 1 Maccabees (Anchor Bible 41; Garden City, 1976), pp. 62-89. 21 See above, n. 17.

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thias simply asserts that, like Abraham, Joseph, Phineas, Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah, and Daniel, they will be rewarded for their deeds, and Antiochus the sinner will be punished by death (2:51-66). 2.3. Texts that posit post-mortem divine judgment 2.3.1. 2 Maccabees Second Maccabees was composed at roughly the same time as 1 Maccabees and deals with the events of the Antiochan persecution, focusing on the execution of divine retribution. 22 Its treatment of its subject matter differs strikingly from that of 1 Maccabees. To begin with, the Deuteronomic scheme governs its historical account of the prosperity, destruction, and restoration of the Temple. 23 Prosperity: Jerusalem during the pious reign of Onias Sin: Hellenization under Jason and Menelaus Punishment: Antiochus’s reprisals Repentance: Deaths of martyrs and prayers of people Judgment and salvation: Victories of Judas Maccabeus

3:1-40 4:1-5:10 5:11-6:17 6:18-8:4 8:5-15:36

True to its biblical origins, the Deuteronomic scheme is played out in the arena of history. Punishment for sin involves both the destructive power of a foreign army and the death of the people. Blessing returns with the Maccabean overpowering of the army and the purification of the Temple. A reference to the Deuteronomic provenance of this scheme appears in 2 Macc. 7:6. The seven brothers and their mother appeal to Deut. 32:36 as the guarantee that God will stem the bloodshed: “The Lord is watching over us and in truth has compassion on us, as Moses declared in his song which bore witness against the people to their faces, when he said, ‘And he will have compassion on his servants.’” The accounts of the deaths of the martyrs (6:18-7:42), however, present a paradox with reference to the Deuteronomic scheme. The nation as a whole is being justly punished for its sins. Nonetheless, the author focuses here on certain righteous individuals, who are being put to death precisely because they choose to obey the Torah rather than the king’s edicts. The problem is clear when we compare 22 23

See above, n. 20. On this scheme in 2 Maccabees, see Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature, p. 118.

the apocrypha and the non-apocalyptic pseudepigrapha 149 the speeches of the first four brothers and their mother with the speeches of the sixth and, in part, the seventh brother (7:7-17, 33b-36 and 7:18-33a, 37-38.) In the latter two speeches, the brothers, in solidarity with the nation, acknowledge that “we” deserve the suffering we are enduring. For the rest, the brothers and their mother protest their own innocence and emphasize that they are suffering for the Torah (7:9, 11, 14, 23). At this point, a different correlation of action and consequence enters the picture, in two respects. First, God will vindicate the faithfulness of the martyrs by restoring the bodies that have been tortured and destroyed on account of their faithful adherence to the Torah (7:9, 10-11, 14, 23, 29). Secondly, the corollary of this is that the wicked Antiochus, who is unjustly persecuting the righteous, will receive divine retribution, both in his own violent death and after death, either through actual post-mortem punishment or by not being raised from the dead (7:14, 17, 19, 35-37; cf., 9:1-12). Resurrection, then, vindicates the conduct of the righteous, that is, certifies it to have been right in spite of the fact that the king has declared it to be wrong and, indeed, illegal. At stake is a contest between two authorities. In obeying the Torah, the law of the covenant, the brothers and their mother disobey the law of the king, and for this they are punished. In the supreme court of “the king of the universe” (7:9), however, their conduct is declared right, and the earthly king is convicted for violating heavenly Majesty and is sentenced to eternal punishment. Vindication is quid pro quo. Because they lost their physical limbs, theirs must be a bodily resurrection; what has been destroyed must be restored (7:10-11). Whether a future resurrection of the body is the full answer, however, is uncertain. Verse 36 may indicate that the dead brothers are already participating in eternal life.24 A close reading of 2 Macc. 7 enables us to discern the biblical sources from which the author of this story draws his views of resurrection.25 They are, principally, Second Isaiah’s prophecies about exile and return. First, the mother’s second speech recalls the proph24 Some exegetes have emended the Greek verb pept¿kasi (“have fallen”) to pep¿kasi (“have drunk”) in keeping with the unusual expression aenaou z¿ðs (“everflowing life”); see F.-M. Abel, Les Livres des Maccabées (Études Bibliques; Paris, 1949), p. 380. For the image of the everflowing stream, cf., 1 Enoch 22:1, 9; 48:1; Luke 16:24). In support of the verb “have fallen,” however, see Goldstein, 1 Maccabees, pp. 316-317. 25 For details, see Nickelsburg, Resurrection, pp. 102-108.

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et’s oracles about the departure and return of the children of mother Zion (vv. 27-29). This language, which Baruch rightly interpreted with reference to exile and return, is here given a new meaning with reference to resurrection. Secondly, language from both the first and second speeches recalls Second Isaiah’s imagery about God as the Creator and Redeemer of Israel (7:22-23, 27-28). Thirdly, in its emphasis on suffering and vindication, the story draws on the last Servant Song. There the kings and the nations misunderstand the fate of the Servant, only to see him exalted and shown not to have been punished by God. Here the king actually inflicts the suffering, but later the brothers’ conduct will be shown to have been right. In addition, the last brother’s association of their death with the imminent cessation of Antiochus’s persecution (vv. 37-38) may well be informed by Is. 53:10-12.26 Finally, in addition to the Isaianic sources, the story appear to allude to the Song of Hannah, which refers to “the barren one” who bears seven and the God who takes down to Sheol and brings back up again (2 Macc. 7:1, 22; cf., 1 Sam. 2:5-6). The similarity is made explicit in later forms of the tradition.27 Our analysis of 2 Macc. 7 indicates the following. God’s judgment is enacted both in history, as interpreted by the Deuteronomic scheme, and in spite of its failure to be enacted in history. In the latter instance, resurrection facilitates God’s judgment, and this assertion is explicated through biblical traditions that originally depicted God’s judgment in history, through exile and return. More complex is 2 Maccabees’ use of the last Servant Song. That Isaianic text both describes exile and return and protests against the simplistic application of the Deuteronomic view. For 2 Maccabees it offers a paradigm for vindication after unjust death. One final observation. Although 2 Maccabees’ teaching about a bodily resurrection is often seen as Hebraic rather than Greek in its orientation, it is presented in a book that imitates so-called “pathetic” Hellenistic historiography.28 The use of the Servant songs in the story (ibid., pp. 103-106) and the placement of this story at the turning point in the Deuteronomic scheme lead me to interpret the preposition en in 7:38 instrumentally (“through” us) rather than temporally (“with” us) as does Sam K. Williams, Jesus’ Death as Saving Event (Missoula, 1975), pp. 87-89. The parallels between this story the story of the death of Taxo and his sons in Testament of Moses 9 (Nickelsburg, Resurrection, pp. 97-102) support the crucial importance of this event. 27 Ibid., p. 108, n. 71. 28 Goldstein, 1 Maccabees, p. 34 and n. 70. 26

the apocrypha and the non-apocalyptic pseudepigrapha 151 2.3.2. 4 Maccabees Although 4 Maccabees is not technically a part of “the Apocrypha,” it is found in many manuscripts of the Greek Old Testament and is included in many modern translations of the Bible.29 In this study, it provides an instructive point of comparison and contrast with 2 Maccabees’ treatment of the stories of the Maccabean martyrs. Composed sometime in the second half of the first century or the early second century C.E., this text a reworking of 2 Macc. 3-7, and especially chapters 6-7. 30 Its revision of 2 Maccabees is driven, primarily, by the author’s desire to present the story in the form of a Hellenistic philosophical treatise that demonstrates that devout reason (eusebðs logismos) is sovereign over the emotions and physical senses (1:1). In keeping with his Hellenistic orientation, he employs Greek ideas about the effectiveness of virtuous deaths in order to enhance 2 Maccabees’ allusion to the martyrs’ suffering as a means to catalyze salvation,31 and he depicts the martyrs as athletes of virtue who strive to win the prize that rewards their conduct (17:11-15). Integral to this Hellenistic enhancement of the story of the martyrs is its uniform transformation of bodily resurrection into immortality.32 Thus, God’s activity as Creator is appealed to not as a guarantee for new creation through bodily resurrection but a rationale for the martyrs’ willingness to offer their bodies in obedience to the Torah (16:18-19). Similarly, whereas 2 Maccabees may allude to the martyrs’ participation in eternal life immediately after their death, this author explicitly states that their violent death transforms them into incorruptibility and transports them into the presence of the patriarchs.33 In addition to the use of the Greek terms for “immortal(ity)” and “incorruptibility” (athanatos / athanasia, aphtharsia), which have no real counterparts in Hebraic usage, the author speaks of “eternal life” and “living to God,” terminology that is compatible with develop29 Although 4 Maccabees is not considered deuterocanonical by the Roman Catholic Church, it is included as an appendix in the Bibles of the Eastern Orthodox Churches. 30 For literature on the relationship of 2 Maccabees and 4 Maccabees, see Nickelsburg, Resurrection, p. 109, n. 72. 31 See Williams, Saving Death, pp. 165-197. This link with the Greek tradition does not, however, preclude the possibility that this author, and New Testament writers who pick up on these ideas, saw a connection with Is. 53. On the problem, see ibid., pp. 221-229. 32 See 7:3; 9:22; 14:5-6; 16:13; 17:12. 33 See 9:22; 10:21; 13:17; 16:13, 25; 17:18.

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ments in the sapiential two-ways tradition.34 Thus, although like 2 Maccabees this is a story about the vindication of the martyrs who suffer for the Torah, it often describes their blessed state in the afterlife as a reward for righteous conduct in this life. Although the transformation of bodily resurrection to immortality of the soul in this text is integral to the author’s thorough Hellenization of the material in 2 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees remains a Jewish text. Judaism is the true philosophy, and right reason is informed by the true wisdom to be found in the commandments of the Torah (1:17). Similarly, as in 2 Maccabees, a blessed afterlife, immortality and eternal life, as well as the punishment of Antiochus, are functions of God’s judgment based on one’s respect for the Torah.35 This postmortem judgment, we should note finally, does not exclude the author’s recounting the story of the Antiochan persecution within the framework of the Deuteronomic historical scheme which he found in 2 Maccabees. Piety brings blessing, and sin leads to punishment (chap. 4). The death of the martyrs is a historical event that expiates Israel’s sin and purifies the land (17:20-22). 2.3.3. The Wisdom of Solomon The Wisdom of Solomon also exemplifies the Hellenization of Jewish belief in life-after-death. Composed in Alexandria during the decades before or after the turn of the era, it weds Jewish apocalyptic tradition about judgment and heavenly exaltation with Greek philosophy and literary and rhetorical forms.36 This fusion of traditions is the subject of the first section of the book, which focuses on eschatology and the relationship between human deeds and their eternal consequences (1:1-6:11). Sin brings on death, and righteousness leads to immortality (1:1-15). Death is not 34 For eternal life, see 15:3. For “live to God” (7:19; 16:25) in conjunction with two-ways traditions, see Nickelsburg, Resurrection, p. 160. 35 On God’s punishment of Antiochus, see 9:9; 12:18; 13:15; 18:5. 36 On the Hellenistic character of Wisdom of Solomon, see M. Gilbert, “Wisdom Literature,” in Michael E. Stone, ed., Jewish Writings, pp. 306-308; David Winston, Wisdom of Solomon (Garden City, 1979), pp. 25-58; Burton L. Mack and Roland E. Murphy, “Wisdom Literature,” in Robert A. Kraft and George W.E. Nickelsburg, eds., Early Judaism and Its Modern Interpreters (Philadelphia and Atlanta, 1986), pp. 381383. On the relationship between Wisdom of Solomon and Jewish apocalyptic writings, see John J. Collins, “Cosmos and Salvation: Jewish Wisdom and Apocalyptic in the Hellenistic Age,” in History of Religions 17, 1977, pp. 121-142. The present treatment summarizes more extensive discussions in Nickelsburg, Resurrection, pp. 58-70, 87-90; and idem, Jewish Literature, pp. 175-185.

the apocrypha and the non-apocalyptic pseudepigrapha 153 the termination of biological life, nor is immortality awaited beyond the grave. Death and immortality are states in which the ungodly and the righteous participate here and now and which continue unbroken in spite of biological death. As the primary vehicle of his thesis that God rewards righteousness and punishes sin, the author narrates a two-part story (1:16-2:20; 4:16-5:13), which is presented primarily in a pair of matched speeches (2:1-20; 5:4-13). In the first speech the ungodly make a series of assertions; in the second they retract some of the assertions, while they recognize that others have come true. The ungodly claim that death means extinction (2:1-5), and therefore one should enjoy this life (2:6-11), even when it means persecuting and oppressing others (2:10-20). The idiom of this speech is the more remarkable because it carries to its logical conclusion—the author would say— the materialistic viewpoint expressed in Ecclesiastes. If there is no reckoning in this life or after it, one should act in one’s own interest without an concern for how this behavior affects others.37 In vv. 10-20, the author employs narrative elements from a type of story that describes the persecution and exaltation of the righteous one (cf., e.g., Dan. 3, 6).38 In Wisdom 2-5, the protagonist is an unnamed righteous man who preaches against the sins of the ungodly and legitimates his actions by claiming to be God’s son or servant under special divine protection. The ungodly test his claims, certain that God will not rescue him from death. Because their argument is based on the premise that death is extinction, they assume that rescue and retribution must occur in this life. They are, of course, wrong. The righteous only seem to die; in reality they pass to the fullness of immortality, and their souls rest in peace in the hands of God (3:1-9). After their own demise, the ungodly meet the righteous one whom they persecuted and mocked, exalted in the heavenly court and confronting them as Judge. With their premises shattered, they quake in fear, anticipating the dreadful consequences of their false logic—the reality of the divine retribution they had previously denied (4:16-5:2). In repentance, they utter a second speech that 37 For a similar polemic, see 1 Enoch 102:4-103:15, on which see Nickelsburg, Resurrection, pp. 125-129. Interestingly, the pseudo-Solomonic author of Wisdom takes on another pseudo-Solomon, the author of Ecclesiastes. 38 On the genre of the story, see Nickelsburg, Resurrection, pp. 48-62; and idem, “The Genre and Function of the Markan Passion Narrative,” in Harvard Theological Review 73, 1980, pp. 153-163.

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retracts assertions confidently made in their first speech (5:2-14). In their view the dishonorable “death” of the righteous one had disproved his claim to be God’s son and under his protection. Now they acknowledge that he stands among the angels, the sons of God, par excellence. Moreover, they confess their sin and thus they vindicate his indictment of them. In one way, however, they were right. They face the extinction they anticipated. Because they summoned death (1:16), it now claims them. Their nihilistic belief led to sinful actions, and these are punished by the annihilation they had posited in the first place. The righteous, however, will live forever (5:15-16), enjoying the gift of immortality in which they had believed. The counterpoising of persecution and vindication is at the heart of these chapters of the Wisdom of Solomon, as it is in 2 and 4 Maccabees. In heaven, God declares to have been right his servant’s conduct, which his opponents dismissed as wrong and irrelevant, and the servant enjoys a crown of life in place of suffering he had previously experienced. Furthermore, more explicitly than in 2 and 4 Maccabees, the polarity of suffering and persecution is anchored in the use of a traditional apocalyptic exposition of Second Isaiah’s last Servant Song.39 Here the Servant figure is identified with the wise protagonists in the stories of persecution and vindication. However, different from those stories, where the protagonist is rescued from death (cf., Dan. 3 and 6), here the hero is delivered in spite of his physical demise. This pattern of suffering, exaltation and vindication will recur in New Testament stories about the passion and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.40 Their counterpoising of persecution and vindication notwithstanding, chapters 1-6 of the Wisdom of Solomon generalize post-mortem rewards and punishments to apply to all human beings, according to whether they are righteous or sinners. Finally, as we have already suggested, Jewish apocalyptic tradition is here interpreted in the Greek language of immortality of the soul. Rewards and punishments are received at the time of one’s physical demise, and they relate to one’s “soul.” Different from Platonic thought, however, the soul is not inherently immortal. Immortality is 39 For all of its dependence on the last Servant Song, Wisdom indicates no notion of vicarious suffering (cf., 3:6 with Is. 53:10); it is, rather, a story of persecution and exaltation. 40 Nickelsburg, “Genre.”

the apocrypha and the non-apocalyptic pseudepigrapha 155 the reward of right conduct, just as eternal extinction is the consequence of wickedness.41 3. Divine justice and judgment in the non-apocalyptic Pseudepigrapha 3.1. The corpus In the remainder of this essay we treat some of the texts that are comprised in the category “Pseudepigrapha,” that is, writings composed under a spurious name.42 Some of the writings we discuss are clearly of Jewish origin. Others, some have argued, may have been composed by Christians, albeit on the basis of Jewish traditions. 3.2. Texts whose Jewish provenance is not disputed 3.2.1. Pseudo-Phocylides This Greek poem of moral exhortation is one of a few works composed by Jews in the name of a real or fictional Gentile figure.43 It appears to have been written in Alexandria around the turn of the era.44 Its Hellenistic coloring is the more remarkable, because it juxtaposes belief in an immortal soul with the expectation of a resurrection of the body (lines 103-115). Just as noteworthy, in light of the texts we have been discussing, is the almost complete absence of any reference to God’s judgment in a work devoted to moral exhortations.45 3.2.2. The Psalms of Solomon The nexus between one’s deeds and God’s judgment is an issue in the Psalms of Solomon; perhaps it is the principal issue. Moreover, the 41 On immortality of the soul in Wisdom of Solomon, see Winston, Wisdom, pp. 25-32. 42 To fit the division of labor in this volume, I refer here separately to “the Pseudepigrapha.” The artificiality of the category, however, is evident in the fact that among the Apocrypha that I have treated, Tobit, Baruch, and the Wisdom of Solomon are all pseudepigraphic texts. 43 On the pseudonym, see Pieter W. Van der Horst, The Sentences of PseudoPhocylides (Leiden, 1978), pp. 59-63. For other examples of gentile attribution in the Jewish corpus, see the Letter of Aristeas and the Sibylline Oracles. 44 Ibid., pp. 81-83. 45 For a single reference to God’s judgment, cf., line 11.

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repeated references to God’s “righteous judgment” and to God as the “righteous judge” suggest that this judgment is emphasized in response to a perception that the nation, in particular, is suffering unjustly, due to the Roman annexation of the Judea.46 Psalms 1-2, 8, and 17 employ the Deuteronomic scheme to argue that these events are divine punishment.47 Covenant has been violated, and God has sent a foreign conqueror to execute the curses of covenant. In keeping with Deuteronomy, this divine punishment is enacted in history. The Psalms portray another aspect God’s judgment, which is focused on the relationship between the deeds of an individual and their consequences. In this case, judgment is enacted principally— though not exclusively—in terms of resurrection and eternal life or eternal destruction (Psalms 3, 13, 14, 15).48 Israelites are divided into two groups: the “righteous” (dikaioi) or “pious” (hosioi) and the “sinners” (hamaroloi). God deals with each in a different way. The former, who heed God’s commandments and make atonement for unintentional sins, may be chastised sometimes to bring them to their senses.49 In the end, however, God will raise them up and grant them eternal life. The sinners, who despise or ignore their covenantal responsibilities, God allows to go their own way, eventually to eternal perdition.50 These texts construe God’s judgment broadly. It functions to distribute rewards and punishments and not, more narrowly, to compensate for persecution or an inappropriate lot in life. Different from apocalyptic texts, the Psalms of Solomon show no interest in the “when” of the resurrection or in depicting the judgment in connection with a cosmic cataclysm. In addition, these authors do not indicate whether they envision a bodily resurrection similar to that posited in 2 Macc. 7. This need not surprise us, since the violent 46 On the date and provenance of the Psalms of Solomon, see Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature, pp. 203-212. 47 On the Deuteronomic scheme in these psalms, see ibid., pp. 204-207. 48 On resurrection and eternal life in these psalms, see Nickelsburg, Resurrection. pp. 131-134. For an example of this worldly judgment, in addition to Pss. Sol. 1-2, 8, 17, cf., Ps. Sol. 13. 49 For an exposition of the comparison of the righteous and the sinner in Ps. Sol 3, see George W.E. Nickelsburg and Michael E. Stone, Faith and Piety in Early Judaism: A Reader of Texts and Documents (Philadelphia, 1983), pp. 140-142. On the contrast between God’s chastisement of the righteous and punishment of the sinners, see Ps. Sol. 13:7-12. 50 Pss. 3:9-12; 13:11; 14:6-9; 15:10-12.

the apocrypha and the non-apocalyptic pseudepigrapha 157 destruction of bodily existence is not an issue here as it is in 2 Macc. 6-7. 3.2.3. The Book of Biblical Antiquities (“Pseudo-Philo”) The “Book of Biblical Antiquities” is one of a group of three related texts that are stamped by the trauma of the Jewish War and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E.51 Different from the authors of 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch, however, this writer has not composed an apocalypse, but rather a running paraphrase of the narrative parts of the Bible from Genesis to 1 Samuel. The Deuteronomic scheme of sinpunishment-repentance-restoration is focal and provides a model for God’s present judgment of Israel in the historical events of the first century.52 This historical perspective does not preclude an eschatological dimension, even if this author does not dwell on the details, as do his colleagues, “Ezra” and “Baruch.”53 When the present evil and corrupt age comes to an end, the glorious age to come will be ushered in by a universal resurrection of the dead and the judgment of all human beings on the basis of their deeds (3:9-10). Subsequent to this, the righteous will enjoy the blessing of immortality and the light of God’s presence (19:12; 23:6), and the wicked will be destroyed in the infernal fires (16:3; 63:4). In the time between death and the resurrection, the souls of the righteous rest in the storehouses of the earth (19:12; 23:13; 28:10). 3.3. Pseudepigrapha of questionable provenance The remainder of our texts are of uncertain date and provenance. However, their eschatology is sufficiently unique and interesting to warrant inclusion here. 51 On Pseudo Philo, 2 Baruch, and 4 Ezra, see Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature, pp. 265- 294. On the problem of dating Pseudo-Philo, whether before or after the Jewish War, see idem, “The Bible Rewritten and Expanded,” in Stone, ed., Jewish Writings, pp. 109-110. 52 Pseudo-Philo’s use of the Deuteronomic scheme is especially evidence is its emphasis on material drawn from the Book of Judges; see George W.E. Nickelsburg, “Good and Bad Leaders in Pseudo-Philo’s Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum,” in John J. Collins and George W.E. Nickelsburg, eds., Ideal Figures in Ancient Judaism: Profiles and Paradigms (Missoula, 1981), pp. 49-65. 53 On the eschatology of Pseudo-Philo, see D.J. Harrington, “Pseudo-Philo,” in James Charlesworth, ed., Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 2, p. 301. On the views of resurrection, judgment, and the world to come in 2 Baruch and 4 Ezra, see the article by John J. Collins in this volume and Nickelsburg, Resurrection, pp. 84-85, 138-140.

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3.3.1. Testament of Job Although the Testament of Job is known only from Christian manuscripts, an evident allusion to it in the Epistle of James (end of the first century C.E.) suggests that it is Jewish text from around the turn of the era.54 According to this version of the story, Job is king of Egypt. His decision to devastate an idolatrous temple leads to a battle with Satan, which results in the loss of his family, his health, and his kingdom. As the plot unfolds, the author stands the canonical Book of Job on its head. The angry impatient Job of the Bible, who wants his day in court, is here epitome of “endurance” and “patience.” Different from everyone else in the story, especially his friends, he understands what is happening to him and why, and he has insight into the heavenly mysteries. Principally, he understands that, despite the loss of his kingdom, his obedience to God will be rewarded. He has a glorious throne among “the holy ones” in the unchanging realm of heaven (chap. 33). The language of this passage suggests that this author is acquainted with the story of the suffering and exalted righteous one in the Wisdom of Solomon (above 2.3.3).55 The parallel is noteworthy, because both the poetic section of the canonical Job and Second Isaiah’s Servant Song protest against a simplistic application of the Deuteronomic scheme of history (above 1.2). Also like the Wisdom of Solomon, the Testament of Job speaks of immortality as a present possession of the righteous. Through his knowledge of the heavenly realia, Job transcends the present misery of his bodily existence and participates in the eternal realm. Moreover, as his wife finally sees, for the righteous, death is the transition to heavenly glory (chaps. 39-40). Like 4 Maccabees, the Testament of Job is a Hellenized text that portrays the athlete of virtue, striving with great endurance to overcome suffering and attain the immortal crown of glory. The paradigm will inform such Christian writers as the authors of the Epistle of James and the Epistle to the Hebrews.56 3.3.2. Joseph and Aseneth The notion of a realized immortality is even more explicit in Joseph 54 On the date and provenance of the Testament of Job, see R.P. Spittler, “Testament of Job,” in Charlesworth, ed., Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 1, pp. 833-834. For the reference to Job’s patience, see James 5:11. 55 Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature, pp. 269-270, n. 35. 56 On Hebrews, see ibid., p. 248.

the apocrypha and the non-apocalyptic pseudepigrapha 159 and Aseneth, a text whose provenance and date continue to elude scholarly consensus.57 The author sets out to explain how Joseph, an Israelite, could marry the daughter of an Egyptian priest. After rejecting Joseph as a Canaanite who attempted to seduce his master’s wife, Aseneth recognizes him to be a “son of God” (chaps. 4-6). After discarding her idols and polluted food and donning sackcloth and ashes, she is visited by the angel Michael (chaps. 10-17). In response to her repentance, he tells her, Your name is written in the book of life.... From today you will be made new, and refashioned, and given new life’ and you shall eat the bread of life and drink the cup of immortality, and be anointed with the unction of incorruption (15:2-4).

As evidence of her inner transformation, her face shines in glory (18:7). Whatever its origin, this text shares important features with texts as different from one another as the Wisdom Solomon and the Qumran Hymn Scroll. Like the former, it employs the Hellenistic language of immortality and perhaps some other narrative details.58 Like the latter, it describes conversion as a transition from death to eternal life.59 3.3.3. Testament of Abraham This Greek text, composed in the diaspora ca. 100 C.E.,60 provides an interesting summary of the motifs and paradoxes of this study. It describes a judgment scene, where one receives the due reward for one’s deeds (chaps. 12-14, recension A). Although the scene has counterparts in some Jewish apocalypses, which posit such an event at the end of the age, here the judgment is faced by every human being at the time of his or her death. This emphasis on death as the transition to the next world, which recalls such heavily Hellenized 57 See most recently, and in great detail, Ross S. Kraemer, When Aseneth Met Joseph: A Late Antique Tale of the Biblical Patriarch and His Egyptian Wife, Reconsidered (New York, 1998). Quotations here are taken from the short form of the text, D. Cook, “Joseph and Aseneth,” in H.F.D. Sparks, ed., The Apocryphal Old Testament (Oxford, 1984), pp. 465-503. 58 Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature, p. 271, n. 63. 59 Ibid., pp. 260-261, 271, n. 67. 60 For the text and an introduction, see E.P. Sanders, “Testament of Abraham,” in Charlesworth, ed., Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 2, pp. 868-902. See also Nickelsburg, “Stories,” pp. 60-67.

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texts as the Wisdom of Solomon and 4 Maccabees, is enhanced by the image of the two ways, along which one passes to one’s eternal destiny (chaps. 11-12).61 The similarities to both Jewish apocalypticism and Hellenistic notions of an immediate afterlife are complicated by one final factor. Several elements in the judgment scene have remarkable counterparts in the Egyptian Book of the Dead.62 We are in the presence of a religious syncretism that deftly picks and chooses elements from its Jewish and non-Jewish environment in order to convey its message in what its author considers to be the most compelling and effective manner. 4. Conclusion Our survey has demonstrated the complex ways in which Jewish notions of the afterlife express and interact with broader ideas of God’s justice and the execution of God’s judgment. Throughout the Greco-Roman period, writers continue to espouse the notion that God’s judgment is enacted in the history of the nation and the lives of individuals. Increasingly, however, this judgment is seen to take place after, and, indeed, in spite of death. Such beliefs can be expressed in language drawn from biblical texts that employ or that strain against the Deuteronomic understanding of God’s judgment in history (e.g., Is. 52-53). Judgment after and in spite of death functions in several ways. It vindicates (declares to be right) suffering for the Torah, and more generally it compensates the righteous for a troubled life here and now. Increasingly, it is seen as the final way in which God rewards or punishes Israelites, and then members of the whole human race, for their good and evil deeds.63 Judgment in the afterlife may involve a bodily resurrection, notably as the means to restore the unjust destruction of that body. Not infrequently, however, Jewish beliefs about post-mortem judgment have been clothed in Hellenistic language about the immortality of 61 On the judgment scene in the Testament of Abraham, see George W.E. Nickelsburg, “Eschatology in the Testament of Abraham,” in idem, ed., Studies on the Testament of Abraham (Missoula, 1976), pp. 23-63. On the two-ways imagery, see pp. 27-29 and idem, Resurrection, pp. 161-62, with reference to the Testament of Asher. 62 Nickelsburg, “Eschatology,” pp. 32-35, citing the opinion of Francis Schmidt. 63 Nickelsburg, Resurrection, pp. 131-143.

the apocrypha and the non-apocalyptic pseudepigrapha 161 the soul. This development is not surprising, since even the writers of the biblical books often employed the idiom and mythic structures of their environment to express their own, unique religious beliefs. It is an instance of a flexible religion relating in new ways both to its tradition and to the broader culture in which it flourishes. Bibliography Abel, F.-M., Les Livres des Maccabées (Paris, 1949) Baltzer, Klaus, The Covenant Formulary (Philadelphia, 1972). Charlesworth, James H., ed., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2 vols. (Garden City, 1983). Collins, John J., “Cosmos and Salvation: Jewish Wisdom and Apocalyptic in the Hellenistic Age,” in History of Religions 17, 1977, pp. 121-142. Cook, D., “Joseph and Aseneth,” in Sparks, H.F.D., ed., The Apocryphal Old Testament (Oxford, 1984), pp. 465-503. Dimant, Devorah, “Use and Interpretation of Mikra in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha,” in Mulder, Jan, ed., Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity (Assen and Philadelphia, 1988), pp. 379-419. Gilbert, M, “Wisdom Literature,” in Stone, Michael E., ed., Jewish Writings, pp. 283-324. Goldstein, Jonathan A., 1 Maccabees (Garden City, 1976). Goldstein, Jonathan A., 2 Maccabees (Garden City, 1983). Harrington, D.J., “Pseudo-Philo,” in Charlesworth, James H., ed., Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 2, pp. 297-377. Hengel, Martin, Judaism and Hellenism, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1974). Holladay, William L., Jeremiah 2 (Minneapolis, 1989). Kraemer, Ross S., When Aseneth Met Joseph: A Late Antique Tale of the Biblical Patriarch and His Egyptian Wife, Reconsidered (New York, 1998). Mack, Burton L., and Roland E. Murphy, “Wisdom Literature,” in Kraft, Robert A., and George W.E. Nickelsburg, eds., Early Judaism and its Modern Interpreters (Philadelphia and Atlanta, 1986), pp. 381-383. Mendenhall, George E., Law and Covenant in Israel and the Ancient Near East (Pittsburgh, 1955). Metzger, Bruce M., ed., The Apocrypha of the Old Testament: Revised Standard Version; The Oxford Annotated Apocrypha (New York, 1977). Miller, Patrick D., Jr., Interpreting the Psalms (Philadelphia, 1986), pp. 48-63. Nickelsburg, George W.E., “Eschatology in the Testament of Abraham,” in idem., ed., Studies on the Testament of Abraham (Missoula, 1976), pp. 23-63. Nickelsburg, George W.E., “The Genre and Function of the Markan Passion Narrative,” in Harvard Theological Review 73, 1980, pp. 153-184. Nickelsburg, George W.E., “Good and Bad Leaders in Pseudo-Philo’s Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum,” in Collins, John J., and George W. E.

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Nickelsburg, eds., Ideal Figures in Ancient Judaism: Profiles and Paradigms (Missoula, 1981), pp. 49-65. Nickelsburg, George W.E., Jewish Literature Between the Bible and the Mishnah: A Historical and Literary Introduction (Philadelphia, 1981). Nickelsburg, George W.E., Resurrection, Immortality, and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism (Cambridge, 1972). Nickelsburg, George W.E., “Stories of Biblical and Early Post-Biblical Times,” in Stone, Michael E., ed., Jewish Writings, pp. 33-87. Nickelsburg, George W.E., “The Bible Rewritten and Expanded,” in Stone, Michael E., ed., Jewish Writings, pp. 89-156. Nickelsburg, George W.E., “Tobit and Enoch: Distant Cousins with a Recognizable Resemblance,” in David., J. Lull, ed., Society of Biblical Literature 1988 Seminar Papers (Atlanta, 1988), pp. 54- 68. Nickelsburg, George W.E., and Michael E. Stone, Faith and Piety in Early Judaism: A Reader of Texts and Documents (Philadelphia, 1983). Sanders, E.P., “Testament of Abraham,” in Charlesworth, James H., ed., Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2, pp. 868-902. Scott, R.B.Y., Proverbs - Ecclesiastes (Garden City, 1965). Spittler, R.P. “Testament of Job,” in Charlesworth, James H., ed., Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 1, pp. 829-868. Stone, Michael E., ed., Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period (Assen and Philadelphia, 1983). Van der Horst, Pieter W., The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides (Leiden, 1978). Werline, Rodney A., Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism: The Development of a Religious Institution (Atlanta, 1998). Williams, Sam K., Jesus’ Death as Saving Event (Missoula, 1975). Winston, David, Wisdom of Solomon (Garden City, 1979). Wright, G. Ernest, “The Lawsuit of God: A Form-Critical Study of Deuteronomy 32,” in Anderson, Bernhard W., and Walter Harrelson, eds., Israel’s Prophetic Heritage (New York, 1962), pp. 26-67.

7. ESCHATOLOGY IN PHILO AND JOSEPHUS Lester L. Grabbe University of Hull Philo and Josephus, the two most prolific Jewish writers of the Second Temple period, were roughly contemporaries, the first few years of Josephus overlapping the final ones of Philo. Josephus even seems to have known some of Philo’s writings. Both men came from aristocratic families, both were closely associated with the priesthood, and both wrote in Greek. Beyond that, they were very different people and in many ways represented different worlds, with Josephus coming from Judaea and beginning his career as a soldier, while Philo was educated in a Greek cultural milieu and large diaspora community of Alexandria.1 What one includes under the designation “eschatology” has been variously treated by writers of the Second Temple period. While recognizing that one could debate the issue, I propose to ask about eschatology in the writings of Philo and Josephus under three headings: (1) individual eschatology, (2) national eschatology, and (3) cosmic eschatology. Although national eschatology does not necessarily have to do with death and afterlife, its treatment is useful in filling out the complete perspective of each writer and also setting the debate about the beliefs of each writer. As will soon be clear, national and cosmic eschatology also often blend into one another, for the fate of Israel is frequently tied up with God’s intervention at the end of human history, not only to bring salvation to his people but also to punish the wicked and to transform the earth.

1 For more information on each individual, with extensive bibliography, see Lester L. Grabbe, Judaism from Cyrus to Hadrian: Volume I: Persian and Greek Periods; Volume II: Roman Period (Minneapolis, 1992), pp. 4-13, 372-374. For texts and translations: see H. St. J. Thackeray, et al., Josephus (London and Cambridge, 1926-1965) for Josephus; and F.H. Colson and G.H Whitaker, eds., Philo (Cambridge, MA, and London, 1929-1943) and Ralph Marcus, Philo Supplement: I Questions and Answers on Genesis; II Questions and Answers on Exodus (Cambridge, MA, and London, 1953) for Philo, from which my English translations are taken.

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Philo was born about 20 B.C.E. This date is determined by one of the most important events of his life, which took place in the years 38-40 C.E., when he led a delegation of Alexandrian Jews to Rome to appeal to the emperor Gaius Caligula, a mission described primarily in his treatises on Flaccus and the delegation to Caligula (In Flaccum and De legatione ad Gaium). A pogrom had devastated the Jewish community in Alexandria in 38, and Philo sought legal redress for the continued threat. While he was waiting in Rome to see the Roman emperor, news came of an even greater threat to all Judaism: plans for Caligula to put his own statue into the Jerusalem Temple.2 Although Philo’s subsequent audience with the emperor did not seem to accomplish very much, the crisis relating to the Temple was averted, and Caligula was assassinated shortly afterward. The new emperor, Claudius, issued a decree that seems to have solved the immediate problem.3 Nothing further is heard of Philo, and he is presumed to have died around 50 C.E. Philo is different from most other Jewish writers in that he was quite knowledgeable in contemporary Greek philosophy, especially the Platonism of his time, often referred to as Middle Platonism (Dillon). Some think Philo was one of the main representatives (at least of those whose writings are extant) of this version of Platonism. Middle Platonism had taken over many Stoic elements, which one also finds in Philo. This does not represent an arbitrary eclecticism on Philo’s part but is characteristic of other Middle Platonists since, as one would expect, the various Hellenistic philosophies had influenced one another in their development. Middle Platonism had absorbed many elements from Stoicism and integrated them into its philosophical system. Because Philo wrote as a theologian and exegete, we have a welldocumented system of belief, a complete worldview presented across the many treatises still extant. His writings themselves are often not very systematic, partly because much of the time he is closely following the biblical text and giving an exposition of it. This means that one may have to extract his views from a variety of his writings, but his views clearly emerge on most important issues. Grabbe, op. cit., pp. 401-405. Victor A. Tcherikover, A. Fuks, and M. Stern, eds., Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum (Cambridge and Jerusalem, 1957-1964), vol. 2, pp. 36-55 [text #153]. 2 3

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1. Personal Eschatology For Philo, the essential part of the person is the soul, conceived as a “particle detached from the Deity” (Leg. alleg. 3.161; Somn. 1.34: apospasma theion), a fragment of the soul of the universe (Mut. 223). His overall view of the soul is that well known in contemporary Platonism, and Plato had taken it from Orphic and Pythagorean concepts. The rational soul is only imprisoned in the body and, one hopes, only temporarily. Philo agrees with the Orphic slogan that “the body is a tomb” (Leg. alleg. 2.108; Spec. leg. 4.188), which makes a play on the similarity of the words for “body” (s¿ma) and “tomb” (sðma) in Greek. It was once thought that there was a separate “Orphic religion” alongside other Greek cults; this is now questioned, but there were Orphic texts of diverse origin which were widely influential, including on the Pythagoreans and on Plato himself (cf., Cratylus 400B-C). Pythagoras is well known for his mathematical contributions, but it is not realized that the mathematics is only a part of a mystical philosophy in which ideas about the soul and its fate are a central plank. One aspect of Pythagoreanism was belief in the transmigration of souls (Greek metempsychosis), in which the soul that left the body of one who had died was later reincarnated into a new body and reborn. According to Philo, death is the separation of body and soul (Leg. alleg. 1.105; 2.77). This was a widespread definition of death in the Hellenistic period and by no means confined to Philo or to the Alexandrian Jews. The Stoic concept of the soul had some traits in common with those of the Platonists but also differed in some essential ways. The Stoics conceived of God as coextensive with the universe, the Logos being the “mind” of the cosmos and the essential part of the deity. The universe went through a long cosmic cycle of birth, growth, and death, followed by a new beginning. The end of the universe was the “universal conflagration” (ekpyrosis) in which it reverted to the original elements to begin the cycle again. Since souls were all a part of the universal soul or Logos and since everything in the universe was encompassed in the cycle, there could be no immortality as such. The earlier Stoics also envisaged no personal afterlife. However, the later Stoa was willing to believe that souls (or at least some souls) survived death and continued to exist until the ekpyrosis (Diogenes Laertius 7.157; Porphyry, De anima, apud Eusebius, Prep. evang. 15.20 822b-c). Thus, contemporary Stoicism also believed in a personal

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afterlife, just like Platonism, even though the conceptualization took a different form. The soul was a complex entity according to Philo, with much more to it than simply a substance that survived death, but he further complicates the issue by using different conceptualizations of the soul’s divisions: the Stoic concept (Aetius 4.21.1-4; Diogenes Laertius 7.110, 157; also von Arnim: vol. 2, pp. 223-25 [##826-33]), in which the soul had eight component parts (Quod det. 168; Agr. 30; Quis heres 232; Mut. 111; Quaes. Gen. 1.75; 2.12; 3.4; 4.110); the Platonic (Tim. 36D, 69C-E; 90A; Rep. 439D), in which it is divided only into three parts (Leg. alleg. 1.70; 3.115; Quaes. Gen. 2.59; 4.216; Quaes. Exod. 1.12); the Aristotelian (cf., Aristotle, De anima 2.2 413A-414A), into five parts (Quaes. Gen. 4.186); however, the really essential division is into rational and irrational soul (Quaes. Gen. 4.112, 117, 159, 218-20; Quaes. Exod. 1.23, 33, 53).4 This may seem confusing, because Philo makes no attempt to reconcile these different points of view, but it is not untypical of him. As so often in his writings, his concern is to convey certain essential truths by different metaphors without worrying whether the metaphors themselves may appear to be contradictory. In order to understand Philo’s views, it is important to let him tell us himself. A fundamental passage on the soul is found in Plant. 14: In the air He made the winged creatures perceived by our senses, and other mighty beings besides which are wholly beyond apprehension by sense. This is the host of the bodiless souls. Their array is made up of companies that differ in kind. We are told that some enter into mortal bodies, and quit them again at certain fixed periods, while others, endowed with a diviner constitution, have no regard for any earthly quarter, but exist on high nigh to the ethereal region itself. These are the purest spirits of all, whom Greek philosophers call heroes, but whom Moses, employing a well-chosen name, entitles “angels,” for they go on embassies bearing tidings from the great Ruler to His subjects of the boons which He sends them, and reporting to the Monarch what His subjects are in need of.

Another passage expands this idea (Gig. 6-16): [6] It is Moses’ custom to give the name of angels to those whom other philosophers call demons (or spirits), souls that is which fly and hover in the air. [7] And let no one suppose that which is here said is a myth. 4 Cf., John Dillon, The Middle Platonists: A Study of Platonism 80 B.C. to A.D. 220 (London, 1977), p. 175.

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For the universe must needs be filled through and through with life, and each of its primary elementary divisions contains the forms of life which are akin and suited to it.... [8] For the stars are souls divine and without blemish throughout, and therefore as each of them is mind in its purest form, they move in the line most akin to mind—the circle. And so the other element, the air, must needs be filled with living beings, though indeed they are invisible to us, since even the air itself is not visible to our senses. [9] Yet the fact that our powers of vision are incapable of any perception of the forms of these souls is no reason why we should doubt that there are souls in the air, but they must be apprehended by the mind, that like may be discerned by like.

Thus, Philo sees rational souls as associated with the air, the heavens, and divinity. Human souls are of the same general substance as those who make up the ranks of angels and the stars. The difference is that in humans the souls are entangled with the body and the lower or irrational soul (cf., Leg. alleg. 1.31-42; Conf. 176-82; Quis heres 55-62; Congr. 97; Quaes. Exod. 2.13). The distinction between the rational and irrational soul is very important to Philo. He associated immortality with the soul but not with the irrational soul, which is mortal and corruptible. Although a general assertion of immortality can be found (e.g., Quaes. Gen. 3.11), this really applies only to the rational part of the soul (Fug. 68-71; Quod det. 81-85). The passions (appetites, desires) are a product of the lower part of the soul, which must be controlled by the higher part of the soul or the mind. Note, for example, Gig. 28-31: [28] And so though the divine spirit may stay awhile in the soul it cannot abide there, as we have said.... [29] But the chief cause of ignorance is the flesh, and the tie which binds us so closely to the flesh. .... [30] But nothing thwarts its growth so much as our fleshly nature. For on it ignorance and scorn of learning rest. It is ready laid for them as a first and main foundation; each one of the qualities named rises on it like a building. For souls that are free from flesh and body spend their days in the theatre of the universe and with a joy that none can hinder see and hear things divine, which they have desired with love insatiable. But those which bear the burden of the flesh, oppressed by the grievous load, cannot look up to the heavens as they revolve, but with necks bowed downwards are constrained to stand rooted to the ground like four-footed beasts.

The ultimate goal and end are alluded to in this passage: to escape the encumbrance of the body. This is spelled out further in the following passage (Gig. 12-16):

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lester l. grabbe [12] Now some of the souls have descended into bodies, but others have never deigned to be brought into union with any of the parts of earth. They are consecrated and devoted to the service of the Father and Creator whose wont it is to employ them as ministers and helpers, to have charge and care of mortal man. [13] But the others descending into the body as though into a stream have sometimes been caught in the swirl of its rushing torrent and swallowed up thereby, at other times have been able to stem the current, have risen to the surface and then soared upwards back to the place from whence they came. [14] These last, then, are the souls of those who have given themselves to genuine philosophy, who from first to last study to die to the life in the body, that a higher existence immortal and incorporeal, in the presence of Him who is Himself immortal and uncreated, may be their portion. [15] But the souls which have sunk beneath the stream, are the souls of the others who have held no count of wisdom. They have abandoned themselves to the unstable things of chance, none of which has aught to do with our noblest part, the soul or mind but all are related to that dead thing which was our birth-fellow, the body, or to objects more lifeless still, glory, wealth, and offices, and honours, and all other illusions which like images or pictures are created through the deceit of false opinion by those who have never gazed upon true beauty.

As noted above, the body was viewed as negative by Philo, in common with the Platonists, Pythagoreans, and others. The aim of life was to free the soul at death to exist in the heavenly sphere, the fate of souls being dependent on the goodness or wisdom of the soul itself. What happens to the wicked is less clearly delineated. Philo thinks there are such things as punitive angels whose function is primarily to punish wicked humans, but they are not themselves wicked as such (Conf. 177; Fug. 66). The question is, what is the fate of the wicked souls? Philo’s discussion of what happens to the wicked is given only in metaphorical terms. One passage suggests that just as the righteous go to heaven (or above the heavens), the wicked are sent down to Tartarus (originally, the place in which Zeus imprisoned the Titans after defeating them). He also refers to punishment in Hades. Just as the righteous are said to look heavenward for their dwelling (Quaes. Gen. 4.74, 178) or to live on “Olympus” (Somn. 1.151), the wicked are associated with Hades: [Quis Heres 45] Now there are three kinds of life, one looking Godwards, another looking to created things, another on the border-line, a mixture of the other two. The God-regarding life has never come down to us, nor submitted to the constraints of the body. The life that looks to creation has never risen at all nor sought to rise, but makes its lair in the recesses of Hades and rejoices in a form of living, which is not worth the

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pains. It is the mixed life, which often drawn on by those of the higher line is possessed and inspired by God, though often pulled back by the worse it reverses its course. [Congr. 57] On the other hand he banishes the unjust and godless souls from himself to the furthest bounds, and disperses them to the place of pleasures and lusts and injustices. That place is most fitly called the place of the impious, but it is not that mythical place of the impious in Hades. For the true Hades is the life of the bad, a life of damnation and blood-guiltiness, the victim of every curse. [Quaes. Exod. 2.40] (Ex. xxiv. 12a) What is the meaning of the words, “Come up to Me to the mountain and be there”? This signifies that a holy soul is divinized by ascending not to the air or to the ether or to heaven (which is) higher than all but to (a region) above the heavens. And beyond the world there is no place but God...demonstrating the placelessness and the unchanging habitation of the divine place. For those who have a quickly satiated passion for reflexion fly upward for only a short distance under divine inspiration and then they immediately return. They do not fly so much as they are drawn downward, I mean, to the depths of Tartarus.

The terms “Hades” and “Tartarus” are used by Philo, but apparently as conventional expressions, not literal locations of divine imprisonment or punishment. For Philo, Hades and Tartarus are conditions, not places. Philo can also refer to “eternal death” (aidios thanatos) for the impious (Post. 39), but again this looks very much like metaphorical language, for he makes nothing further of this statement. It is not clear (at least, to me) that any soul is wicked of itself, apart from its entanglement with the body and the material world. Some souls are imprisoned in their own hell by refusing to exercise the wisdom to break free of the body and soar into the upper regions which is the soul’s natural home. 2. National Eschatology A number of scholars have argued that Philo held a type of messianic belief.5 The most recent defense of this interpretation has been given E.R. Goodenough and H.L. Goodhart, The Politics of Philo Judaeus, Practice and Theory: With a General Bibliography of Philo (New Haven, 1938), pp. 115-119; Harry Austryn Wolfson, Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Cambridge, 1947), vol. 2, pp. 395-426; for a detailed critique of their views, see Richard D. Hecht, “Philo and Messiah,” in Jacob Neusner, W.S. Green, and E.S. Frerichs, eds., Judaisms and Their Messiahs at the Turn of the Christian Era (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 140-148. 5

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by Peder Borgen.6 He makes the point that, allowing for Philo’s particularism, he still maintains a national role for Jews, putting them at the head of the nations. The Jews have the cosmic divine law that will establish universal peace when all nations follow it (Vita Mosis 2.43-44). “Thus the central role of the Jewish nation as the head (and ruler) of all nations is a fundamental element of Philo’s eschatological hope.”7 Philo’s ideas about a golden age to come will be discussed in the next section. Both here and there, the main appeal is to Philo’s treatise “Rewards and Punishments” (De Paemiis et Poenis). The question here is whether the future hope envisaged a messianic figure or leader as an individual as normally understood. One passage might imply some sort of messianic figure and has certainly been interpreted in this way. In discussing the triumph of the righteous over their enemies, Philo states that if some have the temerity to attack them (Praem. 94-95): ...they will fly headlong, companies of hundreds before handfuls of five, ten thousands before hundreds by many ways for the one by which they came. Some, without even any pursuer save fear, will turn their backs and present admirable targets to their enemies so that it would be an easy matter for all to fall slaughtered to a man. For “there shall come forth a man,” says the oracles, and leading his host to war he will subdue great and populous nations, because God has sent to his aid the reinforcement which befits the godly, and that is dauntless courage of soul and all-powerful strength of body, either of which strikes fear into the enemy and the two if united are quite irresistible.

Philo’s comments in this passage appear to be based on the Septuagint’s text of Num. 24:7a, which states, “There will come forth a man from his seed and will rule over many nations” (The MT reads rather differently: “Water shall flow from his waterskins, and his/its seed in many waters.”) The passage is also quoted in Vita Mosis 1.288-91, where Philo is expounding the whole of Balaam’s oracle in Num. 24. However, Borgen makes the point that in Praem. 95 there is no textual reason for Philo to introduce Num. 24:7, since this latter passage is based on Lev. 26 and Deut. 28; therefore, Philo 6 Peter Borgen, “‘There Shall Come Forth a Man:’ Reflections on Messianic Ideas in Philo,” in James H. Charlesworth, ed., The Messiah: Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity (Minneapolis, 1992), pp. 341-361; Philo of Alexandria: An Exegete for His Time (Leiden, 1997), pp. 261-281. 7 Bergen, op.cit. (1992), p. 346.

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has not just in a mechanical way accepted a word about Messiah from Scripture. He has deliberately placed Num 24:7 into the new context.... The conclusion is this: without using the term “Messiah,” Philo looks for the possibility of a (non-Davidic) Messiah to come in the form of a “Man” who is seen as a final commander-in-chief and emperor of the Hebrew nation as the head of the nations.8

Borgen knows Philo well and argues ingeniously, but in the end his explanation is not convincing. Since Philo read the Septuagint text carefully and literally but did not know the Hebrew,9 he had to interpret Num. 24:7 as a reference to a particular man. In Vita Mosis 1.289-91, Philo has simply interpreted the passage to mean a ruler of some sort (perhaps Moses), but in this case he makes nothing further of it. Similarly, he introduces Num. 24:7 into Praem. 95 to make a point about a military leader, but again he does not take the issue further. If he took the “man” of Num. 24:7 in the Septuagint as a messianic figure, why does he give no hint that this is his interpretation? In fact, a number of rather different suggestions have been made as to whom “man” in this passage refers in Philo’s thinking: as a reference to God himself or to Israel.10 The important point is that, having introduced the subject, he drops it even though he did not need to. Instead of reading each passage in context, Borgen has conflated the two different texts—taking them out of context—to produce a single composite figure. Philo nowhere suggests such a composite figure; it is Borgen’s creation, not Philo’s. Thomas Tobin has argued that Philo is deliberately opposing much more radical eschatological views that foresaw the overthrow of the Romans by a savior figure, as exemplified in such writings as Sibylline Oracles 3 and 5.11 The indication is that these views were widespread and had a long history among the Jewish community in Egypt, including the more educated among them (who were the ones Peter Borgen, Philo of Alexandria: An Exegete for His Time, pp. 174, 176. Cf., Lester L. Grabbe, Etymology in Early Jewish Interpretation: The Hebrew Names in Philo (Atlanta, 1988), pp. 63, 233-235. 10 On the former idea, see Gerbern S. Oegema, Der Gesalbte und sein Volk: Untersuchungen zum Konzeptualisierungsprozeß der messianischen Erwartungen von den Makkabäern bis Bar Koziba (Göttingen, 1994), pp. 118-119; cf., Ulrich Fischer, Eschatologie und Jenseitserwartung im hellenistischen Diasporajudentum (Berlin and New York, 1978), p. 201; on the latter, see Burton L. Mack, “Wisdom and Apocalyptic in Philo,” in David T. Runia, David M. Hay, and David Winston, eds., Heirs of the Septuagint. Philo, Hellenistic Judaism and Early Christianity: Festschrift for Earle Hilgert (Atlanta, 1991), p 35. 11 Cf., also Hecht, op. cit., pp. 160-161. 8 9

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able to compose such writings in traditional Greek verse). With his extensive knowledge of the political situation, Philo could only view such movements as potentially disastrous and sought to give a different interpretation. Tobin’s explanation (as well as Hecht’s similar one) is plausible and takes account of the broader situation of the Egyptian Jewish community. This need not mean that Philo was only presenting an expedient interpretation (nor does Tobin imply this), for a messianic savior figure does not fit easily into his theological system.12 3. Cosmic Eschatology Philo’s statements about cosmic eschatology are not much more clearly delineated than those on national eschatology. Again, his treatise on rewards and punishments (De Paemiis et Poenis) is central to any discussion. In it, Philo speaks of paradisial conditions to come about when God’s law is perfectly obeyed. His discussion takes the form of describing rewards for observing various virtues. For example, he points out that the natural enmity between humans and animals will disappear only when the wild animals within the soul are tamed (8788). At that point the various savage creatures, including bears, lions, panthers, and even elephants and tigers from India, will have fear and respect for humans and be as gentle as Maltese dogs (89). Even poisonous creatures, like scorpions and serpents, and man-eating creatures, like crocodiles, will cease to harm (90). And once the wild animals are tame, humans will be ashamed to continue engaging in warfare (91-93). Virtue will silence any enemies (93), or, if it fails to, the strength of the righteous will put them to flight (94-95), or they will be defeated by wasps (96-97). Other blessings follow, of wealth (98-107), progeny (108-117), and health (118-126). One could interpret this passage as the new earth, the age to come, or the various other transformations found in apocalyptic literature. However, Philo goes on to follow the text and discuss the curses brought on by disobedience (127-156). If those suffering for their sins repent, then they will be restored and prosper again (157172), and the exiles will be gathered and return to their homeland (165-168). Although this has parallels to some of the apocalyptic 12 As also argued by Fischer, op. cit., Hecht, op. cit., and Mack, op. cit., pp. 2139; cf., also Oegema, op. cit., pp. 118, 122; see also the next section.

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scenarios, Philo is basically following the text of Lev. 26 and Deut. 28. There is no indication that this will be according to some sort of divine timetable or plan but, rather, that it will be a natural consequence of that obedience. Philo hints at this himself when he quotes Is. 54:1 and states that it is “a saying which also is an allegory of the history of the soul” (158). Philo’s interpretation is a long way from the apocalyptic one.13 There is no reference to a resurrection in Philo. Unlike Josephus (see below), who also seems not to refer to the resurrection but may have believed in one, it is unlikely that Philo has accidentally or even deliberately been silent on a deeply held belief. On the contrary, a resurrection does not fit at all well into his religious system. As explained above under “Personal Eschatology,” the whole point of the spiritual life is for the soul eventually to escape the encumbrance of the body. Most fortunate are those souls who do not have to undergo incarnation and can remain free to act in the higher world without the interference of fleshly distractions and appetites. One cannot imagine Philo’s looking with favor on the idea of a general resurrection in which the souls of the righteous were again reunited with the body. Other writings seem to agree with Philo in this lack of a bodily resurrection. The Wisdom of Solomon, probably written by an Egyptian Jew in the same general period as Philo, also seems to have no concept of a resurrection. Like Philo, the emphasis is on the immediate post-mortem judgment of the soul not on some great assizes at the end of history.14 In the end, Philo has no cosmic eschatology—or, rather, his cosmic eschatology is not distinguished from his individual eschatology. All emphasis is placed on the goal and fate of the individuals souls. He says nothing about a cosmic cataclysm, the intervention of God at the end of history, a universal resurrection, or an endtime judgment of all human beings. His concern is that by means of wise behavior and obedience to the law, at death the rational soul can escape the body and the irrational part of the soul and rejoin the divine sphere that is its natural habitation.

13 14

Cf., Mack, op. cit., p. 37. Cf., Grabbe, Wisdom of Solomon, especially pp. 59-61.

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Josephus tells us that he was born in 37 C.E. (Ant. 20.11.3 §267). He was of an aristocratic priestly family and, at age 26, was sent on a mission to Rome. When the war with Rome began in 66 C.E., he was sent to be general of Galilee (or at least a part of it). A year later, when Jotapata fell, Vespasian captured him but treated him as a free man after his troops proclaimed him emperor, which Josephus had allegedly prophesied. After the fall of Jerusalem, Titus took him back to Rome where he was made a Roman citizen, adopted into the Flavian family, and given a pension. Over the next twenty-five years, he wrote a history of the war with Rome (The War of the Jews), an account of the Jews from creation to 66 C.E. (The Antiquities of the Jews), an autobiography (The Life, though this was devoted mostly to his activities when a general in Galilee), and an attack on the antiJewish polemic of the Alexandrian writer Apion (Against Apion). He drops out of sight about 94 C.E., and we hear no more of him or his family (he had two sons). Josephus’s views are important for several reasons. As a member of the priestly aristocracy, his views on many issues were probably not his alone but represented those of others of his social group (though he gives no indication that he ever functioned as a Temple-priest). He was a native of Judah and had Hebrew and/or Aramaic as his first language(s). But he was also educated in the Greek language and a certain amount of Greek literature. His life overlapped the important watershed of pre-70 and post-70 times, with the great changes taking place in Judaism in the post-destruction period. To what extent he was aware of what was happening at Yavneh is debated, but there are arguments that he attempted to align himself with the emerging Rabbinic movement.15 An additional complicating factor is that Josephus is an apologist for Judaism and attempts to interpret Jewish history and religion in categories that would appeal to the educated Greek or Roman. On the negative side, this can lead to distortions; but, on the positive side, he makes clearer the common beliefs held by both Jew and gentile of the Mediterranean world. Josephus is rather different from Philo when it comes to understanding his theological views. These views are not part of a system15 Cf., Jacob Neusner, From Politics to Piety (Englewood Cliffs, 1973), pp. 45-66; Seth Schwartz, Josephus and Judaean Politics (Leiden, 1990).

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atic treatment in theological works but are usually mentioned only in passing in historical works. This means that his hints and even his silences can be rather significant. 1. Personal Eschatology The first significant passage about Josephus’s beliefs occurs in the context of the fall of Jotapata and the debate Josephus and his companions had about suicide. Although his companions wanted to kill themselves rather than surrender to the Romans, Josephus argued against suicide (War 3.8.1-7 §§340-391): [War 3.8.5 §§362, 372, 374-375] Why set asunder such fond companions as soul and body? .... All of us, it is true, have mortal bodies, composed of perishable matter, but the soul lives for ever, immortal [athanatos]: it is a portion of the Deity [theou moira] housed in our bodies.... Know you not that they who depart this life in accordance with the law of nature and repay the loan which they received from God, when He who lent is pleased to reclaim it, win eternal renown; that their houses and families are secure; that their souls, remaining spotless and obedient, are allotted the most holy place in heaven, whence, in the revolution of the ages, they return to find in chaste bodies a new habitation? But as for those who have laid mad hands upon themselves, the darker regions of the nether world receive their souls, and God, their father, visits upon their posterity the outrageous acts of the parents.

This speech is most likely an invention of Josephus. The situation described has a certain unreality about it: his companions want to commit suicide, whereas he does not, but they allow him to make a long philosophical speech about the evils of suicide; after they reject his arguments and even threaten to kill him, they nevertheless allow the lots to fall so that he is last in line to take his life. We can only regard Josephus’s account with suspicion. Yet despite the rhetorical function of the speech, there is a good chance that the statements about the soul represent his own point of view. Indeed, the fact that the speech was composed in the study rather than extemporized on the battlefield makes it more likely to encapsulate Josephus’s own perspective on the soul. A further statement is found in Ag. Apion 2.30 §§218: No; each individual...is firmly persuaded that to those who observe the laws and, if they must needs die for them, willingly meet death, God has granted a renewed existence and in the revolution of the ages the gift of a better life.

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These two passages give some unambiguous views. The emphasis in both is on the soul: the soul is currently connected with the body, but it is the real person, even a small portion of the divine temporarily incarnated. Death is the separation of body and soul, and the soul lives on as an immortal entity; the good souls are rewarded, and the evil ones are punished. It also seems evident that Josephus believed in the transmigration of souls, stating that the soul released at death would eventually be reborn in a new body. This belief in metempsychosis seems to be a problem for some commentators, because they either ignore it (e.g., Bousset) or attempt to explain that this was not Josephus’s view.16 These two descriptions of Josephus’s own views look remarkably similar to the views ascribed by Josephus himself to both the Pharisees and the Essenes. According to him, the Pharisees believed the following: [War 2.8.14 §§163] Every soul, they maintain, is imperishable, but the soul of the good alone passes into another body, while the souls of the wicked suffer eternal punishment. [Ant. 18.1.3 §14] They believe that souls have power to survive death and that there are rewards and punishments under the earth for those who have led lives of virtue or vice: eternal imprisonment is the lot of evil souls, while the good souls receive an easy passage to a new life.

He states the following about the Essene beliefs (War 2.8.11 §154158): For it is a fixed belief of theirs that the body is corruptible and its constituent matter impermanent, but that the soul is immortal and imperishable. Emanating from the finest ether, these souls become entangled, as it were, in the prison-house of the body, to which they are dragged down by a sort of natural spell; but when once they are released from the bonds of the flesh, then, as though liberated from a long servitude, they rejoice and are borne aloft. Sharing the belief of the sons of Greece, they maintain that for virtuous souls there is reserved an abode beyond the ocean, a place which is not oppressed by rain or snow or heat, but is refreshed by the ever gentle breath of the west wind coming in from ocean; while they relegate base souls to a murky and tempestuous dungeon, big with never-ending punishments.

16 E.g., Albert Dihle, “C. Judaism: I. Hellenistic Judaism,” in Gerhard Friedrich, ed., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, 1974), vol. 9, p. 634, n. 104.

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What do we make of these statements, since Josephus does not himself explicitly state his agreement with them? Josephus was probably never a Pharisee, despite claims to having been one (Life 2 §12).17 Similarly, I do not believe his claims to have “passed through” the Essene probationary procedures (Life 2 §§10-11). The point here is that in each case—whether the Pharisees or the Essenes—the views look strikingly like those in the passages that seem to represent Josephus’s own opinions. On the other hand, he evidently rejected the Sadducean view that the soul died with the body (Ant. 18.1.4.§16). This rejection is not only implied by the way he describes the various beliefs of the different sects but also by the statements in his suicide speech. Whether he sided precisely with the Pharisaic view or the Essene view is perhaps a moot point, though he (like Philo) may have been happy to espouse more than one view. What does seem to emerge from the various passages in Josephus is belief in a soul that survives death and is rewarded or punished for its deeds on earth. He also seems to think that at some point the soul, or at least the good soul, might well be reincarnated into a new body and reborn once more. 2. National Eschatology In Josephus’ mind national eschatology was probably closely tied with cosmic eschatology, but a precise understanding is limited by his desire to avoid offending the Romans. The most striking aspect of his statements on the question is his explicit denial that the conflict with Rome had anything to do with an eschatological war in which the Jewish nation would be delivered. This is hardly surprising since, writing sometime after the events, he knew that there had been no divine or messianic intervention to save the Jews and destroy the Romans. Instead, he interprets the alleged prophecies as having been misunderstood or even as prophesying disaster. Let us begin by looking at the several oracles he quotes. The main one relates to the expectation of a “ruler from the East” (War 6.5.4 §§311-313):

17 Cf., Lester L. Grabbe, “Sadducees and Pharisees,” in Jacob Neusner and Alan J. Avery-Peck, eds., Judaism in Late Antiquity: Volume Two. Where We Stand: Issues and Debates in Ancient Judaism (Leiden, 1999), pp. 35-62.

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lester l. grabbe Thus the Jews, after the demolition of Antonia, reduced the temple to a square, although they had it recorded in their oracles that the city and the sanctuary would be taken when the temple should become foursquare (tetragonon). But what more than all else incited them to the war was an ambiguous oracle, likewise found in their sacred scriptures, to the effect that at that time one from their country would become ruler of the world. This they understood to mean someone of their own race, and many of their wise men went astray in their interpretation of it. The oracle, however, in reality signified the sovereignty of Vespasian, who was proclaimed Emperor on Jewish soil.

It is important to notice a significant difference between this oracle and Josephus’s own prophecy that Vespasian would become emperor, which he claims came to him in a dream (War 3.8.3 §§351353). The matter is difficult because Josephus associates his dreams with interpretation of prophecies in Scripture, but it seems likely that his prophecy to Vespasian initially had a different basis.18 Interestingly, the Roman historian Tacitus gives a similar story (Histories 5.13.2): Few interpreted these omens as fearfully; the majority firmly believed that their ancient priestly writings contained the prophecy that this was the very time when the East should grow strong and that men starting from Judea should possess the world. This mysterious prophecy had in reality pointed to Vespasian and Titus, but the common people, as is the way of human ambition, interpreted these great destinies in their favor, and could be not be turned to the truth even by adversity.

Suetonius gives similar information (Vespasian 4.5; 5.6): When he [Vespasian] consulted the oracle of the god of Carmel in Judaea, the lots were highly encouraging, promising that whatever he planned or wished, however great it might be, would come to pass; and one of his high-born prisoners, Josephus by name, as he was being put in chains, declared most confidently that he would soon be released by the same man, who would then, however, be emperor.

A whole array of questions comes to mind about these oracles, including: Did they all have a common origin or were they independent or at least circulating in several forms? On what passage of the Bible were they based?19 For our purposes, however, the central quesCf., Fischer, op. cit., pp. 168-174. See further Lester L. Grabbe, “The 70-Weeks Prophecy (Daniel 9:24-27) in Early Jewish Interpretation,” in Craig A. Evans and Shemaryahu Talmon, eds., The Quest for Context and Meaning: Studies in Biblical Intertextuality in Honor of James A. Sanders (Leiden, 1997), pp. 595-611. 18 19

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tion is, Did Josephus genuinely believe that Vespasian was the intended fulfillment of these prophetic interpretations? One is left with the strong impression that Josephus himself once believed in various oracles thought to predict a coming messianic deliverer. A number of such oracles were evidently taken by many Jews as predictions of ultimate deliverance. Even in the very last days of the siege of Jerusalem, as the Romans were breaching the walls, a large number of those in the city were still expecting to be delivered against all appearances (War 6.5.2 §§283-287). By the final days of the siege, Josephus probably did not believe such views, but his ready participation in the revolt (and here his actions speak louder than words) hints that the oracles later applied so readily to Vespasian were originally seen by Josephus himself as providing hope of a Jewish victory. Josephus obviously abandoned the messianic interpretation of these oracles at some point and began to reinterpret them as applying to Vespasian. However, this is probably only a part of the story—the part he wants left to posterity—and by no means the whole story. He may well still have thought that Vespasian was only a forerunner of a Jewish leader who was to arise in the endtime to deliver his people. In the same way, he is very negative toward most of the rebel movements and “bandits” about which he writes, a number of which were likely to have been messianic in character.20 Yet this is only part of the story because he also joined the ultimate rebellion in 66 C.E. and was himself a “rebel leader” in some sense. In other words, Josephus was pragmatic enough to abandon various oracles alleged to prophesy a Jewish victory in the revolt against Rome when that revolt was obviously failing, but it is not at all clear that he had no messianic hopes for the more distant future. Quite the contrary, we have a strong indication that Josephus’s beliefs about prophecy were more complex than his explicit statements might lead us to believe. For example, he mentions a couple of other oracles he does not refer to Vespasian, though he interprets them to fit with that view (War 4.6.3 §388): For there was an ancient saying of inspired men that the city would be taken and the sanctuary burnt to the ground by right of war, whensoever it should be visited by sedition and native hands should be the first to defile God’s sacred precincts.

20

See Grabbe, Judaism from Cyrus to Hadrian, pp. 511-514.

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An allusion to another oracle (or possibly the same one) seems to be found in War 6.2.1 §109: Who knows not the records of the ancient prophets and that oracle which threatens this poor city and is even now coming true? For they foretold that it would then be taken whensoever one should begin to slaughter his own countrymen.

Josephus was clearly very interested in oracles; if not, why was he so keen to collect and interpret them? On the other hand, if he originally saw them all as an indication that Rome would suppress the revolt and destroy Jerusalem, why was he so enthusiastic to be a military leader under those taking the nation to certain destruction? The situation is best explained if Josephus changed his interpretation of those oracles he had originally understood as prophesying a messianic victory over the Romans. The most important passage, however, relates to his discussion of the book of Daniel, in particular Dan. 2 (Ant. 10.10.3-4 §§195-210). He associates the head of gold with Nebuchadnezzar (Ant. 10.10.4 §§208-210, as Dan. 2:38 itself does). The head and shoulders represent the two kings who bring the Babylonian empire to an end, later interpreted as Cyrus the Persian and Darius the Mede (Ant. 10.11.4 §§247-248). They are in turn defeated by a king from the West who can only be Alexander; his empire is subsequently brought down by a power like iron that, though not explicitly identified, must be Rome. The last is destroyed by a “stone made without hands,” about which Josephus states (Ant. 10.10.4 §210): And Daniel also revealed to the king the meaning of the stone, but I have not thought it proper to relate this, since I am expected to write of what is past and done and not of what is to be; if, however, there is anyone who has so keen a desire for exact information that he will not stop short of inquiring more closely but wishes to learn about the hidden things that are to come, let him take the trouble to read the Book of Daniel, which he will find among the sacred writings.

Scholars have long argued that the original prophecy of Dan. 2 envisaged the kingdoms of Babylon, the Medes, the Persians, and the Greeks. However, by the first century, these had been reoriented to be Babylon, the Medes and Persians as one kingdom, the Greeks, and, finally, the Romans. This is especially clear in the “eagle vision” of 4 Ezra 11-12 but also presupposed in the New Testament Revelation of John (13; 17-18). Interestingly, Josephus was writing these words about Daniel at the end of the first century C.E., approxi-

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mately the same time as the authors of 4 Ezra and Revelation were penning their prophecies. Did he also apply the prophecy of Daniel to Rome, expecting its destruction by supernatural means? I would say, almost certainly. Whether he expected that destruction to be imminent as in 4 Ezra and Revelation is rather less certain. Since the whole thrust of his writings was to dampen the revolutionary enthusiasm, he was probably more aware than some of the likely endurance of the Roman empire for the foreseeable future. He does not write as one who expected it to fall shortly, unlike some of his contemporary apocalypticists. Nevertheless, he gives strong hints that his messianic interpretations of prophecy, though postponed to a more distant future, had not changed. 3. Cosmic Eschatology Apart from some hints at belief in an apocalyptic end to history, Josephus is largely silent about cosmic eschatology. Because of his reluctance to interpret prophecies that might refer to the destruction of Rome, it is not unusual that he says nothing explicitly on this subject. But he does make one revealing—if brief—statement in an out-of-the-way context about pre-Flood discoveries (Ant. 1.2.3 §§7071): Moreover, to prevent their discoveries from being lost to mankind and perishing before they became known—Adam having predicted a destruction of the universe, at one time by a violent fire and at another by a mighty deluge of water—they [the sons of Seth] erected two pillars, one of brick and the other of stone, and inscribed these discoveries on both....

This is all Josephus says on the subject, but, once again, it hints that he believed in a destruction of the world by fire in the eschaton (since the destruction by water manifestly referred to the Noachic flood). It is another indication that his eschatological views were rather more extensive than described in his extant writings. Surprisingly, Josephus gives no evidence of belief in a resurrection, even though this would not require him to bring the Romans into the picture. Yet we should not take this silence as proof that Josephus did not believe in the resurrection as such, since this was a concept alien to the Greeks and Romans (cf., Acts 17:32). It may well be that Josephus had no occasion on which to expound the belief and felt that, because of his apologetic purposes, he should keep quiet about

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it. We do not know that this was the case, but if we had to guess at his views, it is more likely than not that the resurrection of the dead to judgment in the endtime was a part of his belief system. Summary and Conclusions A major problem with some past discussions of Philo and Josephus is the assumption that they must agree with each other and with other Jewish beliefs of the time, especially with beliefs expressed in Rabbinic literature. This exercise in harmonizing not only is unjustified in the case of Second Temple literature, the diversity of which has been recognized by many scholars for some time now, but overlooks the differences and complexities found in Rabbinic literature. 21 We should not attempt to reconcile different points of view between Jewish writers of this period, whether on eschatology or other religious issues, but must let each speak for himself. Even so, considering the different backgrounds of Philo and Josephus, their writings contain some surprising agreements as well as significant differences: 1. In some ways Philo and Josephus are representatives of “Hellenistic Judaism” in that they both wrote in Greek and show some knowledge of Greek literature, philosophy, and other aspects of culture. They both use Greek models to express native Jewish concepts (e.g., Josephus compares the Essenes to the Pythagoreans). The differences between them may be due in part to their different backgrounds: Philo as a prominent member of the Alexandrian Jewish community; Josephus as a native of Palestine and a priest. But some of the differences are almost certainly because of the different nature of the sources: Philo is writing as an exegete and interpreter who is trying to explain and defend his theological views; Josephus is writing a history of the Jews, and his beliefs on certain issues are simply ignored or mentioned only in passing. 2. Both take similar positions on the soul, even giving a similar definition that it is a “divine fragment.” To them the soul (or the rational part, in Philo’s system) is incorruptible and immortal but is imprisoned in the body. Death is separation of the soul and body. 21 Jacob Neusner, “Mishnah and Messiah,” in Jacob Neusner, W.S. Green, and E.S. Frerichs, eds., Judaisms and Their Messiahs at the Turn of the Christian Era (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 265-282.

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3. Neither mentions a resurrection of any sort. With Philo, we can be reasonably certain that this was his true position; a resurrection would not fit his theological system very well. With Josephus, however, we cannot be sure that his failure to mention a resurrection is his final word. The Greco-Roman world does not seem to have found this concept easy to understand, and there was no real reason for him to mention it. Although we cannot be sure that he combined a resurrection with his belief in the immortal soul, it is not improbable. 4. A major difference between Philo and Josephus is that Philo allegorizes everything whereas Josephus seems to interpret more literally. This is one of the reasons for thinking that Josephus may have accepted certain doctrines that he does not explicitly mention, such as an eschatological war, cosmic upheaval, final judgment, and perhaps even resurrection. Philo has spiritualized most such passages to refer to the progress of the soul, whereas Josephus can use language that sounds more direct and real and has more in common with some of the well-known apocalypses. 5. Whereas, according to Philo, the goal is to get free of the body, which weights down the soul, Josephus seems to believe that all souls are eventually reborn. This apparent belief in reincarnation is unusual, but, while some scholars claim it is not there at all, it appears clearly enough in two passages. Belief that the goal was to escape from the cycle of rebirth is not delineated in Josephus, but this might have been his position; if so, he may not have been as far apart from Philo as he presently seems. 6. Josephus is quite explicit that good souls are rewarded after death and the wicked are punished. Again, Philo is not so clear. He can speak of punishments relating to Hades or Tartarus, but he is also explicit that “Hades” is a present condition of the wicked because of the life they live. Whether the soul can be wicked apart from its union with flesh is a moot point; some passages would suggest that all souls, once freed from the body, belong to the heavenly sphere. 7. On the surface, neither Philo nor Josephus seems to believe in a messianic figure. In Philo’s case this seems to be the situation, despite some prominent interpreters who have argued otherwise. Josephus, however, despite frequent passages in which he denies messianic status to various “rebels” and his interpretation of certain messianic prophecies as referring to Vespasian, probably did believe in a messiah who would intervene to destroy Rome. He nowhere states this, but his one reference to Daniel’s prophecies hints at an interpretation

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in which Rome is destroyed by a stone cut out without hands. If contemporary prophecies such as 4 Ezra 11-12 are anything to go by, this “stone” is to be seen as the messiah, an interpretation believed in by Josephus. Bibliography Arnim, Johannes von, Stoicorum Veterum fragmenta (Leipzig, 1903), 4 vols. Borgen, Peter, Philo of Alexandria: An Exegete for His Time (Leiden, 1997). Borgen, Peter, “‘There Shall Come Forth a Man:’ Reflections on Messianic Ideas in Philo,” in Charlesworth, James H., ed., The Messiah: Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity (Minneapolis, 1992), pp. 341-361. Bousset, Wilhelm, Die Religion des Judentums im späthellenistischen Zeitaltar (ed. H. Gressmann, 1925; 4th ed. with foreword by E. Lohse; Tübingen, 1966). Colson, F.H., and G.H Whitaker, eds., Philo (Cambridge, MA, and London, 1929-1943), Loeb Classical Library, vols. 1-10. Dihle, Albert, “C. Judaism: I. Hellenistic Judaism,” in Friedrich, Gerhard, ed., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, 1974), vol. 9, pp. 632-635. Dihle, Albert, “øõ÷Þ . . . A. øõ÷Þ in the Greek World,” in Friedrich, Gerhard, ed., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, 1974), vol. 9, pp. 608-617. Dillon, John, The Middle Platonists: A Study of Platonism 80 B.C. to A.D. 220 (London, 1977). Fischer, Ulrich, Eschatologie und Jenseitserwartung im hellenistischen Diasporajudentum (Berlin and New York, 1978). Goodenough, E.R., By Light, Light: The Mystic Gospel of Hellenistic Judaism (New Haven, 1935). Goodenough, E.R., An Introduction to Philo Judaeus (revised ed.; Oxford, 1962). Goodenough, E.R., and H.L. Goodhart, The Politics of Philo Judaeus, Practice and Theory: With a General Bibliography of Philo (New Haven, 1938). Grabbe, Lester L., Etymology in Early Jewish Interpretation: The Hebrew Names in Philo (Atlanta, 1988). Grabbe, Lester L., Judaism from Cyrus to Hadrian: Volume I: Persian and Greek Periods; Volume II: Roman Period (Minneapolis, 1992; British edition in one-volume: London, 1994). Grabbe, Lester L., “Philo and Aggada: A Response to B.J. Bamberger,” in Runia, David T., David M. Hay, and David Winston, eds., Heirs of the Septuagint. Philo, Hellenistic Judaism and Early Christianity: Festschrift for Earle Hilgert (Atlanta, 1991), pp. 153-166. Grabbe, Lester L., “Sadducees and Pharisees,” in Neusner, Jacob, and Alan J. Avery-Peck, eds., Judaism in Late Antiquity: Volume Two. Where We Stand: Issues and Debates in Ancient Judaism (Leiden, 1999), pp. 35-62. Grabbe, Lester L., “The 70-Weeks Prophecy (Daniel 9:24-27) in Early Jewish Interpretation,” in Evans, Craig A., and Shemaryahu Talmon, eds.,

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The Quest for Context and Meaning: Studies in Biblical Intertextuality in Honor of James A. Sanders (Leiden, 1997b), pp. 595-611. Grabbe, Lester L., Wisdom of Solomon (Sheffield, 1997a). Hecht, Richard D., “Philo and Messiah,” in Neusner, Jacob, W.S. Green, and E.S. Frerichs, eds., Judaisms and Their Messiahs at the Turn of the Christian Era (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 139-168. Mack, Burton L., “Wisdom and Apocalyptic in Philo,” in Runia, David T., David M. Hay, and David Winston, eds., Heirs of the Septuagint. Philo, Hellenistic Judaism and Early Christianity: Festschrift for Earle Hilgert (Atlanta, 1991), pp. 21-39. Marcus, Ralph, Philo Supplement: I Questions and Answers on Genesis; II Questions and Answers on Exodus (Cambridge, MA, and London, 1953), 2 vols. Neusner, Jacob, From Politics to Piety (Englewood Cliffs, 1973). Neusner, Jacob, “Mishnah and Messiah,” in Neusner, Jacob, W.S. Green, and E.S. Frerichs, eds., Judaisms and Their Messiahs at the Turn of the Christian Era (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 265-282. Nickelsburg, G.W.E., Resurrection, Immortality, and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism (Cambridge, 1972). Oegema, Gerbern S., Der Gesalbte und sein Volk: Untersuchungen zum Konzeptualisierungsprozeß der messianischen Erwartungen von den Makkabäern bis Bar Koziba (Göttingen, 1994); ET: The Anointed and his People: Messianic Expectations from the Maccabees to Bar Kochba (Sheffield, 1998). Sandmel, Samuel, Philo of Alexandria: An Introduction (Oxford and New York, 1979). Schwartz, Seth, Josephus and Judaean Politics (Leiden, 1990). Sly, Dorothy I., Philo’s Alexandria (London and New York, 1996). Tcherikover, Victor A., A. Fuks, and M. Stern, eds., Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum (Cambridge and Jerusalem, 1957-1964), 3 vols. Thackeray, H. St. J., et al., Josephus (London and Cambridge, 1926-1965). Tobin, Thomas H., “Philo and the Sibyl: Interpreting Philo’s Eschatology,” in Runia, David T., and Gregory E. Sterling, eds., Wisdom and Logos: Studies in Jewish Thought in Honor of David Winston (Atlanta, 1997), pp. 84103. Volz, Paul, Die Eschatologie der jüdischen Gemeinde im neutestamentlichen Zeitalter (Tübingen, 1934; reprint: Hildesheim, 1966). Wolfson, Harry Austryn, Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Cambridge, 1947), 2 vols.

III. THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS

8. DEATH, RESURRECTION, AND LIFE AFTER DEATH IN THE QUMRAN SCROLLS Philip R. Davies University of Sheffield In the late Second Temple Period, beliefs about the ultimate fate of the individual were diverse. It is well-known that Josephus, in his description of the four Jewish “sects” (and supported by Matt. 22:23 and parallels, plus Acts 23:6) notes that the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection while the Pharisees did, and the Essenes subscribed to the doctrine of the immortality of the soul (War 2.154: “...although bodies are corruptible and their matter unstable, souls are immortal and live for ever...”). Whatever one’s assessment of Josephus’s reliability and the accommodation of his account to nonJewish readers, it is evident that belief in the fate of the individual after death did not unite Palestinian Jews. But does Josephus imply that the issue was one that divided different “sects” rather than different individuals? If the Qumran scrolls do not—as is increasingly being thought—uniformly reflect the beliefs and practices of a single group, then there is no reason a priori to expect complete conformity in beliefs of this kind. On the other hand, if the writers of the Qumran scrolls were all, or largely, members of a single community, must we assume that they adhered to a common doctrine in this regard? In any case, while an identification of the Qumran writers with the Essenes is still widely favored, a considerable number would dub them as Sadducees (of some kind)! In all events, was a particular religious belief in the fate of the individual after death a dogma? Messianic expectation does not seem to be consistent in the Scrolls: why afterlife? It is clearly less dangerous to investigate various texts individually than to attempt to synthesize across the whole corpus. Life and Afterlife in the Jewish Scriptures To understand the sources and premises of beliefs about death and afterlife in the Qumran scrolls, it is absolutely necessary to remind

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ourselves of the teaching of the Jewish Scriptures, with which the writers of these scrolls were deeply familiar and upon which, in this instance, they were highly dependent. But it is important to appreciate that the issue of post-mortem existence has two distinct dimensions, both in the Bible and in post-biblical Judaism (including the Qumran scrolls): the metaphysical and the ethical. i. Metaphysics The outlook reflected in virtually the entire corpus of Hebrew Scripture is that death is the end of human existence. Such an outlook, however, does not preclude superstition about a continued shadowy existence in Sheol. This realm was by definition not an extension or renewal of human life, but its negation. Whether or not Sheol fell within God’s created order was a matter on which the Scriptures include differing opinions (cp., Ps. 88; Is. 38:18, etc.; Ps. 139:8 [ET], Amos 9:2, etc.). But the Hebrew sheol can denote both the area below the earth where the buried dead reside—a geographical location to which one might in principle dig down (e.g., Amos 9:2)—and also, metaphorically/mythologically, any life-threatening circumstances, such as disease. These two meanings can even be mingled, as when Jonah, thrown into the sea, approaches both physical death and the “roots of the mountains,” where the gates of the underworld are to be found (ch. 2). Texts in which Yahweh is said to be able to rescue the individual “from Sheol” are probably examples of the metaphorical usage (e.g., Ps. 16:10 [ET]) and express belief in his ability to rescue individuals from the “clutches of death.” Such statements were nevertheless interpreted in late Second Temple times and onward as expressions of belief in the power of God to raise from the dead. A similar kind of difficulty exists, as will be seen, in the Qumran scrolls, where poetic or metaphorical language may also be employed in dealing with the topic of afterlife. Corresponding to the “underworld” of Sheol is the “overworld,” the heavens, the sky (Heb: shamayim). Here dwell the heavenly beings, immortal. Just as the realm of Sheol comprises an existence that is less than human life, so existence in Shamayim is more than human life. And while the fate of individuals is descent to Sheol, the possibility of ascent to heaven is also conceivable. Thus Elijah rides upwards on a chariot (2 Kgs. 2), while Enoch is “taken” by God (Gen. 5:22-

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23). Both of these biblical characters could thus be understood to have become immortal and to be able to return to earth in the future. But, of course, they are rare exceptions to the rule of universal death. Nevertheless, once “Sheol” ceases to be seen as a neutral place, accommodating good and wicked alike, and becomes a place of punishment—called Abaddon, or Gehenna, or “the pit”—as was commonplace at the time of writing of the Qumran scrolls, then the heavens correspondingly invite the righteous, as the place of eternal bliss for the righteous. Ethics The question of the afterlife of Israel is in fact a prominent topic in the Jewish Scriptures: both the Exodus and return from Exile are moments of national resurrection. Indeed, the nation is often represented as an individual, with the result that national and individual death and revival can be poetically confused. The vision of the valley of bones in Ezek. 37 is a marvelous example of this, and the poems of the Servant within Is. 40-55 another. Such passages were, of course, sometimes understood by later generations as prophecies of the afterlife of individuals. But since we are dealing with personal rather than corporate ethics in the Scriptures, and personal rather than corporate survival, it is the so-called “wisdom” literature that requires our attention. The central issue of the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Bible (Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes), ethics, is closely connected to maintenance of the justice of God. Only in a just world can ethical behavior be meaningful, and only God, as creator, can guarantee justice and thus justify the moral life. According to Prov. 8:22-31, the world was created according to “wisdom,” and thus humans should live by it, in accordance with both the wish of God and the inherent order of the world. Morality comes from knowing this moral code and living by it, and the results of such knowledge and behavior are material benefits: wealth, progeny, long life, respect. The rewards of folly are the opposite. The teaching of Proverbs, moreover, tends to be presented in rather dualistic fashion: there are the wise and the foolish, the righteous and the wicked, and, accordingly, two kinds of fate awaiting them. The thesis that the world is created according to a moral order in which behavior is recompensed, as a result of the logic of the uni-

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verse, by its due, is not sufficiently self-evident to go unchallenged, even in the Scriptures. The book of Job wrestles with the instance, not so much of a righteous man suffering, but with the possibility of disinterested virtue: despite the evidence provided by his circumstances, will the human maintain his integrity? As the Satan puts it to Yahweh: “does Job revere God for nothing?” (1:9). Without the reward, will he be moral? The issue here, of course, is tremendous. Is morality merely materialism, and virtue merely greed? If so (as the Satan’s allegation implies), then the created order is not moral. Even Yahweh’s own moral authority vanishes. He cannot be praised as a god of justice. The problem is solved peremptorily and unsatisfactorily by means of two contradictory conclusions. In the first of these, Yahweh tells Job that humans cannot understand his ways or, indeed, understand the true nature of the created world. In the second, Job’s words are vindicated and his fortunes restored. The ways of God are thus held to be beyond human knowledge, yet humans should trust in his justice. The critique of Qohelet moves away from the question of ethics. For him, personal observation (rather than inherited dogma) teaches that there is no moral order in the created world: the good and the bad suffer an equal fate. And that fate, ultimately, is death. Joy replaces morality as the key to a fulfilled existence, and God emerges as the provider of human pleasure rather than the guarantor of vindication to the moral. It is not hard to understand that from the philosophical-theological point of view, such a position as Proverbs maintains is unstable and was bound to collapse. It may well be that social reasons explain this too: the world-view of Proverbs suits an elite whose wealth can be held to justify their moral perfection, but cannot withstand the challenge of the new elites: the merchants, bankers, traders, and landed lay aristocracy whose physical and intellectual world was expanded, especially to the Mediterranean world. The implicit hedonism of a Qohelet (who is to be dated not very long before the earliest of the Qumran scrolls) may have been prompted by Greek philosophical thought or perhaps merely by the individualism characteristic of the Hellenistic age. But he accepts entirely the premise that the human body, and human existence, end with death. The meaning of life is circumscribed by the human lifespan, and it is within that lifespan that the justice of God, if it exists at all, must be exercised. But while Proverbs posits an ethical human

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consciously acting according to known or discoverable principles, Job and Qohelet posit an unknowing human subject to whom the ways of God are unfathomable. And in this human ignorance lies a challenge to ethics. It is not surprising that “wisdom” so frequently came to be identified with Torah (Pss. 1, 119, ben Sira); for if God could not be known or understood, he could be obeyed, and if obedience is not of itself ethical, it could become so if motivated by love of God and delight in performing his will. Yet while such obedience could be recommended as an end in itself, the question of theodicy persisted: if goodness is not rewarded, can God be said to be just? And if obedience to God’s law should result in persecution, where lies the justice? Obedience to the law was absolutely imperative in both the Damascus community and the Yahad. But in neither case was it sufficient. Obedience to the law itself entailed esoteric interpretation, without which righteousness was impossible to attain. The marriage of Torah and wisdom at Qumran is of a different kind from the equation of ben Sira, or, later, of the rabbis. It already represents a protean form of gnosticism. Post-mortem vindication It is not necessarily true that belief in post-mortem vindication of the righteous arose simply from the experience of righteous suffering, as has frequently been asserted in scholarly accounts. Beliefs about human survival beyond death or eschatological vindication of history may have infiltrated the thought world of Palestine from Persia and Greece before any crisis of righteous suffering among Jews. In the writings collected in 1 Enoch, which seem to originate from about the third century B.C.E. with the “Astronomical Book” (preserved, and clearly influential, among the Qumran writings), emerges the notion of a primordial evil in the universe, emanating from a rebellion of heavenly powers. These, fallen to earth to wreak havoc, will be vanquished at the end of history. In this scheme, the metaphysical and ethical converge through the notion of an eschatological judgment in which the good destroy the wicked and enjoy an eternal reward thereafter.1 1 See Gabriele Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis: The Parting of the Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism (Grand Rapids, 1998).

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According to one passage, this reward will also be extended to the righteous dead (1 Enoch 103:3-4: For all good things, and joy, and honor are prepared for and written down for the souls of those who died in righteousness. Many and good things shall be given to you—the offshoot of your labors. Your lot exceeds even that of the living ones. The spirits of those who died in righteousness shall live and rejoice; their spirits shall not perish, nor their memorial from before the face of the Great One unto all the generations of the world.2

An important feature of Enoch is the notion of divine election. The righteous are not those who have chosen virtue but who have been chosen. Hence, they can also be called the “elect” (58:2-4): Blessed are you, righteous and elect ones, for glorious is your portion. The righteous ones shall be in the light of the sun and the elect ones in the light of eternal life which has no end, and the days of the life of the holy ones cannot be numbered. They shall seek light and find righteousness with the Lord of the Spirits.

The theological reason behind this pre-election of the righteous may be as follows. 1 Enoch, together with most apocalyptic writing, is predicated on the thesis that all history is foreknown, if not predestined, by God. Thus, not only the fate but the identity of the righteous and the wicked must also be foreknown. It follows that in a sense these persons have been chosen. A different kind of reason is also to be detected: in a time of persecution, to which apocalyptic writing is particularly appropriate, those suffering must be sustained not only by the belief in an imminent vindication but also in their self-belief. The feeling of having been divinely elected characterizes sectarian groups at all periods, including, as we shall see, those behind many of the Qumran scrolls. In the book of Daniel, most of which seems focussed on the notion of final and enduring kingdom of the chosen nation, there is also a clear statement of survival and vindication of the righteous alongside punishment for the wicked (12:3): Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars, for ever. 2 Translations from 1 Enoch are from by E. Isaac, in J.H. Charlesworth, ed., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, I (New York, 1983).

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Unlike Enoch, Daniel speaks of resurrection of bodies, not reviving of spirits. But it also hints at exaltation to the heavenly realm with its language of “shining” and “stars.” And, like Enoch, it makes reference to heavenly books in which the secrets of the future, including the names of the elect, are written. The possible difference between Enoch and Daniel over whether the dead are raised bodily (Daniel) or in spirit (Enoch) is less important, however, than what they share: a belief that the righteous will live for ever in some (quasi-?) angelic form3 and a common theological agenda: not only will wickedness ultimately be removed from the earth, but divine justice will be exercised in respect of the dead. It is also important that both writings declare this as a divine secret, revealed to privileged mortals. The reason for this we have already seen: already the scriptural tradition questioned whether divine justice did operate in respect of individuals before their death and also questioned whether the ways of God could be known from the natural order, whether material or moral. That God’s justice would be exercised in the future, and retrospectively, but that this was a mystery beyond normal human knowledge, redeemed God’s justice from human doubt. But it also changed in an important way the nature of human knowledge. No longer was righteousness, as in Proverbs, learned from human wisdom and available to all who cared to look and learn. It was now an esoteric wisdom, learned from God and imparted by “those who turn many to righteousness”—in Daniel, “those who are wise,” maskilim. With the notion of esoteric knowledge as the key to righteousness, a belief in eschatological vindication, and the role of a maskil as initiator, we have arrived at the world of the Qumran scrolls. Life and afterlife in Qumran sapiential instructions The Qumran literature emanates from a Judaism or Judaisms directly descended from that responsible for the Enochic writings and for Daniel, though possibly from groups whose sectarian consciousness was enforced by a segregated lifestyle.4 The major presupposi3 See Luke 20:36 for an even more explicit statement in this regard: “like angels” (Greek isaggeloi) 4 Philip R. Davies, “Who Can Join the ‘Damascus Covenant’?” in Journal of Jewish Studies 46, 1995, pp. 134-142.

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tions, issues, and solutions bearing upon death and afterlife in the Qumran scrolls are already present in 1 Enoch and Daniel (and no doubt in other writings from the period) and have been covered in the preceding sketch. But there is less than complete agreement or clarity on the matter of resurrection or the eternity of the soul, or the identity of the righteous, and in these respects also we shall find variation with the Scrolls. We should begin our survey of the Qumran literature with the Qumran wisdom texts, for here we find the most explicit and literal treatments of the topics. Several of the quite large number of wisdom texts from Qumran Cave 4 have recently been published; 5 I shall address here the most important and most-discussed, 4Q Sapiential Work A (4Q415-18).6 This is a didactic text that offers advice on how to relate to fellow-humans and to God. It covers family and social obligations and economic and agricultural affairs as well as religious duties. It is also constructed as a series of discrete short sayings interspersed with longer discourses. In this, it retains the structure of the well-known genre of Instruction (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, ben Sira). But where Proverbs would promise in return for the practice of “wisdom” material benefits, the wisdom enjoined here carries eschatological rewards. Moreover, the wisdom itself is not the advice of a parent, or the accumulated experience of human life, as in Proverbs, but is the content of divinely revealed “mysteries.” In 4Q416 frag. 2 col. 3:10-15, the one who would be wise must: Give honor to those who praise you, and glorify his name always For from poverty he lifted your head and sat you among the nobles He has given you dominion over a glorious inheritance Always seek his will If poor, do not say, “I am poor and cannot search for knowledge” Discipline yourself and in everything...purify your heart And your thoughts to much knowledge Seek out the mystery of how things are (Heb: raz nihyeh) Consider all the ways of truth and look at all the roots of evil Then you will know what is bitter for a human and what is sweet

According to this text, God has preordained everything and has for the righteous the following reward (4Q418 frag. 126, col. 2:2-8): Torleif Elgvin, et al., Qumran Cave 4—XV (Oxford, 1997). Torleif Elgvin, “The Reconstruction of Sapiential Work A.,” in Revue de Qumran 16, 1995, pp. 559-580. 5 6

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With the scales of justice God measures everything. He separates in truth He places them, examines what pleases them...and hides everything They do not exist without his favor... His judgment to carry out vengeance on all the wicked. To imprison the wicked forever and lift up the head of the weak... With everlasting glory and eternal peace and the spirit of life

While this text divides humans into two camps, membership of the righteous is achieved not by embracing or rejecting wisdom out of free will but as a result of divine election. It also provides at some length details of the judgment coming upon both the righteous and the wicked. While in the biblical proverbial wisdom, virtue earned its reward as a natural cause, here virtue and reward are both tied to the inexorable predetermination of God. Human life is lived under the shadow of imminent judgment, a judgment that determines the individual’s eternal status. The world to come, whatever its form, dominates over the present world. The goal of life, the meaning of life, is afterlife. And while many of the ethical values of the traditional Instructional literature are retained—e.g., prudence, modesty, justice— ”wisdom” constitutes esoteric knowledge. The recurrent but enigmatic phrase raz nihyeh in this document is variously rendered by modern translators, but it surely connotes the ultimate but hidden clue to the riddle of existence itself, and especially human existence.7 Whether the Sapiential Work stems from a sectarian community or not, it belongs to a world in which privileged knowledge is the mark of salvation and accessible only to the predestined. This is a sectarian mentality. The function of this mentality in the formation and sustenance of an organized sectarian community can be seen in the wisdom discourses that open the Damascus Document.8 The first discourse in CD (1:1-2;1) opens with an announcement of the coming judgment and addresses the hearers as “You who know righteous7 The choice of Wise, Abegg, and Cook is perhaps the most felicitous: “The Secret of the Way Things Are;” see Michael Wise, Martin Abegg, Jr., and Edward Cook, The Dead Sea Scrolls. A New Translation (San Francisco, 1996), p. 378. Elgvin’s (“Reconstruction”) “the mystery to come” understands the term to denote the eschatological judgment. But the point is, at any rate, that for this kind of “wisdom” the present is indeed characterized by the prospect of an imminent decisive judgment and the eternal consequences. 8 The evidence of the Cave 4 fragments suggests that the text of Cairo manuscript A was not the only arrangement of the material. In 4Q266 and 4Q267 the opening discourses of CD were preceded by another discourse. (See Joseph M. Baumgarten, Qumran Cave 4 (Oxford, 1996).)

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ness;” the use of the word “know” is highly significant in indicating that mere practice of obedience to the law, or indeed normal ethical behavior, does not constitute “righteousness.” The second discourse (2:1-14) explains that the wicked, who are to be destroyed without remnant, were rejected by God from the beginning: From the beginning God did not choose them. He knew their deeds before they were created, and hated their generations, and hid his face from the land until they were destroyed. For he knew the years of their coming and the length and exact duration of their times for all ages.…

For the wicked, then, no future whatsoever: eternal destruction awaits them. For the righteous, however, who are, correspondingly, pre-elected, the future, as declared in the third discourse (2:14-4:12) is as follows (4:18-20): But God, in his wonderful mysteries, forgave them their sin and pardoned their wickedness; and he built for them a “sure house” in Israel, the like of which has never been from former times until now. Those who hold fast to it are destined to live for ever and all the glory of Adam shall be theirs.

Thus, the counterpart of the eternal destruction of the wicked is the eternal life of the righteous. But whether this eternal life will follow a revival from death or promises an eternal extension of the present life is not clear. Reference to the “glory of Adam” points to the belief, attested in other Adam literature in ancient Judaism, that the first human was physically and spiritually a giant, the perfect man. He would seem to provide the prototype of the eternal human body to be possessed by the righteous, a body that, like Adam’s, was immortal until the placing of the divine curse of death (Gen. 3:19). Just as God was said to have foreknown the exact deeds and times of the wicked, so too there follows (4:3-7) a list of the members of the elect righteous community: “their names according to their generations and the time when they lived...and the exact list of their deeds.” The dualistic doctrine of the Yahad The future fate of the members of the Damascus community is unfortunately treated no further in its writings. But a more developed presentation of its view is found in the famous “Discourse on the Two Spirits” (1QS 3:13-4:26), which appears to be an unusually

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explicit account of the formal instruction given by a/the maskil to the members of the yahad. In this teaching, we find a more explicit dualistic doctrine than in CD and more details as to the fate of the good and the evil. According to the beginning of the “Discourse,” the “God of knowledge” (a telling phrase!) has created two spirits, of good and evil/light and darkness/truth and falsehood, to rule over humans. The fate of humans is divinely predetermined, as is the corresponding reward. The reward (“visitation”) for the righteous is (1QS 3:6-8): health, abundant well-being in a long life, fecundity, permanent blessings, eternal enjoyment with endless life and a crown of glory with majestic clothing in eternal light.

The catalog begins with the traditional biblical fruits of piety that accompany the belief in nothing beyond the present life and thus provide the benefits of earthly existence: long life and health, many offspring. However, it extends these: the “crown of glory” and “majestic clothing” suggest not simply a prolongation of earthly life but a transformation into something quasi-divine, a prospect that is consistent with the outlook of 1 Enoch, Daniel, and the Damascus Document. By contrast, according to 1QS, the fate of those destined to be unrighteous is (1QS 4:12-14): a multitude of afflictions at the hands of the all the angels of destruction, everlasting damnation by the vengeful wrath of divine fury, eternal torment and everlasting shame in the fire of the dark regions. The times of all their generations shall be spent in bitter mourning and profound misery and the vicissitudes of darkness, until they are annihilated, without remnant or survivor.

Here we find equally a two-stage fate for the wicked, but, unlike the case of the righteous, both post-mortem: prolonged torment before annihilation. The fate of evil is, then, both to be punished and, subsequently, to be obliterated. For mere destruction does not fit the requirements of justice that evil be punished, not merely removed. In this respect 1QS follows Dan. 12, in which some of the wicked were resurrected for eternal shame. It is worth noting the presence of both the metaphysical and ethical aspects here: the existence of evil in the universe created by an all-powerful and good God cannot be envisaged indefinitely, so it must be destroyed. But, predestination notwithstanding, the necessary recompense for good and evil must also be delivered.

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The mechanism of the transition to eternal blessing is, unfortunately for the modern scholar, unspoken. We cannot therefore decide whether it is the “spirit ” of each person that is expected to be made eternal (as presumably in 1 Enoch) or the body that is to be resurrected (as apparently in Daniel)—or, indeed, a continuation of the present existence, yet transformed in some way, for the righteous presently alive, such that they do not experience death. Given the general reticence about such details in Enoch, Daniel, and the scrolls, a reasonable conclusion might be that the mechanism for transformation was assigned to the “mysteries of God” and left for individuals to understand as best the teaching given to them allowed. Very likely, at Qumran as elsewhere in the Greco-Roman world, Jews as well as non-Jews embraced a variety of beliefs about personal survival beyond death, involving either soul or body or (frequently) both. 9 But as the discourse progresses, so does the overall picture. For these “spirits” (ruchoth) appear to become less external agencies than inner dispositions. According to 4:23-4: Until now the spirits of truth and falsehood struggle in the hearts of humans, so that people walk in both wisdom and folly. According to one’s portion of truth, so does a person hate falsehood; according to one’s heritage in the realm of falsehood, so one is wicked and hates truth.

The horoscopic texts (4Q186, 4Q534, 4Q561) demonstrate a belief in the correspondence of a time of birth (according to zodiacal sign), physical characteristics, and apportionment of parts of “light” and “darkness” (each person having a total allotment of nine parts). Whether or not these crudely-written texts reflect a considered theology (but why not?), they show that even the “greyness” of humans could be considered the result of divine providence, one’s body, date of birth, and destiny all being under the control of God. But the result of this changed perception, making all humans a shade of gray, is that human destiny cannot be divided neatly into the two categories earlier depicted. There can hardly be one fate for The New Testament offers a similar confusion regarding such mechanisms: the Gospels make frequent reference to resurrection of the righteous and wicked; the Fourth Gospel speaks of present possession of eternal life; Paul speaks of a transformed human body distinct from the earthly body. Many Greeks, including Jews and (presumably Christians) also believed in the immortality of the soul, in which case death was merely an episode (and sometimes deemed a fortunate one) in the migration of the soul from the corporeal to the incorporeal world. 9

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“the wicked” and one for “the righteous.” The reward of humans must therefore be according to a certain measure (1QS 4:16):10 The entire recompense for their deeds shall be, for eternity, according to whether each person’s portion in the two kinds is great or small

This statement certainly suggests post-mortem survival for all humans, with eternal punishment and reward meted out on a scale of retribution. It is particularly unfortunate (if not very surprising) that the picture is not filled out in more detail. Yet almost immediately it seems to be modified by a different solution: God has ordained an end for falsehood, and at the time of the visitation he will destroy it for ever. Then truth, which has been defiled in wicked ways during the dominion of falsehood until the decreed time of judgment, shall arise in the world permanently. God will purify every human deed with his truth; he will refine for himself the human body by expunging every spirit of falsehood from their flesh. He will cleanse them of all wicked actions with a spirit of holiness; like purifying water he will pour a spirit of truth upon them [to remove] all abomination and falsehood. They shall be immersed in a purifying spirit, so that the upright shall be instructed in knowledge of the Most High and the perfect of way be taught the wisdom of the heavenly ones. For God has chosen them for an eternal covenant and all the glory of Adam shall be theirs.

From this passage it appears that all traces of falsehood will be removed from humanity and that it will be purified. Such a view is difficult to reconcile with the earlier strict dichotomy between followers of the spirits of truth and falsehood and almost as difficult to reconcile with the immediately preceding suggestion that all will receive permanently the recompense for their mixture of good and bad. The suggestion made by P. von der Osten-Sacken11 that there are distinct literary stages in the composition of this discourse has not been widely accepted but nonetheless seems attractive. The fragments from Cave 4 do not preserve this section (and probably did not contain it), leaving it possible to speculate that one or more modifications have been introduced into an originally strictly dualistic statement that itself was not part of an earlier version of the document. But how we account for such revisions, or, indeed, if we reject the 10 Probable restorations in Qumran fragments are not marked in my translations here, unless they are problematic or crucial to the interpretation. 11 P. von der Osten-Sacken, Gott und Belial. Traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zum Dualismus in den Texten aus Qumran (Göttingen, 1969).

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explanation, how we interpret the entire section as a coherent statement of doctrine is far from clear. What we can conclude is that a search for a clear and consistent view of the fate of humans, both virtuous and wicked, in the Qumran scrolls is unlikely to be successful. We certainly have some clear lines of thinking and some agreed presuppositions, most of which reflect the ideas of groups with a sectarian mentality. The notion of a transformation of the human body is nevertheless probably the most consistent interpretation of the various statements we have so far examined. This expectation is best summed up in the phrase “glory of Adam” that we find in both CD and 1QS as the goal of righteous humanity. But there is considerable uncertainty in the texts themselves, as there must be in the mind of any modern interpreter, over the details of such a conception or concerning how it may have affected the practice of the community. For instance, how can the language of eschatological cleansing just quoted be associated with the preceding material in 1QS 1-2? Can it be suggested that the members of the yahad, in entering into its ranks, anticipated that final cleansing by living a life of purity and thus enjoying in this life some of the fruits of that eternal life they awaited? Did the members of the yahad regard their own eternal purity as already attained in their segregated and holy lifestyle? Those who decline to enter the covenant are condemned as follows (1QS 3;2-6): He shall not be cleansed by acts of atonement, nor purified by purifying water, nor made holy by sea or rivers, nor sanctified by any ablution. Unclean, unclean he shall be, as long as he rejects the precepts of God and is not instructed in the community of his counsel.

But, the passage continues (3:6-9): By the spirit of true counsel concerning the ways of humanity all his sins are atoned, so that he can contemplate the light of life. By the spirit of holiness that unites him to his truth he is cleansed of all his sins and his iniquity pardoned by a spirit of uprightness and humility. When his flesh is sprinkled with cleansing water and made holy by purifying water it shall be made pure by the submission of his soul to all the precepts of God.

The possibility that, in the Scrolls, the experience of purification of the human body by a divine holy spirit was experienced as an anticipation of a final cleansing will be taken further presently with an examination of the Hymns scroll. Remaining discussion of dualism and afterlife can add little posi-

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tive to the picture gained. The major dualistic text among the Qumran manuscripts, the War Scroll (also the most explicit treatment of eschatology), is extremely reticent about the fate of the individual. Representing as it does the grafting onto a nationalistic tradition about Israel’s defeat of the other nations of the world, it celebrates the final destruction of the forces of evil and a “time of salvation for the people of God” (1QM 1:5). The “children of light” will receive “peace and blessing, glory and joy and long life” (1:9). At one point during the description of the war, the slaying of some “children of light” is foreseen, “in accordance with God’s mysteries” (1QM 16:11), but nothing is said about their post-mortem destiny. This may strike the reader as a significant omission, for the fate of those righteous who die in battle against the forces of evil is something one would expect to be addressed by the priest to the troops. But no: the emphasis is on the eternal glory of Israel (however redefined) and the victory of Israel’s champion Michael. The focus of the War Scroll is on the earthly victory, and even in the summary of events in col. 1 there is no description of the lot of the righteous other than, implicitly, to live in a world in which there is only good and no evil. A text that has been connected with the War Scroll (4Q285, with a second copy, 11Q14)12 is a priestly blessing describing a renewed earth in which the produce of the land will be plentiful, and disease will affect neither crops, animals, nor humans. The earth will, in other words, be rid of evil. Humans will “eat and grow fat,” and there will be “no miscarriage nor sickness.” Indeed, there will be “no wild beasts in your land” (4Q285 fr. 1:7; 11Q14:9-10). Whether or not this blessing belongs with the War Scroll, its eschatology is consistent with that document’s interest in continuing life on the earth, ignoring the post-mortem fate of humans. In this renewed and perfect world, death is not said to be absent, while the question of afterlife is not raised. But possibly it was understood as a return to Eden, in which case the “glory of Adam” might be understood as the (disease-free) condition of humans. We can, however, only speculate.

12 Bilhah Nitzan, “Benedictions and Instructions for the Eschatological Community,” in Revue de Qumran 16, 1993, pp. 70-90.

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philip r. davies The anthropology of the Hodayoth

A very distinctive understanding of human nature—or perhaps more accurately, of the human nature of the author (and his community?)—is found in the scroll of hymns from Cave 1 (1QH). The translation of poetic texts into doctrine is, of course, frequently a delicate one. But these hymns raise quite acutely the question asked earlier of whether the afterlife was understood in any Qumran texts as being in some way anticipated in the present. No Qumran text speaks more about the nature of the human body, its limitations, and its reception of divine grace and purification. These themes are typically exploited in col. 5.13 Basic to this hymn (which is typical) is the notion that a mere “spirit of flesh” (line 19) cannot understand the divine mysteries (5:19-24): What is the spirit of flesh, to understand all these things? That it should comprehend your great wonderful secret? What is someone who is born of a woman Among all your awesome works? A structure made of dust, kneaded with water Its basis guilty sin, shameful nakedness, a source of uncleanness Over whom a spirit of waywardness rules.... Only by your goodness is a human being righteous And with your many mercies you adorn him with your splendor Set him amid many delights, with eternal peace and length of days....

What is the destiny of this poor creature? According to 7:19: You alone have created the just person For him from the womb, you ordained the period of favor that he might obey your covenant and walk in all your ways To bestow upon him your abundant compassion And open the narrowness of his soul to eternal salvation And endless, perfect peace You raise up his glory from flesh....

In 4:15 this is expressed: You raise for them an everlasting name Pardoning all their sin 13 Column numbering follows Florentino García Martínez, The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated (Second Edition: Leiden, 1996), and Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (New York and London, 1997), each following Emile Puech, “Quelques Aspects de la Restauration du Rouleau des Hymnes,” in Journal of Jewish Studies 39, 1988, pp. 38-55. Line numberings follow García Martínez, whose translation integrates other fragments into the reconstruction.

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removing all their wickedness and bequeath to them the glory of Adam, and long life.

One of the pervasive themes of these hymns is the contrast between the depravity and weakness of the poet and the wonder of God and the mystery by which this human has been given knowledge, grace, and pardon. However, how far this poet gives expression to a belief in his afterlife is extremely difficult to judge. 11:19-22 is a characteristic passage in which the psalmist appears to celebrate communion with the heavenly beings. His life has been saved from Sheol. Should this language be read as a description of a future experience—anticipating a resurrection or revival or survival of death—or as a metaphorical description of the state in which he feels himself—liberated from his frailty and corrupt nature by a divine spirit? I thank you, Lord Because you saved my life from the Pit From Sheol and Abaddon you lifted me up to an eternal height So that I walk on a limitless plain And I know that there is hope for one Whom you have molded from dust For the everlasting Council you have cleansed a wicked spirit from great sin So that he can take his place with the host of Holy Ones That he may enter into community With the congregation of the divine beings You have allotted to humanity an eternal destiny With the spirits of knowledge....

Similar difficulties of interpretation lie with description of a mighty assault by Belial and an even more terrifying epiphany of God, perhaps at the time of final judgment (11:26-36). Here, apocalyptic manifestations appear: the earth is devoured by fire, death stalks, pits open, the mountains burn and God thunders, and the battle of the divine beings rages. Does the poet envisage entering, after such an eschatological moment, into his eternal heavenly inheritance? Or is the experience of such communion an existential one, already felt? Both, of course, are compatible with each other. But it is extraordinarily difficult to distil theological doctrine from such highly charged poetry. It is possible that col. 13, which also thanks God for saving the poet’s life “from the Pit,” refers to an actual experience of persecution or threat. He describes those who “lay in wait for him,” and, in his distress, he called to God, who “preserved the soul of the poor

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one in the den of lions,” “did wonders with the poor,” “placed him in a crucible...like silver for refining, to be purified seven times.” Here we meet unmistakable scriptural imagery. But are the experiences real? Is the poet refashioning the experiences of the Psalms (and of Daniel!) in the light of personal experience or in the interests of literary expression? Can one translate poetry into theology? This question becomes crucial in the case of a statement that appears to indicate a resurrection (14:29-34): Then the sword of God will fall quickly at the time of Judgment And all the children of his truth shall awaken to destroy wickedness All the children of wickedness shall be no more The Warrior shall bend his bow; the fortress shall open onto open space And the eternal gates issue forth weapons of war... There shall be no refuge for the mighty warriors... Hoist a banner, o you who lie in the dust Raise a standard, o you eaten by worms

This language recurs in 19: 9-12: You have taught them the counsel of your truth And instructed them in your wonderful mysteries For your glory, you have purified humanity from sin So that it can become holy for you With no unclean abomination or guilty wickedness To be united with the children of your truth and in the lot of your Holy Ones That bodies eaten by worms may be raised from the dust To the counsel of your truth And the perverse spirit lifted to knowledge from you So as to stand before you with the eternal host And with your holy spirits To be renewed together with all that lives and rejoice with those that know.

If this description, taken literally, represents the doctrine of the poet and his community, it seems to indicate belief in the communion of both living and dead members of his community (“children of truth”) with the community of the heavenly beings, presumably at some moment in the future. That would be, as we have seen, consistent with other statements in this manuscript and not incompatible with statements elsewhere. If the living members of the community pass straight into fellowship with the heavenly host, then it is not unusual to expect that dead members of that community should enjoy an equal place. If they are deemed to be dead, they must be raised.

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Resurrection in the Qumran Scrolls Before turning to the question of resurrection in general, we should note the suggestion of Kvalvaag14 that there is a difference between the anthropology of the “Two Spirits” discourse in 1QS and the Hodayoth. In the latter he finds, uniquely among the Qumran scrolls, a duality of flesh and spirit, the flesh being base, the spirit capable of purification. Certainly there is such a duality in 1QH, though the phrase “spirit of flesh” (Heb: ruach basar) is capable of more than one interpretation. Certainly the insistence of the 1QS passage that without cleansing of the spirit the body cannot be cleansed, and the belief that God will in the future purge the human body of all wickedness suggest a unitary view of human nature that points in the direction of a doctrine of physical resurrection as a precondition of future life for the defunct. The distinction between flesh and spirit in the Hodayoth, by contrast—if that distinction can properly be read in these poems—would suggest the possibility of a continuing spiritual existence, as perhaps implied in the contents of 1 Enoch. Whether or not Kvalvaag is correct in this instance (and his analysis is plausible), he is right to point to the possibility of a varying anthropology in the Scrolls, and in turn this must be considered when dealing with the question of human death and afterlife. The raising of the dead is not necessarily to be understood, at Qumran or anywhere else, as an expectation for all humans. Where the texts express a belief in an imminent transformation of the world, to be experienced by those presently alive, the question of resurrection will apply, if at all, only to those already dead. Given that the Qumran writings do express the view that the living will be preserved after death, whether for eternal blessing or eternal damnation (followed by extermination), it is likely that their writers considered the fate of those, especially erstwhile members of a sectarian community, who had perished already. Here the solution lies either in believing that their soul is preserved or that they will be raised from the dead. It is not certain whether the writers of the Qumran scrolls believed in the possibility of human existence without a body. Certainly, as in the Jewish scriptures, they understood that a human had a “life” or a 14 Robert W. Kvalvaag, “The Spirit in Human Beings in Some Qumran NonBiblical Texts,” in F. Cryer and T.L. Thompson, eds., Qumran between the Old and New Testaments (Sheffield, 1998), pp. 159-180.

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“soul” that dwelt within the body, whether this were merely a divine breath or something expressing or containing the personality. But the texts we have reviewed so far suggest that the eternal destiny of the righteous is to be enjoyed in a new or transformed body. A belief in the resurrection of dead persons is thus a priori quite probable. However, as we have seen in the case of the Hodayoth, passages that might allude to it are hardly frequent or entirely unambiguous. Emile Puech has devoted a large study to the future life in the Scrolls.15 He has assembled a number of Qumran passages that he thinks might describe resurrection and has concluded that indeed resurrection was among the beliefs of the Qumran writers. These writers he holds to have been Essenes and so is able to cite Hippolytus, according to whom (Refutatio 9:27) the Essenes believed in the doctrine of the resurrection: “[The Essenes] acknowledge both that the flesh will rise again and that it will be immortal, in the same manner that the soul is already imperishable.” Yet whether Hippolytus is to be relied upon is doubtful. Equally doubtful is the evidence of the Qumran cemeteries, where an unusual orientation of some of the graves (the head towards the south) might be interpreted (Puech does) as reflecting some belief in a resurrection, since the corpses are laid straight on their backs, ready to stand facing north. But this form of burial is now known to have been practiced elsewhere, and not every burial at Qumran assumes this form. Nothing certain can be deduced from the burials. The texts themselves are suggestive, but less conclusive than Puech pretends. There are fragmentary texts in which the phrase “(they) will rise” can be read,16 but it is impossible to be certain whether resurrection must be meant here. The clearest allusions are in the central text of Puech’s thesis, 4Q521, which he entitles “Une Apocalypse Messianique.” The key passages from these texts are fragment 2, col. 2, lines 9-13: In his mercy he will judge, and the reward of good deeds shall be withheld from no-one. The Lord will perform wonderful deeds such as have never been, as he said: for he will heal the wounded, make the dead live (Heb: wmtym yhyh) proclaim good news to the meek, give generously to the needy, lead out the captive and feed the hungry.... 15 Emile Puech, La Croyance des Ésseniens en la Vie Future: Immortalité, Résurrection, Vie Éternelle? Histoire d’une Croyance dans le Judaisme Ancien (Paris, 1993), 2 vols. 16 4QTQahat (4Q542) 2:5 says, “you will rise to make judgment,” and 4QPseudoDanield also reads: “they shall arise.”

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and fragment 5, col. 2, lines 5-8: And they shall be for death, [when] the Reviver (Heb: hmhyh) [makes] the dead of his people [ri]se. And we shall give thanks and declare to you the righteous deeds of the Lord, who [raises?] the dead....

However, Puech points out that this text is full of biblical allusions. Behind the first passage cited may lie, for example, 1 Sam. 2:6: yhwh mmyt wmhyyt mwryd sh’wl wyy‘l: “Yhwh causes to die and causes to live; he sends down to Sheol and brings up.” It is possible that this biblical phrase is intended as an allusion to resurrection, even though most commentators hold this unlikely: it is also possible that the phrase was not so intended but was understood in that way by the writer of the Qumran text. But it is also possible that the phrase refers to Yahweh’s power to rescue from disease, from the act of dying, from the power of mortality. In the second of the passages quoted, it is really not clear that the text must be restored in the way Puech does, though the conjunction “dead of his people” may well appear to suggest such. Puech argues at some length that there is evidence for a belief in resurrection in the Hebrew Bible and in post-biblical but pre-Qumranic compositions. But this demonstration, of course, only attests the possibility of such a belief among the Qumran writers, and, if Pharisees accepted resurrection while Sadducees rejected it, we are left with only the Qumran texts to tell us whether their writers expressed such a belief. It is perhaps significant that such beliefs are nowhere stated in an unambiguous manner, explicitly in an eschatological scenario or in a hymn or wisdom discourse. It is this that prompts doubt among many Qumran scholars. But the question must be left open. Conclusion We cannot (unlike Puech) assign the Qumran scrolls with any certainty to any one identifiable Jewish group, nor even to a single sect. It remains disputed how far this archive represents the considered views, or indeed, the property, of one group. Consequently, it is inadvisable to seek a clear and consistent expression of belief in the nature of afterlife. Indeed, there seem to be variations in the understanding of human nature itself.

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In any case, such beliefs are quite often held, wherever they may be, with some reticence and expressed with vagueness. Where they appear to be addressed at Qumran, the language is often poetic. In the clearest statements of belief that we find, in the Community Rule and Damascus Document and the wisdom discourses, as well as in the account of the final war in the War Scroll, there is no statement of a doctrine of resurrection and no consensus about the precise nature of the final state of the righteous. Since contemporary Jewish groups disagreed on this notion, it is possible that whatever the group beliefs, individuals continued to cherish their own preference. In respect of dead relatives and friends, individuals often believe what they are not supposed to according to their religious affiliation. If ex-Sadducees and ex-Pharisees ever entered this community, it is hard to imagine that they abandoned their views on human nature or their own prospects after death. If the Qumran community/communities had firm beliefs about the coming of the eschaton in their own day, the question of how exactly they would continue to live was not of very great significance, and the manner in which the dead might be rewarded less important than the conviction that somehow they must. For there is, on the other hand, a belief in the Scrolls that all human behavior, preordained by God, is to receive its just deserts. This will happen when all humans are judged at the “end of days.” This judgment is preordained: those to be saved and those to be destroyed are known to God before they are even created. Evil will finally be defeated and good will prevail for eternity. The righteous can expect an eternity of light, peace and joy, together with the inhabitants of heaven. They will be endowed with the “glory of Adam.” Given these theological premises, the belief that the righteous dead would share in the rewards must have followed, as well as the expectation that these rewards would be enjoyed in a renewed body. This view of the fate of all humans is clearly in line with the positions taken in literature that we know to have been influential in the Qumran texts, especially 1 Enoch and Daniel. On balance, it does not seem improbable that whoever lived at Qumran expected to be joined on the imminent day of judgment by their dead fellows in the nearby cemetery, all to share an eternal life with the heavenly beings.

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Bibliography Baumgarten, Joseph M., Qumran Cave 4 (Oxford, 1996). Boccaccini, Gabriele, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis: The Parting of the Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism (Grand Rapids, 1998). Davies, Philip R., 1QM, The War Scroll from Qumran (Rome, 1977). Davies, Philip R., “Who Can Join the ‘Damascus Covenant’?” in Journal of Jewish Studies 46, 1995, pp. 134-142. Elgvin, Torleif, “The Reconstruction of Sapiential Work A.,” in Revue de Qumran 16, 1995, pp. 559-580. Elgvin, Torleif., et al., Qumran Cave 4—XV (Oxford, 1997). García Martínez, Florentino, The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated (Second Edition: Leiden, 1996). Kvalvaag, Robert W., “The Spirit in Human Beings in Some Qumran NonBiblical Texts,” in Cryer, F., and T.L. Thompson, eds., Qumran between the Old and New Testaments (Sheffield, 1998), pp. 159-180. Nitzan, Bilhah, “Benedictions and Instructions for the Eschatological Community,” in Revue de Qumran 16, 1993, pp. 70-90. Osten-Sacken, P. von der, Gott und Belial. Traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zum Dualismus in den Texten aus Qumran (Göttingen, 1969). Puech, Emile, La Croyance des Ésseniens en la Vie Future: Immortalité, Résurrection, Vie Éternelle? Histoire d’une Croyance dans le Judaisme Ancien (Paris, 1993), 2 vols. Puech, Emile, “Quelques Aspects de la Restauration du Rouleau des Hymnes,” in Journal of Jewish Studies 39, 1988, pp. 38-55. Vermes, Geza, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (New York and London, 1997). Wise, Michael, Martin Abegg, Jr., and Edward Cook, The Dead Sea Scrolls. A New Translation (San Francisco, 1996).

IV. EARLIEST CHRISTIANITY

9. RESURRECTION IN THE GOSPELS Bruce Chilton Bard College Jesus Jesus pictured life with God as involving such a radical change that ordinary human relationships would no longer prevail. That conviction of a radical change brought with it a commitment to the language of eschatology, of the ultimate transformation God both promised and threatened; although Jesus’ eschatology was sophisticated, his development of that idiom of discourse is evident.1 Some efforts have been made recently to discount the eschatological dimension of Jesus’ teaching; they have not prevailed. Periodically, theologians in the West have attempted to convert Jesus’ perspective into their own sense that the world is a static and changeless entity, but that appears to have been far from his own orientation. 2 In respect of the discussion of the general orientation of Jesus’ theology, nothing that has been asserted so far can be regarded as exceptionable. Consensus is much more difficult to come by when it concerns Jesus’ understanding of what is to occur to particular human beings within God’s disclosure of his kingdom. Resurrection, as usually defined, promises actual life to individual persons within God’s global transformation of all things. Because Jesus, on a straightforward reading of the Gospels, does not say much about resurrection as such, there has been a lively dispute over whether he had any distinctive (or even emphatic) teaching in that regard. Still, when Jesus does address the issue, his contribution seems to be unequivocal. Sadducees are portrayed as asking a mocking question of Jesus, designed to disprove the possibility of resurrection.3 See Chilton, Pure Kingdom. Jesus’ Vision of God (Grand Rapids, 1996). See Chilton, The Kingdom of God in the Teaching of Jesus (London and Philadelphia, 1984). For discussion since that time, and particularly the contribution of Marcus Borg, see Pure Kingdom. 3 Acts 23:8 makes out that the Sadducees deny resurrection altogether, and that is also the judgment of Josephus. I have argued that, despite their unequivocal state1 2

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Because Moses commanded that, were a man to die childless, his brother should raise up a seed for him, suppose there were seven brothers, the first of whom was married. If they all died childless in sequence, whose wife would the woman be in the resurrection (see Mat. 22:23-28; Mark 12:18-23; Luke 20:27-33)? Jesus’ response is categorical and direct (following Mark 12:24-27, compare Mat. 22:29-32; Luke 20:34-38): You completely deceive yourselves, knowing neither the Scriptures nor the power of God! Because when they arise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as angels in the heavens. But concerning the dead, that they rise, have you not read in the book of Moses about the bush, when God said to him, I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God or Jacob? He is not God of the dead but of the living. You deceive yourselves greatly.

Of the two arguments, the one from Scripture is the more immediately fitting, an appeal both to the nature of God and to the evaluation of the patriarchs in early Judaism. If God identifies himself with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it must be that in his sight they live. And those three patriarchs—once we join in this analogical reflection— are indeed living principles of Judaism itself; they are Israel as chosen in the case of Abraham (see Gen. 15), as redeemed in the case of Isaac (see Gen. 22), and as struggling to identity in the case of Jacob (see Gen. 32). That evocation of patriarchal identity is implied, rather than demonstrated, but the assumption is that the hearer is able to make such connections between the text of Scripture and the fulfillment of that Scripture within present experience. 4 But that implicit logic of the argument from Scripture only makes the other argument seem all the bolder by comparison. The direct analogy between people in the resurrection and angels is consonant with the thought that the patriarchs must live in the ments (or rather, precisely because they are so unequivocal), we should be cautious about what the Sadducees denied; see my The Temple of Jesus. His Sacrificial Program within a Cultural History of Sacrifice (University Park, 1992), p. 82. The Sadducees’ position is attributed to them only by unsympathetic observers, Josephus (War 2 §165-166), and various Christians (Mark 12:18-27; Matt. 22:23-33; Luke 20:27-38; Acts 23:6-8). And Targumic texts as late as the Middle Ages continue to refer to the denial of resurrection within the dispute between Cain and Abel developed at Gen. 4:8. 4 For Jesus’ characteristic attitude towards Scripture, see Chilton, A Galilean Rabbi and His Bible. Jesus’ Use of the Interpreted Scripture of His Time (Wilmington, 1984); also published with the subtitle, Jesus’ Own Interpretation of Isaiah (London, 1984).

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sight of God, since angels are normally associated with God’s throne (so, for example, Dan. 7:9-14). So once the patriarchs are held to be alive before God, the comparison with angels is feasible. But Jesus’ statement is not only a theoretical assertion of the majesty of God, a majesty which includes the patriarchs (and, by extension, the patriarchs’ comparability to the angels); it is also an emphatic claim of what we might call divine anthropology. Jesus asserts that human relations, the usual basis of human society and divisions among people (namely sexual identity), are radically altered in the resurrection.5 That claim of substantial regeneration and transcendence became a major theme among the more theological thinkers who followed Jesus, beginning with Paul. But before we turn to Paul, the first great interpreter of Jesus, we need to address a preliminary question: how is it that Jesus’ position in regard to the resurrection is only spelled out in one passage within the Gospels? A general explanation might be offered in this regard, but it is only partially satisfactory. The intents of the Synoptic Gospels, on the one hand, and of the Fourth Gospel, on the other hand, are quite different. The Synoptics are designed in the interests of catechesis, for the preparation of proselytes for baptism, while the Gospel according to John is homiletic. What was in all probability the original ending of John states the purpose as maintaining the faith of believers so that they might go on to have life in the name of Christ (John 20:31), while the introduction to Luke speaks of the things that the reader has only recently learned (Luke 1:1-4, and the verb is katêkheo ).6 In between the initial preparation of catechumens 5 It is commonly asserted that Jesus accorded with accepted understandings of resurrection within Judaism; see Pheme Perkins, Resurrection. New Testament Witness and Contemporary Reflection (London, 1984), p. 75. That is an unobjectionable finding, but it leads to an odd conclusion: “Nor can one presume that Jesus makes any significant contribution to or elaboration of these common modes of speaking.” Perkins is not clear about what she means here or the basis of her assertion. Does warning the reader against presuming that Jesus had something original to say imply that he in fact said nothing original? Why speak of presumption at all, when there is an actual saying to hand? But the analysis of the saying is also confused, because Perkins speaks of it as invented by Mark when it has anything new to say and as routine insofar as it may be attributed to Jesus. The discussion typifies the ill-defined program of trivializing the place of Jesus within the tradition of the New Testament by critics who once tended to exaggerate the literary aspirations of those who composed the documents. 6 For further discussion of the relationship between John and the Synoptics in terms of their social functions, see Chilton, Profiles of a Rabbi. Synoptic Opportunities in Reading about Jesus (Atlanta, 1989).

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and the advanced interpretation offered to those well beyond that point, a great deal of instruction naturally took place. The Lord’s Prayer provides a stunning example of the kind of teaching that may have fallen in between initial catechesis and homiletics in some communities. John’s Gospel contains no version of the Prayer, presumably because it is assumed as elementary knowledge. But then, Mark’s Gospel also omits it, but for a different reason: the assumption is that oral instruction, apart from public catechesis, is to complement what the catechumen learns from the Gospel. The Prayer is by no means advanced knowledge; after all, the catechumen will have to learn to say ‘Abbá at baptism (see Gal. 4:6; Rom. 8:15), and to know what that means. Yet were our knowledge of Jesus and early Christianity limited to Mark and John among the Gospels, we would not be aware of the Prayer or of its importance within the teaching of Jesus and the practice of his movement. Teaching in regard to the resurrection may be held to belong more to an intermediate level of instruction within early Christianity than to a preparatory or advanced level. After all, Mark’s Gospel relates no story of the appearance of the risen Jesus, but only the narrative of the empty tomb (Mark 16:1-8). The silence of the women at the tomb is the last word in the Gospel, and it is an approving word. The Markan community is thereby instructed to maintain reserve in the face of persecution. But it is very clear what that reserve is about: the young man at the tomb (Mark 16:6, 7) and Jesus himself at an earlier stage (Mark 8:31; 9:9, 31; 10:33, 34) leave no doubt that the full disclosure of Jesus’ identity lies in his resurrection. As the Markan catechumen approaches the Paschal Mystery, when baptism will occur and full access to eucharist will be extended for the first time, the door to the truth of Jesus’ resurrection is opened in the Gospel, but actual entry to that truth awaits further (perhaps private) instruction.7 But the analogy between the handling of the resurrection of Jesus in the Gospels and the handling of the Lord’s Prayer is only partial. To this extent, the so-called “Secret Gospel of Mark” that Morton Smith identified and popularized may provide an insight into the post-catechetical moment in early Christianity. But, of course, the controversy concerning that work does not permit any conclusions to be drawn on the basis of Smith’s contribution alone. See James H. Charlesworth and Craig A. Evans, “Jesus in the Agrapha and Apocryphal Gospels,” in B. Chilton and C.A. Evans, eds., Studying the Historical Jesus. Evaluations of the State of Current Research (Leiden, 1994), pp. 479-533, 526-532. 7

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First, the apparent lack of Mark is made up by Matthew (6:9-13) and Luke (11:2-4), and together those Gospels provide a cogent representation of the model of prayer that Jesus taught, a model that is not without echo in the Gospels according to Mark and John.8 Second, the resurrection of Jesus is actually introduced as a topic in Mark, only then to be omitted at the end of the Gospel. When that lacuna is made up in Matthew, Luke, and John (as well as in the artificial ending provided Mark itself in many manuscripts), the result is a series of stories whose cogency does not approach that of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew and Luke. So it will not do to try to invoke a general explanation, in terms of the level of instruction involved, to account for the absence or the discordance of stories of Jesus’ resurrection and for the relative paucity of Jesus’ own teaching regarding resurrection within the Gospels. Rather, there seems to have been a deliberate policy of esotericism in this regard. To some extent, the silence of the women in Mark is an index of this policy, and the atmospheric possibility of persecution for belief in the name of Jesus that their silence doubtless reflects offers (once again) a partial explanation for the counsel of silence. But all of these explanations that involve the happenstance of history—the educational pitch of the Gospels, the esoteric practice of early Christianity, the pressures exerted by the possibility of persecution for belief in Jesus’ resurrection—do not account for the qualitative difference in the manner of handling the resurrection as compared, say, to the Lord’s Prayer. And after all: the resurrection of Jesus is on any known reading the most obviously distinctive element in Christian teaching: how can there be a lack of cogency in providing for instruction on this point within the Gospels? Together with those explanations, which may be characterized in terms of their reference to extrinsic circumstances, we must consider the intrinsic structure of belief in Jesus’ resurrection as received and practiced within early Christianity. Something about the way belief in the resurrection was structured within the social and historical environment that has already been described produced the apparent lacuna and the evident discrepancies we have referred to within the textual tradition and what produced that tradition. Mark is a good initial guide to the complexity of that structure. The young man at 8 See Chilton, Jesus’ Prayer and Jesus’ Eucharist. His Personal Practice of Spirituality (Valley Forge, 1997).

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the tomb tells the women to tell the disciples and Peter that Jesus goes before them into Galilee and that they will see Jesus there (Mark 16:7). That is, Peter is identified as the central named witness to Jesus’ resurrection, but then no actual appearance to Peter is conveyed. Instead, the Gospel ends. “The Lord has risen, and has appeared to Simon” (Luke 24:34) is the acclamation—widely recognized as primitive (compare 1 Cor. 15:5)—which Luke alone relates, but here again, no actual story is attached to this statement. Instead, Luke then gives us, in addition to a recognizable but distinctive narrative of the empty tomb (Luke 24:1-12), the story of Jesus’ appearance to the two disciples who were on their way to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35). That story emphasizes that Jesus was not instantly recognizable to the disciples, and he disappears once they finally do recognize him in Emmaus itself; the theme is explicitly given as Jesus’ manifestation in the breaking of bread (v. 35), which occurs in the evidently liturgical context of the reminiscence of Jesus and the interpretation of Scripture (vv. 18-27). So alongside the narrative of the empty tomb, which anticipates that Jesus’ resurrection involves the physical body that was buried, there is a story that portrays the resurrection in straightforwardly visionary and eucharistic terms: Jesus is seen, but not recognized, then recognized, but no longer seen. The conflict with the story of the empty tomb is manifest, and all the more so as it is actually referred to by Kleopas in what he says to the stranger who turns out to be the risen Jesus (vv. 22-23). Luke’s Gospel is designed to resolve that conflict to some extent. Its design is reflected in the way the Gospel smoothes out the problem that would have been caused by telling the disciples to go to Galilee (as in Mark), since the risen Jesus appears only in the vicinity of Jerusalem in Luke. Instead, Luke’s two men (rather than one young man) remind the women of what Jesus said when he was in Galilee (Luke 24:4-8). That enables the focus to remain Jerusalem, where the appearance to Simon occurred and in whose vicinity the disclosure of the risen Jesus was experienced in the breaking of bread. In that same Jerusalem itself, finally (never Galilee in Luke), Jesus appears in the midst of the disciples in the context of another meal (also associated with the interpretation of Scripture and the recollection of Jesus), and shows them that he is flesh and bone, not spirit. He commissions them, instructing them to remain in Jerusalem until the power to become witnesses comes upon them. Leading them out

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to Bethany, he is taken up to heaven while he is in the act of blessing them (Luke 24:36-52). This final appearance in Luke fulfills the expectations raised by the empty tomb and is a triumph of harmonization: Jesus not only says he is flesh and bone, he shows his hands and his feet, offers to be touched, asks for food and eats it (vv. 38-43). Yet this physical emphasis is also synthesized with the visionary and liturgical idiom of what happened near and at Emmaus. But in all of this, interestingly, there is silence regarding Peter’s experience. Matthew returns the focus to Galilee, and to Galilee alone, as the locus of the risen Jesus. Here Jesus himself actually encounters the women as they run to tell the disciples what the angel has said, and he tells them to instruct his brothers to go to Galilee (Mat. 28:10). The reference to “brothers” at this point, rather than to “disciples” (cf., 28:7), is apparently deliberate; the angel speaks to the women of disciples, while Jesus is adding an injunction for a distinct group. After the story about the guard and the high priests (Mat. 28:11-15), however, the last passage in the Gospel according to Matthew, the appearance of Jesus in Galilee, concerns only the eleven disciples. They see, worship (and doubt), receiving the commission to baptize all nations in the knowledge that Jesus is always with them. In its own way, and centered in Galilee rather than in Jerusalem, Matthew achieves what Luke achieves: the appearances of the risen Jesus are visionary (and almost abstract), but the explanation of that vision is that his body was raised. The experience of the earthquake and the angel by the guards and their willingness to broadcast the lie (concocted by high priests and elders) that Jesus’ body had been stolen (Mat. 28:2-4, 11-15), underscores that explanation. What remains startling about Matthew is the complete absence of direct reference to Peter in this context (compare Mat. 28:7 to Mark 16:7), although Peter is singled out for special treatment in the same Gospel (see Mat. 16:17-19). Matthew’s silence regarding Peter and Luke’s laconic reference to the tradition that he was the first to have the Lord appear to him calls attention to the structural oddity in testimony to Jesus’ resurrection in the New Testament. Simon Kephas/Peter is held to be the fountainhead of this faith (as in 1 Cor. 15:5), but the Synoptic Gospels simply do not convey a tradition of the appearance to Peter in particular. John’s Gospel puts Peter and the other disciple whom

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Jesus loved at the site of the empty tomb.9 The other disciple is said to have seen the tomb and to have believed, but Peter only sees (John 20:1-10). Mary Magdalene then sees two angels and Jesus but does not recognize him at first and is forbidden to touch him: her commission is to tell the brothers that he goes to the father (John 20:11-18). Likewise, Jesus’ commission at this point is simply to go to the father, which presupposes—as Benoit points out—that in what follows any descent from the father is only for the purpose of appearing to the disciples.10 Commissioning is the purpose of Jesus in what follows. He appears among the disciples when the doors were shut for fear of the Jews and provides holy spirit for forgiving and confirming sins (John 20:19-23).11 During the appearance, he shows his hands and his side in order to be recognized (20:20), which he does again in a second appearance, this time for the benefit of Thomas, and with the offer to touch his hands and his side (John 20:24-29). Obviously, the coalescing of the empty tomb and the visionary appearances has continued in John, but the problem of Simon Peter has not so far been resolved. That resolution comes in the close of the present text of John, which is widely considered an addendum or annex (John 21). 12 Here, Peter and six other disciples are fishing on the sea of Galilee, and

9 Luke 24:12 puts Peter alone there. For a defense of that tradition as historical, see Pierre Benoit, Passion et résurrection du Seigneur (Paris, 1985), pp. 288-290. But Benoit’s attempt to make John’s Gospel the nearest point to the fountainhead of such traditions is not convincing. John rather seems to aggregate the elements already present within the Synoptic Gospels. Mark’s young man becomes the other disciple, Luke’s reference to Peter’s presence at the tomb is expanded, Matthew’s description of Jesus’ manifestation to the women is turned into a private appearance to Mary Magdalene, Luke’s tradition of appearances to the disciples in Jerusalem during meals is honored with a cognate emphasis on both visionary and physical aspects, and Matthew’s localization (together with Mark’s promise) of such an event, also with much less physical emphasis and in Galilee, is also respected. 10 Benoit, p. 291. He goes on to suggest that the return of Jesus after this point must be “totally spiritualized, in particular in the Eucharist.” That suggests the extent to which the Gospel has shifted idioms within its presentation of the resurrection. He deals with the story of what happened near Emmaus in much the same way, pp. 297-325. 11 An evident echo of Matt. 16:17-19, the placement of which here serves to highlight Peter’s importance within the tradition of the resurrection, without actually solving the problem that, by the implication of John 20:6-9, Peter saw the empty tomb but did not believe as the other disciple did. John 21 will return to the question of Peter, reflecting an awareness that his place within what has been said has not yet been resolved. 12 See Benoit, pp. 327-353.

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Jesus appears on the shore unrecognized, asking if they have anything to eat. They have not caught anything all night, but at Jesus’ command they cast their net and catch more fish than they can pull up. The disciple whom Jesus loves recognizes Jesus and informs Peter who the stranger is. Peter leaps into the water and swims to shore, followed by the others in the boat. Jesus, whose identity none dares to ask, directs the preparation of breakfast from the one hundred and fifty three large fish that were caught. Finally, Peter himself is commissioned to shepherd the flock of Jesus. Although this third appearance of the risen Jesus in John is the only appearance that features Peter,13 the allusions to baptism and the direction of the church make it clear that it is far from the sort of tradition that would have been formed in any immediate proximity to Peter’s experience. Still, one feature stands out. As in the story of what happened near and at Emmaus (which holds the place of an appearance to Peter in Luke), Jesus is not immediately known; his identity is a matter of inference (see John 21:7, 12 and Luke 24:16, 31). This, of course, is just the direction in which all of the Gospels are not headed by their structuring of traditions. They anticipate an instantly recognizable Jesus, fully continuous with the man who was buried: that is the point of the story of the empty tomb in all four Gospels. Their insistence on the physical continuity of the buried and risen Jesus is reflected in the way they present other stories. Jesus raises to life the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:11-17), the daughter of Jairus (Mat. 9:18-19, 23-26; Mark 5:21-24, 35-43; Luke 8:40-42, 4956), and Lazarus (11:1-46). An excellent study has shown that all of these stories represent the conviction that Jesus’ resurrection promised the resurrection of the faithful. 14 But that connection also worked the other way: expectations of how the resurrection was to happen generally influenced the presentation of how the risen Jesus appeared. When Paul insisted that “flesh and blood can not inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 15:50), he was not opposing an abstract

13 It has been argued that the Gospel of Peter represents a more primitive tradition, but the fact is that the text incorporates elements from the canonical Gospels. It appears to be a pastiche, much in the vein of the longer ending of Mark. See Charlesworth and Evans, pp. 503-514. 14 See Gérard Rochais, Les récits de résurrection des mort dans le Nouveau Testament (Cambridge, 1981).

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proposition.15 Indeed, it would seem on the face of the matter to contradict the statement in 1 Thes. 4:13-18 that the dead will be raised and presented with the living, snatched up into the air for that purpose, so as always to be with the Lord. That literally physical belief in the general resurrection, which has been styled apocalyptic, 16 influenced the portrayal of Jesus’ resurrection and is most manifest in the story of the empty tomb. Within his discussion of 1 Cor. 15:50 in its wider context, Peter Carnley concludes with a telling insight: It is clear that Paul is struggling imaginatively to explain the nature of the resurrection body. This suggests that, whatever his Damascus road experience was, it was sufficiently ambiguous and unclear as not to be of real help in explaining the detailed nature of the body of the resurrection. The evidence thus leads us back to the view that his initial experiential encounter with the raised Christ was in the nature of some kind of “heavenly vision”. The fact that the nature of the body of the resurrection seems to have been open to speculation indicates that this was indeed a speculative matter that was brought up rather than settled by the encounter with the raised Jesus on the Damascus road. 17

Carnley goes on the analyze the appearance of Jesus in Matthew in similar terms, and he points out that Acts 26:19 formally describes Paul’s encounter with the risen Jesus as a “heavenly vision.”18 Carnley does not observe that Paul himself claimed he had “seen our Lord Jesus” (1 Cor. 9:1) and included himself in the record of those to whom the Jesus “appeared” (1 Cor. 15:8, cf., v. 5). But those citations only strengthen Carnley’s overall point, that vision is the fundamental category within which the initial experience of Jesus as risen was apprehended (p. 245).19 The narrative of the empty tomb, a relatively late tradition within the Gospels (as the consensus of scholarship would have it), functions to explain the theophany of the 15 In this case, Paul is stating something with which his readers would have agreed. The disagreement with some in Corinth is not over whether there is to be a resurrection but what resurrection is to involve. See A.J.M. Wedderburn, Baptism and Resurrection. Studies in Pauline Theology against Its Graeco-Roman Background (Tübingen, 1987), pp. 35-36. Given Paul’s form of words in 1 Cor. 15:29, the tendency to make any disagreement about resurrection into a denial is evident (cf., n. 3 above). 16 Rochais, 187. See also Kenneth Grayston, Dying, We Live. A New Enquuiry into the Death of Christ in the New Testament (New York, 1990), p. 13. 17 Peter Carnley, The Structure of Resurrection Belief (Oxford, 1987), p. 233. 18 Carnley, pp. 237-238. 19 Similarly, see Francis Schüssler Fiorenza, Foundational Theology. Jesus and the Church (New York, 1984), pp. 35-37.

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risen Jesus, although in itself it is not a theophany.20 That is why John 20:6-9 can put Simon Peter on the site of the empty tomb and yet not attribute belief in the resurrection of Jesus to him. Care should be taken, however, not to globalize the language of vision in our description in Acts of what Paul did or did not see on the road to Damascus. In chapter 9, those around Paul hear the voice but see nothing (Acts 9:7): the light blinds Paul, which is what brings him to Ananias and baptism (Acts 9:3-18). In chapter 22, Paul is quoted as saying his companions saw the light but did not hear the voice (22:9), and that may be consistent with the sense of what he says later (Acts 26:12-18). A hasty reference to the materials of vision in Acts has lead to the suggestion that the resurrection was an experience of a heavenly light (Lichtglanz).21 The portrayal of Paul’s vision of the risen Jesus in Acts surely warns us away from reducing the experience to a single sensation and rather emphasizes the importance of being in the presence of one identified as Jesus who commissions the recipient of the vision to a divine purpose. The “vision” or “appearance,” so designated because the verbal usage “he appeared” (ôphthê ) is preferred in the New Testament, involves the awareness— mediated by a variety of senses and apprehensions—that Jesus is indeed present to one, and present so as to convey a divine imperative. Those twin emphases, the identity of Jesus and the commissioning, underlie all stories of the actual appearance of the risen Jesus (and are not present in the later narrative of the empty tomb). In his recent study, Francis Schüssler Fiorenza has shown that the appearances of Jesus in the New Testament serve neither to console people generally about immortality nor to make an abstract point about God’s eschatological victory.22 Rather, “in almost all the stories the identity motif is present because even in appearances to the group he is either not recognized or recognized only with doubt and suspicion, so that he must confirm his identify before commissioning them.”23 20 That statement is only accurate, of course, if the qualifying statement (“in itself”) is observed. As soon as the young man or men are taken as angels, and more especially when the risen Jesus himself appears on the scene, the story of the empty tomb becomes theophanic. But the bulk of scholarship, and simple common sense, evaluates those elements as embellishments. 21 For a suitably cautious assessment, see Carnley, pp. 240-242. 22 Foundational Theology, p. 45. 23 Foundational Theology, p. 37.

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That insight, which conforms with the analysis here, comports with Paul’s capacity to claim that he has seen the Lord (1 Cor. 9:1) and at the same time to refer to that moment as when it pleased God to reveal his son in him (Gal. 1:15-16). The conviction of divine presence, identified with Jesus and inciting to a commission, defines the content of the experience that he had been raised from the dead. That definition does justice to the narratives of Jesus’ appearance in the Gospels, to Paul’s experience, and to the appearance to James as given in the Gospel to the Hebrews.24 In the last case, James is informed by Jesus that he, as son of man, has risen from the dead. In that instance as well as in the others, the language of effective personal presence more accurately conveys the scene than does the language of vision. “Vision,” we might conclude, is the overall category of experience in which our sources would place the resurrection of Jesus, but the experience was of his effectively divine and personal presence after his death. Jesus’ own teaching involved a refusal to grant an assumption of physical resurrection, the continuity of sexual relationships, and in so doing disappointed the expectations raised by the story of the empty tomb, as well as the stories of the raisings of the son of the widow of Nain, of Jairus’ daughter, and of Lazarus. The increasingly physical terms of reference of early Christian teaching, as in 1 Thes. 4:13-18, complicated the structure of the traditions of Jesus’ resurrection and of his teaching concerning the resurrection. There is little of Jesus’ teaching preserved for the same reason that there is only an echo of Peter’s experience of the risen Jesus: in both cases, the challenge to the assumptions of the story of the empty tomb was too great to be incorporated into the tradition of the Gospels. The metaphysics of the resurrection in Paul Paul’s discussion of the issue of the resurrection in 1 Cor. 15 clearly represents his continuing commitment to the categorical understanding of the resurrection that Jesus initiated. The particular occasion of his teaching is the apparent denial of the resurrection on the part of some people in Corinth (1 Cor. 15:12b): “how can some of you say 24 Cited in Jerome’s Famous Men 2; see Edgar Hennecke and Wilhelm Schneemelcher (tr. R. McL. Wilson), New Testament Apocrypha (London, 1973).

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that there is no resurrection of the dead?”25 His address of that denial is first of all on the basis of the integrity of apostolic preaching. Indeed, Paul prefaces his question with the earliest extant catalog of the traditions regarding Jesus’ resurrection (1 Cor. 15:1-11). That record makes it plain why so much variety within stories of the appearance of the risen Jesus in the Gospels was possible: reference is made to a separate appearance to Cephas, then to the Twelve, then to more than five hundred “brothers” (cf., Mat. 28:10!), then to James, then to “all the apostles,” and then finally to Paul himself (vv. 5-8).The depth and range of that catalog is what enables Paul to press on to his first argument against the Corinthian denial of the resurrection (15:13-14): “But if there is no resurrection of the dead, neither has Christ been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is empty and your faith is empty!” Paul expands on this argument in what follows (1 Cor. 15:15-19), but the gist of what he says in that section is as simple as what he says at first: faith in Jesus’ resurrection logically requires our affirmation of the reality of resurrection generally. That may seem to be an argument entirely from hypothesis, until we remember that Paul sees the moment when belief in Jesus occurs as the occasion of our reception of the Spirit of God (so Gal. 4:4-6): When the fullness of time came, God sent forth his Son, born from woman, born under law, so that he might redeem those under law, in order that we might obtain Sonship. And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”

Because the Spirit in baptism is nothing other than the living Spirit of God’s Son, Jesus’ resurrection is attested by the very fact of the primordially Christian experience of faith. The availability of his Spirit shows that he has been raised from the dead. In addition, the preaching in his name formally claims his resurrection, so that to deny resurrection as a whole is to make the apostolic preaching into a lie: empty preaching, as Paul says, and therefore empty faith. Paul’s emphasis in this context on the spiritual integrity of the apostolic preaching, attested in baptismal experience, is coherent 25 For a survey of attempts to explain this statement, see Wedderburn, pp. 6-37. He comes to no finding regarding what view Paul meant to attribute to some Corinthians, but he seems correct in affirming that a simple denial on their part (despite the form of words Paul uses) is unlikely (cf., nn. 3, 13 above). More likely, Paul was dealing with people who did not agree with his own teaching of a bodily resurrection.

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with Jesus’ earlier claim that the Scriptures warrant the resurrection (since God is God of the living, rather than of the dead). Implicitly, apostolic preaching is accorded the same sort of authority that Jesus attributed to the Scriptures of Israel. Paul also proceeds—in a manner comparable to Jesus’ argument (but in the reverse order)—to an argument on the basis of the category of humanity that the resurrection involves: he portrays Jesus as the first of those raised from the dead. His resurrection is what provides hope for the resurrection of the dead as a whole (1 Cor. 15:20-28). That hope, Paul goes on to argue, is what permits the Corinthians themselves to engage in the practice of being baptized on behalf of the dead (15:29).26 The practice assumes that, when the dead come to be raised, even if they have not been baptized during life, baptism on their behalf after their death will confer benefit. Similarly, Paul takes his own courage as an example of the hopeful attitude that must assume the resurrection of the dead as its ground: why else would Christians encounter the dangers that they do (15:30-32a)? The claim of resurrection, then, does not only involve a hope based upon a reception of Spirit and the promise of Scripture (whether in the form of the Scriptures of Israel or the apostolic preaching). Resurrection as an actual hope impinges directly upon what we conceive becomes of persons as we presently know them after they have died. (And that, of course, will immediately influence our conception of people as they are now perceived and how we might engage with them.) Paul’s argument therefore can not and does not rest solely on assertions of the spiritual integrity of the biblical witness and the apostolic preaching. He must also spell out an anthropology of resurrection, such that the spiritual hope and the Scriptural witness are worked out within the terms of reference of human experience. Precisely when he does that in 1 Cor. 15, Paul develops a Christian metaphysics. He does so by comparing people in the resurrection, not to angels, as Jesus himself had done, but to the resurrected Jesus. And that comparison functions for Paul both (as we have already seen) because Jesus is preached as raised from the dead and because, 26 For a discussion of the practice in relation to Judaic custom (cf., 2 Macc. 12:4045), see Ethelbert Stauffer (tr. J. Marsh), New Testament Theology (New York, 1955), p. 299, n. 544. C.K. Barrett also comes to the conclusion that the vicarious effect of baptism is at issue, A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians (London, 1968), pp. 362-364, although he is somewhat skeptical of Stauffer’s analysis.

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within the experience of baptism, Jesus is known as the living source of the Spirit of God.27 Jesus as raised from the dead is the point of departure for Paul’s thinking about the resurrection, and because his focus is a human being, his analysis of the resurrection is much more systematic than that of Jesus. When Paul thinks of a person, he conceives of a body as composed of flesh, physical substance that varies from one created thing to another (for example, people, animals, birds, and fish; 1 Cor. 15:3539). But in addition to being physical bodies, people are also what Paul calls a “psychic body,” that is bodies with souls (1 Cor. 15:44). Unfortunately, the phrase is wrongly translated in many modern versions, but its dependence on the noun for “soul” (psukhe) is obvious. The adjective does not mean “physical” as we use that word. 28 In other words, people as bodies are not just lumps of flesh, but they are self-aware. That self-awareness is precisely what makes them “psychic body.” Now in addition to being physical body and psychic body, Paul says we are (or can be, within the power of resurrection, since the issue is no longer natural endowment) “spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:44): “it is sown a psychic body, it is raised a spiritual body.” Spirit in Paul’s understanding (see below) is the medium in which we can relate thoughts and feelings to one another and to God. The explanation of how spirit may be the medium of God’s communication is developed earlier in 1 Corinthians (2:10-11). Paul develops his position by quoting a passage from Is. 64:4 (in 2:9), which speaks of things beyond human understanding that God has readied for those who love him, and Paul then goes on to say (2:10-11): God has revealed them to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s affairs except the person’s spirit within? So also no one has known God’s affairs except the Spirit of God.

As Paul sees human relations, one person can only know what another thinks and feels on the basis of their shared “spirit.” “Spirit” is As Perkins (p. 227) puts it, “These associations make it clear that the resurrection of Jesus had been understood from an early time as the eschatological turning point of the ages and not merely as the reward for Jesus as a righteous individual.” 28 Although that is a simple point, it apparently requires some emphasis. Scholars of Paul routinely assert that Paul is speaking of some sort of physical resurrection, when that is exactly what Paul denies. See Tom Wright, What Did Paul Really Say? (Grand Rapids, 1997), p. 50. 27

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the name for what links one person with another, and by means of that link we can also know what God thinks and feels. The Spirit at issue in the case of God, Paul goes on to say, is not “the spirit of the world,” but “the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2:12): the medium of ordinary, human exchange becomes in baptism the vehicle of divine revelation. Paul’s remark in 1 Cor. 2 is part of a complete anthropology, which is now spelled out further in 1 Cor. 15. Jesus on the basis of the resurrection is the last Adam, a life-giving spirit (1 Cor. 15:45) just as the first Adam was a living “being” or “soul” (the two words are the same in Greek, psukhê). Jesus is the basis on which we can realize our identities as God’s children, the brothers and sisters of Christ, and know the power of the resurrection. In so saying, Paul defines a distinctive christology as well as a characteristic spirituality. The metaphysics of both, which relate Christ to creation and believers to God, is predicated upon a regeneration of human nature. “Flesh” and “soul” become, not ends in themselves, but way stations on the course to “Spirit.” Origen and the refinement of spiritual resurrection Born in 185 in Egypt, Origen knew the consequences faith could have in the Roman world: his father died in the persecution of Severus in 202. Origen accepted the sort of renunciation demanded of apostles in the Gospels, putting aside his possessions to develop what Eusebius calls the philosophical life demanded by Jesus (see Eusebius, History of the Church 6.3). His learning resulted in his appointment to the catechetical school in Alexandria, following the great examples of Pantaenus and Clement. Origen later moved to Caesarea in Palestine, as a result of a bitter dispute with Demetrius, the bishop of Alexandria. Indeed, Origen remained a controversial figure after his death (and until this day), to a large extent because he wrestled more profoundly than most thinkers with the consequences of Spirit’s claim on the flesh. The dispute surrounding Origen specifically included his sexuality. According to Eusebius, as part of his acceptance of Evangelical precepts of renunciation, Origen took literally the reference in Matthew to people making eunuchs of themselves for the sake of the kingdom of heaven (Mat. 19:12). Accordingly, he emasculated himself (History of the

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Church 6.8). As Eusebius immediately goes on to say, Demetrius later capitalized on the story, by using it to discredit Origen. Scholarship has been divided over the question of whether Origen in fact castrated himself. The scholarly debate about Origen’s genitals is less interesting than the fact that there has been such a debate. If Origen did castrate himself, the argument has been (since the time of Eusebius!), it must have been because his interpretation of Scripture was literal at that stage of his life. If he did not, Demetrius must have invented the story. Castration is the extreme and negative form of the celibacy encouraged and required within Christian circles from the second century onward; the physical cutting crosses the line between renunciation and mutilation in the minds of scholars and therefore needs to be explained in terms of someone’s error of judgment. Whether the act is taken to have been performed on Origen’s body or only in Demetrius’s accusation (and therefore in Eusebius’ mind), no one defends it. The story about Origen violates the axiom (articulated by Paul in 1 Cor. 6:19) that the human body, as an actual or potential vehicle of the divine, is not to be desecrated. In fact, Origen himself argued against any literal interpretation of Mat. 19:12, insisting that it did not refer to self-mutilation.29 The passage has been used to suggest that Origen did castrate himself and later saw the error of the act, as well as to argue that he never would have done such a thing. The matter is not likely ever to be settled, but what Origen did settle to his own satisfaction was the fraught issue of the relationship between flesh and Spirit, the tension between which produced the plausibility of the claim that a great Christian teacher might castrate himself. But where the reputation of Origen has been stalled in the antithesis between flesh and Spirit, his own thought was productive precisely because he worked out a dialectical reconciliation between the two. In his treatment of the resurrection, Origen shows himself a brilliant exegete and a profound theologian. He sees clearly that, in 1 Cor. 15, Paul insists that the resurrection from the dead must be bodily. And Origen provides the logical grounding of Paul’s claim (On First Principles 2.10.1): If it is certain that we are to be possessed of bodies, and if those bodies that have fallen are declared to rise again—and the expression “rise 29

See Jean Daniélou, Origen (tr. W. Mitchell) (New York, 1955), p. 13.

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bruce chilton again” could not properly be used except of that which had previously fallen—then there can be no doubt that these bodies rise again in order that at the resurrection we may once more be clothed with them.

But Origen equally insists upon Paul’s assertion that “flesh and blood can not inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 15:50). There must be a radical transition from flesh to spirit, as God fashions a body which can dwell in the heavens (On First Principles 2.10.3). Origen pursues the point of this transition into a debate with fellow Christians (On First Principles 2.10.3): We now direct the discussion to some of our own people, who either from want of intellect or from lack of instruction introduce an exceedingly low and mean idea of the resurrection of the body. We ask these men in what manner they think that the “psychic body” will, by the grace of the resurrection be changed and become “spiritual;” and in what manner they think that what is sown “in dishonor” is to “rise in glory,” and what is sown “in corruption” is to be transformed into “incorruption.” Certainly if they believe the Apostle, who says that the body, when it rises in glory and in power and in incorruptibility, has already become spiritual, it seems absurd and contrary to the meaning of the Apostle to say that it is still entangled in the passions of flesh and blood.

Origen’s emphatic denial of a physical understanding of the resurrection is especially interesting for two reasons. First, his confidence in the assertion attests the strength of his conviction that such an understanding is “low and mean:” the problem is not that physical resurrection is unbelievable, but that the conception is unworthy of the hope of which faith speaks. Origen’s argument presupposes, of course, that a physical understanding of the resurrection was current in Christian Alexandria. But he insists, again following Paul’s analysis, that the body that is raised in resurrection is continuous with the physical body in principle, but different from it in substance (On First Principles 2.10.3): So our bodies should be supposed to fall like a grain of wheat into the earth, but implanted in them is the cause that maintains the essence of the body. Although the bodies die and are corrupted and scattered, nevertheless by the word of God that same cause that has all along been safe in the essence of the body raises them up from the earth and restores and refashions them, just as the power that exists in a grain of wheat refashions and restores the grain, after its corruption and death, into a body with stalk and ear. And so in the case of those who shall be counted worthy of obtaining an inheritance in the kingdom of heaven, the cause before mentioned, by which the body is refashioned, at the

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order of God refashions out of the earthly and animate body a spiritual body, which can dwell in heaven.

The direction and orientation of Origen’s analysis is defined by his concern to describe what in humanity may be regarded as ultimately compatible with the divine. For that reason, physical survival is rejected as an adequate category for explaining the resurrection. Instead, he emphasizes the change of substance that must be involved. Second, the force behind Origen’s assertion is categorical. The resolution of the stated contradictions—“psychic”/“spiritual,” “dishonor”/”glory,” “corruption”/”incorruption”—involves taking Paul’s language as directly applicable to the human condition. In the case of each contradiction, the first item in the pair needs to yield to the spiritual progression of the second item in the pair. That is the progressive logic of Origen’s thought, now applied comprehensively to human experience. In Origen’s articulation, progressive thinking insists upon the radical transition resurrection involves. Although his discussion is a brilliant exegesis of Paul’s argument, Origen also elevates the progressive principle above any other consideration that Paul introduces. What had been in Paul a method for understanding Scripture (see Gal. 4:21-31) which was applicable outside that field becomes in Origen the fundamental principle of global spiritual revolution. Only that, in his mind, can do justice to the promise of being raised from the dead. For all that the transition from flesh to spirit is radical, Origen is also clear that personal continuity is involved. To put the matter positively, one is clothed bodily with one’s own body, as we have already seen. To put the matter negatively, sins borne by the body of flesh may be thought of us as visited upon the body that is raised from the dead (On First Principles 2.10.8): …just as the saints will receive back the very bodies in which they have lived in holiness and purity during their stay in the habitations of this life, but bright and glorious as a result of the resurrection, so, too, the impious, who in this life have loved the darkness of error and the night of ignorance will after the resurrection be clothed with murky and black bodies, in order that this very gloom of ignorance, which in the present world has taken possession of the inner parts of their mind, may in the world to come be revealed through the garment of their outward body.

Although Origen is quite consciously engaging in speculation at this point, he firmly rejects the notion that the flesh is involved in the

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resurrection, even when biblical promises appear to envisage earthly joys (On First Principles 2.11.2): Now some men, who reject the labor of thinking and seek after the outward and literal meaning of the law, or rather give way to their own desires and lusts, disciples of the mere letter, consider that the promises of the future are to be looked for in the form of pleasure and bodily luxury. And chiefly on this account they desire after the resurrection to have flesh of such a sort that they will never lack the power to eat and drink and to do all things that pertain to flesh and blood, not following the teaching of the apostle Paul about the resurrection of a “spiritual body.”

His reasons for rejecting such a millenarian view are both exegetical and theological. Paul is the ground of the apostolic authority he invokes, in a reading we have already seen. He uses that perspective to consider the Scriptures generally (On First Principles 2.11.3). But Origen deepens his argument from interpretation with a profoundly theological argument. He maintains that the most urgent longing is the desire “to learn the design of those things which we perceive to have been made by God.” This longing is as basic to our minds as the eye is the body: constitutionally, we long for the vision of God (On First Principles 2.11.4). The manner in which Origen develops his own thought is complex, involving a notion of education in paradise prior to one’s entry into the realm of heaven proper (On First Principles 2.11.6): I think that the saints when they depart from this life will remain in some place situated on the earth, which the divine Scripture calls “paradise.” This will be a place of learning and, so to speak, a lecture room or school for souls, in which they may be taught about all that they had seen on earth and may also receive some indication of what is to follow in the future. Just as when placed in this life they had obtained certain indications of the future, seen indeed “through a glass darkly,” and yet truly seen “in part,” they are revealed more openly and clearly to the saints in the proper places and times. If anyone is of truly pure heart and of clean mind and well-trained understanding he will make swifter progress and quickly ascend to the region of the air,30 until he reaches the kingdom of heaven, passing through the series of those “mansions,” if I may so call them, which the Greeks have termed spheres—that is, globes—but which the divine Scripture calls heavens.

30 At this point, Origen is reading 1 Thes. 4 through the lens of 1 Cor. 15, just as later in the passage he incorporates the language of “mansions” from John 14:2.

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Even this brief excerpt from a convoluted description represents the complexity of Origen’s vision, but two factors remain plain and simple. First, the vision of God is the moving element through the entire discussion. Second, Origen clearly represents and develops a construction of the Christian faith in which eschatology has been swallowed up in an emphasis upon transcendence. The only time which truly matters is that time until one’s death, which determines one’s experience in paradise and in the resurrection. “Heaven” as cosmographic place now occupies the central position once occupied by the eschatological kingdom of God in Jesus’ teaching. That, too, occurs on the authority of progressive dialectics, the refinement of Pauline metaphysics. Augustine and the history of resurrection Augustine (354-430) was bishop of Hippo in North Africa. Born in North Africa of humble origins, Augustine had prospered his way as a professor of rhetoric until his conversion to Christianity while he was in Milan. From there he made his way back to North Africa and was leading a life of philosophical leisure until he was called to Hippo for ordination to the priesthood, and eventually service as bishop. There, in addition to a full pastoral ministry, Augustine wrote some of the most influential works in the development of Western culture. His Confessions is an examination of his own life and his own heart in the interests of exploring the human soul, and his treatise On the Trinity is a classic of philosophical theology and spirituality. On the City of God is a monumental achievement, a reflection on the history of the world in light of the will of God. Within that truly global history, discussion of eschatology is a necessary part of the work, and Augustine frames classic and orthodox responses to some of the most persistent questions of the Christian theology of his time. He adheres to the expectation of the resurrection of the flesh, not simply of the body (as had been the manner of Origen). In so doing, he refutes the Manichaean philosophy that he accepted prior to his conversion to Christianity. In Manichaeanism, named after a Persian teacher of the third century named Mani, light and darkness are two eternal substances that struggle against one another, and they war over the creation they have both participated

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in making.31 As in the case of Gnosticism, on which it was dependent, Manichaeanism counseled a denial of the flesh. By his insistence on the resurrection of the flesh, Augustine revives the strong assertion of the extent of God’s embrace of his own creation (in the tradition of Irenaeus, the great millenarian thinker of the second century 32). At the same time, Augustine sets a limit on the extent to which one might have recourse to Plato. Augustine had insisted with Plato against the Manichaeans that God was not a material substance, but transcendent. Consequently, evil became in his mind the denial of what proceeds from God (see Confessions 5.10.20). When it came to the creation of people, however, Augustine insisted against Platonic thought that no division between soul and flesh could be made (so City of God 22.12). Enfleshed humanity was the only genuine humanity, and God in Christ was engaged to raise those who were of the city of God. Moreover, Augustine specifically refuted the contention of Porphyry (and Origen) that cycles of creation could be included within the entire scheme of salvation. For Augustine, the power of the resurrection within the flesh was already confirmed by the miracles wrought by Christ and his martyrs. He gives the example of the healings connected with the relics of St. Stephen, recently transferred to Hippo (City of God 22.8). Even now, in the power of the Catholic Church, God is represented on earth, and the present, Christian epoch (Christiana tempora) corresponds to the millennium promised in Rev. 20 (City of God 20.9). This age of dawning power, released in flesh by Jesus and conveyed by the Church, simply awaits the full transition into the city of God, complete with flesh itself. It is telling that, where Origen could cite a saying of Jesus to confirm his view of the resurrection (see Mat. 22:30; Mark 12:25; Luke 20:36), Augustine has to qualify the meaning of the same saying (City of God 22.18): They will be equal to angels in immortality and happiness, not in flesh, nor indeed in resurrection, which the angels had no need of, since they could not die. So the Lord said that there would be no marriage in the resurrection, not that there would be no women.

31 See Stanley Romaine Hopper, “The Anti-Manichean Writings,” in R.W. Battenhouse, ed., A Companion to the Study of St. Augustine (New York, 1969), pp. 148174. 32 See Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition. A History of the Development of Doctrine 1: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600) (Chicago, 1971), pp. 123-132.

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In all of this, Augustine is straining, although he is usually a less convoluted interpreter of Scripture. But he is committed to what the Latin version of the Apostles’ Creed promises: “the resurrection of the flesh” and all that implies. He therefore cannot follow Origen’s exegesis. There is a double irony here. First, Origen, the sophisticated allegorist, seems much simpler to follow in his exegesis of Jesus’ teaching than Augustine, the incomparable preacher, is. Second, Augustine’s discussion of such issues as the fate of fetuses in the resurrection sounds remarkable like the Sadducees’ hypothesis that Jesus argues against in the relevant passage from the Synoptic Gospels. Augustine is well aware, as was Origen before him, that Paul speaks of a “spiritual body,” and acknowledges that “I suspect that all utterance published concerning it is rash.” And yet he can be quite categorical that flesh must be involved somehow: “the spiritual flesh will be subject to spirit, but it will still be flesh, not spirit; just as the carnal spirit was subject to the flesh, but was still spirit, not flesh” (City of God 22.21). Such is Augustine’s conviction that flesh has become the medium of salvation now and hereafter. As in the case of Irenaeus, the denial of a thoroughly abstract teaching leads to the assertion of greater literalism than may have been warranted. Conclusion Not only within the New Testament, but through the centuries of discussion the key figures cited here reflect, Christianity represents itself as a religion of human regeneration. Humanity is regarded, not simply as a quality that God values, but as the very center of being in the image of God. That center is so precious to God, it is the basis upon which it is possible for human beings to enter the kingdom of God, both now and eschatologically. The medium in which that ultimate transformation is to take place is a matter of debate. Regenerated people might be compared to angels (so Jesus), to Jesus in his resurrection (so Paul), to spiritual bodies (so Origen), and to spiritualized flesh (so Augustine). But in all of these analyses of how we are to be transformed into the image of Christ so as to apprehend that humanity which is in the image and likeness of God (see Gen. 1:27), there is a fundamental consensus: Jesus is claimed as the agency by which this transformation is accomplished.

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He might be the mediator of divine humanity to us because he is the teacher by whom the message of our regeneration arrives (as in Jesus’ own saying), because he is a Pauline new Adam (bearing the promise of new people after him), because he is Origen’s Son of God in heaven, or because he is Augustine’s Son of God on earth and in history. Both the agreement and the disagreement of these theologies make it plain that the priority of Christian faith is not to determine in advance what the exact medium of our regeneration is to be, but rather to identity that Jesus through whom our regeneration is in fact to be realized. That identification—not of Jesus in history, but of Jesus in his divine aspect—is the key to how we are in the presence of God, in the kingdom of God, and of how we are to be in that presence, that kingdom. Paul provides a characteristically optimistic assessment 33 of the human condition in 2 Cor. 5:1-10: even as our present, earthly home is being dismantled, we have a heavenly dwelling prepared by God. The pledge of that trust, the hope of the resurrection, is the Spirit of God (v. 5).34 Here, speaking of the experience of resurrection, Paul is much less paradoxical than what is retained of Jesus’ teaching, just as Paul is plainer than Jesus in his explanation of the resurrection itself. Jesus taught that it was better to remove an offensive hand or foot or eye, than to find oneself whole in Gehenna, that place where (both in Jesus’ phrasing and the Isaiah Targum) the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched (Mark 9:42-48).35 The offense Jesus would guard strictly against (going beyond the notion of binding oneself) was interfering with one of the “little ones.” Only those who knew how to take the opportunity with the enthusiasm with which a child takes things would enter the kingdom (Mark 10:15), and entry into that kingdom was one of the distinctive motifs of Jesus’ preaching.36 Although the attitude of entry was one of Jesus’ paramount concerns, he did not spell ought how in substantial terms one was to enter. By inference, a body is involved, and Paul both represents and encourages Christian theology by meditating on the nature of that body. Inference from Jesus’ teaching and encouragement from Paul have 33 Although Paul is not often called an optimist, chiefly because he is a perennially incorrect figure (in terms of contemporary fashion), his categorically bodily hope for the resurrection of the dead might be described as anything but pessimistic. 34 See Wedderburn, pp. 356-359. 35 See A Galilean Rabbi , pp. 101-107. 36 See Pure Kingdom, pp. 83-85.

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been the principal sources of the Church’s thought as it has grappled with the experience of Jesus’ resurrection and the hope of resurrection for all people. Bibliography Barrett, C.K., A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians (London, 1968). Benoit, Pierre, Passion et résurrection du Seigneur (Paris, 1985). Carnley, Peter, The Structure of Resurrection Belief (Oxford, 1987). Charlesworth, James H., and Craig A. Evans, “Jesus in the Agrapha and Apocryphal Gospels,” in Chilton, B., and C.A. Evans, eds., Studying the Historical Jesus. Evaluations of the State of Current Research (Leiden, 1994). Chilton, Bruce, A Galilean Rabbi and His Bible. Jesus’ Use of the Interpreted Scripture of His Time (Wilmington, 1984); also published with the subtitle, Jesus’ Own Interpretation of Isaiah (London, 1984). Chilton, Bruce, Jesus’ Prayer and Jesus’ Eucharist. His Personal Practice of Spirituality (Valley Forge, 1997). Chilton, Bruce, The Kingdom of God in the Teaching of Jesus (London and Philadelphia, 1984). Chilton, Bruce, Profiles of a Rabbi. Synoptic Opportunities in Reading about Jesus (Atlanta, 1989). Chilton, Bruce, Pure Kingdom. Jesus’ Vision of God (Grand Rapids, 1996). Chilton, Bruce, The Temple of Jesus. His Sacrificial Program within a Cultural History of Sacrifice (University Park, 1992). Daniélou, Jean, Origen (New York, 1955). Fiorenza, Francis Schüssler, Foundational Theology. Jesus and the Church (New York, 1984). Grayston, Kenneth, Dying, We Live. A New Enquuiry into the Death of Christ in the New Testament (New York, 1990). Hopper, Stanley Romaine, “The Anti-Manichean Writings,” in Battenhouse, R.W., ed., A Companion to the Study of St. Augustine (New York, 1969), pp. 148-174. Pelikan, Jaroslav, The Christian Tradition. A History of the Development of Doctrine 1: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600) (Chicago, 1971). Perkins, Pheme, Resurrection. New Testament Witness and Contemporary Reflection (London, 1984). Rochais, Gérard, Les récits de résurrection des mort dans le Nouveau Testament (Cambridge, 1981). Stauffer, Ethelbert, New Testament Theology (New York, 1955). Wedderburn, A.J.M., Baptism and Resurrection. Studies in Pauline Theology against Its Graeco-Roman Background (Tübingen, 1987). Wright, Tom, What Did Paul Really Say? (Grand Rapids, 1997).

V. RABBINIC JUDAISM

10. DEATH AND AFTERLIFE IN THE EARLY RABBINIC SOURCES: THE MISHNAH, TOSEFTA, AND EARLY MIDRASH COMPILATIONS Alan J. Avery-Peck College of the Holy Cross The documents of the Tannaim comprise two distinct literatures, on the one hand, the legal sources, the Mishnah and Tosefta, and, on the other, the early midrashic compilations, Sifra, Mekhilta deR. Ishmael, Sifre Numbers, and Sifre Deuteronomy. The literary forms and substantive interests of these literatures are largely separate, with the legal sources concerned with praxis and the midrashic ones with interpretation of Scripture. In light of this distinction, discussing the early Rabbinic concepts of death, life-after-death, resurrection, and the world-to-come presents as much a methodological as a substantive problem. Covering diverse topical interests and literary forms, we cannot assume that these separate literatures present a single and unitary theology. At the same time, citing the same authorities and emerging from a single time period, we might expect cohesion at least in general principles, if not in all details. The problem in approaching the early Rabbinic conception of death, then, is to take account of the autonomy of each of the literatures in our sample even as we work to see the extent to which, together, they present a cogent theory representative of an early Rabbinic Judaism that encompasses all of the writings of the Tannaitic period. In what ways and to what extent, that is, do the Halakhah and Haggadah cohere in presenting a distinctively Rabbinic approach to death and dying? To answer this question, we begin by discussing each of our literatures independently. On this basis, at the end, we outline the overall picture. Still, the results of these surveys can be introduced briefly at the start. Each of the literatures before us addresses the concerns indicated in our title: the significance of and reason for death and what can be expected after death, both in terms of the fate of the individual and as regards larger messianic themes, the advent of a worldto-come and the resurrection of all the dead. The Mishnah and Tosefta, primarily interested in legal issues that pertain to life in this

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world, present only subject heads. They declare that belief in the resurrection of the death is an essential foundation of Israelite faith, posit that a post-mortem judgment occurs, and aver that observance of commandments and study of Torah assure both length of days in this world and a place in the world-to-come. The early midrashic compilations significantly—though, as we shall see, only episodically—develop these notions, giving some hints regarding the Rabbinic conception of the nature of God’s judgment and the character of the world-to-come and, especially, adumbrating the value of the study of Torah in assuring a positive post-mortem experience. While the legal and exegetical literatures cohere in this basic framework, neither focuses upon these ideas sufficiently to present a clear theory of what actually happens after death or fully to explain how the rabbis envisioned the resurrection or messianic world-tocome. Early Rabbinic thinking about the various aspects of life-afterdeath, rather, emerges piecemeal, not within a systematic treatment of the post-mortem experience but in response to more general questions about the nature and responsibilities of life in this world: the question of the value of the law and the depiction of why Israelites must follow it, that is, introduce ancillary issues: how will God’s justice finally prevail and what will happen to those who deny the Torah, including the nations of the world who currently rule over the people and land of Israel? Both the legal and exegetical literatures of early Rabbinic Judaism thus focus primarily upon explaining the value of living the life of Torah in this world, a value that is defined first and foremost in terms of the character of one’s existence in this life and, only secondarily, in terms of the assurance of a future life in a largely undefined world-to-come. We have here, then, not primarily a theology of death and afterlife, which would require a detailed and consistent theory of the matter, but a rationalization of the life of Torah, as defined, of course, by the Rabbinic masters themselves. The Mishnah and Tosefta on Death and Dying While the Mishnah and Tosefta speak frequently of issues of death and dying, their predominant concern with this topic does not address the particular interests of this study at all. Rather than addressing the theological meaning of death, the rabbis of the Mishnah are almost exclusively concerned with the ritual, familial, and economic

the mishnah, tosefta, and early midrash compilations 245 problems the death of a specific individual raises for those who remain alive. These issues involve, most prominently, corpse uncleanness, on the one side, and the rules for the distribution of the wealth of the deceased, on the other. In the legal texts of early Rabbinic Judaism, thinking about death thus evokes not questions about afterlife and resurrection but about the application of Rabbinic law in the ongoing, living community of Israel. We need not here enter into a detailed discussion of the laws of corpse impurity, inheritance, levirate marriage, and similar issues;1 these matters do not pertain to our specific interests. Still, reflection upon the early rabbis’ focus on these issues affords insight into the place and meaning of death in their overall system. What theory of death and dying, we must ask, explains these particular interests? An answer is suggested by T. Shab. 17:19: A. R. Simeon b. Eleazar says, “He who wants to close the eyes of a corpse on the Sabbath blows wine into his nose and puts oil on the two eyelids, and they will close on their own.” B. And so did R. Simeon b. Eleazar say, “Even a child one day old who is alive—they violate the restrictions of the Sabbath on his account [to save his life]. C. “But even David, King of Israel, when dead—they do not violate the restrictions of the Sabbath on his account [to take care of his corpse]. D. “So long as a man is alive, he engages in religious requirements. Therefore they violate the Sabbath on his account. E. “But when he dies, he is exempt from religious requirements. Therefore they do not violate the Sabbath on his account.” F. And so did R. Simeon b. Eleazar say, “A child even one day old they do not have to guard from a weasel or rats. G. “For a dog sees him and runs away, a snake sees him and runs away. H. “But even Og, King of Bashan, when dead, do they guard from a weasel and from rats. I. “For so long as a man is alive, fear of him falls upon the [other] creatures, J. “since it says, ‘The fear of you and the dread of you shall be [upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the air, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered]’ (Gen. 9:2). K. “As to a corpse, fear of him leaves the [other] creatures.” 1 Examples of the Mishnah’s treatment of the financial, social, or familial ramifications of death appear, for instance, at: M. Yom. 1:1, M. Pe. 1:1, M. M.Q. 3:7-9, M. Yeb. 1:1, 10:1, M. Shab. 23:4-5, M. Naz. 6:11, M. Sot. 9:15, M. Git. 7:5, M. B.Q. 4:5, M. Ket. 13:3.

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Humanity is defined by the ability to observe the commandments, and, to preserve this capacity, commandments may be violated. But death marks the cessation of all that demarcates the person as human, that is, as within the system of Torah. Unable any longer to observe the commandments, the corpse is no longer of interest within the system of covenantal law. The heart of the matter is at F-G vs. H-I: live, a person is recognized as human. But dead, the body has no humanity, so that it is unable even to command the respect of animals. From the perspective of the law, that is, Torah, death is an end, not a beginning, removing the individual from the system of commanded obligations and, so, from the interests of the framers of the Mishnah and Tosefta. Their interest is with those who remain alive and with the laws that assure the continuation of the society that upholds the covenant. Along these same lines, the rabbis essentially accept death’s finality and express no expectation that one might be able to overcome it. Observing the law is not a method of conquering death, although, through piety—the life of Torah and prayer—one may, perhaps, delay death for a short while (M. Ber. 5:5): A. One who prays and errs—it is a bad sign for him. B. And if he is a communal agent, [who prays on behalf of the whole congregation], it is a bad sign for them that appointed him. C. [This is on the principle that] a man’s agent is like [the man] himself. D. They said concerning R. Haninah b. Dosa, “When he would pray for the sick he would say ‘This one shall live’ or ‘This one shall die.’” E. They said to him, “How do you know?” F. He said to them, “If my prayer is fluent, then I know that it is accepted [and the person will live]. G. “But if not, I know that it is rejected [and the person will die].”

The passage tells us more about the rabbis’ comprehension of the efficacy of prayers said by a pious rabbi than about their theory of why people must die. Of interest here, as in other stories about him, is the special connection Haninah b. Dosa had with God through prayer, so strong a connection that he could immediately sense God’s response and know whether or not his prayers would be efficacious. But the underlying message is that death occurs when God wills it, that, ultimately, no action on earth can change the divine will. No explanation of God’s choice or question of God’s decision enters into the discussion. As in the preceding passage, death is conceived as a

the mishnah, tosefta, and early midrash compilations 247 reality of human life, not a category of theological reflection at all. Neither why death occurs, how to avoid it, nor what happens to an individual after death raises any interest. The Mishnah and Tosefta’s overriding concern with the practical issues engendered by death means that, even when reference is made to resurrection and life-after-death, these ideas, stated as simple and unequivocal doctrinal beliefs, bring in their wake little concrete discussion and no systematic elaboration. Rabbinic authorities in the Mishnah and Tosefta, as we shall now see, express absolutely their belief in the resurrection of the dead and their expectation of a world-to-come. But the extremely limited and unsystematic discussion of these topics means that the exact nature of the resurrection and the character of the world-to-come remain unexplored, as does the character of the individual’s existence after death, a topic that never enters the picture. So we learn that all people will be judged, that the righteous will be resurrected, and that, at some undisclosed time and under undisclosed circumstances, a “world-to-come” will exist. But beyond these assertions, the rabbis show little concern for the issues raised by the idea of resurrection and do not define the relationship of this resurrection to the advent of the world-to-come. Resurrection of the dead As the well known passage at M. San. 10:12 makes clear, Tannaitic authorities hold that, except for those who deny the resurrection of the dead and other central theological concepts, e.g., that the Torah is revealed, all Israelites have a share in the world-to-come: A. All Israelites have a share in the world-to-come, B. as it is said, “Your people also shall be all righteous, they shall inherit the land forever; the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified” (Is. 60:21). C. And these are the ones who have no portion in the world-to-come: D. 1) He who says, the resurrection of the dead is a teaching that does not derive from the Torah, (2) and the Torah does not come from Heaven; and (3) an Epicurean. E. R. Aqiba says, “Also: He who reads in heretical books, F. “and he who whispers over a wound and says, ‘I will put none of the diseases upon you which I have put on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord who heals you’ (Exod. 15:26).” 2

Except where otherwise indicated, translations are by Jacob Neusner.

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Abba Saul says, “Also: he who pronounces the divine Name as it is spelled out.”

All who hold correct theological belief have a place in the world-tocome.3 But the character of the resurrection, the circumstances that will give rise to the world-to-come, and the temporal relationship between these events is left unclear. Does the resurrection of the dead mark the advent of the world-to-come (in which case the point is that one who does not believe in the resurrection of the dead will not participate in it!) or are these separate events? The question is unanswered. While it is difficult to move behind the silence of the source, the unclarity of the text before us presumably signifies that the answer to this question was not seen as deserving or needing great attention. Either the matter purposely was left as a mystery or was of insufficient concern to demand elaboration. One thing is clear: if the prooftext at B is indicative, the world-tocome is conceived as the people of Israel’s coming into everlasting possession of the land of Israel. The world-to-come, thus, is tantamount to the fulfillment of God’s covenantal promise to give the people Israel the land of Israel as an everlasting inheritance. In other early writings, the idea of resurrection as a facet of God’s overall justice is common. It appears at M. Ab. 4:22, which focuses directly upon the role of resurrection in God’s overall command of the world: A. [Eliezer Haqappar] would say, “Those who are born are [destined] to die, and those who die are [destined] for resurrection. B. “And the living are [destined] to be judged, C. “so as to know, to make known, and to confirm that (1) he is God, (2) he is the one who forms, (3) he is the one who creates, (4) he is the one who understands, (5) he is the one who judges, (6) he is the one who gives evidence, (7) he is the one who brings suit, (8) and he is the one who is going to make the ultimate judgment. D. “Blessed be he, for before him are not (1) guile, (2) forgetfulness, (3) respect for persons, (4) bribe taking, E. “for everything is his. F. “And know that everything is subject to reckoning.

3 Note the possible parallel to the idea of the Wisdom of Solomon, as explained by George Nickelsburg in this volume, p. 154: “Because they summoned death (1:16), it now claims them. Their nihilistic belief led to sinful actions, and these are punished by the annihilation they had posited in the first place. The righteous, however, will live forever (5:15-16), enjoying the gift of immortality in which they had believed.”

the mishnah, tosefta, and early midrash compilations 249 G. “And do not let your evil impulse persuade you that Sheol is a place of refuge for you. H. “For (1) despite your wishes were you formed, (2) despite your wishes were you born, (3) despite your wishes do you live, (4) despite your wishes do you die, and (5) despite your wishes are you going to give a full accounting before the king of kings of kings, the Holy One, blessed be he.”

The constellation of concerns is familiar: Death is the endpoint of life. As an aspect of God’s perfect justice, death brings with it a divine judgment that makes up for the injustice of people’s lots during their earthly life. But notably here, the idea that judgment occurs with death is not tied to a specific theory of the reward or punishment that will ensue, for instance in Gehenna or the Garden of Eden, conceptions that are found in the early midrashic literature. So far as the text before us is concerned, then, death may not be a final end; even so, no specific claim is made regarding what follows death and judgment. While the ideas of God’s judgment and a future resurrection are familiar from Second Temple Judaisms beginning with the book of Daniel, we see the extent to which, in the texts before us, the relationship between these things remains unclear, as does their connection to the concept of the world-to-come. Certainly, this particular passage again portrays the centrality for early Rabbinism of the doctrine of resurrection; but, at the same time, it reflects the rabbis’ lack of interest in elaborating that doctrine. While later Amoraic documents will include discussions of the mechanics of resurrection,4 on this topic, the early sources are silent. The world-to-come Like the idea of resurrection, while the category “world-to-come” appears in the Mishnah and Tosefta, it receives no systematic attention beyond the basic idea that it will exist and is comparable to an eternal state of Sabbath rest (M. Uqs. 7:4). Indeed, just as death draws attention almost exclusively in its practical consequence—its 4 See, e.g., B. R.H. 16b-17a, B. San. 90b, B. Ket. 111b, and B. Ber. 60b. The latter describes resurrection as the reuniting of the soul with the dead body. Some sources hold that a small, incorruptible part of the body, or even a small amount of rotted flesh, will serve as the material from which a new body is fashioned. None of these issues arise in the Tannaitic material.

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impact upon those the deceased leaves behind—so the concept of the world-to-come is discussed primarily in its practical consequences, that is, how its future existence is reflected in the content of prayer. So, for instance, M. Ber. 9:5: 5 K. [At one time] all blessings in the Temple concluded with “forever.” L. When the heretics corrupted [the practice] and said, “There is but one world [but no world-to-come],” M. they ordained that they should say, “forever and ever” [thus suggesting the existence of a world-to-come].

In order to forestall the heretical idea that there is but one world, the format of blessings in the Temple was changed. But the passage says nothing about the nature of the world-to-come or about the identity or reasoning of the heretics who reject it. Only slightly more information is provided by M. Qid. 4:14, which depicts the distinctive value of Torah-study: M. R. Nehorai says, “I should lay aside every trade in the world and teach my son only Torah. N. “For a man eats its fruits in this world, and the principal remains for the world-to-come. O. “But other trades are not that way. P. “When a man gets sick or old or has pains and cannot do his job, lo, he dies of starvation. Q. “But with Torah it is not that way. R. “But it keeps him from all evil when he is young, and it gives him a future and a hope when he is old. S. “Concerning his youth, what does it say? ‘They who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength’ (Is. 40:31). And concerning his old age what does it say? ‘They shall bring forth fruit in old age’ (Ps. 92:14). T. “And so it says with regard to the patriarch Abraham, may he rest in peace, ‘And Abraham was old and well along in years, and the Lord blessed Abraham in all things’ (Gen. 24:1). U. “We find that the patriarch Abraham kept the entire Torah even before it was revealed, since it says, ‘Since Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge my commandments, my statutes, and my laws’ (Gen. 26:5).”

Torah study is important because it assures the scholar a place in the world-to-come, an idea consonant with the commonplace conception that the righteous are rewarded after death. Beyond the general state5 Note similarly: M. Ber. 5:2 dictates that reference to the “wonder of the rain” is to be placed in the second paragraph of the Eighteen Benedictions, on the resurrection of the dead.

the mishnah, tosefta, and early midrash compilations 251 ment of this fact, however, the passage is concerned with quite different values of Torah study, that it keeps a young man from evil and, in old age, offers a “future” and “hope.” Since the first significance of Torah study is this-worldly—to keep one from evil—and since its second significance is associated with preventing starvation (P vs. R), the ideas “future” and “hope” here appear not to reflect thinking about life-after-death, resurrection, or a place in a world-to-come at all. Indeed, the biblical proof texts, S and T, refer only to Abraham’s continued vitality and receiving of God’s blessings in old age. The passage overall thus appears to speak of the importance of study and the observance of the law as aspects of a proper life in this world. The fact of the anticipated world-to-come enhances the sense of the importance of these things but, not being the real focus of the rabbis’ interest, demands no detailed exposition. M. Ab. 4:16, 17, 21, and 5:20 are similar: 4:16A. R. Jacob says, “This world is like an antechamber before the world-to-come. B. “Get ready in the antechamber, so you can go into the great hall.” 4:17A. He would say, “Better is a single moment spent in penitence and good deeds in this world than the whole of the world-tocome. B. “And better is a single moment of inner peace in the world-tocome than the whole of a lifetime spent in this world.” 4:21A. R. Eliezer Haqappar says, “Jealousy, lust, and ambition drive a person out of this world.” 5:20A. Judah b. Tema says, “Be strong as a leopard, fast as an eagle, fleet as a gazelle, and brave as a lion, to carry out the will of your Father who is in heaven.” B. He would say, “The shameless go to Gehenna, and the shamefast to the garden of Eden. C. “May it be found pleasing before you, O Lord our God, that you rebuild your city quickly in our day and set our portion in your Torah.”

The ideas are general and reveal no consistent theory of death or lifeafter-death. The idea of a world-to-come accentuates the value of Torah study and proper behavior in this world. But failures in this world are not expressly tied to a denial of a place in the world-tocome;6 they mean, rather, an inability fully to live life in this world, as 6 Indeed, M. San. 6:2 makes a similar point, that even the greatest sinner, should he confess and repent, has a place in the world-to-come, a result of the fact that the sinner’s death serves as an atonement for the sin. Only unrepentant sinners and

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M. Ab. 4:21 makes explicit. Proper behavior thus is as much its own reward as a key to a future life. For the first time in these texts, Judah b. Tema, M. Ab. 5:20, speaks of an individual life-after-death, not the corporate resurrection and world-to-come to which all of our other passages have referred. But two things bear noting in his statement. First, it is offered as the distinctive idea of an individual, as though its claim is not generally agreed. Second, even as the body of the statement is strikingly general regarding what awaits the sinner and the righteous, its conclusion, C, drops the idea of life-after-death entirely. Instead, it expresses the hope for the speedy fulfillment of God’s promise to Israel—the rebuilding of Jerusalem “in our day.” As in other passages, then, the greatest concern remains what happens in this world. The nature of any life or world beyond death—let alone its importance as a stage in the ultimate accomplishment of God’s plan—goes undefined. The Mishnah’s interest thus is not to explain why people must die, to describe what they will experience after death, or to prescribe how they can overcome death. It is, rather, to direct them towards proper behavior in this world. This general function of discussions of the world-to-come—to elaborate quintessentially Rabbinic values for this world—is exemplified at T. Pe. 1:2:7 1:2A. B. C. D.

For these things they punish a person in this world, while the principal [i.e., eternal punishment] remains for the world-tocome: (1) for [acts of] idolatrous worship, (2) for incest, (3) for murder, (4) and for gossip, [which is] worse than all of them together. Doing good (zkwt) creates a principal [for the world-to-come] and bears interest (pyrwt) [in this world], as it is stated [in Scripture], “Tell the righteous that it shall be well with them, for they shall enjoy the benefits (pyrwt) of their deeds” (Is. 3:10).

God’s justice is revealed in the fact that those who behave properly in this world are rewarded in a coming one. But the extent to which this commonplace idea functions primarily to buttress distinctively Rabthose whose sin was so great as to make repentance impossible cannot achieve this place (M. San. 10:2-3). 7 Translation: Roger Brooks. A similar point is made at T. Pe. 4:18, using the example of Monobases, king of Adiabene, who understood acts of charity to establish a value for the world-to-come.

the mishnah, tosefta, and early midrash compilations 253 binic ideas about the nature of proper behavior is clear at B(4), which calls gossip the most serious possible offense, worse even than idolatry, incest, or murder. This is a uniquely Rabbinic idea of sin, or, at least, of which sins people must be encouraged not to commit. The rabbis thus use the idea of the world-to-come to promote their own distinctive agenda; to accomplish this, they utilize, but hardly develop, a commonplace and entirely general idea of resurrection and a world-to-come. While the Mishnah and Tosefta reveal established beliefs about the end of time, overall, they present no clear theory of any aspect of post-mortem experience. The larger questions—Why do people, even the righteous, die? What is the meaning and purpose of death? What will be the character of the resurrection and the world-to-come? When will these events occur?—attract no attention, leaving the impression that the rabbis of the Mishnah and Tosefta did not see in such issues significant components of the Israelite world-view. The Early Midrashic Compilations Early midrashic passages parallel the Mishnah and Tosefta’s treatment of death as the natural end to life, as neither a punishment for sin nor an evil to be fought and overcome. To the extent that the reason for death is questioned at all, it is only in the case of those who die young or whose exemplary piety might make people believe that they should not die. But even in such cases, the rabbis insist, death does not challenge God’s power and justice. As Sifre Deut. Pisqa 339 makes clear, even the most righteous must die, an intrinsic aspect of the human condition: 1.A.

B.

“You [Moses] shall die on the mountain that you are about to ascend [and shall be gathered to your kin, as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his kin]” (Deut. 32:50): [Moses] said before him, “Lord of the world, why should I die? Is it not better for people to say, ‘Moses is good,’ because of what they have personally seen, than that they should say, ‘Moses is good,’ based on what they have heard? Is it not better that people should say, ‘This is that very same Moses, who brought us out of Egypt, split the sea for us, brought down the manna for us, did wonders and acts of might for us,’ than that they should say, ‘Such-and-so is what Moses was, such-and-so is what Moses did’?”

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He said to him, “Go your way, Moses; it is a decree of mine that applies to every mortal.” For it is said, “This is the Torah that applies to a mortal: when a person will die in a tent” (Num. 19:14). And further, “This is the Torah of a mortal, O Lord God” (2 Sam. 7:19). The ministering angels said before the Holy One, blessed be he, “Lord of the world, why did the first man die?” He said to them, “Because he did not carry out my orders.” They said to him, “Lo, Moses did carry out your orders.” He said to them, “It is a decree of mine that applies to every mortal.” For it is said, “This is the Torah that applies to a mortal: when a person dies in a tent” (Num. 19:14).

While death was introduced because of Adam’s sin, it is not intrinsically associated with sin, and, therefore, no reason is needed to justify the death of even so great an individual as Moses. Even the blameless must die. At the same time, the ability to identify a shortcoming or sin that accounts for a specific death is comforting, highlighting God’s justice. Thus the recognition that he sinned gives solace to a pious rabbi, who saw not death in general but an early death through martyrdom as a possible challenge to God’s fairness (Mekhilta 75 Nezikin 18): 11.A.

B.

C. D.

When they seized Rabban Simeon b. Gamaliel and R. Ishmael on the count of death, Rabban Simeon b. Gamaliel was in session and was perplexed, saying, “My Lord, my heart goes out of me, for I do not know on what account I am being put to death.” Said to him R. Ishmael b. Elisha, “Is it possible that no one ever came to you for judgment or for a question and you kept him waiting until you had sipped your cup, until you had tied your sandal, or until you had cloaked yourself in your cloak, while the Torah has said, ‘If you do afflict them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry’—all the same are a major affliction and a minor one.” He said to him, “You have comforted me, my Lord.” Now, when R. Simeon and R. Ishmael were killed, said R. Aqiba to his disciples, “Prepare yourself for punishment, for were something good destined to come in our generation, to begin with only R. Simeon and R. Ishmael would have received it, and now it is perfectly clear before the one who spoke and brought the world into being that a great punishment is destined to come in our generation….”

the mishnah, tosefta, and early midrash compilations 255 Death in itself does not challenge conceptions of God’s justice, only the early death of the pious, murdered by nations that are not God’s chosen. But even such deaths are explicable, the result of minor personal offenses or even the sins of the generation (D). In this regard it is important to note the Midrashic compilations’ view that death serves as an atonement for sin. Thus, at Sifre Num. 4, death is said to take the place of the guilt-offering, completing and perfecting an act of atonement. Mekhilta deR. Ishmael 56, Bahodesh 10, makes a similar point, that the suffering that comes with death is precious as a form of atonement: A. Now when R. Eliezer was sick, four sages, R. Tarfon, R. Joshua, R. Eleazar b. Azariah, and R. Aqiba, came to visit him. B. Responded and said to him R. Tarfon, “My lord, you are more precious to Israel than the sun’s orb. For the sun’s orb gives light to this world, but you give light to us in this world and the world-tocome.” C. Responded and said to him R. Joshua, “My lord, you are more precious to Israel than the gift of rain, for rain gives life in this world, but you give life to us in this world and the world-to-come.” D. Responded and said to him R. Eleazar b. Azariah, “My lord, you are more precious to Israel than a father or a mother. For a father or mother brings one into this world, but you bring us into this world and the world-to-come.” E. Responded and said to him R. Aqiba, “My lord, suffering is precious.” F. R. Eliezer said to his disciples, “Lift me up.” G. R. Eliezer went into session, saying to him, “Speak, Aqiba.” H. He said to him, “Lo, Scripture says, ‘Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned for fifty-five years in Jerusalem. And he did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord’ (2 Chr. 33:1). And it further says, ‘These are the proverbs of Solomon, which the men of Hezekiah, king of Judah, copied out’ (Prov. 25:1). I. “Now can anyone imagine that Hezekiah taught Torah to all Israel, while his son, Manasseh, he did not teach Torah? J. “But one must conclude that, despite all of the learning that his father taught him, and all the work that he put into him, nothing worked for him except suffering. K. “For it is said, ‘And the Lord spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they gave no heed. Therefore the Lord brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh with hooks and bound him with fetters and carried him to Babylonia. And when he was in distress, he besought the Lord, his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers and prayed to him, and he was entreated of him and heard his supplication

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L.

and brought him back to Jerusalem into his kingdom’ (2 Chr. 33:10-13). “That proves that suffering is precious.”

Here we have the beginnings of an explicit statement of the purpose of death—atonement for sin—in which capacity it equally serves the righteous and evil. But, while focusing briefly upon this point, the passage does not develop a broader conception of what occurs with death. Rather, striking here is the lack of attention to the three statements of Eliezer’s value, as a teacher of Torah, in assuring the people of Israel’s life in the coming world, B-D. Eliezer responds, rather, only to the immediate and, presumably, most commonly asked question: why do the righteous suffer? While the question of what can be expected after death finds no answer here, other passages reflect on the issue, asserting that death does not mark the righteous deceased’s entry into a glorious life-afterdeath: the focus, as in the preceding passage, remains only on the corporate world-to-come. In this context, the dead are not viewed as “with God” in any physical sense; nor can they “see” God (Sifra Parashat Vayyiqra Dibura Denedabah Pereq 2): 2.A. R. Dosa says, “Lo, Scripture says, ‘For a person will not see me and live’ (Exod. 33:20). B. “In mortals’ life, they may not see [him], but they do see [him] at the moment of their death. C. “And so it is said, ‘All those in full vigor shall eat and prostrate themselves; all those at death’s door, whose spirits flag, shall bend the knee before him’ (Ps. 22:30 [JPS]).” 3.A. R. Aqiba says, “Lo, Scripture says, ‘For a person will not see me and live’ (Exod. 33:20). B. “Even the holy chayyoth that carry the seat of glory cannot see the divine glory.” C. Said Simeon b. Azzai, “I take up a position not in contention with the view of my lord, but only so as to amplify his opinion: D. “‘For a person will not see me and live’ (Exod. 33:20). E. “Even ministering angels, who live forever, cannot see the glory of God.”

Death is an end. After it, whatever future hopes Rabbinic Judaism might hold, one does not dwell in the direct presence of God. At Mekhilta deR. Ishmael Amalek 4, XLVI:II.1.3, the conception of death as an end is emphasized through the recognition that, after death, there is no learning nor knowledge of Torah. We imagine, then, not a glorious afterlife spent in study of Torah but the simple cessation of that which, in this world, defines all that is of value:

the mishnah, tosefta, and early midrash compilations 257 A. [“So Moses gave heed to the voice of his father-in-law (and appointed others to assist him in judging the people)” (Exod. 18:24):] Might one suppose that [Moses] went along and did nothing? B. Scripture says, “And the children of the Kenite, Moses’ father-inlaw, went up out of the city of palm trees with the children of Judah into the wilderness of Judah, which is in the south of Arab; and they went and dwelt with the people” (Judg. 1:16). C. “People” means only wisdom, in line with this usage: “No doubt you are the people and with you is the perfection of wisdom” (Job 12:2). D. Do not read the letters as though they spelled “perfection” but rather “cessation.” E. So long as a sage endures, his wisdom endures with him. When the sage dies, his wisdom dies with him. F. So we find that when R. Nathan died, his wisdom died with him.

While the point of A-B is obscure, the interpretation of Job 12:2, CE, is clear and poignant. Death marks the end of all that is important to God about humankind: the ability to study and to observe Torah. In this regard, an individual’s death is a real end, and what comes beyond it can have little significance within the Rabbinic agenda. Thus, as in the legal materials, discussion of an individual life-afterdeath is all but unknown, and even the concepts of a corporate resurrection and world-to-come remain highly undeveloped. God’s judgment and punishment The Mishnah’s theme of the divine judgment that takes place at the time of death is developed in the early Midrashic compilations. Here the problem of judging the disunited body and soul is noted (Mekhilta deR. Ishmael Shirata XXVII:II.7): A. Antoninus asked our holy master [Judah the Patriarch], “When someone dies and the body perishes, does the holy one, blessed be he, put it on trial?” B. He said to him, “Instead of asking me about the body, which is cultically unclean, ask me about the soul, which is clean.” C. [Filling in the gap from the parallel at B. San. 91a-b: Antoninus said to Rabbi, “The body and the soul both can exempt themselves from judgment. How so? The body will say, ‘The soul is the one that has sinned, for from the day that it left me, lo, I am left like a silent stone in the grave.’ And the soul will say, ‘The body is the one that sinned. For from the day that I left it, lo, I have been flying about in the air like a bird.’”] D. [Judah] said to him, “I shall draw a parable for you. To what may

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alan j. avery-peck the matter be likened? To the case of a mortal king who had a lovely orchard, and in it were luscious figs. He set in it two watchmen, one crippled and one blind. E. “Said the cripple to the blind man, ‘There are luscious figs that I see in the orchard. Come and carry me, and let us get some to eat.’ The cripple rode on the blind man and they got the figs and ate them. After a while the king said to them, ‘Where are the luscious figs?’ F. “Said the cripple, ‘Do I have feet to go to them?’ G. “Said the blind man, ‘Do I have eyes to see?’ H. “What did the king do? He had the cripple climb onto the blind man, and he inflicted judgment on them as one. I. “So the holy one, blessed be he, brings the soul and places it back in the body and judges them as one, as it is said, ‘He shall call to the heavens from above and to the earth, that he may judge his people’ (Ps. 50:4). J. “‘He shall call to the heavens from above’—this is the soul. K. “‘And to the earth, that he may judge his people’—this is the body.”

The philosophical question familiar in Jewish sources from Philo, of whether or not the soul is by definition pure, finds here a simple answer: neither it nor the body can sin without the other; each is equally subject to and responsible for sin. But even as the passage introduces the concept of a soul that is independent from and, upon death, departs from the body, it leaves open the issue of what actually happens to it or the body after judgment. The passage may presume that, while the body is destined for disintegration, the soul is immortal. But even as it depicts the judgment of body and soul, the manner in which its idea corresponds to concepts expressed elsewhere of Sheol, Gehenna, the Garden of Eden, resurrection, and the world-tocome is left open. While many of the passages we have considered speak of a communal resurrection and world-to-come, Sifre Num. 44, on the nature of God’s judgment, responds to the question of what an individual will face at the time of death. It is in the discussion of this topic in particular that the concerns death raises in other literatures—involving the human fear of the end of life—arise. The Rabbinic response is not surprising. The life of Torah, as we know, does not protect from death. But piety and knowledge of Torah do assure God’s protection in death. Here we find the strongest evidence for a Rabbinic belief in some sort of post-mortem existence, an existence that may be positive or negative depending upon the extent to which one enjoys God’s protection (Sifre Num. 44):

the mishnah, tosefta, and early midrash compilations 259 XL:I.8A. Another interpretation of “...and keep you” (Num. 6:24): B. He will keep your soul at the hour of death. C. And so Scripture says, “…the life of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living in the care of the Lord your God” (1 Sam. 25:29). D. May I infer that that is the case for righteous and wicked alike? E. Scripture says, “…and the lives of your enemies he shall sling out as from the hollow of a sling” (1 Sam. 25:29). XL:I.9A. Another interpretation of “…and keep you:” B. He will keep your foot from Gehenna. C. And so Scripture says, “He will guard the feet of his faithful ones, but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness” (1 Sam. 2:9). XL:I.10A. Another interpretation of “…and keep you:” B. He will guard you in the world-to-come. C. And so Scripture says, “They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles” (Is. 40:31).

God protects the righteous at the time of death (8B), shielding them from Gehenna (9B), and guarding them in the world-to-come (10B). These conceptions have appeared as distinct ideas before, and they remain separate here as well. The relationship, that is to say, between God’s keeping of the soul, protection from Gehenna, and the worldto-come remains unexplored and unclear. Each seems to suggest an independent thought about what happens after death. This means that the goal of the passage is not so much to propose a theory of death and afterlife as to promote the idea that those who follow God’s will earn God’s protection. This is a familiar idea that, at Sifra 267 BeHuqotai Pereq 6, is further developed: while Torah is associated with everlasting life, idol worship means death: 5.A. “…and cast your dead bodies upon the dead bodies of your idols” (Lev. 26:30): B. What were dead bodies doing with idols? C. Elijah of blessed memory went around among all those who were bloated by famine. If he found someone bloated by famine and lying in hunger, he would say to him, “My son, what family do you come from?” D. He replied, “From such and such a family.” E. He said to him, “And how many were you?” F. He replied, “We were three thousand.” G. “And how many survive of you?” H. He said to him, “I.” I. He said to him, “Do you want to say a single thing and live?”

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alan j. avery-peck J. He said to him, “Yes.” K. He said to him, “[Say,] ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone.’” L. He forthwith cried out and said, “Silence! So as not to make mention of the name of the Lord. Father did not teach me thus.” M. What did he do? He took his idol and put it on his heart and caressed it and kissed it until his stomach burst, and he and his idol fell to the other. N. That is what is meant by the verse, “and cast your dead bodies upon the dead bodies of your idols.”

Idol-worship means death. But so far as this passage attests, it is a physical death from this world. The question of judgment and eternal suffering, of an inability to enter the world-to-come, does not arise. While that association appears at Mekhilta 67 Nezikin 10, 31, it is made only in regards to the potential for idol worshipping nations to enjoy a corporate salvation, not for the case of an individual at all: F. G. H. I. J. K. L. M.

…as to bondmen and bondwomen, there are those that are subject to redemption, and there are those that are not subject to redemption; as to those subject to the death penalty by a court, there are those that are subject to redemption, and there are those that are not subject to redemption; so regarding the age-to-come, there are those that are subject to redemption, and there are those that are not subject to redemption: The nations of the world are not subject to redemption: “No man can by any means redeem his brother nor give to God a ransom for him, for too costly is the redemption of their soul” (Ps. 49:8-9). Precious are the Israelites, for the ransom of whose lives the Holy One, blessed be he, has given the nations of the world: “I have given Egypt as your ransom” (Is. 43:4). Why so? “Since you are precious in my sight and honorable, and I have loved you, therefore I will give men for you and peoples for your life” (Is. 43:3-4).

The coming world corrects the injustices of this one. Thus the current servitude of Israel and the ascendancy of the nations will be reversed in a future world given to the people of Israel alone. But so far as this passage is concerned, this completion of God’s justice will occur only with the advent of the world-to-come, that is, at the end time for all people. The idea of individual post-mortem reward or punishment is absent here as from almost all of the passages we have examined. While known, the concepts of punishment in Gehenna or

the mishnah, tosefta, and early midrash compilations 261 reward in the Garden of Eden seem hardly to have been a central method of addressing the problem of injustice in the world. As we shall now see, the use of the idea of the resurrection of the dead to fulfill this purpose similarly remains undeveloped. Resurrection in the early midrashic compilations Like the legal documents, the early midrashic texts know of but infrequently discuss the concept of resurrection. Most frequently, the term is used as a metaphor for permanence. Thus, the sacrificial system is described as an efficacious mode of atonement “until the dead will live” (Sifra 98 Parashat Sav Mekhilta DeMilluim), and the priestly blessing is called the unique right of the Aaronide priests “until the dead shall live” (Sifra 99 Parashat Shemini Mekhilta DeMilluim). In only one passage is resurrection described as playing a role in the working out of God’s justice: just as God punishes sinners, so resurrection represents an appropriate award for the righteous. Claims regarding resurrection thus prove that God is just (Sifra 194 Ahare Mot Pereq 13): 16.A. B. C.

D. E. F.

G. H. I. J. K.

“[You shall therefore keep my statutes and my ordinances], by the pursuit of which a man shall live: [I am the Lord]” (Lev. 18:5): not that he should die by them. R. Ishmael would say, “How do you know that if people should say to someone when entirely alone, ‘Worship an idol and do not be put to death,’ the person should worship the idol and not be put to death? “Scripture says, ‘by the pursuit of which man shall live,’ not that he should die by them. “But even if it is in public should he obey them? “Scripture says, ‘[You shall faithfully observe my commandments; I am the Lord.] You shall not profane my holy name, that I may be sanctified in the midst of the Israelite people—I the Lord who sanctify you, I who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God, I the Lord’ (Lev. 22:31-32). “If you sanctify my name, then I shall sanctify my name through you. “For that is just as Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah did. “When all of the nations of the world at that time were prostrate before the idol, while they stood up like palm trees. “And concerning them it is stated explicitly in tradition: ‘Your stately form is like the palm’ (Song 7:7). “‘I say, let me climb the palm, let me take hold of its branches’ (Song 7:8).

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alan j. avery-peck L. M. N. O. P.

“This day I shall be exalted in the sight of the nations of the world, who deny the Torah. “This day I shall exact vengeance for them from those who hate them. “This day I shall resurrect the dead among them. “I am the Lord: “I am judge to exact punishment and faithful to pay a reward.”

The main point is at N-P: resurrection corrects the injustices of this world; the righteous will be rewarded and the wicked punished. But the context in which this idea is expressed deserves note. Martyrdom is to be avoided, even at the cost of worshipping an idol, A-D. The only exception is the case in which, to save oneself, one must sin in public, E-I, thereby drawing others into idolatry. Despite this caveat, clearly the passage does not view death, or even the opportunity for martyrdom, as a positive value, an opportunity to achieve perfect union with God. Rather, as we have come to expect, the highest value is continued life in this world, where Torah is studied and practiced. While the rabbis assert that the fact of a future resurrection can be proven from Scripture, they seem clear that such proof is a matter of interpretation; in the Bible, resurrection is hinted at but not explicitly promised (Sifre Deut. Pisqa 129:II): 1.A. Another interpretation of the phrase, “I deal death and give life; I wound and I will heal, none can deliver from my hand” (Deut. 32:39): B. This is one of the four promises in which to the Israelites is given an indication of the resurrection of the dead. C. [The others are these:] “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my end be like his” (Num. 23:10). D. “Let Reuben live and not die” (Deut. 33:6). E. “After two days he will revive us” (Hos. 6:2). F. Might I suppose that [the references to] death apply to one person, [those to] life to another? G. Scripture says, “I wound and I will heal” (Deut. 32:39): H. Just as the wounding and healing pertain to a single individual, so the [references to] death and life pertain to a single individual [thus showing that Scripture contains evidence for the belief in the resurrection of the dead].

The few early midrashic references to resurrection are in line with the conception presented in the Mishnah and Tosefta: resurrection is an aspect of God’s justice, assuring that the righteous are rewarded. But when the resurrection will occur and its character are not ex-

the mishnah, tosefta, and early midrash compilations 263 plored. Indeed, the notion that resurrection is no more than implied in Scripture coupled with the idea that one should do what one can to save oneself from death parallel what we have deduced in general from the infrequent discussion of the topic, that this conception was not a central focus of early Rabbinic thinking or concern. The world-to-come in early midrashic compilations As we already know from the early legal literature, death is unavoidable, even by the most righteous; but God rewards those who live by the commandments with a place in the world-to-come (Sifra 193 Parashat Ahare Mote Parashah 8): 9.A. “[You shall keep my laws and my rules, by the pursuit of which man] shall live” (Lev. 18:5): B. in the world-to-come. C. And should you wish to claim that the reference is to this world, is it not the fact that in the end one dies? D. Lo, how am I to explain, “…shall live”? E. It is with reference to the world-to-come. 10.A. “I the Lord am your God:” B. faithful to pay a reward.

Even as the association of observing Torah and gaining a place in the world-to-come remains strong, a more universalistic image of the coming world as a time when all nations will denounce idolatry also exists (Mekhilta deR. Ishmael Shirata XXXIII:I.1): A. “Who is like you, O Lord, among gods? [Who is like you, majestic in holiness, terrible in glorious deeds, doing wonders]?” (Exod. 15:11): B. When the Israelites saw that Pharaoh and his host had perished at the Red Sea, the dominion of the Egyptians was over, and judgments were executed on their idolatry, they all opened their mouths and said, “Who is like you, O Lord, among gods?” C. And not the Israelites alone said the song, but also the nations of the world said the song. D. When the nations of the world saw that Pharaoh and his host had perished at the Red Sea, the dominion of the Egyptians was over, and judgments were executed on their idolatry, they all renounced their idolatry and opened their mouths and confessed their faith in the Lord and said, “Who is like you, O Lord, among gods?” E. So too you find that in the age-to-come the nations of the world will renounce their idolatry: “O Lord, my strength and my stronghold and my refuge, in the day of affliction to you the nations shall come…shall a man make himself gods” (Jer. 16:19-20); “In that

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alan j. avery-peck day a man shall cast away his idols of silver…to go into the clefts of the rocks” (Is. 2:20-21); “And the idols shall utterly perish” (Is. 20:18).

This image of the dramatic change that will be ushered in with the world-to-come stands alongside a different view, which questions the extent to which, in religious practice at least, the age-to-come will differ from the present time at all. The assumption at Mekhilta deR. Ishmael XVI:II.1 is that ritual life, liturgical practices in particular, will remain almost entirely the same as in this world. At issue is only whether or not, in the world-to-come, Israelites will need any longer to recall the Exodus from Egypt in the Shema prayers: H. Said Ben Zoma to sages, “The Israelites are destined in the age-tocome no longer to make mention of the Exodus from Egypt, as it is said, ‘Therefore the days are coming, says the Lord, that it will not be said any more, “As the Lord lives, who brought the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt” but “As the Lord lives who brought the people of Israel from the land of the North”’ (Jer. 16:14-15).” I. R. Nathan says, “‘Who brought up and led’ (Jer. 23:8) indicates that they will make mention of the Exodus from Egypt even in the age to come.”

Still, other passages conceive the coming age as a time of unique union between the righteous and God (Sifra 263 Parashat BeHukotai Pereq 3): 5.A. “And I will walk among you” (Lev. 26:12): B. The matter may be compared to the case of a king who went out to stroll with his sharecropper in an orchard. C. But the sharecropper hid from him. D. Said the king to that sharecropper, “How come you’re hiding from me? Lo, I am just like you.” E. So the Holy One, blessed be he, said to the righteous, “Why are you trembling before me?” F. So the Holy One, blessed be he, is destined to walk with the righteous in the Garden of Eden in the coming future, and the righteous will see him and tremble before him, [and he will say to them, “How come you’re trembling before me?] Lo, I am just like you.”

Here, unlike in the other references we have reviewed, existence in the world-to-come is depicted as life in the Garden of Eden. Now the righteous walk with God. The question of the meaning of God’s being “like them” is unexplored.

the mishnah, tosefta, and early midrash compilations 265 Conclusions Despite a dearth of details or systematic evaluation of the issues before us, the overall perspective of the early Rabbinic material—the legal as well as the exegetical documents—emerges quite clearly. Death is a natural end to life, the result not only, or particularly, of sin but of the human condition in general. The benefit of adherence to the precepts of Judaism, and, especially, the value of the study of Torah is not to prevent death but to promote the possibility of a long and good life and, secondarily, to assure, in a coming world, a divine reward. In keeping with God’s attribute of justice, after death each individual will experience a day of judgment on which God will evaluate all of his or her actions. While ideas of an immediate reward or punishment are particularly undeveloped, the midrashic texts express at least a rudimentary notion that, for the wicked, this will be a day of wrath and vengeance followed by a punishing existence in Gehenna. For the just, by contrast, judgment introduces an afterlife in the Garden of Eden. The undeveloped and infrequently mentioned idea of a postmortem existence in the Garden of Eden or Gehenna stands alongside the far greater attention paid to the concept of a corporate world-tocome. Most of the relevant passages imagine this world-to-come as the context in which all of the people of Israel—even sinners who repent—will receive the reward due for the people’s acceptance of Torah. At the same time, the relationship of the world-to-come to other ideas of what happens after death, in particular to the previously mentioned existence in the Garden of Eden or Gehenna, is unclear. While the Garden of Eden may be associated with the world-to-come, the connection is not firm; the parallel existence of Gehenna during the time of the world-to-come is not mentioned at all. Another much mentioned but undeveloped idea concerns resurrection. Belief in resurrection is declared an indispensable foundation of membership in the Israelite community. But the association of resurrection with life in the world-to-come is unclear, and there seems little concern for detailing exactly how and when the resurrection will take place. This lack of interest in the fate of the individual body may parallel the similar, almost total absence of discussion of the concept of a personal afterlife in Gehenna or the Garden of Eden.

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In all, death is viewed as a result of the innate limitation of the condition of being human. It comes to all and need neither be feared nor fought. The texts before us give no thought to the idea of overcoming death and do not depict death either as an evil or the direct result of sin. Since death comes to the righteous and sinful alike, the most one can hope for is length of days, an idea that, in itself, expresses the Rabbinic focus on and interest in the activities of this world, not the coming one. Why, then, do these documents speak of post-mortem experience at all? These discussions seem most often to serve in promoting Rabbinic values for behavior in the here-andnow. By accepting and following the specific mandates of Rabbinic Judaism, one can assure that death will offer the opportunity for a divine reward. And yet, we must recall, the idea that God’s judgment will be effected in a post-mortem judgment and world-to-come is but a small aspect of the Rabbinic picture of what awaits human beings after death. All Israel, after all, has a place in the world-to-come, and, in some conceptions, the nations of the world do too. Thus, in early Rabbinic texts, the idea of a world-to-come serves as much more than a way of explaining the apparent injustices of this world. It is, rather, the proof of the Rabbinic insistence that human life is not ultimately meaningless. This is the case insofar as, even if what happens after death remains mysterious and unexplained, we can be certain that the end of life is not the end of everything.8

8 I am pleased to thank Micah Liben, Natick, Massachusetts, for research assistance that substantially contributed to this article, and Professor Gary Porton, University of Illinois, for reading and carefully responding to an earlier version.

11. DEATH AND AFTERLIFE IN THE LATER RABBINIC SOURCES: THE TWO TALMUDS AND ASSOCIATED MIDRASH-COMPILATIONS Jacob Neusner University of South Florida and Bard College Throughout the Oral Torah, the main point of the theological eschatology—the theory of last things—registers both negatively and affirmatively. Death does not mark the end of the individual human life, nor exile the last stop in the journey of Holy Israel. Israelites will live in the age or the world-to-come, all Israel in the land of Israel; and Israel will comprehend all who know the one true God. The restoration of world order that completes the demonstration of God’s justice encompasses both private life and the domain of all Israel. For both, restorationist theology provides eternal life; to be Israel means to live. So far as the individual is concerned, beyond the grave, at a determinate moment, man [1] rises from the grave in resurrection, [2] is judged, and [3] enjoys the world-to-come. For the entirety of Israel, congruently: all Israel participates in the resurrection, which takes place in the land of Israel, and enters the world-to-come. Restorationist eschatology flows from a same cogent logic: the last things are to be known from the first. In the just plan of creation, humanity was meant to live in Eden, and Israel in the land of Israel in time without end. The restoration will bring about that long and tragically-postponed perfection of the world order, sealing the demonstration of the justice of God’s plan for creation. Risen from the dead, having atoned through death, people will be judged in accord with their deeds. Israel for its part, when it repents and conforms its will to God’s, recovers its Eden. So the consequences of rebellion and sin having been overcome, the struggle of the human will and God’s word having been resolved, God’s original plan will be realized at the last. The simple, global logic of the system, with its focus on the world order of justice established by God but disrupted by humanity, leads inexorably to this eschatology of restoration, the restoration of balance, order, proportion—eternity. The two principal components of the Oral Torah’s theology of last things—resurrection and judgment; the world-to-come and eternal

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life—as laid out in the several documents do not fit together seamlessly. In general, it would appear, the theology arranges matters in categorical sequence, individual, then community. First comes the resurrection of individuals, and, with it, judgment of individuals one by one. Then, those chosen for life having been identified, “the world-to-come” takes place, and that final restoration of perfection, involving all Israel in place of Adam, lasts forever. Israel forms the cohort of those chosen for life, and Israelites are restored to life in the land of Israel. That sequence suggests a single, uninterrupted narrative of last things, while, in general, passages that concern themselves with resurrection do not ordinarily join together with composites that deal with the world-to-come. While mutually complementary, each of the two components of eschatology in the Oral Torah bears its distinctive focus. The basic logic of the monotheist system requires the doctrine of personal resurrection, so that the life of this world may go onward to the next. Indeed, without the conception of life beyond the grave, the system as a whole yields a mass of contradictions and anomalies: injustice to the righteous, prosperity to the wicked, never recompensed. That explains why at one point after another, the path to the future passes through, and beyond, the grave and the judgment that, for all Israel with few exceptions, leads to eternity. The principal, formed of righteousness in this world, continues and yields interest; or, for sinners, punishment may take place in this world, while eternal punishment goes onward as well, especially for the trilogy of absolute sins: idolatry, incest (or fornication), and murder, capped by gossip. But how all of this squares with the conception of “all Israel” that transcends individual Israelites remains to be seen. Let us now address the resurrection of the dead in its own terms. That conviction is stated in so many words: in the end of days, death will die. The certainty of resurrection derives from a simple fact of restorationist theology: God has already shown that he can do it, so Genesis Rabbah LXXVII:I.1: “You find that everything that the Holy One, blessed be he, is destined to do in the age to come he has already gone ahead and done through the righteous in this world. The Holy One, blessed be he, will raise the dead, and Elijah raised the dead.” The paramount composite on the subject derives its facts, demonstrating the coming resurrection of the dead, from the Written Torah, which, as we realize, serves as counterpart to nature for philoso-

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phy, the source of actualities. Sages deem urgent the task of reading outward and forward from Scripture, and at the critical conclusion of their theological system the Oral Torah focuses upon Scripture’s evidence, the regularization of Scripture’s facts. But the doctrine of resurrection as defined by the principal (and huge) composite of the Talmud of Babylonia contains a number of components: 1) origin of the doctrine in the Written Torah; 2) the gentiles and the resurrection of the dead; 3) the distinction between the days of the messiah and the world-to-come; 4) the restoration of Israel to the land of Israel. Here is the systematic exposition (B. San. 11:1-2 I.22ff/91b): I.22A. R. Simeon b. Laqish contrasted [these two verses]: “It is written, ‘I will gather them…with the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her that trail travails with child together’ (Jer. 31:8), and it is written, ‘Then shall the lame man leap as a hart and the tongue of the dumb sing, for in the wilderness shall waters break out and streams in the desert’ (Is. 35:6). How so [will the dead both retain their defects and also be healed]? B. “They will rise [from the grave] bearing their defects and then be healed.”

The first inquiry deals with the problem of the condition of the body upon resurrection and finds its resolution in the contrast of verses, yielding the stated doctrine: the dead rise in the condition in which they died and then are healed. Next comes the question of what happens to the gentiles: I.23A. Ulla contrasted [these two verses]: “It is written, ‘He will destroy death forever and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces’ (Is. 25:9), and it is written, ‘For the child shall die a hundred years old…there shall no more thence an infant of days’ (Is. 65:20). B. “There is no contradiction. The one speaks of Israel, the other of idolators.”

But then after the resurrection, the gentiles have no role except in relationship to Israel: C. But what do idolators want there [after the resurrection]? D. It is to those concerning whom it is written, “And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your plowmen and your vine-dressers” (Is. 61:5).

The clear distinction between the days of the messiah, involving, as we have seen, the resurrection of the dead, and the world-to-come, is now drawn:

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jacob neusner I.24A. R. Hisda contrasted [these two verses]: “It is written, ‘Then the moon shall be confounded and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign’ (Is 24:23), and it is written, ‘Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of seven days’ (Is 30:26). B. “There is no contradiction. The one refers to the days of the messiah, the other to the world-to-come.”

The world-to-come demands attention in its own terms. Samuel’s doctrine, that the world-to-come is marked solely by Israel’s return to the land of Israel—that is, the restoration of humankind to Eden— requires attention in its own terms: C.

And in the view of Samuel, who has said, “There is no difference between the world-to-come and the days of the messiah, except the end of the subjugation of the exilic communities of Israel”? D. There still is no contradiction. The one speaks of the camp of the righteous, the other the camp of the Presence of God. I.25A. Raba contrasted [these two verses]: “It is written, ‘I kill and I make alive’ (Deut. 32:39), and it is written, ‘I wound and I heal’ (Deut. 32:39). [The former implies that one is resurrected just as he was at death, thus with blemishes, and the other implies that at the resurrection all wounds are healed.] B. “Said the Holy One, blessed be he, ‘What I kill I bring to life,’ and then, ‘What I have wounded I heal.’“

Since people will enjoy individual existence beyond death, at the resurrection, death itself must be fated to die. We simply complete the exposition of the principle by encompassing an important detail. The first component of the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead—belief both that the resurrection of the dead will take place and that it is the Torah that reveals that the dead will rise—is fully exposed in a fundamental composition devoted by the framers of the Mishnah to that subject. The components of the doctrine fit together, in that statement, in a logical order. 1) In a predictable application of the governing principle of measure for measure, those who do not believe in the resurrection of the dead will be punished by being denied what they do not accept. Some few others bear the same fate. 2) But to be Israel means to rise from the grave, and that applies to all Israelites. That is to say, the given of the condition of Israel is that the entire holy people will enter the world-to-come, which is to say, will enjoy the resurrection of the dead and eternal life. “Israel” then is anticipated to be the people of eternity. 3) Excluded from the category of resurrection and the world-to-come, then, are only those

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who by their own sins have denied themselves that benefit. These are those that deny that the teaching of the world-to-come derives from the Torah, or who deny that the Torah comes from God, or hedonists. Exegesis of Scripture also yields the names of three kings who will not be resurrected, as well as four commoners; also specified generations: the flood, the dispersion, and Sodom, the generation of the wilderness, the party of Korah, and the Ten Tribes. We can generalize: 1) the dead will rise; 2) God will do it; 3) the dead then are judged; 4) those who are justified will inherit the age or world-tocome; and the messiah will come to mark the advent of the final drama, though his exact role and tasks beyond that basic function as signifier do not attain much clarity, or, at least, do not coalesce as a consensus I can identify. That is not the only formulation of the resurrection of the dead. Scripture forms only one source for truth, though it is the main one. Nature also dictates its own, complementary logic. That accounts for the more general framing of the same matter, outside of the setting of Scripture. Here Eliezer Haqqappar establishes that the complementary logic of birth is death, and of death, resurrection (M. Ab. 4:21): A. R. Eliezer Haqqappar says, “Those who are born are destined to die, and those who die are destined for resurrection.. B. “And the living are destined to be judged so as to know, to make known, and to confirm that (1) he is God, (2) he is the one who forms, (3) he is the one who creates, (4) he is the one who understands, (5) he is the one who judges, (6) he is the one who gives evidence, (7) he is the one who brings suit, (8) and he is the one who is going to make the ultimate judgment. C. “Blessed be he, for before him are not (1) guile, (2) forgetfulness, respect for persons, (4) bribe taking, for everything is his. D. “And know that everything is subject to reckoning. E. “And do not let your evil impulse persuade you that Sheol is a place of refuge for you. F. “For (1) despite your wishes were you formed, (2) despite your wishes were you born, (3) despite your wishes do you live, (4) despite your wishes do you die King of kings of kings, the Holy One, blessed be he.”

Nothing in this passage limits resurrection to Israel, but the context of the saying, in tractate Abot, defines Israel as the frame of discourse. Elsewhere, the view that Israel alone will be resurrected is stated explicitly. Those who die in the land of Israel, and the righteous overseas, will enjoy the resurrection of the dead at the end of days, but gentiles are explicitly excluded, just as the theological logic

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that distinguishes Israel and the Torah from the gentiles and idolatry requires (Pesiqta Rabbati I:VI.4): A. Thus you have learned that those who die in the land of Israel will live in the days of the messiah, and the righteous who die overseas come to it and live in it.

Those overseas—not being righteous—are explicitly excluded, but what about gentiles in the land of Israel? B.

If that is the case, then will the gentiles who are buried in the Land also live? C. No, Isaiah has said, “The neighbor shall not say, I too have suffered pain. The people who dwell therein shall be forgiven their sin “(Is. 33:24). D. The sense is, “My evil neighbors are not going to say, “We have been mixed up [with Israel and will share their fate, so] we too shall live with them.”

Now comes the explicit identification of Israel as those who are forgiven their sin, having repented in accord with the vocation of the Torah: E.

But that one that was the people dwelling therein [is the one that will live], and what is that people? It is the people that has been forgiven its sin, namely, those concerning whom it is said, “Who is God like you, who forgives sin and passes over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance” (Mic. 7:18) [which can only be Israel].

The theology of the gentiles certainly points toward the conclusion set forth here, that only Israel will be resurrected from the dead. The weight of opinion, the formulation of authoritative composites, all point to the exclusion of gentiles from the resurrection of the dead and consequently also from the world-to-come. The details of judgment that follows resurrection prove less ample. The basic account stresses that God will judge with great mercy. But the Oral Torah presents no fully-articulated story of judgment. Within the documents of the Oral Torah, we have little narrative to tell us how the judgment will be carried on. Even the detail that through death a person has already atoned, which is stated in so many words in the context of repentance and atonement, plays no role that I can discern in discussions of the last judgment. What we do know concerns two matters, When does the judgment take place? And by what criteria does God decide who inherits the world-tocome? As to the former: the judgment is comparable to the annual judgment for man’s fate in the following year. It will happen either at

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the beginning of the New Year on the first of Tishre, when, annually, man is judged, or on the fifteenth of Nisan, when Israel celebrates its freedom from Egyptian bondage and begins its pilgrimage to Sinai. The detail is subject to dispute, leaving the main point to stand as normative doctrine (B. R.H. 1:1 LXIII, 10b): A. It is taught on Tannaite authority: B. R. Eliezer says, “In Tishre, the world was created; in Tishre, the patriarchs Abraham and Jacob were born; in Tishre, the patriarchs died; on Passover, Isaac was born; on New Year, Sarah, Rachel, and Hannah were visited; on New Year, Joseph left prison; on New Year, bondage was removed from our ancestors in Egypt; in Nisan, they were redeemed; in Tishre, they are destined to be redeemed [again].” C. R. Joshua says, “In Nisan, the world was created; in Nisan, the patriarchs Abraham and Jacob were born; in Nisan, the patriarchs died; on Passover, Isaac was born; on New Year, Sarah, Rachel, and Hannah were visited; on New Year, Joseph left prison; on New Year, bondage was removed from our ancestors in Egypt; in Nisan, they were redeemed; in Nisan, they are destined to be redeemed again.”

The final judgment lasts for a period of time, not forever, and at that point the resurrected who have endured in judgment pass to the world-to-come or eternal life. When the judgment comes, it will last for twelve (or six) months; this we know because Scripture is explicit. We have only to identify the correct verse of Scripture (M. Ed. 2:10): A. Also he [Aqiba] would list five things which [last for] twelve months: B. (1) the judgment of the generation of the Flood is twelve months; C. (2) the judgment of Job is twelve months; D. (3) the judgment of the Egyptians is twelve months; E. (4) the judgment of Gog and Magog in the time to come is twelve months; F. and (5) the judgment of the wicked in Gehenna is twelve months, G. as it is said, “It will be from one month until the same month [a year later]” (Is. 66:23). H. R. Yohanan b. Nuri says, “From Passover to Pentecost, as it is said, ‘From one Sabbath until the next Sabbath’ (Is. 66:23).”

The point is established by identifying five classes of persons that come under judgment and assigning them all to the term of judgment specified by the prophet. What about the others, who, when judged, are rejected? Those who do not pass judgment then are condemned and do not pass on to eternal life, and these are Israelites

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or gentiles who have a special relation to Israel. Other gentiles do not even figure in judgment at all as indicated by M. San. 10:2. How to stand in judgment, meaning, go through the process of divine review of one’s life and actions and emerge in the world-tocome, restored to the land that is Eden? Proper conduct and study of Torah lead to standing in judgment and consequent life of the worldto-come, and not keeping the one and studying the other deny entry into that life. What is striking is the appeal to Eden for just this message about reentry into the Land (Lev. Rabbah XXXV:VI:1f.): 1.A. Said R. Abba b. Eliashib, “[The reference at Lev. 26:3 to statutes is to] statutes that bring a person into the life of the world-to-come. B. “That is in line with the following verse of Scripture: ‘And he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, everyone who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem’ (Is. 4:3)—for he is devoted to [study of] Torah, which is called the tree of life.”

Now comes the reference to Eden in the context of the world-tocome: 2.A. It has been taught in the name of R. Eliezer, “A sword and a scroll wrapped together were handed down from heaven, as if to say to them, ‘If you keep what is written in this [scroll], you will be saved from the sword, B. “‘and if not, in the end [the sword] will kill you.’ C. “Whence is that proposition to be inferred? ‘He drove out the man, and at the east of the Garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life’ (Gen. 3:4). D. “The [first] reference to ‘the way’ refers to the rules of proper conduct, and the second reference, ‘[the way to] the tree of life’ refers to the Torah.”

The same message is given in a different framework: 3.A. It was taught in the name of R. Simeon b. Yohai, “A loaf and a rod wrapped together were given from heaven. B. “It was as if to say to them, ‘If you keep the Torah, lo, here is bread to eat, and if not, lo, here is a staff with which to be smitten.’ C. “Whence is that proposition to be inferred? ‘If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword’ (Is. 15:19-20).”

The world-to-come, involving resurrection and judgment, will be attained through the Torah, which teaches proper conduct. That simple doctrine yields the proposition here. When it comes to the last judgment, we need hardly be reminded

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that God judges in a merciful manner. If the balance is equal, then God inclines the scale to forgiveness. Given that mercy complements justice, so that justice is not possible without mercy, that trait of God’s judgment conforms to the logic that pervades the entire system. We deal first with the quality of justice involving measure for measure; and much of the judgment is worked out in this life, so that the world-to-come awaits those who suffer (Y. San. 10:1 I:2): H. If the greater part of his record consisted of honorable deeds and the smaller part, transgressions, they exact punishment from him [in this world]. I. If the smaller part of the transgressions he has done are of the lesser character, [he is punished] in this world so as to pay him his full and complete reward in the world-to-come. J. If the greater part of his record consisted of transgressions and the lesser part of honorable deeds, they pay him off with the reward of the religious deeds he has done entirely in this world, so as to exact punishment from him in a whole and complete way in the worldto-come. K. If the greater part of his record consisted of honorable deeds, he will inherit the Garden of Eden. If the greater part consisted of transgressions, he will inherit Gehenna.

Now we reach the critical point at which mercy enters in: L. [If the record] was evenly balanced: M. Said R. Yose b. Haninah, “‘…forgives sins…,’ is not written here, but rather, ‘…forgives [a] sin’ (Num. 14:18). That is to say, the Holy One, blessed be he, tears up one bond [recorded] among the transgressions, so that the honorable deeds then will outweigh the others.” N. Said R. Eleazar, “‘And that to thee, O Lord, belongs steadfast love. For thou dost requite a man according to his work’ (Ps. 62:13). ‘His deed’ is not written here, but ‘like his deed’—if he has none, you give him one of yours.”

Others concur in this same view, and I have identified no contrary opinion in the entire Oral Torah: O. That is the view of R. Eleazar, who said, “‘[The Lord passed before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger,] and abounding in steadfast love [and faithfulness]’ (Exod. 34:6). He tips the scale in favor of mercy.” P. R. Jeremiah said R. Samuel bar R. Isaac asked about the following: “‘Righteousness guards him whose way is upright, but sin overthrows the wicked’ (Prov. 3:6). ‘Misfortune pursues sinners, but prosperity rewards the righteous’ (Prov. 13:21). ‘Toward the scorner he is scornful, but to the humble he shows favor’ (Prov.

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jacob neusner 3:34). ‘He will guard the feet of his faithful ones; but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness; [for not by might shall a man prevail]’ (1 Sam. 2:9). ‘The wise will inherit honor, but fools get disgrace’ (Prov. 3:35). Q. “Now do they build a fence and lock the doors? And thus indeed is the way, that they do build a fence and lock the doors, [as we shall now see that God makes it possible for the righteous to do righteous deeds and confirms the wicked in their way too].”

Man has a role in eliciting divine assistance in the matter: R. R. Jeremiah in the name of R. Samuel bar R. Isaac: “[If] a man keeps himself from transgression once, twice, and three times, from that time forth, the Holy One, blessed be he, keeps him from it.” S. What is the Scriptural basis for this statement? T. “‘Behold, God does all these things, twice, three times, with a man’“ (Job 33:29).

Here is a further statement of the systemic realization of the future: the righteous will ultimately triumph, the wicked will ultimately suffer, in the age to come if not in this age. Then this age is the time in which the righteous atone for their sins, and in which the wicked do not. Then in the world-to-come, the wicked will be punished, not having prepared and atoned. The systemic variable now allows God to intervene and help the righteous to attain the merit that they require. At the outset we stressed that the resurrection of the dead focuses upon Israel as Israelite. Therefore the resurrection comes to mind whenever death takes an Israelite life, and the monument to the resurrection is the burial ground, the locus of eternity. That is why the coming resurrection of the dead is called to mind whenever one is located in a cemetery (Y. Ber. 9:1 III:8): A. One who passes between graves [in a cemetery], what does he recite? “Blessed [art Thou, O Lord, our God, King of the Universe], who resurrects the dead” (cf., T. Ber. 6:6). B. R. Hiyya in the name of R. Yohanan [says he recites], “Blessed [art Thou, O Lord, our God, King of the Universe], who is true to his word to resurrect the dead.” C. R. Hiyya in the name of R. Yohanan [says he recites], “He who knows your numbers, he shall awaken you, he shall remove the dust from your eyes. Blessed [art Thou, O Lord, our God, King of the Universe], who resurrects the dead.” D. R. Eliezer in the name of R. Hanina [says he recites], “He who created you with justice, and sustained you with justice, and removed you [from the world] with justice, and will resurrect you

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with justice; he who knows your numbers, he shall remove the dust from your eyes. Blessed [art Thou, O Lord, our God, King of the Universe], who resurrects the dead.”

Gentiles once more find no place in the matter: E.

This is the case [that one recites this blessing only if he passes among the graves of] the Israelite dead. But concerning [one who passes among the graves of] the gentile dead, he says, “Your mother shall be utterly shamed, and she who bore you shall be disgraced. Lo, she shall be the last of the nations, a wilderness dry and desert” (Jer. 50:12).

The resurrection of the dead of Israel then marks the beginning of that process of restoration in response to Israelite repentance that God built into the very creation of the world. It also brings the final punishment to the gentiles, that is, those who do not know God. The final sub-topic of the theme of resurrection as of the world-tocome, already encountered, now has systematically to be addressed: what of the messiah? The messiah figures at every point in the categorical structure of the Oral Torah’s eschatological thinking: 1) troubles attendant upon the coming of the messiah, which either do or do not bring about Israelite 2) repentance, as we have already seen, leading to 3) resurrection, as we shall see here, and a task then to be performed 4) the world-to-come. But, important in two freestanding categories (resurrection, world-to-come) and a presence in the third (repentance), on its own account the messiah-theme simply does not coalesce into an autonomous category. That theme certainly does not define a categorical imperative in the way that Israel and the gentiles, complementarity and correspondence, and the eschatological categories, sin and atonement, resurrection and the world-tocome, all do. By contrast, to take a specific case, the gentiles and idolatry encompass a broad range of data, interact with other categories, form a focus of thought and a logical center; but they cannot then be reduced to some other categories, e.g., Israel and the Torah, private life, repentance. For its part the messiah-theme forms a subset of several categories and by itself does not take up an autonomous presence in the theology of the Oral Torah. The messiah-theme fits into the primary categories but is itself divisible among them. So if the principal components of the Oral Torah’s eschatological theology turn out to be Israel in its two dimensions, private and public, what of that individual who figures prominently, but not consistently or in a single coherent role, in all eschatological discourse?

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The figure of the messiah forms an important but hardly ubiquitous theme. If Israel repents, the messiah will come. A messiah who exhibits inappropriate characteristics—arrogance in place of the humility that is the requirement of salvation—embodies the anti-messiah. So the messiah exemplifies what is required. But what the messiah actually does, as distinct from what his advent signifies, is hardly clear in the setting of repentance. When it comes to resurrection, on the one side, and the world-to-come, on the other, the figure of the messiah again plays its part. But while the doctrine of resurrection and the one of the world-to-come encompass in each case a few simple and coherent principles, when it comes to the messiah matters prove otherwise. Not only is there no categorical imperative identified with the messiah-theme. There also is no logic that affords structure and system to that theme, no Rabbinic messiology. To make the point in the simplest possible way: we cannot imagine a Christianity without (a) Christology. Here we have a Judaism in which the messiah-theme in the eschatological framework takes on significance only in contexts defined by other categories altogether. That he comes and goes, appears and then passes from the scene, in fact is not a single figure but two (or more) marks his systemic subordination, the messiah-theme’s categorical inadequacy. That fact is born out by the first and most important element of theological thinking about the messiah-theme: the multiplicity of messiahs, even in the eschatological setting—the multiplicity and also the transience. Like Elijah, the messiah is forerunner and precursor, but he is hardly an enduring player in the eschatological drama. Only God is. Time and again we shall see that the messiah refers back to God for instructions on what he is to do. A mark of categorical subordination of the messiah-theme is the diversity of messiahs, each with his own story. One messiah comes out of the line of Joseph, another out of the line of David. Both messiahs (and others in that same classification, for example, the messiah who is anointed to be high priest in charge of the army [Deut. 20:2-7, M. Sotah Chapter Eight]), are mortal and subject to the human condition. One messiah is murdered, replaced by another. The messiah, moreover, is subject to the impulse to do evil, like any other person. The messiah plays a transient role in the eschatological drama. People want the messiah to come—that is the premise of the stories told in connection with repentance—but that is only because he will inaugurate the eschato-

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logical drama, not because, on his own, he will bring the drama to its conclusion. Only God will. Most strikingly, the messiah-theme plays itself out not only in the eschatological categories but in those that concern sin and the evil inclination. This presentation of the theme is accomplished through a complex composite at B. Suk. 5:1D-5:4. The Mishnah-passage invites from the framers of the Talmud’s composite some comments on the “evil inclination,” which in this context refers to libido in particular. Then we have a rather substantial discussion of sexuality. But a second look shows us that the composite concerns not sexual misbehavior or desire therefor, so much as the messiah-theme. Here we find the allegation that the messiah son of Joseph was killed because of the evil inclination; the messiah son of David will be saved by God; the evil inclination then is made the counterweight to the messiah and a threat to his survival. It is overcome, however, by study of the Torah. The composite is hardly coherent in detail, but its thematic program—Torah, messiah, in the context of the Festival of Tabernacles—imposes upon the topic of the Mishnah-paragraph a quite different perspective from that set forth in the Mishnah itself. The pertinent part of the composite is as follows (B. Suk. 5:1D-5:4 II.3ff./52a-b): 3.A. [With regard to “And the land shall mourn, every family apart; the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart” (Zech. 12:12)]: What was the reason for the mourning [to which reference is made in Zechariah’s statement]? B. R. Dosa and rabbis differed on this matter. C. One said, “It is on account of the messiah, the son of Joseph, who was killed.” D. And the other said, “It is on account of the evil inclination, which was killed.”

The dispute balances the death of the messiah against the death of the inclination to do evil, though these surely are opposites, and that leads to the inquiry, why should the land mourn at the death of the latter? E.

F.

Now in the view of him who said, “It is on account of the messiah, the son of Joseph, who was killed,” we can make sense of the following verse of Scripture: “And they shall look on me because they have thrust him through, and they shall mourn for him as one mourns for his only son” (Zech. 12:10). But in the view of him who has said, “It is on account of the evil inclination, which was killed,” should this be an occasion for

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The eschatological drama now comes into play: the disposition of the inclination to do evil at the end of days, which is to say, the keyaction in the restoration of Eden, God’s own intervention in securing for man the capacity to carry out God’s will without obstacle: G. [The answer] is in accord with the exposition of R. Judah: “In the time to come, the Holy One, blessed be he, will bring the evil inclination and slay it before the righteous and before the wicked. L. “And so too the Holy One, blessed be he, will share their amazement, as it is said, “‘Thus says the Lord of Hosts. If it be marvelous in the eyes of the remnant of this people in those days, it shall also be marvelous in my eyes’ (Zech. 8:6).”

So much for the messiah son of Joseph; now what of the messiah son of David, and how does he relate to the events just now portrayed? 5.A. Our rabbis have taught on Tannaite authority: B. To the messiah, son of David, who is destined to be revealed— speedily, in our days!—the Holy One, blessed be he, will say, “Ask something from me, and I shall give it to you.” C. So it is said, “I will tell of the decree…this day have I begotten you, ask of me and I will give the nations for your inheritance” (Ps. 2:78). D. When [the messiah, son of David] sees the messiah, son of Joseph, killed, he will say before [God], “Lord of the Age, I ask of you only life.” E. He will say to him, “Life? Before you spoke of it, David your father had already prophesied about you, as it is said, ‘He asked life of you, you gave it to him, [even length of days forever and ever]’ (Ps. 21:5).”

Here the messiah-theme works itself out in the story of two messiahs, one who was killed, the other not. This latter messiah is the one who will participate in the process of the end of time, beginning with the resurrection—a matter more clearly expressed in sources we shall consider in a moment. First, let us ask about the place, within the composite to which reference has just now been made, of the messiah and the message that is conveyed by introducing that figure. A rapid recapitulation of the propositions in the large composite tells us what the Talmud has added to the Mishnah’s topic, which is, the Festival of Tabernacles. None of them has any bearing at all on the topic at hand, but by introducing the set of propositions into the present context, the topic before us is recast:

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2.

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God created the impulse to do evil but regrets it: there are four things that the Holy One, blessed be he, regrets he created, and these are they: Exile, the Chaldeans, the Ishmaelites, and the inclination to do evil. The impulse to do evil is weak at the outset but powerful when it becomes habitual. The inclination to do evil to begin with is like a spider’s thread and in the end like cart ropes. In the beginning one calls the evil inclination a passer-by, then a guest, and finally, a man of the household. The impulse to do evil affects one’s status in the world-to-come.

Now the integral character of the insertion about the messiah becomes clear: 3.

4.

The messiah was killed on account of the impulse to do evil. That is why the messiah, son of David, asked God to spare his life and not allow him to be killed the way the messiah son of Joseph was killed. The impulse to do evil is stronger for sages than for others. But they possess the antidote in the Torah: “For it has done great things” (Joel 2:20): “And against disciples of sages more than against all the others.” A man’s inclination [to do evil] overcomes him every day. A man’s inclination to do evil prevails over him every day and seeks to kill him. If that vile one meets you, drag it to the house of study. If it is a stone, it will dissolve. If it is iron, it will be pulverized.

Here is where the self-evident connection proves revealing. If we did not know that the Festival of Tabernacles was associated with an autumnal celebration of the advent of rain and the fructifying of the fields, on the one side, and also identified as the occasion for the coming of the messiah, on the other, then on the strength of this extrinsic composite, we should have formed the theory that those two protean conceptions governed. So the self-evident connections reveal an entire cluster of connected categories and subsets. As is common in Rabbinic sources, we treat in one and the same setting private life and public affairs, this world and its concerns and the world-to-come as well. The private life—the role of the sexual impulse in one’s personal affairs and fate—and the destiny of Israel in the world-to-come and the messianic future correspond. God governs in both dimensions, the personal and the political. And sages then represent the realm of affairs: suffering more than others from the desires to sin, but better able than others to resist those desires. The upshot is, the messiahtheme is subordinate to the purpose of the compiler of the composite,

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who wishes to underscore the link between overcoming the evil impulse and the advent of the world-to-come, beginning with the appearance of a (not “the”) messiah. Apart from the definitive composite just now examined, we find other statements on the subject that enjoy normative standing. A well-documented component of the messiah-theme introduces the motif of tribulations to attend the coming of the messiah. That may or may not involve the war of Gog and Magog prophesied by Ezek.37-38. It also may or may not be intended to bring about repentance, to lead to the resurrection of the dead. Matters are somewhat confused. Sages do not much expand on the war of Gog and Magog, only insisting that God will be with Israel at that time. I have not identified systematic expositions of the details of that war, only allusions invited by the context of repentance at the last (Sifra CCLXIX:II.12): A. “[Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies,] I will not spurn them, neither will I abhor them so as to destroy them utterly:” D. But “I will not spurn them”—in the time of Vespasian. E. “…neither will I abhor them”—in the time of Greece. F. “…so as to destroy them utterly and break my covenant with them”—in the time of Haman. G. “…for I am the Lord their God”—in the time of Gog.

Here is a statement that in the age of the coming of the messiah, the war of Gog and Magog will be so terrifying as to make people forget prior troubles (T. Ber. 1:11): J.

Similarly, “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old” (Is. 43:18). Remember not the former things—these are [God’s mighty acts in saving Israel] from the [various] kingdoms; nor consider things of old—these are [God’s mighty acts in saving Israel] from Egypt. K. “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth” (Is. 43:19)—this refers to the war of Gog and Magog [at the end of time]. L. They drew a parable, to what may the matter be compared? To one who was walking in the way and a wolf attacked him, but he was saved from it. He would continually relate the incident of the wolf. Later a lion attacked him, but he was saved from it. He forgot the incident of the wolf and would relate the incident of the lion. Later still a serpent attacked him, but he was saved from it. He forgot the other two incidents and would continually relate the incident of the serpent.

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M. So, too are Israel: the recent travails make them forget about the earlier ones.

The same point is made at greater length at the next statement (Pesiqta Rabbati XV:XV:1=Pesiqta deRab Kahana V:X.13): 13 A. And rabbis say, “In the septennate in which the son of David comes, in the first of the seven year spell, ‘I shall cause it to rain on one town and not on another’ (Amos 4:7). B. “In the second, the arrows of famine will be sent forth. C. “In the third there will be a great famine, and men, women, and children will die in it, and the Torah will be forgotten in Israel. D. “In the fourth, there will be a famine which is not really a famine, and plenty which is not plentiful. E. “In the fifth year, there will be great plenty, and people will eat and drink and rejoice, and the Torah will again be renewed. F. “In the sixth there will be great thunders. G. “In the seventh there will be wars. H. “And at the end of the seventh year of that septennate, the son of David will come.” I. Said R. Abbuha/Abbayye, “How many seven-year-cycles have there been like this one, and yet he has not come.”

Another doctrine simply links the coming of the messiah to trials in general, not connected with the great war of Gog and Magog: J.

But matters accord with what R. Yohanan said, “In the generation in which the son of David comes, disciples of sages will perish, and those that remain will have faint vision, with suffering and sighing, and terrible troubles will come on the people, and harsh decrees will be renewed. Before the first such decree is carried out, another will be brought along and joined to it.” K. Said R. Abun, “In the generation in which the son of David comes, the meeting place will be turned over to prostitution, the Galilee will be destroyed, Gablan will be desolate, and the Galileans will make the rounds from town to town and find no comfort. L. “Truthful men will be gathered up, and the truth will be fenced in and go its way.” M. Where will it go? N. A member of the household of R. Yannai said, “It will go and dwell in small flocks in the wilderness, in line with this verse of Scripture: Truth shall be among bands (Is. 59:15).”

But it is not only the dreadful war that will accompany the messiah’s advent. It also is the end of the social order altogether, the violation of all the rules of hierarchical classification that signify that order:

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jacob neusner O. Said R. Nehorai, “In the generation in which the son of David comes, youths will humiliate old men, sages will rise before youths, a slave girl will abuse her mistress, a daughter-in-law her motherin-law, a man’s enemies will be his own householders, a son will not be ashamed for his father, the wisdom of scribes will turn rotten, the vine will give its fruit but wine will be expensive.” P. Said R. Abba bar Kahana, “The son of David will come only to a generation which is liable to be subject to total extermination.” Q. Said R. Yannai, “The son of David will come only to a generation the principal leaders of which are like dogs.” R. Said R. Levi, “If you see one generation after another blaspheming, look for the footsteps of the messiah-king. S. “What verse of Scripture indicates it? ‘Remember Lord the taunts hurled at your servant, how I have borne in my heart the calumnies of the nations; so have your enemies taunted us, O Lord, taunted the successors of your anointed king’ (Ps. 89:51). T. “What follows? ‘Blessed is the Lord for ever, amen, amen’ (Ps. 89:52).”

The tribulations of the end time thus may or may not involve the war of Gog and Magog, precipitated at the coming of the messiah. A variety of troubles will mark that same event. I am inclined to think that motivating Israel to repent forms the logical connection between these troubles and his advent is to be drawn, but that is not consistently alleged in the main statements on the subject. The messiah need not do more than signal a variety of events, political and social, that he neither brings about nor calls to a conclusion. Whatever the other uses of the messiah-theme, one fact is clear: the messiah is linked to the resurrection of the dead, which inaugurates the period culminating in the world-to-come. But even here the messiah—the one who descends from David—whose advent will mark the resurrection will not play an enduring role in the eschatological process; he is a subordinated figure. That fact underscores what we have noticed about the messiah-theme’s not forming a category unto itself but serving to fill out details in autonomous categories. For one thing, his role is limited, a determinate stage in the coming age. But how long will the messiah’s period last? Within the doctrine that that period is finite and determinate, ending with the resurrection of the dead or coincident with it, a number of positions, each within the logic of the exegesis of selected verses, are worked out. The first has three generations (Sifre Deut. CCCX:V.1):

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A. “…consider the years of ages past:” B. This refers to the generation in which the messiah will be, which encompasses, in time, three generations, as it is said, “They shall fear you while the sun endures and so long as the moon, throughout all generations” (Ps. 72:5).

Another view maintains that the time of the messiah is limited to forty years, or four hundred, or some determinate period. Then the dead will be raised (Pesiqta Rabbati I:VII.1): A. How long are the days of the messiah? B. R. Aqiba says, “Forty years, in line with this verse: ‘And he afflicted you and allowed you to hunger’ (Deut. 8:3), and it is written, ‘Make us glad according to the days in which you afflicted us’ (Ps. 90:15). Just as the affliction lasted forty years in the wilderness, so the affliction here is forty years [with the result that the glad time is the same forty years].” C. Said R. Abin, “What verse of Scripture further supports the position of R. Aqiba? ‘As in the days of your coming forth from the land of Egypt I will show him marvelous things’ (Mic. 7:15).”

Aqiba’s brief period is now extended by Eliezer, then others expand it still further, all concurring that the messiah’s place in the resurrection of the dead is determinate, his role contingent on the unfolding of a process of which he forms only a chapter: D. R. Eliezer says, “Four hundred years, as it is written, ‘And they shall enslave them and torment them for four hundred years’ (Gen. 15:13), and further it is written, ‘Make us glad according to the days in which you afflicted us’ (Ps. 90:15).”

Now we move from the record of history to the facts of nature, invoking a different analogy, with strikingly different consequences: E. F.

R. Berekhiah in the name of R. Dosa the Elder says, “Six hundred years, as it is written, ‘As the days of a tree shall be the days of my people’ (Is. 65:22). “How long are the days of a tree? A sycamore lasts for six hundred years.”

From the world of nature we progress to the world of time, a day and its length: G. R. Eliezer b. R. Yose the Galilean says, “A thousand years, as it is written, ‘For a thousand years in your sight as are but as yesterday when it has passed’ (Ps. 90:40), and it is written, ‘The day of vengeance as in my heart but now my year of redemption is come’ (Is. 63:4).

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jacob neusner H. “The day of the Holy One, blessed be he, is the same as a thousand years for a mortal.”

Once the metaphor of the day takes over, then meanings imputed to “day” are sorted out as well: I.

R. Joshua says, “Two thousand years, ‘according to the days in which you afflicted us’ (Ps. 90:15). J. “For there are no fewer days [as in the cited verse] than two, and the day of the Holy One, blessed be he, is the same as a thousand years for a mortal.” K. R. Abbahu says, “Seven thousand years, as it is said, ‘As a bride groom rejoices over his bride will your God rejoice over you’ (Is. 62:5), and how long does a groom rejoice over his bride? It is seven days, L. “and the day of the Holy One, blessed be he, is the same as a thousand years for a mortal.”

We move from “day” to “year,” and the discussion trails off: M. Rabbi says, “You cannot count it: ‘For the day of vengeance that was in my heart and my year of redemption have come’ (Is. 63:4).” N. How long are the days of the messiah? Three hundred and sixtyfive thousand years will be the length of the days of the messiah.

The details being left unclear, the main claim stands: the messiah functions for a finite period. But what does he do in that time? This is the point at which the messiah-theme’s subordination to other categories becomes clear. In the present context, the advent of the messiah plays a role in the raising of the dead. Indeed, I have several times taken as fact the presence of the doctrine that, at the end of the messiah’s period, the dead are raised. This is now explicitly stated, the resurrection being joined to the restoration of those who are raised from the grave to the land of Israel. But at no point do I identify the claim that the messiah is the one who raises the dead, the language that is used always simply saying, then—when he has come—the dead will rise or live; but God is the one who gives them breath: 2.A. Then the dead of the land of Israel who are Israelites will live and derive benefit from them, and all the righteous who are overseas will come through tunnels. B. And when they reach the Land, the Holy One, blessed be he, will restore their breath, and they will rise and derive benefit from the days of the messiah along with them [already in the Land]. C. For it is said, “He who spread forth the earth and its offspring gives breath to the people on it” (Is. 42:5).

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Does the messiah bear responsibility for raising the dead? I do not identify that claim in so many words. Then, who bears responsibility for doing so? It is Israel; that point is made time and again when pertinent. Israel’s own repentance will provide the occasion, and God will do the rest. It is when Israel has repented that the messiah will come. It follows that the messiah’s advent and activity depend upon Israel, not on the messiah’s own autonomous decision, character, and behavior. Israel decides issues of its own attitude toward God and repents, God decides to respond to the change in will. But not a comparable, categorical imperative, the messiah only responds to Israel’s decision on when he should make his appearance to signal the change in the condition of humankind, and the messiah responds to God’s decision, taking a part within that sequence that comes to an end with Elijah. That accounts for the heavy emphasis upon not the messiah’s intervention but Israel’s own responsibility. We already have noted the tendency to assign the coming of the messiah to times of suffering, which will have brought Israel to repent, and that is once more stated in the present context as well: 3.A. When will the royal messiah come? B. Said R. Eleazar, “Near to the messiah’s days, ten places will be swallowed up, ten places will be overturned, ten places will be wiped out.” C. And R. Hiyya bar Abba said, “The royal messiah will come only to a generation the leaders of which are like dogs.” D. R. Eleazar says, “It will be in the time of a generation that is worthy of annihilation that the royal messiah will come.” E. R. Levi said, “Near the time of the days of the messiah a great event will take place in the world.”

The time of the messiah is compared to the period of redemption, and it is held to serve as a preparatory period, leading to the resurrection of the dead (systemic equivalent to the entry into the Land/ Eden, which, by rights, ought to have marked the end of time). That inquiry into the correct analogy explains the definitions that are given, forty years, as with the generation of the wilderness, of four hundred years, as in the torment prior to redemption from Egypt, and so on down. The divisions of time do not come to an end with the end of history as written by the pagan kingdoms. From the time that their rule comes to an end, with the coming of the messiah and the restoration of Israelite government, a sequence of further, differentiated periods commences; the time of the messiah is only the first

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of these. Then comes the resurrection of the dead, along with the last judgment. Only at that point does the world-to-come get underway, and time will no longer be differentiated. This conviction that the messiah’s period is determinate has, moreover, to be set into the context of the periods of the history of creation. Specifically, the history of the world is divided into three units of two thousand years each, the age of chaos, Torah, and messiah: with the Torah succeeding the age of chaos, and the messiah, the age of the Torah (B. A.Z. 1:1 II.5/9a): A. The Tannaite authority of the household of Elijah [stated], “The world will last for six thousand years: two thousand years of chaos, two thousand years of Torah, two thousand years of the time of the messiah. But because of the abundance of our sins, what has passed [of the foreordained time] has passed.”

Israel now lives in the period of the Torah, which succeeds upon the chaos brought about by man and educates the heart of the people of the Torah: B.

As to the two thousand years of Torah, from what point do they commence? If one should say that it is from the actual giving of the Torah [at Mount Sinai], then up to this time there has not been so long a span of time. For if you look into the matter, you find that, from the creation to the giving of the Torah, the years comprise two thousand and part of the third thousand [specifically, 2,448; from Adam to Noah, 1,056; from Noah to Abraham, 891; from Abraham to the Exodus, 500, from the Creation to Exodus and the giving of the law at Sinai, 2,448 years]. Therefore the period is to be calculated from the time that Abraham and Sarah “had gotten souls in Haran,” for we have learned by tradition that Abraham at that time was fifty-two years old. Now to what measure does the Tannaite calculation deduct? Since the Tannaite teaching is 448 years, you find that from the time that Abraham and Sarah “had gotten souls in Haran,” to the giving of the Torah were 448 years.

The advent of the messiah, then, marks a stage in the unfolding of periods (not “history”) within the logic of creation: chaos, sin; Torah, repentance; messiah, restoration—and then, as the other calculations have indicated, comes the world-to-come or eternal life, an age beyond time and change. What about the gentiles in all this? Naturally, as soon as the category Israel and the Torah is invoked, its counterpart and opposite, the gentiles and idolatry, complements and balances the discussion.

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So too, when it comes to the messiah, the gentiles are given a role. Specifically, the nations will bring gifts to the messiah, and it will be a great honor to them that they are permitted to do so. But their participation in the messiah’s activities only underscores Israel’s centrality to the human drama (B. Pes. 10:7 II.22/118b): A. Said R. Kahana, “When R. Ishmael b. R. Yose fell ill, Rabbi sent word to him: ‘Tell us two or three of the things that you said to us in the name of your father.’ B. “He sent word to him, ‘This is what father said: “What is the meaning of the verse of Scripture, ‘Praise the Lord all you nations’ (Ps. 117:1)? What are the nations of the world doing in this setting? This is the sense of the statement, ‘Praise the Lord all you nations’ (Ps. 117:1) for the acts of might and wonder that he has done with them; all the more so us, since ‘his mercy is great toward us.’”’

Now the nations take a more specific role in relationship to the messiah, each claiming a relationship to the messiah on account of its dealings with Israel: C. “‘And further: “Egypt is destined to bring a gift to the messiah. He will think that he should not accept it from them. The Holy One, blessed be he, will say to the messiah, ‘Accept it from them, they provided shelter for my children in Egypt.’ Forthwith: ‘Nobles shall come out of Egypt, bringing gifts’ (Ps. 68:32). D. “The Ethiopians will propose an argument a fortiori concerning themselves, namely: ‘If these, who subjugated them, do this, we, who never subjugated them, all the more so!’ The Holy One, blessed be He, will say to the messiah, ‘Accept it from them.’ Forthwith: ‘Ethiopia shall hasten to stretch out her hands to God’ (Ps. 68:32).

Rome always comes at the climax, and, in any sequence of the nations, will always mark the end of the discussion. Here Rome evokes its descent from Esau, a given for the Oral Torah, or from Edom, thus part of the extended family of Israel: E.

F.

“Wicked Rome will then propose the same argument a fortiori in her own regard: ‘If these, who are not their brethren, are such, then we, who are their brethren, all the more so!’ The Holy One, blessed be He, will say to Gabriel, ‘Rebuke the wild beast of the reeds, the multitude of the bulls’ (Ps. 68:32)—‘rebuke the wild beast and take possession of the congregation.’ “Another interpretation: ‘Rebuke the wild beast of the reeds’— who dwells among the reeds, ‘the boar out of the wood ravages it, that which moves in the field feeds on it’ (Ps. 80:14).”’”

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Here, the messiah accords honor to the nations, except for Rome, the empire that will fall at the redemption of Israel now at hand. The governing concern, the nations relate to the messiah only through Israel, registers. The messiah then plays a part in the resurrection of the dead, on the one side, and the restoration of Israel, on the other. But the messiah-doctrine clearly encompasses the view that the messiah will not endure for the world-to-come but himself carries out the task assigned to him and then passes from the scene, a doctrine clearly indicated by the specification of the period of time assigned to the messiah. To summarize: The later Rabbinic sources, which reached closure from the fifth through the seventh centuries, form a doctrinally-coherent corpus, in which the framers set forth the same, cogent message about many, diverse topics. Their governing concern focused upon the definition of Israel as a supernatural community, continuous with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and heir to their merit. Hence the death of an individual found its meaning within the encompassing and nourishing community. Death is not a form of suffering at all but natural to the human condition; sages in no way deemed death a challenge to the doctrine of God’s goodness, but encompassed within that doctrine the fact that man dies (Gen. Rabbah IX:V.1-3): A. In the Torah belonging to R. Meir people found written, “And behold, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31) [means] “And behold, death is good.” [The play is on the word “very,” M’D, and “death,” MWT.] B. Said R. Samuel bar Nahman, “I was riding on my grandfather’s shoulder, going up from my town to Kefar Hana through Bet Shean, and I heard R. Simeon b. R. Eleazar in session and expounding in the name of R. Meir, “‘And behold, it was very good’—‘And behold, death is good.’” C. Hama bar Hanina and R. Jonathan: D. Hama bar Hanina said, “The first man was worthy not to have to taste the taste of death. And why was the penalty of death applied to him? The Holy One, blessed be he, foresaw that Nebuchadnezzar and Hiram were destined to turn themselves into gods. Therefore the penalty of having to die was imposed upon man. That is in line with this verse of Scripture: ‘You were in Eden, the garden of God’ (Ezek. 28:13). And was Hiram actually in Eden? But he said to him, ‘You are the one who caused that one in Eden to have to die.’” E. Said R. Jonathan to him, “If so, God should have decreed death only for the wicked, but not for the righteous. Rather, it was so that

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the wicked should not be able hypocritically to pretend to repent, so that they should not have occasion to say, ‘Are not the righteous living on and on? It is only because they form a treasure of merit accruing on account of the practice of doing religious duties as well as good deeds. We too shall lay up a treasure of merit accruing from doing religious duties and good deeds.’ What would come out is that the things they do would not be done sincerely, [for their own sake, but only for the sake of gaining merit]. [That is what is good about death. It prevents the wicked from perverting the holy life by doing the right thing for the wrong reason. Everyone dies, so there is no point in doing religious duties only so as to avoid dying.]” F. Yohanan and R. Simeon b. Laqish: G. Yohanan said, “On what account was a decree of death issued against the wicked? It is because, so long as the wicked live, they anger the Holy One, blessed be he. That is in line with the following verse of Scripture: ‘You have wearied the Lord with your deeds’ (Mal. 2:17). When they die, they stop angering the Holy One, blessed be he. That is in line with the following verse of Scripture: ‘There the wicked cease from raging’ (Job 3:17). There the wicked cease angering the Holy One, blessed be he. H. “On what account, however, is the decree of death issued against the righteous? It is because so long as the righteous live, they have to conduct warfare against their impulse to do evil. When they die, they find rest. That is in line with this verse: ‘And there the weary are at rest’ (Job 3:17). ‘It is enough, we have labored long enough.’” I. Simeon b. Laqish said, “It is so as to give an ample reward for the one, and to exact ample punishment from the other. To give ample reward to the righteous, who really never were worthy of having to taste the taste of death but accepted the taste of death for themselves. Therefore: ‘in their land they shall possess double’ (Is. 61:7). J. “‘And to exact ample punishment from the wicked,’ for the righteous had not been worthy of having to taste the taste of death but they had accepted the taste of death for themselves on account [of the wicked]. Therefore: ‘And destroy them with a double destruction’ (Jer. 17:18).”

The fact of death requires no explanation, nor does it have to be explained away. Death is essential to the divine plan for creation. It would not be possible to find a more powerful and one-sided endorsement of that position.

12. DEATH AND AFTERLIFE: THE INSCRIPTIONAL EVIDENCE Leonard V. Rutgers University of Utrecht What can Jewish funerary inscriptions tell us about Jewish notions of death and afterlife? The discovery, in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, of several large collections of Jewish epitaphs sparked a lively interest in precisely that question. Yet in due course it also led, perhaps inevitably, to various scholarly controversies concerning the interpretation of individual inscriptions and the formulae they contain. Here I briefly review these controversies, explore the methodological problems inherent in the more traditional approaches to Jewish funerary epigraphy, and suggest a different way to study Jewish epitaphs bearing on issues of death and afterlife. Jewish funerary inscriptions have long attracted the attention of scholars interested in Jewish notions of death and life after death. Beginning to become available in considerable quantities from 1859 onwards, such inscriptions provided scholars with an exciting new means to supplement reconstructions that, until then, were based exclusively on the study of literary sources.1 For some time, study of literary sources and of inscriptions went hand in hand. Just as previously unknown or inaccessible literary sources concerning the Jews and their views on death and afterlife were coming to the attention of the scholarly community—for example in the form of R.H. Charles’s 1913 edition of The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English or H. Odeberg’s 1928 edition of 3 Henoch—a whole series of previously unknown Jewish epitaphs was also brought to light. This happened particularly in Rome, where, in the early 1930s, JeanBaptiste Frey discovered new epigraphic materials during his peregrinations in the Jewish Vigna Randanini catacomb off the Via Appia, 1 The first major collection of late antique Jewish funerary inscriptions was discovered in Rome in 1859; see R. Garrucci, Cimitero degli antichi ebrei scoperto recentemente in Vigna Randanini (Rome, 1862) and id., Dissertazioni archeologiche di vario argomento (Rome, 1864-1865). On the discovery of the Jewish catacombs of Rome, see in general, L.V. Rutgers, The Jews in Late Ancient Rome. Evidence of Cultural Interaction in the Roman Diaspora (Leiden, 1995), pp. 1-49.

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and in Beth Shearim (Galilee), where important large-scale excavations were undertaken beginning in 1936.2 These and similar epigraphic discoveries generated excitement to such an extent that, at first, scholars did not fully realize that the information that can reasonably be derived from this type of evidence is limited. Thus J.-B. Frey, author of the first modern corpus of Jewish inscriptions, and B. Lifshitz, editor of the inscriptions found during the excavations in Beth Shearim, both published separate articles in which they accepted wholeheartedly the slightest turning of a phrase as a significant reference to yet another notion of (Jewish) post-mortem existence. Considering the eagerness with which they set about their work, it should perhaps not come as a surprise that these articles have in common a near total disregard for methodological considerations.3 Citing Frey as his most important source, Lifshitz recently has summed up this approach: “It has been long since stated that a hope for eternal life is reflected in nearly all the Jewish tomb inscriptions.”4 Instead of critiquing Frey and Lifshitz for their partisan evaluation of the pertinent evidence, it is perhaps more useful to explore the rationale for their enthusiasm. Contemplating their work, it is not difficult to discover what fueled this ebullience. As they were deciphering one inscription after another in the dark underground galleries of the catacombs, Frey and Lishitz believed that they possessed a data-base that was enormous not merely in terms of the number of items it contained but that, in representing the Jewish community atlarge, had clear advantages over the extant written sources. While such sources had often undergone a long process of redaction and possible corruption during the course of transmission over a millennium and a half or more, it could be argued that inscriptions had never been subject to subsequent editing. On the contrary, inscriptions always preserve—as long as they survive—their original word2 J.-B. Frey, “Nouvelles inscriptions inédites de la catacombe juive de la Via Appia,” in RACrist 10 (1933), pp. 27-50; B. Mazar, Beth She`arim. Report on the Excavations During 1936-1940. Volume I. Catacombs 1-4 (Jerusalem, 1973). 3 J.-B. Frey, “La vie de l’au-delà dans les conceptions juives au temps de JésusChrist,” in Biblica 13 (1932), pp. 129-168 and B. Lifshitz, “La vie de l’au-delà dans les conceptions juives. Inscriptions grecques de Beth Shearim,” in RB 68 (1961), pp. 401-411. 4 M. Schwabe and B. Lifshitz, Beth She‘arim. Volume II. The Greek Inscriptions (New Brunswick, 1974), p. 224. Note that Lifshitz cites Frey almost literally. See Frey’s remarks in CIJ I, p. cxxxii.

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ing. In addition, while literary sources are usually the product of a single individual or reflect the ideas of a circumscribed group of people, inscriptions reflect, it could be argued, the ideas of a much larger, and therefore more representative, segment of past populations. In the words of Frey, who based his observations on his painstaking study of a large corpus of Jewish inscriptions deriving from the Jewish catacombs of ancient Rome, these inscriptions could be said to reflect the world of the rich and poor equally well.5 Such a statement illustrates the extent to which Frey (and later also Lifshitz) was heir to a scholarly tradition the origin of which can be traced back to the seventeenth century and that viewed inscriptions (as opposed to written sources) as among the most significant sources of documentation for the true historian. 6 Taking into account the detail and care with which they immersed themselves in the study the funerary inscriptions, it may strike us as paradoxical that neither Frey nor Lifshitz ever reflected systematically on the epistemological side of their respective enterprises. Not even once do we find a discussion of the fact that many of these inscriptions are formulaic in character and that, contrary to the wellknown adage, it is simply not true that “the stones speak for themselves.” That Frey and Lifshitz, in their capacity as editors and translators of these inscriptions, were not just go-betweens who neutrally transmitted information contained in these inscribed stones, but rather interpreters who read in these stones concerns they themselves regarded as important, is particularly evident when we turn to the work of Frey. Even though he went at great length to discuss individual inscriptions and formulae in depth in an academically acceptable fashion, he ultimately collected all this evidence for the sole purpose of showing that “the Christian revelation has abolished all errors and human inventions, having substituted doubt and fluctuations of thought with certitude, and, showing the exact meaning of ancient truths, it has opened horizons until then unexpected.”7 Taking into account that Jewish concepts of death and afterlife evolved into fairly complex constructs beginning in the Hellenistic period, one can begin to understand why Frey was so interested in the study Frey, “La vie,” p. 141. See, in general, A. Momigliano, “Storia antica e antiquaria,” in id., Sui fondamenti della storia antica (Turin, 1984), pp. 3-45. 7 Frey, “La vie,” p. 129. 5 6

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of these concepts and the supposedly chaotic ways in which they developed. Such a study permitted him to argue that “the most characteristic trait of the Jewish theological system is that it does not have a system”—a civilized way of saying that, unlike in Christianity, in Judaism everything goes.8 Yet the absence of such a system did not prevent Frey from also arguing, rather inconsistently, that the inscriptions could at the same time be used to show that all the Jews subscribed to this or that idea uniformly.9 In Frey’s scheme of things, then, the inscriptions from the Jewish catacombs of Rome were nothing but a gift from heaven. They provided him with incontrovertible evidence, he believed, that, while the exclusivistic Jews had patently helped “prepare the way for the good news,” they themselves continued to hold “rather weak and honestly unacceptable” if not completely “desperate” views concerning life in this world and in the world to come.10 In Frey’s work one thus encounters a culmination of ideas that had been germinating for some time already, but that other scholars had thus far failed to explore in any systematic fashion.11 In more recent studies of Jewish funerary epigraphy, Frey’s and Lifshitz’s readings have, not surprisingly, largely been replaced by more sober interpretations. Even though scholars continue to argue that it is “legitimate to expect to find in funerary inscriptions aspirations and yearnings of people for life after death,” they are no longer willing to accept the idea that such aspirations find expression in all inscriptions including the most concisely-formulated ones.12 Thus, in his Duke University dissertation of 1974, S. Nagakubo pointed out that of all Greek inscriptions found in the Jewish catacombs of Beth Shearim, no more than 15% deal with life after death. 13 Thoroughly investigating both literary and inscriptional materials bearing on Jewish notions of afterlife, U. Fischer has gone even further, arguing that among the Jews of the diaspora, such notions did not play any role at all, or, more precisely, that the surviving evidence is simply too amFrey, ibid., p. 130. Frey, ibid., pp. 142 and 145. 10 Frey, ibid., pp. 165-168. 11 See, for example, the remarks of E. Bormann, “Zu den neu entdeckten Grabschriften jüdischer Katakomben von Rom,” in WS 34 (1912), p. 368. 12 S. Nagakubo, Investigation into Jewish Concepts of Afterlife in the Beth She‘arim Greek Inscriptions (Durham, 1974), p. 153. 13 Ibid., pp. 152-238. 8 9

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biguous to maintain that such notions concerned late antique diaspora Jews very much.14 If one accepts Fischer’s rather minimalistic approach with its emphasis on “what one cannot prove,” the total number of inscriptions that can potentially inform about Jewish notions of the afterlife undergoes a sensible reduction. According to my own estimates, once one applies the principles enunciated by Fischer, 97% of the roughly six hundred Jewish funerary inscriptions from Rome does not refer to the afterlife.15 Along similar lines, if one would apply these principles to the inscriptions found in Beth Shearim, the percentage calculated by Nagakubo as lacking references to life after death (85%) would likewise increase considerably. While Nagakubo’s and Fischer’s more critical approach has helped us better to appreciate the extent to which earlier scholarship over-interpreted the sources, it is important to recall that methodologically, their approach does not really represent a step forward. Indeed, their method is identical to that of their predecessors, inasmuch as, even as they have turned the assertions of earlier scholars by 180 degrees, they have not posed the crucially important question of how one can actually know whether a word or a phrase refers to a Jewish notion of the afterlife. Thus, where earlier scholars had argued that the frequently occurring expression ÈÜñóåé ïšäårò PèÜíáôïò should be taken as indicating hope in immortality,16 such an interpretation was now dispensed with without further ado.17 Along similar lines, while past scholars had interpreted the word EÁóèÞñ in a Jewish funerary inscription from Rome as referring to the deceased’s journey among the “stars,”18 others now began to favor a straightfor14 U. Fischer, Eschatologie und Jenseitserwartungen im hellenistischen Judentum (Berlin and New York, 1978), p. 236. 15 This percentage is based on a sampling of the inscriptions published in JIWE 2. No significant differences can be ascertained between the three major Jewish catacombs in Rome, namely, the Monteverde (98%), the Villa Torlonia (97.5%), and the Vigna Randanini catacomb (94.9%). The percentage of inscriptions lacking references to life after death originating in places other than these three catacombs likewise amounts to 97.7%. 16 M. Simon, “ÈÜñóåé ïšäårò PèÜíáôïò. Étude de vocabulaire religieux,” in id., Le Christianisme antique et son contexte religieux. Scripta Varia. Volume I (Tübingen, 1981), p. 77, and see especially E. Dinkler, “Shalom-Eirene-Pax: Jüdische Sepulkralinschriften und ihr Verhältnis zum frühen Christentum,” in RACrist 50 (1974), pp. 133-134. 17 Fischer, op. cit., pp. 223-224. 18 E.g., M. Simon, “Conceptions et symboles sotériologiques chez les Juifs de la Diaspora,” in U. Bianchi and M.J. Vermaseren, eds., La soteriologia dei culti orientali nell’impero romano (Leiden, 1982), pp. 794, who is the last in a long line of scholars to put forward such a suggestion. The inscription in question is CIJ 306 = JIWE 2, no. 91.

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ward onomastic explanation, seeing in it a free rendering of the name Esther.19 A similar change can also be observed in the interpretation of the phrase Åpò Èåüò.20 Yet, except for saying that in the majority of cases the epigraphic evidence did not support an eschatological interpretation because of the condensed way in which many of the inscriptions had been phrased, representatives of this new, minimalistic approach never specify why their readings should be preferred over the interpretations of those who saw in the epigraphic record an enormous reservoir that provided modern scholars with a unique opportunity to reconstruct the development of Jewish eschatological thought in late antiquity in all of its diversity. 21 The corollary of accepting this minimalistic reading is that the only Jewish inscriptions to inform us in any substantial manner about the afterlife are a few metric inscriptions such as the famous Regina-inscription from Rome, the “Homeric” inscriptions from Beth Shearim, and a rather unusual collection of nineteen such verse inscriptions in Greek from Leontopolis in Lower Egypt—exceptions, one might argue, that confirm the rule.22 Although a minimalist approach has certainly been salutary in some ways, it also needs to be stressed that in general it has also had a rather negative impact on the development of scholarship in this particular area. If it is indeed true that we cannot determine what meanings inhabit individual words or phrases, then it ultimately becomes impossible not only to reconstruct the history of Jewish eschatological thought using inscriptions, but also to reflect on the interaction between Jewish and Graeco-Roman views on death and afterlife—a topic that has long interested the scholarly community, 19 H. Solin, “Juden und Syrer im westlichen Teil der römischen Welt. Eine ethnisch-demographische Studie mit besonderer Berüksichtigung der sprachlichen Zustände,” in ANRW II.29.2 (1983), p. 717, n. 287. 20 For the earlier interpretation, see Lifshitz, op. cit., p. 402, who refers to Peterson. For a revised interpretation, see L. di Segni, “Åpò Èåüò in Palestinian inscriptions,” in SCI 13 (1994), pp. 94-115. 21 For an up-to-date review of the evidence, see P.W. van der Horst, Ancient Jewish Epitaphs. An Introductory Survey of a Millenium of Jewish Funerary Epigraphy (300 BCE - 700 CE) (Kampen, 1991), pp. 114-126. 22 On the Regina-inscription, see CIJ 476 = JIWE 2, no. 103. For the Beth Shearim materials, see Lifshitz, op. cit., pp. nos. 127 and 183. On the inscriptions from Leontopolis, see the discussion by P.W. van der Horst, “Jewish Poetical Tomb Inscriptions,” in id. and J.W. van Henten, eds., Studies in Early Jewish Epigraphy (Leiden, 1994), pp. 129-145.

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precisely because inscriptions appeared to furnish new and independent evidence to help unravel the intricacies of late antique Jewish thought on this matter.23 Put differently, if—as the minimalists maintain—we cannot know what ideas were on the minds of those who carved or commissioned these inscriptions, why should we bother to study these epigraphic remains in the first place? This brings us to a discussion of an observation referred to earlier, namely the idea that it is logical to expect to find in Jewish funerary inscriptions references to death and afterlife. 24 Even though such a statement appears to make sense, at least at first sight, it needs to be stressed that in reality it superimposes on the inscriptions a pattern of expectation that may seem logical to modern scholars but that does not necessarily do justice to these ancient epitaphs themselves. If we want to find an answer to the question of why Jewish funerary inscriptions contain so few truly explicit references to the afterlife, it is necessary to determine what the inscriptions actually tell us instead of investigating how these inscriptions meet or do not meet our (preconceived) expectations. Upon closer investigation, it is amazing to observe how few scholars have opted for such a line of inquiry and how many have displayed an almost complete lack of interest in the larger archaeological, that is, functional, context from which these inscriptions derive. A different Approach to the study of Jewish funerary epigraphy Study of Jewish late antique epitaphs reveals that in the majority of cases these inscriptions focus on this world and not on the world-tocome—an observation that holds true independently of whether these epitaphs derive from the land of Israel or the diaspora. Without exception, such inscriptions include the name of the deceased and sometimes also that of his or her family. The purpose of including the deceased’s name was not only to commemorate this person or to facilitate subsequent locating of the grave in the long and winding galleries of the catacombs or in a crowded cemetery sub divo; it was, 23 See, e.g., S. Lieberman, “Some Aspects of After Life in Early Rabbinic Literature,” in Wolfson Jubilee Volume. Volume I (Jerusalem), pp. 495-532, and Nagakubo, op. cit., passim. 24 See Nagakubo, op. cit.

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rather, also to establish the legal ownership of that grave.25 This explains, among other things, why grave robbers who were caught had to pay a fine not to the Jewish community alone but to the fisc as well.26 It also explains why in Beth Shearim one sometimes encounters inscriptions placed over the entrance to or on walls of larger subterranean burial complexes rather than in front of individual graves. It is the inclusion of such names that leads, in a fairly significant number of cases, to the inclusion of further information concerning the deceased. In the case of the Jewish epitaphs from Rome that were composed in Greek and Latin, the role played by the deceased in the Jewish community receives special mention. One-fifth of all Jewish funerary inscriptions from that city include references of this type— an extraordinary high number, especially when one places it into the larger context of late antique epigraphic practices.27 In addition, the Roman-Jewish inscriptions in Greek display a remarkable preference for neologisms that stress one’s love for the Jewish community or, alternatively, one’s attachment to Jewish traditions.28 Of all the epithets one encounters in these inscriptions, the word “holy” occupies a place of special importance. While it never occurs in Christian inscriptions from Rome, this word may be found in 24.5% of all Jewish inscriptions from that city. Significantly, it is also characteristic of Jewish funerary inscriptions from other places in the Mediterranean as late antique evidence from Sicily and Beth Shearim makes abundantly clear.29 The just-noted focus in Jewish epitaphs on commemorative patterns that stress the deceased’s role in this world rather than his or her fate in the next one gives us a partial answer to the question of why references to death and afterlife do not feature very prominently in these inscriptions. Contrary to what we would perhaps expect, late antique Jews apparently did not consider funerary inscriptions the On this issue, see in general F. de Visscher, Le droit des tombeaux romains (Milan, 1963) and R.P. Saller and B.D. Shaw, “Tombstones and Roman Family Relations in the Principate: Civilians, Soldiers, and Slaves,” in JRS 74 (1984), p. 126. 26 Cf. CIJ nos. 741, 775, 776, and 799. 27 For discussion, see Rutgers, The Jews of Ancient Rome, pp. 198-201. 28 Ibid., pp. 191-198. 29 For a discussion of the Roman evidence, see ibid., pp. 194 and 201; for Sicily, see id., “Interaction and Its Limits. Some Notes on the Jews of Sicily in Late Antiquity,” in ZPE 115 (1997), p. 249; for Beth Shearim, see Lifshitz, op. cit., p. 410. 25

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most appropriate vehicle directly to express their ideas on matters relating to the afterlife. Aside from the metric inscriptions—the only ones long enough to offer enough room for elaborations of a more philosophical kind—we may suppose that in some cases there must have been a purpose behind this. To put it differently, we may assume that it was no accident that, often, the little amount of available space was used to bring to the fore this-worldly as opposed to and instead of other-worldly concerns. One explanation for this phenomenon would be to suggest that, in this respect, Jewish inscriptions followed pagan epigraphic practices, for 80% of the pagan epitaphs too refer exclusively to the deceased’s earthly existence.30 But such an explanation is not very satisfactory, especially because it ascribes certain characteristics to the Jewish materials without having first investigated what those characteristics actually are. It therefore is more useful to concentrate on an analysis of a set of seemingly off-hand words standard in many Jewish epitaphs from late antiquity. The words I have in mind include “Shalom” (Peace), “Amen,” and “Sela”—words that have in common that they frequently conclude Jewish inscriptions carved in Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Many Jewish funerary inscriptions close with a phrase in which the deceased is wished peace.31 Even though these inscriptions never tell us very precisely how the people responsible for erecting them viewed this peace (peace in the grave, a peaceful journey to another world, or peaceful existence in that other world?),32 the surviving evidence suggests quite clearly that Jews throughout the ancient Mediterranean held such a wish in high esteem. A comparison of the formula one usually encounters in these inscriptions, namely, dí åkñÞíw ½ êïßìçóßò ášôï™ or ášôyò—that is “in peace his or her sleep”33 — 30 For a survey of the pagan materials, see D. Pikhaus, Levensbeschouwing en milieu in de Latijnse metrische inscripties (Brussel, 1978). 31 In some cases, the word Shalom also precedes the inscription. For examples of Shalom, see L. Y. Rahmani, A Catalogue of Jewish Ossuaries in the Collections of the State of Israel (Jerusalem, 1994), nos. 13, 23, 24, 226, 286, 582, 682, and 694. And cf. nos. 217, 286, and 430; Lifshitz, ibid., nos. 28, 29, 69, 91, 178, 203, and 219; N. Avigad, Beth She‘arim. Report on the Excavations During 1953-1958. Volume III. Catacombs 12-23 (Jerusalem, 1976), nos. 18, 24, 82; Y. Le Bohec, “Inscriptions juives et judaïsantes de l’Afrique romaine,” in AntAfr17 (1981), nos. 7, 18, 22, 23, and 24; JIWE 1 and 2. 32 For a discussion of the possible interpretations of this phrase, see Fischer, op. cit., pp. 217-219. Also important is the discussion in M. Ogle, “The Sleep of Death,” in MAAR 11 (1933), pp. 88-92. 33 For examples, see JIWE 1 and 2.

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with contemporary non-Jewish epigraphic materials suggests that there may have been something specifically Jewish about the expression or, rather, about the concept on which it focuses.34 Bilingual inscriptions from the Jewish necropolis at Jaffa make clear that åkñÞíç must be understood as a Greek translation of the Hebrew “Shalom”—this conforms also to what we would expect on the basis of the evidence contained in the Septuagint, in which åkñÞíç is normally used to render “Shalom.”35 Jewish inscriptions in Latin found in Roman North Africa that carry the phrase in pace et eirene furthermore show that whenever the word pax appears in a Jewish funerary inscription, it is “Shalom” that the commissioner has in mind.36 A series of Jewish funerary inscriptions from Venosa (Basilicata, Southern Italy) that contain the phrase “peace to his (or her) resting place” indeed suggests that the Jews responsible for erecting these epitaphs may have had biblical language on their minds (namely, Is. 57:2).37 In still other cases, the Shalom-formula is extended into “Peace on Israel.” 38 Not infrequently, the word Shalom occurs in Jewish funerary inscriptions in close conjunction with the second word of our list, Amen. Again, the word Amen is used to round off an inscription that can contain various types of information.39 The third word in our list, Sela, can be said to fulfill a very similar function inasmuch as it usually appears in exactly the same spot as Shalom and Amen, namely at the very end of an inscription.40 Perhaps we can even add a fourth word to our list, namely, åšëïãßá, which also appears at the end of funerary inscriptions and which, like Shalom, is included as a blessing.41 One possible explanation for the inclusion of these terms would be to see in words such as Shalom or Eulogia simple blessings that are either directed at or, alternatively, that tell us about the deceased. Yet 34 35 36 37

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For comparative materials, see Rutgers, op. cit., p. 191. CIJ 948 and cf., no. 930. Le Bohec, op. cit., nos. 20 and 51. These inscriptions may be found in JIWE 1, nos. 70, 75, 85, 87, 89, 107, and

For example JIWE 1, nos. 145, 183, 185, and 189. Cf. Ps. 125:8. For examples, see JIWE 1, nos. 33, 35, 61, 107, 121, 129a, 145, 172, 183, and 187; JIWE 2, no. 596, and P.W. van der Horst, “The Jews of Ancient Crete,” in JJS 39 (1988), p. 198. 40 A. Scheiber, Jewish Inscriptions in Hungary (Budapest and Leiden, 1983), nos. 22 and 31. 41 JIWE 1, no. 152 and JIWE 2, nos. 292, 301, 459, and 432. 38 39

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where it concerns the other two terms, Amen and Sela, it is unmistakable that they carry liturgical overtones. That this is so is particularly evident when we turn from funerary inscriptions to the inscriptions preserved in ancient synagogues. A study of such materials rapidly reveals that all the words we have reviewed appear regularly in epigraphic materials deriving from synagogue buildings. Thus, the word Shalom occurs in synagogue inscriptions, for example, in Ashdod where it concludes an inscription otherwise carved in Greek as well as in Tiberias where it is likewise written in Hebrew and preceded by the word Amen composed in Greek.42 Use of the word Shalom was not limited to the land of Israel, as a bilingual inscription in Hebrew and Latin from Taragona with the phrase “Peace upon Israel, and upon ourselves, and upon our sons, Amen, Peace, Faith” and an inscription from Cyprus that concludes with “Amen” make clear.43 Keeping in mind the Mishnaic adage that blessings and curses should be said in Hebrew, it becomes understandable why the word Shalom is appended to inscriptions in its Hebrew rendering even when the remainder of the inscription is in Greek or Latin. 44 This is particularly evident in the case of the Jewish necropolis at Jaffa, where only three of the inscriptions in Greek use the word åkñÞíç while the other thirteen Greek inscriptions that include a reference to peace prefer the word Shalom in its Hebrew rendering. The word Sela also occurs regularly in houses of Jewish worship, for example, in a famous inscribed mosaic floor from one of the synagogues of ancient Jericho, where it appears in Greek in close conjunction with the term Amen,45 or in a short Hebrew inscription from Ein Nashôt on the Golan, where it is found in conjunction with the other words, in the form “Amen, Amen, Sela, Shalom.”46 A list with similar such examples could be extended much further. 47 The same holds true for 42 See L. Roth-Gerson, The Greek Inscriptions from Synagogues in Eretz-Israel (Jerusalem, 1987), nos. 1 and 17 (in Hebrew). 43 JIWE 1, no. 185 and B, Lifshitz, Donateurs et fondateurs dans les synagogues juives (Paris, 1967), no. 84. 44 M. Sot. 7:2 and 7:5. 45 See Roth-Gerson, op. cit., no. 10. 46 R.C. Gregg and D. Urman, Jews, Pagans, and Christians in the Golan Heights. Greek and Other Inscriptions of the Roman and Byzantine Eras (Atlanta, 1996), p. 95. 47 See, e.g., the evidence collected by J. Naveh, On Stone and Mosaic. The Aramaic and Hebrew Inscriptions from Ancient Synagogues (Jerusalem, 1978), nos. 16, 26, 33, 34, 35, 42, 69, and 70 (in Hebrew). The practice can also be observed on Jewish tombstones from the Middle Ages, see Scheiber, op. cit., nos. 22 and 31.

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the term “Eulogia,” which appears in a variety of synagogue settings in later Roman Palestine as well as in the diaspora.48 That the terms we have reviewed carry a liturgical connotation is too well known to require a detailed discussion. Suffice it to say that this holds true for the word Amen, as is perhaps most evident from a Rabbinic dictum according to which, “there is nothing greater before God than the Amen with which Israel answers.”49 The same can also be said to hold true for the word Sela—a term that derives from the book of Psalms and that was widely used in the liturgy, for example, in prayers such as the Eighteen Benedictions. The liturgical connotations of these words have led scholars to posit a relationship between the synagogue inscriptions and the liturgy practiced in the buildings the inscriptions embellished.50 In some cases, inscriptions such as the one discovered in Jericho provide us with the earliest version of liturgical formulae that resurface later in fully integrated fashion in Jewish prayer books.51 In light of such a state of affairs, it makes sense to hypothesize that the appearance, in Jewish epitaphs, of words derived from the liturgy should be interpreted in a similar vein, namely, as hinting at the existence of commemorative practices whose purpose it was to honor the dead in a liturgically well-circumscribed fashion. Even though we do not know very well whether a set liturgy for the dead had emerged in Jewish circles in the late antique period, and even though the so-called Hazkarat Neshamot memorial prayers seem to have originated in a much later period, the proposed interpretation is in line with our earlier observations concerning late antique Jewish funerary inscriptions: these inscriptions inform, in the very first place, about the world of the living. It may be argued that just as many of the epitaphs focus on praising certain qualities of the deceased and in highlighting the role he or she played in the Jewish community, the inclusion, in these inscriptions, of short formulaic phrases can be interpreted as summary references to the liturgical Lifshitz, op. cit., nos. 2, 30, and 38; Roth-Gerson, op. cit., nos. 12 and 16; SEG 29 (1978), no. 103; and SEG 39 (1989), no. 663. And, cf., SEG 32 (1982), no. 1485. 49 Deut. Rabbah 7:1. See, in general, J. Heinemann, Prayer in the Talmud. Forms and Patterns (Berlin, 1977), pp. 14-16 and 145, and B. Nitzan, Qumran Prayer and Religious Poetry (Leiden, 1994), pp. 119-143. 50 See G. Foerster, “Synagogue Inscriptions and Their Relation to Liturgical Versions,” in Cathedra 17 (1981), pp. 12-40 (Hebrew). 51 See, e.g., N. Wieder, “The Jericho Inscription and Jewish Liturgy,” in Tarbiz 52 (1982-83), pp. 557-579. 48

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practices celebrated by the living on the occasion of the passing away of one or more of their loved ones. That the prayers of the living could be effective in helping atone for the dead’s sins is born out, incidentally, by a story recorded in 2 Maccabees 12. Relating how amulets were found on the dead bodies of some of Judas Maccabeus’s fallen soldiers, this passage places special emphasis on prayer in relation to the resurrection of the dead, explaining that “if he were not expecting the fallen to rise again, it would have been useless and foolish to pray for them in death.” One further argument should finally be explored within this discussion of the liturgical meaning of phrases appearing in late antique Jewish funerary inscriptions. In exceptional cases, Jewish funerary inscriptions cite passages from the Hebrew Bible. Such citations are interesting not only in their own right but also because the selected passages never occur in contemporary Christian inscriptions that also carry such biblical citations. Two passages occur in the Jewish inscriptions again and again, Prov. 10:7 (“The memory of the righteous for a blessing”) and, to a lesser degree, 1 Sam. 25:29 (“the Lord your God will bundle your life in the bundle of the living.”)52 The latter citation becomes especially popular in Jewish gravestones from medieval times onwards when it appears in an abbreviated fashion.53 The citation from Proverbs, on the other hand, was especially popular already in antiquity. Its presence is particularly revealing in the present context not only because it seems to address primarily the world of the living but also because it appears with some frequency on inscriptions found in synagogues, where it appears, in one case, embedded in phrases that later turn up in certain versions of the Qaddish as well.54 52 For a brief discussion, see S. Fine and L.V. Rutgers, “New Light on Judaism in Asia Minor During Late Antiquity: Two Recently Identified Inscribed Menorahs,” in JSQ 3 (1996), pp. 8-10, to which should be added Lifshitz, op. cit., no. 130, Avigad, op. cit., no. 25 (p. 249), and 26 (p. 251). And, cf., CIJ 892. 53 For an example from the medieval Jewish cemetery of Buda, see Scheiber, op. cit., no. 24. For more recent examples, see, among the various publications that could be cited, the evidence collected by J. Reiss, Hier in der heiligen jüdischen Gemeinde Eisenstadt. Die Grabinschriften des jüngeren jüdischen Friedhofes in Eisenstadt (Eisenstadt, 1995). 54 For example in Jericho, see Naveh, op. cit., no. 69, and Foerster, op. cit., pp. 23-25; for Tiberias, see M. Dothan, Hammath Tiberias. Early Synagogues and the Hellenistic and Roman Remains (Jerusalem, 1983), p. 61, with further parallels; and for Qasrin, see D. Urman in id. and P.V.M. Flesher, eds., Ancient Synagogues. Historical Analysis & Archaeological Discovery (Leiden, 1995), vol. 2, p. 474.

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Such evidence suggests, once again, that Jewish epitaphs were not primarily concerned with systematically expressing ideas about afterlife in a philosophical garb or in a way similar to that found in our literary sources, but, rather, with referring to customs practiced on the occasion of the burying and commemoration of the dead—customs whose great appeal it was that they could force an emotional and spiritual link between the world of the living and the world of those who had already passed away. One can therefore fairly say that many Jewish epitaphs are indeed concerned with death and afterlife, but that they express this concern in a manner and with words that differ from the words scholars have traditionally looked for. This explains why both the maximalists’ and minimalists’ approaches were doomed to fail from the very start: representatives of both schools turned a comparison between two categorically different types of evidence into the conceptual basis of their work, the former erecting a building, the latter all too eager to take it down, thus creating an impasse from which escape seemed totally impossible. Conclusions Our discussion of a set of words that appear in many Jewish epitaphs and of the biblical citations contained in several of these epitaphs brings us full turn with regard to some of the issues raised at the beginning of this essay. While analyzing the pertinent evidence, I have repeatedly stressed that despite the funerary context in which the Jewish epitaphs were set, they seem to address themselves primarily to the world of the living. When placed within the larger context of ancient Jewish epigraphic practices, we have seen that it is conceivable that the Jewish epitaphs provide us with a glimpse into the practices surrounding burial and the commemoration of the dead. Even though it is impossible here to explore the implications of this observation in depth, it should nonetheless be pointed out that once we view the evidence within the context of Jewish literary traditions, we also begin to see that several of the tersely-formulated expressions in the inscriptions may very well have carried an eschatological meaning that went beyond concerns of an exclusively this worldly nature. Consider, for example, the Rabbinic tradition that holds that “he who responds ‘Amen’ has the gates of Paradise opened for

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him.”55 And how about the fact that two of the three biblical citations mentioned in the course of our discussion, Is. 57:2 and 1 Sam. 25:29, play a key role as prooftexts in Rabbinic discussions concerning the hereafter?56 Such evidence implies that words or phrases that may at first sight strike us as nothing but acclamations of a fairly neutral kind may in reality have carried a deeply eschatological meaning or conjured up for their users a well-defined set of ideas on the afterlife. In conclusion, one may observe that as scholars continue their explorations in this area, the apparent absence of references to life after death in Jewish epitaphs dating to the late antique period may very well turn out to be more apparent than real. For that reason, I believe that, in the end, the “what-we-cannot-prove-we-cannot-know approach” is much less common-sensical that it appears at first blush. Even though we no longer have to follow slavishly an earlier generation of scholars who believed they could detect a reference to the eschaton in even the tiniest curl in funerary inscriptions, it is no less counter-productive to focus on evidence we no longer have at our disposal or to carry on complaining about this absence. I also believe that there is some truth to the old saying that “the inscriptions speak for themselves”—that is, as long as one gives the inscriptions a real opportunity to talk and as long as one keeps in mind that even this procedure, which I have tried to pursue in this contribution, represents, inevitably, an act of interpretation. Such a procedure makes clear, above all, that the seventeenth century idea that inscriptions are a better source of information than the written sources is a misconception. Inscriptions are just a different—and as such an extremely useful—source of information. But it would be absurd to claim that by definition epigraphic materials are superior to the evidence provided by the literary remains (or vice versa!). In many cases, inscriptions simply inform about and are concerned with different things from literary sources. As I have tried to point out, Jewish epitaphs can serve as a prime example to illustrate the truism of this observation. They permit the careful interpreter to enter into a universe that at one and the same time can appear radically different from as well as vaguely similar to the world emerging from our written sources. This explains why ideas about death 55 56

B. Shab. 119b. B.Shab. 152b.

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and the afterlife, while undeniably present in many late antique Jewish epitaphs, often present themselves in a fashion that may strike us as radically different from the way in which these ideas surface in literary works that elaborate on these and related issues. However strange an impression they may make on us, it is nonetheless imperative not to forget that the words and notions we find reflected in the epigraphic record afford us a unique glimpse of a now-lost world with which many Jews in the later Roman world—including all those who could not read or who did not have access to literary sources—were thoroughly familiar, and in which eschatological concerns were expressed in a manner these Jews found both appropriate and satisfying. Bibliography Avigad, N., Beth Shearim. Report on the Excavations During 1953-1958. Vol. III. Catacombs 12-23 (Jerusalem, 1976). Bormann, E., “Zu den neu entdeckten Grabschriften jüdischer Katakomben von Rom,” in WS 34 (1912). de Visscher, F., Le droit des tombeaux romains (Milan, 1963). di Segni, L., “Åpò Èåüò in Palestinian inscriptions,” in SCI 13 (1994), pp. 94115. Dinkler, E., “Shalom-Eirene-Pax: Jüdische Sepulkralinschriften und ihr Verhältnis zum frühen Christentum,” in RACrist 50 (1974), pp. 133134. Dothan, M., Hammath Tiberias. Early Synagogues and the Hellenistic and Roman Remains (Jerusalem, 1983). Fine, S., and L.V. Rutgers, “New Light on Judaism in Asia Minor During Late Antiquity: Two Recently Identified Inscribed Menorahs,” in JSQ 3 (1996). Fischer, U., Eschatologie und Jenseitserwartungen im hellenistischen Judentum (Berlin and New York, 1978). Foerster, G., “Synagogue Inscriptions and Their Relation to Liturgical Versions,” in Cathedra 17 (1981), pp. 12-40 (in Hebrew). Frey, J.-B., “La vie de l’au-delà dans les conceptions juives au temps de Jésus-Christ,” in Biblica 13 (1932), pp. 129-168. Frey, J.-B., “Nouvelles inscriptions inédites de la catacombe juive de la Via Appia,” in RACrist 10 (1933), pp. 27-50. Garrucci, R., Cimitero degli antichi ebrei scoperto recentemente in Vigna Randanini (Rome, 1862). Garrucci, R., Dissertazioni archeologiche di vario argomento (Rome, 1864-1865). Gregg, R.C., and D. Urman, Jews, Pagans, and Christians in the Golan Heights. Greek and Other Inscriptions of the Roman and Byzantine Eras (Atlanta, 1996).

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Heinemann, J., Prayer in the Talmud. Forms and Patterns (Berlin, 1977). Le Bohec, Y., “Inscriptions juives et judaïsantes de l’Afrique romaine,” in AntAfr17 (1981). Lieberman, S., “Some Aspects of After Life in Early Rabbinic Literature,” in Wolfson Jubilee Volume (Jerusalem), vol. 1, pp. 495-532. Lifshitz, B., “La vie de l’au-delà dans les conceptions juives. Inscriptions grecques de Beth Shearim,” in RB 68 (1961), pp. 401-411. Lifshitz, B., Donateurs et fondateurs dans les synagogues juives (Paris, 1967). Mazar, B., Beth Shearim. Report on the Excavations During 1936-1940. Vol. I. Catacombs 1-4 (Jerusalem, 1973). Momigliano, A., Sui fondamenti della storia antica (Turin, 1984). Nagakubo, S., Investigation into Jewish Concepts of Afterlife in the Beth Shearim Greek Inscriptions (Durham, 1974). Naveh, J., On Stone and Mosaic. The Aramaic and Hebrew Inscriptions from Ancient Synagogues (Jerusalem, 1978) (in Hebrew). Nitzan, B., Qumran Prayer and Religious Poetry (Leiden, 1994). Ogle, M., “The Sleep of Death,” in MAAR 11 (1933), pp. 88-92. Pikhaus, D., Levensbeschouwing en milieu in de Latijnse metrische inscripties (Brussel, 1978). Rahmani, L.Y., A Catalogue of Jewish Ossuaries in the Collections of the State of Israel (Jerusalem, 1994). Reiss, J., Hier in der heiligen jüdischen Gemeinde Eisenstadt. Die Grabinschriften des jüngeren jüdischen Friedhofes in Eisenstadt (Eisenstadt, 1995). Roth-Gerson, L., The Greek Inscriptions from Synagogues in Eretz-Israel (Jerusalem, 1987), nos. 1 and 17 (in Hebrew). Rutgers, L.V., “Interaction and Its Limits. Some Notes on the Jews of Sicily in Late Antiquity,” in ZPE 115 (1997), p. 249. Rutgers, L.V., The Jews in Late Ancient Rome. Evidence of Cultural Interaction in the Roman Diaspora (Leiden, 1995). Saller, R. P., and B.D. Shaw, “Tombstones and Roman Family Relations in the Principate: Civilians, Soldiers, and Slaves,” in JRS 74 (1984), p. 126. Scheiber, A., Jewish Inscriptions in Hungary (Budapest and Leiden, 1983). Schwabe, M., and B. Lifshitz, Beth Shearim. Vol. II. The Greek Inscriptions (New Brunswick, 1974). Simon, M., Le Christianisme antique et son contexte religieux. Scripta Varia (Tübingen, 1981). Simon, M., “Conceptions et symboles sotériologiques chez les Juifs de la Diaspora,” in Bianchi, U., and M.J. Vermaseren, eds., La soteriologia dei culti orientali nell’impero romano (Leiden, 1982). Solin, H., “Juden und Syrer im westlichen Teil der römischen Welt. Eine ethnisch-demographische Studie mit besonderer Berüksichtigung der sprachlichen Zustände,” in ANRW II.29.2 (1983). Urman, D., and P.V.M. Flesher, eds., Ancient Synagogues. Historical Analysis & Archaeological Discovery (Leiden, 1995). van der Horst, P.W., Ancient Jewish Epitaphs. An Introductory Survey of a Millenium of Jewish Funerary Epigraphy (300 BCE - 700 CE) (Kampen, 1991).

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van der Horst, P.W., “Jewish Poetical Tomb Inscriptions,” in van der Horst, P.W., and J.W. van Henten, eds., Studies in Early Jewish Epigraphy (Leiden, 1994), pp. 129-145. van der Horst, P.W., “The Jews of Ancient Crete,” in JJS 39 (1988), p. 198. Wieder, N., “The Jericho Inscription and Jewish Liturgy,” in Tarbiz 52 (1982-83), pp. 557-579.

13. THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD AND THE SOURCES OF THE PALESTINIAN TARGUMS TO THE PENTATEUCH Paul V.M. Flesher1 University of Wyoming The Palestinian Targums to the Pentateuch are widely known for the material they insert into their translations of the Hebrew text. The creators of those targums used additions to weave their theology and beliefs into the biblical text, even when the theology and beliefs did not appear there. Nowhere is this more evident than with regard to the belief in the resurrection of the dead. Although the Hebrew Pentateuch lacks any defined notion of the resurrection of the dead or of an afterlife, the targums insert it.2 This can be clearly seen in the targumic treatment of Gen. 3:19, where God punishes Adam for eating the forbidden fruit (TN3 Gen. 3:194 ). 1 I want to thank B.P. Mortensen who first drew to my attention PJ’s consistent alteration of the Proto-PT expansions on resurrection. This paper derives from a methodological study of the afterlife in the sources of the Palestinian Targums to the Pentateuch, “The Theology of the Afterlife in the Palestinian Targums to the Pentateuch: A Framework for Analysis,” which will appear in J. Neusner, ed., Approaches to Ancient Judaism, New Series, vol. 16 (Atlanta, 1999). I also wish to thank Professor Neusner for publishing these two essays and for his continuing support of my research. I further want to thank Professor Michael L. Klein for reading the previous paper and making suggestions for improvements, some of which have found their way into this essay. Needless to say, any errors are mine alone. 2 In recent decades, three scholars have studied targumic understandings of resurrection. They are: H. Sysling, Tehiyyat Ha-Metim: The Resurrection of the Dead in the Palestinian Targums to the Pentateuch and Parallel Traditions in Classical Rabbinic Literature (Tübingen, 1996) (cited hereinafter as Sysling); A.R. Carmona, Targum y Resurreccion. Estudio de los textos del targum Palestinense sobre la resurreccion (Granada, 1978) (cited hereinafter as Carmona, Resurreccion); and Etan Levine, The Aramaic Version of the Bible: Contexts and Context (Berlin, 1988) (cited hereinafter as Levine). I cite their analyses of passages in the relevant footnotes, but I will not engage their conclusions in this essay. Their studies are so conceptually different from this one—since they have no knowledge of my work on sources—that there are few points of contact. I discuss these three studies more fully in my essay referenced in n. 1. 3 Abbreviations used here are: Hebrew text (HT), Targum Neofiti (TN), Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (PJ), Fragmentary Targum (FT), fragments of targums from the Cairo Geniza (CG), Palestinian Targum (PT), PJ-unique source (PJu), Proto-Palestinian Targum source (Proto-PT). The Vatican MS. of the FT is designated FT(V), and

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paul v.m. flesher A. You will eat bread from the sweat from before your face until you return to the earth, because from it you were created; because you are dust and to dust you are to return. B. But from the dust you are to arise again to give an account and a reckoning of all that you have done.

The biblical punishment appears at A, where Adam is sentenced to death, to return to the dust. But B’s additional material makes clear that the matter does not end there. Since God requires a further reckoning of all his deeds, at some unspecified point in the future, Adam will rise from the dead and be judged. The Palestinian Targums answer the question of when Adam will rise from the dead. Targum Neofiti and the Fragmentary Targums make it clear that the resurrection of the dead takes place in the world-to-come. It comes just before the Day of the Great Judgment, when everyone’s deeds are examined and they are rewarded with eternal life in the Garden of Eden or punished with eternity in Gehenna. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, by contrast, sees God as planning the resurrection of the dead at the apocalyptic end of time. The resurrection will take place in this world, following the messiah’s victory over Gog in the final battle. Despite its emphasis on the end of time, PJ also thinks that resurrections have already happened— twice in fact. Once at Mt. Sinai and once in the presence of Ezekiel in the Valley of Dura. the Paris MS. of the FT is designated as FT(P). The standard editions are: E.G. Clarke, et al., eds., Targum Pseudo-Jonathan of the Pentateuch: Text and Concordance (Hoboken, 1984); A. Diez Macho, ed., Neophyti I: Targum Palestinense Ms de la Biblioteca Vaticana, vol. 1 (Barcelona, 1968); Michael L. Klein, ed., The Fragment-Targums of the Pentateuch according to Their Extant Sources, 2 vols. (Rome, 1980); Michael L. Klein, ed., Genizah Manuscripts of Palestinian Targum to the Pentateuch, vol. 1 (Cincinnati, 1986). All targum translations are cited from M. McNamara, M. Maher, and K. Cathcart, eds., The Aramaic Bible (Wilmington, 1987-1991; Collegeville, 1992- ) (hereinafter: ArB). The translations of the Palestinian Targums to the Pentateuch were done by McNamara, Maher, and Ernest G. Clarke. Citations will be to ArB by volume number. I have consistently made two changes in the translation but have otherwise reproduced them carefully. First, I have changed “Law” (’orait’a) to “Torah,” so as to avoid the negative, Pauline caste the former term gives to the targum. Second, since most of the passages cited here are predominately additional material, I have used italics to indicate where the targum renders the HT and roman characters to mark additional material. Note: I have consistently consulted ArB, although it is cited only where its comments are specifically relevant to my discussion. 4 Translation: M. McNamara, ArB, vol. 1a, p. 62. The expansion also appears in PJ and in FT(P) but is missing in FT(V). Levine, p. 221, interprets this passage as evidence for the resurrection of the body. I think he is correct in this interpretation. See also Sysling, pp. 67-90, and Carmona, Resurreccion, pp. 1-20.

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The reason for the different understandings of the resurrection stems from the sources that underlie the Palestinian Targums to the Pentateuch.5 These Targums combine a highly literal translation of the Hebrew text with additional material, placed into the translation, ranging in size from single inserted words to midrashic expansions several paragraphs long. Generally speaking, the additions come from two types of sources. First, all the Palestinian Targums to the Pentateuch contain a shared Proto-PT source, to which some five hundred and forty inserted expansions belong. Second, each targum has expansions unique to itself. These range in number from less than twenty for each of the FTs, to one hundred and sixty-four for TN, to 1587 for PJ.6 While the expansions distinctive to the FTs and TN merely “season” the Proto-PT material in them, the expansions distinctive to PJ, called the PJ-unique source, dominate its non-literal material and reshape the targum itself. This understanding of the sources of the PTs provides the basis for interpreting the different approaches to the resurrection of the dead found in TN and the FTs, on the one hand, and in PJ, on the other. The Proto-PT source governs the understanding of the resurrection found in TN and the FTs. The additional material distinctive to each targum plays no role in the depiction of the resurrection. By contrast, the PJ-unique source determines PJ’s approach. Proto-PT presents a consistent picture of the resurrection’s taking place as the prelude to the final judgment in the world-to-come. To make its case that resur5 The knowledge of the sources of the PTs comes from a project I directed in the early 1990s with three doctoral students (Beverly Patton Mortensen, Ronald M. Campbell, and Leslie Simon). Our goal was to map the interrelationships of the Palestinian Targums according to the expansions rather than the translations, defining expansion as a non-translational insertion into a verse of seven words or more. We studied the entire text of the Pentateuch of TN, PJ, FT(P), and FT(V). While the results of this study are progressing towards publication, preliminary information has appeared in P.V.M. Flesher, “Exploring the Sources of the Synoptic Targums to the Pentateuch,” in P.V.M. Flesher, ed., Targum Studies, vol. 1 (Atlanta, 1992), pp. 101134; P.V.M. Flesher, “Mapping the Synoptic Palestinian Targums of the Pentateuch,” in D.R.G. Beattie and M.J. McNamara, eds., The Aramaic Bible: Targums in Their Historical Context (Sheffield, 1994), pp. 247-253; and in P.V.M. Flesher, “Is Targum Onkelos a Palestinian Targum? The Evidence of Gen. 28-50,” in Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 19 (1999), pp. 35-79. Further information appears in R.M. Campbell, “A Fragment-Targum without a Purpose? The Raison D’etre of MS Vatican Ebr. 440,” Ph.D. thesis, Northwestern University, 1994; and in B.P. Mortensen, “Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: A Document for Priests,” Ph.D. thesis, Northwestern University, 1994 (cited hereinafter as Mortensen, “Priests”). 6 Mortensen, “Priests,” p. 7.

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rection happens in this world at the end of time, PJ’s targumist takes two steps. First, he brings in PJu expansions that give his interpretation of the resurrection and, second, he changes or deletes Proto-PT expansions that might contradict it. The topic of resurrection thus provides an opportunity to explore the comparative theology of the PTs. This comparison is based not on the targum texts, as one might expect, but on the targumic sources and their treatment in the texts. To accomplish this study, this paper will first examine the resurrection of the dead as understood by the Proto-PT source. It will then look at the PJu source’s interpretation—starting with the future resurrection and then moving to the past resurrections. Since our goal is to explore targumic theology, there will be only occasional reference to parallel material in Rabbinic literature. The resurrection of the dead in the Proto-PT Source In the Proto-PT source, six passages deal with, or at least mention, the resurrection of the dead: Gen. 3:19, Gen. 19:26, Gen. 25:34, Gen. 30:22, Exod. 15:12 and Deut. 32:39. Since the wording of the Proto-PT source is closely followed by TN and the FTs, there is little difference between the targums. For convenience sake, we therefore will use TN to represent Proto-PT and will make reference to differences among the targums only when necessary. Proto-PT’s answer to the question of when the resurrection of the dead occurs appears in a short expansion in Deut. 32:39. The resurrection occurs in the world-to-come (TN Deut. 32:397 ): A. See now that I, I in my Memra, am he, and there is no other god beside me. B. I am he who causes the living to die in this world, and who brings the dead to life in the world-to-come. C. I am he who smites and I am he who heals, and there is no one who can rescue from my hands.

As is clear from the italics, most of TN’s passage simply translates the HT. But at B, the HT’s oppositional sentence, “I kill and I make 7 ArB, vol. 5A, p. 159. This passage also appears in FT(P) and FT(V). It does not appear in PJ. See Martin McNamara, The New Testament and the Palestinian Targum to the Pentateuch (Rome, 1966), pp. 110-112 (cited hereinafter as McNamara, New Testament); Carmona, Resurreccion, pp. 51-60; and Sysling, pp. 242-246.

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alive,” is recast with additional material to draw a distinction between this world and the world-to-come: God kills the living in this world and brings the dead to life in the world-to-come. Resurrection serves as the mechanism for bringing the dead into the next world. That is, it is not death in-and-of-itself that causes one to enter the world-to-come, but resurrection following that death. But what happens to the dead in the world-to-come once they rise? The quick answer is that they are judged. This becomes clear from God’s comment to Cain in Gen. 4:7 (TN Gen. 4:78 ).9 A. Surely, if you improve your work in this world, you will be remitted and pardoned in the world-to-come;10 B. but if you do not improve your work in this world, your sin will be kept for the day of great judgment.

For Cain, all his sins will be remembered and will count against him on the “day of great judgment” (B)—and this is before he kills Abel!11 The idea that resurrection is for judgment—in this case on the “day of great judgment”—echoes Gen. 3:19, which linked the two ideas as well. The resurrection of the dead for the purpose of judgment is not simply an afterthought; God planned it well before he created the earth and humankind. Two thousand years before creation, God decided that the Garden of Eden would be the reward for the righteous, that Gehenna would be the punishment for the wicked, and that judgment would be on the basis of adherence to the Torah. This becomes clear from the Proto-PT expansion at Gen. 3:24 (TN Gen. 3:24): A. And he [God] banished Adam; and he had made the Glory of his Shekhinah dwell from the beginning to the east of the Garden of Eden, between the two cherubim. B. Two thousand years before he created the world he had created 8 ArB, vol. 1a, p. 65. There is also a fear that people will be kept for Judgment Day as well. That is that theme of Exod. 15:12. For a discussion of the link between Gen. 4:7-8 and the Sadducees, see S. Isenberg, “An Anti-Sadducee Polemic in the Palestinian Targum Tradition,” in Harvard Theological Review 63 (1970), pp. 433-444. 9 See TN Deut. 32:34 for a comment about how the cup of retribution is kept until Judgment Day. 10 “…improve your work…” is a more exact translation of the Aramaic. See Klein’s translation of FT(P) to this verse in Klein, Fragment Targums, vol. 2, p. 8. 11 For a discussion of Cain and Abel in the PTs, see McNamara, New Testament, pp. 156-160.

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paul v.m. flesher the Torah; he had prepared the garden of Eden for the just and Gehenna for the wicked.12 C. He had prepared the garden of Eden for the just that they might eat and delight themselves from the fruits of the tree [of life], because they had kept precepts of the Torah in this world and fulfilled the commandments. D. For the wicked he prepared Gehenna, which is comparable to a sharp sword devouring with both edges. He prepared within it darts of fire and burning coals for the wicked, to be avenged of them in the world-to-come because they did not observe the precepts of the Torah in this world. E. For the Torah is a tree of life for everyone who toils in it and keeps the commandments: he lives and endures like the tree of life in the world-to-come. The Torah is good for all who labor in it in this world like the fruit of the tree of life.

God intends the Garden of Eden for the resurrected just, that is, for those who have been righteous, C. They are placed there because they kept the Torah. The Torah provides the criteria by which people are considered righteous and enter the Garden of Eden. Only by following the precepts and the commandments of Torah can people enter this place. People of course wish to come to the Garden of Eden because it contains the Tree of Life, the fruit of which the righteous eat. The expansion’s next section, D, describes Gehenna, the opposite of the Garden of Eden, reserved for the resurrected wicked, who go there because they did not do Torah. Torah again forms the criterion for entering one place or the other. Once in Gehenna, the wicked are tormented by the “sharp sword” and “fire and burning coals.” At E, the targumist explicates the character of Torah itself. In the world-to-come, the Torah has been transformed into the Tree of Life. Not only is performing the Torah’s precepts and commandments paralleled with eating the tree’s fruit as at C, but the fruit (and the Torah’s precepts) gives the just person eternal life in the world-tocome, so “he lives and endures like the tree of life in the world-tocome” (E). Those who followed the Torah in this world will receive the reward of the Garden of Eden and the Tree of Life in the worldto-come.13 12 PJ shortens this sentence to “Before he had yet created the world, he created the Torah.” 13 Based on a interpretation of Prov. 3:18, “She (i.e., Torah) is a is a tree of life…,” Rabbinic exegesis links the Torah to the Tree of Life. See B. Ber. 32b and B. Arak. 15b.

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The Proto-PT rendering of Exod. 15:12 brings together many of these aspects of the resurrection, even though it does not explicitly mention the resurrection of the dead. The Proto-PT expansion is placed at the end of the “Song of the Sea,” which the Israelites sang after God drowned the Egyptians in the Sea of Reeds.14 The expansion depicts a dispute between the sea and the land about who will take the bodies of the dead Egyptians. The land does not wish to take them on this occasion—presumably because of the Egyptians’ wickedness in pursuing the Israelites (TN Exod. 15:1215 ): A. B. C. D.

The sea and the land disputed, both of them together, and said: The sea said to the land: “Receive your sons.” And the land said to the sea: “Receive your slain.” The sea did not want to receive them and the land did not want to swallow them up. E. The land feared the judgment of the great day, lest it require them of her in the world-to-come. F. Immediately you inclined your right hand in an oath over the earth, O Lord, that you would not require them of it in the worldto-come. G. And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up.

The land fears Judgment Day, E, because it will be required to give back the dead Egyptians,16 an apparent reference to the bodily resurrection of the dead at the day of great judgment. It is not clear why the land would be afraid of this, since the land contains all the other dead. But that is not addressed here. God resolves the land’s fear by making an explicit exception that he will not require the dead Egyptians from it at Judgment Day. The Proto-PT expansion at Gen. 25:34 brings together the worldto-come and the resurrection of the dead. TN reads, “Esau despised his birthright, and concerning the vivification of the dead and denied the life of the world-to-come” (TN Gen. 25:34).17 This See Sysling’s discussion of this verse, pp. 164-186. ArB, vol. 2, p. 66. This also appears in FT(P), FT(V) and PJ. See the discussion in Carmona, Resurreccion, pp. 114-126 16 E. Levine (“Neofiti 1: A Study of Exodus 14,” in Biblica 54 [1978], pp. 301-330, especially 314) argues that “Land” in this passage signifies Sheol. This interpretation fits neither with Proto-PT’s or PJ-unique’s understanding of the afterlife and Gehenna. See my essay on targumic understandings of the afterlife referenced in n. 1. 17 ArB, vol. 1a, p. 130. There is a similar passage in both FT(P) and FT(V), but they are not exact. PJ drops the phrase concerning the resurrection of the dead. See also Sysling’s discussion of this verse, pp. 104-135. 14 15

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formulation has Esau making a general denial of the concepts of the resurrection of the dead and life in the world-to-come. FT(P) has a different wording, “Esau spurned the birthright, and he desecrated his portion in the world-to-come, and he denied the resurrection of the dead” (FT[P] Gen. 25:34).18 FT(P) changes Esau’s statement to denying his own “portion” in the world-to-come as well as the general denial of the resurrection. There is no difference with regard to the resurrection of the dead between the two statements; in both, Esau denies that a resurrection takes place. And this denial makes it clear how important the belief in the resurrection of the dead is to Proto-PT’s theology, for it is this denial that makes Esau wicked. Another reference to the resurrection of the dead occurs in Gen. 30:22 in what is generally known as the “midrash of the four keys.” One of the keys “opens” graves and brings up the dead therein. The passage appears in a standard list form, with an introduction followed by the four items of the list (TN Gen. 30:2219 ): A. Four keys there are which are given into the hand of the Lord, the master of all worlds, and he does not hand them over either to angel or to Seraph: B. the key of rain and the key of provision and the key of the sepulchres and the key of barrenness. …. C. The key of the sepulchres, for thus does the Scripture explain and say: “Behold, I will open your graves and will lead you from your graves, my people” (Ezek. 37:12).20

C makes it quite apparent that the “key of the sepulchres” is the key of resurrection, for it opens the graves so that God can bring out his people. And, since the prooftext has God state, “my people,” it is Israel who will be resurrected, not just anyone. In addition, this passage reinforces the notion that the resurrection will be of the body, for God will bring the dead from their graves, that is, from the place of the deads’ dust. 18 Translation by M.L. Klein, Fragment Targums, vol. 2, p. 18. The change may be influenced by M. San. 10:1, which says that a person who denies the resurrection of the dead has no portion in the world-to-come. 19 ArB, vol. 1a, pp. 148-149. This is the introduction, with just the relevant list item. The complete midrash appears only in TN and the Fragmentary Targums. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan does not have an expansion here at this verse. Instead, it has an expansion that essentially consists of A-B at Deut. 28:12. See Sysling, pp. 136-163, and Carmona, Resurreccion, pp. 95-113. 20 TN interprets Ezek. 37:12 literally. Of course, in the context of Ezek. 37, the verse constitutes an analogy for the Israelites’ return from the Babylonian Exile.

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The Proto-PT version of Gen. 19:26 reinforces the understanding that the resurrection is a future event. This passage describes Lot’s wife’s changing to a pillar of salt and says she will remain as such until the dead are raised. The verse reads, “Behold, she stands as a pillar of salt until the time the dead are brought to life” (TN Gen. 19:26).21 Thus people are not resurrected shortly after their death, but at a future time. This implies that the judgment for which the dead will be raised will happen on the day of great judgment as discussed above. So what does Gen. 3:19 mean in the context of Proto-PT’s understanding of the resurrection of the dead? In God’s punishment of Adam, according to the Proto-PT source, God says, “But from the dust you are to arise again to give an account and a reckoning of all that you have done.” God’s statement means that Adam will be resurrected in the world-to-come and undergo judgment on the day of great judgment. He will “give an account and a reckoning” of his deeds. On that basis, God will decide whether Adam will spend his eternal life in the Garden of Eden or Gehenna. The PJ-unique source: The future resurrection of the dead The first difference between Proto-PT’s view of resurrection of the dead and that of the PJ-unique source is that PJu understands resurrection as happening in this world, while Proto-PT puts it in the world-to-come. The second difference addresses the question of when resurrection will occur. The main resurrection of the dead will happen at the apocalyptic end of time, but there have already been two resurrections of the dead in the past—one at Mt. Sinai and the other in the Valley of Dura. In this section, we will look at how PJunique and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan present the future resurrection. In the next section, we will look at the past resurrections. PJ’s shift away from the Proto-PT understanding of resurrection is purposeful, not accidental. PJ’s targumist, that is, knows that his understanding of the resurrection of the dead differs from that of Proto-PT, and he takes steps to eliminate the other view. He accomplishes this both by using PJu to replace Proto-PT passages on the 21 This passage appears in FT(P) and FT(V) as well, but not in PJ. See Sysling’s discussion of this verse, pp. 91-103, and also Carmona, Resurreccion, pp. 21-29.

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resurrection and by simply eliminating Proto-PT resurrection passages. PJ’s rendering of Num. 11:26 provides the main depiction of the resurrection of the dead as an event of the apocalypse. The context is a large expansion that gives the prophecies of Eldad and Medad in the Israelite camp when the “prophetic spirit” rested upon them. According to PJu, they began with prophecies about current events— Joshua and the quail—but then shifted to discuss “the end of days.” Their remarks are based loosely on Ezek. 37-39.22 The following quotation concerns only the final days (PJ Num. 11:2623 ): A. But the two prophesied as one and said: “Behold, a king shall arise from the land of Magog at the end of days. B. “He shall gather kings crowned with crowns and prefects attired in armor,24 and all the nations shall obey him. They shall prepare for war in the land of Israel against the sons of the exile. C. “However, the Lord is near them at the hour of distress, and all of them will be killed by a burning breath in a consuming fire that comes from beneath the throne of Glory; D. “and their corpses will fall on the mountains of the land of Israel. Then all the wild animals and birds of heaven shall come and consume their bodies. E. “And after this all the dead of Israel shall live [again] and shall delight themselves with the good which was hidden for them from the beginning. Then they shall receive the reward of their labors.”

22 For discussion of other issues in this passage, see McNamara New Testament, pp. 233-237, and Sysling, pp. 235-242. 23 ArB, vol. 4, pp. 220-221. On p. 220, n. 45, E.G. Clarke sees TN and FT(P) as similar in form, and PJ and FT(V) as similar. He apparently refers to the order of the three prophecies in the expansion. In TN and FT(P), the order is: quail, Moses/ Joshua, Gog. In PJ and FT(V), it is: Moses/Joshua, quail, Gog. In terms of the Gog prophecy, however, it is clear that TN, FT(P), and FT(V) are essentially the same. They all speak of Gog and Magog as leaders who are defeated by the King Messiah and whose weapons the Israelites burn for seven years. In PJ, by contrast, Magog is a place, Gog is not mentioned explicitly, and the King Messiah and the seven-years burning are left out. PJ adds the birds who eat the dead and, of course, the resurrection of the Israelite dead. So the targums clearly divide into TN and the FTs that display the Proto-PT source, and PJ, which has a PJu reworking here. See also Carmona, Resurreccion, pp. 127-154; and A. Shinan, The Aggadah in the Aramaic Targums to the Pentateuch (Jerusalem, 1979), pp. 149, 227-8 (in Hebrew). 24 Clarke translates “silken clothing” for the Aramaic shirionin in ArB, vol. 4, p. 220. I think it more likely that PJ’s translator linked it to the Hebrew term shirion, “bodyarmor.” See Francis Brown, et al., A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford, reprint, 1974), p. 1056.

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The raising of the dead at E refers specifically to the people Israel, not to all humanity in general (and certainly not to those who God just killed at C!). The resurrection will occur at the end of days following God’s defeat of the armies of Gog and his followers. The resurrection happens in the world we know, but at the end of time. Thus, for PJu, the resurrection of the dead keeps its special character by happening at a special time rather than in a special place—ProtoPT’s world-to-come. Much of the prophecy of Eldad and Medad depends on Ezek. 3739. It begins at A with Ezek. 38:2ff in which God brings out Gog from the land of Magog. B alludes to Ezek. 38:5ff, where the kings of Paras, Kush, etc., are listed as joining with Gog. The events in C, the idea of God’s sending fire against Gog, appear in Ezek. 38:19 and 39:6. The discussion of the birds at D clearly reiterates Ezek. 39:4 and 39:17-20. The resurrection of Israel at E draws generally from the story in Ezek. 37 of God’s restoring the dry bones of Israel. There is an important characteristic of PJ’s presentation of the resurrection of the dead as a future apocalyptic event, namely, it is always presented as a significant alteration of a Proto-PT expansion by PJ and PJu. Thus PJ’s targumist is clearly in conversation with Proto-PT’s understanding of the resurrection of the dead and is consistently challenging it through his rewriting of its literary inheritance. PJ’s characteristic of significantly altering Proto-PT additions to set out its own theology of resurrection becomes evident with Num. 11:26. Although the large Proto-PT expansion at 11:26 remains in place, a PJu addition is substituted for Proto-PT’s discussion of Gog. Here is TN’s version of that passage (TN Num. 11:2625 ): A. And both of them [i.e., Eldad and Medad] prophesied together, saying: “At the very end of days Gog and Magog ascend on Jerusalem, and they fall at the hand of King Messiah, B. “and for seven years the children of Israel shall kindle fires from their weapons; and they will not go out (to) the forest.”26

In Proto-PT, which this passage from TN represents, we find several differences from the PJ-unique expansion. Most importantly, there is no resurrection of the dead. In addition, Proto-PT depicts the King Messiah’s defeating Gog and Magog, whereas in PJu, God himself overcomes Gog. Furthermore, PJu’s version totally lacks any notion 25 26

ArB, vol. 4, p. 74. This comes from Ezek. 39:9-10.

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of the messiah. And, where Proto-PT talks about kindling fires with the weapons of the defeated armies, PJu talks about the wild animals eating their corpses. Ultimately, the only thing that the two versions share is a general dependence on Ezek. 37-39. So it is clear that the composer of this PJu expansion recast the Proto-PT addition into one that included his point about the resurrection of the dead. The second passage PJ’s targumist recast to present his theology of the resurrection appears at Deut. 32:39. In Proto-PT, the passage describes the resurrection of the dead as part of God’s activities in the world-to-come. Here, PJu not only gets rid of Proto-PT’s notion that resurrection will happen in the world-to-come but also introduces Gog and the end of time (PJ Deut. 32:3927 ): A. When the Memra of the Lord shall reveal itself to redeem his people, he will say to all the nations: B. “See, now, that I am the one who is, was, and I am the one who shall be in the future, and there is no other god besides me; C. “I by my Memra put to death and give life.28 D. “I smote the people of the house of Israel and it is I who will heal them at the end of days. E. “There will be no one to save from my hand, Gog and his soldiers who came to fight against them.”

The difference between PJu and Proto-PT stands out at C. PJu essentially provides a literal translation of the Hebrew, adding only “by my Memra” to the phrase. Although Clarke translates the Aramaic here as “I…bring back to life,” PJ actually follows the Hebrew formulation, which means “give life” (i.e., birth) and is not talking about the resurrection of the dead. Proto-PT, by comparison, renders this sentence as, “I am he who causes the living to die in this world, and who brings the dead to life in the world-to-come” (TN Deut. 32:29).29 PJu’s interpretation of this sentence appears outside of C. At D, PJu places the “healing” of Israel at the “end of days.” The structure of PJ’s rendering provides two parallels to the “healing.” First, it looks back to C and thus is paralleled with the concept of giving life, just as the smiting of Israel at the start of D parallels the killing at the start of C. Second, the idea of “healing” is clearly allusive, and the expanArB, vol. 5b, p. 95. Clarke translates “bring back to life” in ArB, vol. 5B, p. 95. But his rendering follows the Rabbinic interpretation of the passage rather than the literal Aramaic. The Rabbinic interpretation of this verse as indicating the resurrection of the dead appears in Sifre Deut. 329-330. 29 ArB, vol. 5a, p. 159. 27 28

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sion’s structure clarifies its referent in the following sentence, E. E refers to God’s destruction of “Gog and his soldiers.” Thus PJu’s version of Deut. 32:39 refers to the apocalyptic scheme we saw laid out in PJu’s rendering of Num. 11:26. It discusses the resurrection of the dead of Israel following the defeat of Gog.30 The two PJu expansions we have just discussed were written with the strategy of taking the Proto-PT passage and replacing it with one that put forth PJu’s understanding of the resurrection of the dead as happening at the apocalyptic end of time. PJ’s targumist used different strategies with the other three Proto-PT expansions concerning the resurrection of the dead: First, in Gen. 19:26, PJ simply replaces the Proto-PT expansion that links Lot’s wife to the resurrection of the dead with a PJu addition that does not.31 This alteration leaves no mention of resurrection in PJ at this location. Second, in Gen. 30:22, PJ removes the Proto-PT expansion—the midrash about the four keys—and just gives a translation of the HT. PJ does not completely ignore the midrash, however, for it places its introductory sentence at Deut. 28:12. The additional material there mentions the “key of graves,” but gives no further information. Third, in Gen. 25:34, PJ’s targumist takes a more complex approach. At first glance, he seems to ignore the Proto-PT expansion and its mention of resurrection. A closer look at the context reveals that he knows two versions of the Proto-PT expansion and while he seems purposely to remove references to the resurrection, in the end the targumist apparently cannot avoid an allusion to it. 32 To explain PJ’s approach in Gen. 24:34, we must first review the other PTs. The Fragmentary Targums and Targum Neofiti have related but differing versions of the Proto-PT expansion. Both FT(P) and FT(V) caste the addition at Gen. 25:34 in this way: “and [Esau] desecrated his portion in the world-to-come, and he denied the resurrection of the dead.”33 TN’s expansion has the same two-phrase organization, but the scribe seems to have left out a verb. It reads, supplying a verb, “and [he denied] the resurrection of the dead, and 30 PJu also discusses the defeat of Gog, without the resurrection of the dead, at Exod. 40:11. See ArB, vol. 2, p. 273, n. 26. 31 See Sysling’s discussion of this verse, pp. 91-103. 32 See Sysling’s discussion of this verse, pp. 104-135. 33 Quotation is from FT(V), translated by M.L. Klein, Fragment Targums, vol. 2, p. 105.

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denied the life of the world-to-come.”34 While the order of the two phrases differs, all three texts have Esau deny the resurrection. But TN has him deny the life in the world-to-come, while the FTs have him deny “his portion” in the world-to-come. The difference lies in its link to Esau. In the FTs, Esau denies that he himself will be in the world-to-come. But TN constructs a parallel with the previous phrase. Just as Esau makes a general denial of the resurrection of the dead, he also makes a general denial of all life in the world-to-come. When we turn to PJ, its rendering of Gen. 25:34 leaves out the resurrection of the dead. The only additional material in the verse comes from the first phrase of the FTs’ expansion. It reads, “Esau despised the birthright and the portion of the world-to-come.”35 This shows that PJ knew the Proto-PT version of the FTs and chose to ignore the part concerning the resurrection.36 PJ’s deliberate removal of the mention of the resurrection in Gen. 25:34 also occurs at the new PJu expansion at Gen. 25:29. PJu adds (PJ Gen. 25:2937 ): A. B. C. D. E. G.

…[Esau] had committed five transgressions that day: he had practiced idolatry; he had shed innocent blood; he had gone in to a betrothed maiden; he had denied the life of the world-to-come; and had despised the birthright.

The important line for our interests is E, where PJu has Esau deny the “life in the world-to-come.” This is the same phrase used in TN’s additional material in Gen. 25:34. The fact that PJu uses this phrase while ignoring TN’s other phrase about the resurrection again indicates that PJ deliberately leaves out the resurrection. PJ introduces a third change in the vicinity of Gen. 25:34—a small PJu addition at Gen. 25:32. Although the passage discusses the world-to-come, it ignores the resurrection of the dead. But it still contains an allusion to a link between the resurrection and the worldto-come (PJ Gen. 25:3238 ): 34 35

50.

My translation. ArB, vol. 1b, p. 91. See Carmona’s analysis of these verses in Resurreccion, pp. 30-

36 The leaving out of material here is also suggested by this sentence’s syntactical problem. Either “the portion of the world-to-come” should be preceded by an indicator of the direct object, as in the previous phrase (“despised [yat] the birthright”) or by a verb, as it appears in the other PTs to this verse. 37 ArB, vol. 1b, p. 90. 38 ArB, vol. 1b, p. 91.

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A. And Esau said, “Behold, I am about to die, and I shall not live again in another world; B. “so of what use is the birthright to me or a portion in the world?”39

The additional material at B echoes what we have already seen in PJ and in Proto-PT, a reference to the notion of a “portion” in the world-to-come. At A, PJu comes a bit closer to the idea of the resurrection but still does not quite come out and state it. A refers to the idea of living “again” in the world-to-come, stating that Esau does not expect to have that second life. Thus we have an implication of resurrection, for how else can one “live again”? But PJ’s targumist still seems doggedly determined not to speak of it directly. So what we have seen in the way PJ treats the four verses containing Proto-PT expansions that address the concept of the resurrection of the dead (Gen. 19:26, Gen. 25:34, Exod. 30:22 and Deut. 32:39) is that PJ does not want to speak directly of the resurrection. In three passages, Proto-PT uses the phrase tehiyyat metim, or more exactly, a causal form of the verb HYY, “to live” (the causal form meaning “to bring to life”) plus the noun myty’, “the dead.” But these Proto-PT expansions are replaced in PJ by PJu expansions that do not use the phrase. Even at Gen. 25:29, 32, and 34, where PJu has three sets of additional material that speak of the world-to-come, none of them directly invokes the notion of the resurrection of the dead, whatever it may imply.40 The new PJu expansion at Num. 11:26, which was not paralleled by a Proto-PT expansion that spoke of the resurrection of the dead, uses the verbal formula just mentioned. It does not place the resurrection of the dead in the world-to-come, however, but at the apocalyptic end of time, following the defeat of Gog.

39 Rather than the expected phrase at the end of this sentence “world-to-come” (‘lm’ de‘ati), PJ has ‘lm’ de‘t ‘amar. The meaning is unclear. Maher (ArB, vol. 1B, p. 92, n. 41) suggests that the expected ‘ati has somehow been confused with ‘amar of the next verse. On the other hand, perhaps it should be understood as “the world of which you are speaking.” The problem with this interpretation is that Jacob has not been speaking of the world-to-come. Perhaps this is another indication that the targumist is paralleling this exchange with that between Cain and Abel in Gen. 4. 40 This is also the case for PJ at Gen. 3:19, where Adam is told that he will rise from the dust to give an account of himself on the day of great judgment. The word “dead” is nowhere in evidence and instead of using “bring to life,” the expansion has a form of qum, “to cause to stand, erect.”

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paul v.m. flesher The PJ-unique source: The past resurrections

While the PJ passages we have just studied concentrate on a future resurrection of the dead, two expansions in PJu—neither of which have a Proto-PT parallel—describe past resurrections. These resurrections are clearly special events and not something that happens on a regular basis. The first addition, at Exod. 20:18, indicates that the resurrection of the dead has already happened in the natural world in which we live. It occurred when God revealed himself on Mt. Sinai to give the Torah to Israel (PJ Ex. 20:18(15)41 ): A. All the people were watching the thunder, how it was changed in the hearing of each one of them, B. and how it came out from the midst of the torches, C. and the sound of the horn, how it revived the dead, D. and the mountain smoking.

The resurrection of the dead is just mentioned in passing at C. It happens in response to the sound of the horn and is part of the strange, natural wonders that accompany God as he speaks the Ten Commandments. This verse lists four such miracles—one each in AD—but others are taking place in this scene, including God’s spoken words being seen like fire, flying through the air and encircling the people (PJ Ex. 20:2-3). The resurrection is just another of the special incidents here. It happens and thereby shows God’s power, but it is not more important than the thunder or the smoking mountains. The parallel to this PJ passage found in the Babylonian Talmud (B. Shab. 88b) suggests that God did not plan to have a resurrection at this time but was essentially forced to do it by unanticipated events.42 When the Israelites heard God’s voice, many of them died from fear. So God resurrected them. Rather than indicating that resurrection can happen anytime, therefore, this passage indicates that it should only happen at the end time, but in this one instance it was necessary to make an exception. ArB, vol. 2, pp. 219-220. Levine, p. 219, attributes this interpretation to “FT,” but neither FT(V) nor FT(P) contains the expansion; it appears only in PJ. Only CG(F) is extant for this verse, and it lacks the expansion as well. See also Sysling, pp. 246-249; Carmona, Resurreccion, pp. 61-72; and Shinan, Aggadah, pp. 227-228. 42 The Babli passage seems to have an echo in Mekhilta de Rabbi Ishmael, Bahodesh 9. Pirqe de R. Eliezer 41 has a different description of the resurrection at Sinai. 41

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There is a second PJu expansion that mentions a resurrection of the dead that has already taken place, namely, Exod. 13:17. This expansion describes a story in which the Ephraimites left their Egyptian captivity too early and were killed by the Philistines. According to this story, they become the “dry bones” that Ezekiel resurrected (PJ Ex. 13:1743 ): A. Now when Pharaoh let the people go, the Lord did not lead them by the way of the land of the Philistines, although it was nearer; for the Lord said, B. “Perhaps the people will change their minds when they see their brothers who died in the war, two hundred thousand men, men of valor from the tribe of Ephraim.” C. Seizing shields and spears and (other) weapons, they went down to Gath to plunder the livestock of the Philistines. D. And because they transgressed the decree of the Memra of the Lord and went forth from Egypt thirty years before the appointed time, they were delivered into the hands of the Philistines, who slew them. E. These were the dry bones which the Memra of the Lord brought to life through the mediation of Ezekiel the prophet in the valley of Dura. F. If (the departing Israelites) had seen that, they would have taken fright and returned to Egypt.

PJu’s expansion here tells the story of the tribe of Ephraim who did not wait for Moses to lead them out of Egypt, but instead left under their own initiative, crossed into Philistia, and were killed. This part of the story is known from other Rabbinic sources: the Mekhilta (Beshallah 1), the Babylon Talmud (B. San. 92b), and Pirqe de R. Eliezer (48). None of these texts include the identification with Ezekiel 37 found at E in PJ.44 The notion that the Ephraimites killed by the Philistines were resurrected by Ezekiel appears only in this targum. According to PJ’s phrasing at E, Ezekiel’s resurrection of the dead Ephraimites has already taken place. It lies in the past and therefore has no bearing on PJ’s version of Num. 11:26, discussed above, in which God will resurrect all Israel at the end of time, after the defeat

43 ArB, vol. 2, p. 197. See Sysling, pp. 230-235. Carmona apparently does not discuss this passage. 44 Pirqe de R. Eliezer 33 discusses Ezekiel’s resurrection but identifies the dead with the Israelites who worshipped the idol in the Valley of Dura in Babylonia. See Dan. 3:1.

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of Gog. God’s resurrection of Israel in the future and Ezekiel’s resurrection of Ephraim in the past stand unconnected by PJu.45 Having looked at how Targum Pseudo-Jonathan and the PJunique source present the resurrection of the dead, it is time to return to our opening passage, the expansion at Gen. 3:19. In the context of Pseudo-Jonathan and the PJ-unique source, when will Adam arise to give an account of his deeds? The answer for PJu is much less straightforward than it was for Proto-PT. In Proto-PT, we recall, this passage meant that Adam was to be resurrected from the dead into the world-to-come and be brought to judgment on the day of great judgment. Since PJ essentially gets rid of the idea that resurrection takes place in the world-to-come and instead places it in this world, there are several possible interpretations we need to evaluate. Does PJ interpret Adam’s resurrection as having happened in the past? No, of course not. At Exod. 20:18, those who were resurrected had died from the fear of God’s presence. In the same vein, at Exod. 13:17, Ezekiel is credited with having resurrected the Ephraimites who left Egypt early. Both instances refer to a specific, clearly delimited sub-group of Israelites. In neither case is there any place for Adam. Does PJ then understand Adam’s resurrection as an event that will occur in the apocalyptic end of time? Again the answer must be no. PJ Num. 11:26 refers to all the people of Israel—the “sons of exile”— but not to anyone else. It is not a general resurrection that would include all human beings. It thus lacks any place for Adam’s resurrection. What is missing in all three scenarios is not only the world-tocome but also judgment. None of these resurrections occur for the purpose of evaluating a person’s deeds while they were alive. Even if 45 J. Heinemann’s study of the Messiah of Ephraim provides an alternate explanation of PJ Ex. 13:17, which he links to the Messiah of Ephraim at PJ Ex. 40:11. This enables him to identify the Messiah of Ephraim as Bar Kokhba. This identification has several problems, not least of which is Heinemann’s highly anachronistic approach to dating passages from Rabbinic texts. See J. Heinemann, “The Messiah of Ephraim and the Premature Exodus of the Tribe of Ephraim,” in Harvard Theological Review 8:1 (1975), pp. 1-15. B.W.R. Pearson builds on Heinemenn in a recent essay. Without evaluating Heinemann’s argument, he argues that the reinternment of bones in caves associated with Bar Kokhba’s rebellion is evidence of Bar Kokhba’s followers’ belief in resurrection. He makes this claim despite the fact that reinternment is a common burial practice. See B.W.R. Pearson, “Dry Bones in the Judean Desert: The Messiah of Ephraim, Ezekiel 37, and the Post-Revolutionary Followers of Bar Kokhba,” in Journal for the Study of Judaism 29:2 (1998), pp. 192-201.

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the groups being resurrected were not so limited, the lack of any judgment indicates that they do not include Adam’s resurrection. Adam’s resurrection and judgment in PJ thus does not fit in PJu’s concept of the resurrection of the dead. There are two ways to understand this lack of fit: one requires a small addition to our understanding of PJ’s resurrection theology, and the other requires us to posit that PJ’s targumist overlooked this expansion and failed to make it consistent with his resurrection theology. The first explanation is one of definition. It begins by recalling PJ Gen. 25:32, where Esau denies that he shall “live again in another world,” even though there is no mention here of the resurrection. This suggests that, for PJ and PJu, the world-to-come is not entered by resurrection. The resurrection of the dead applies only to this world; it is not a term that is used in conjunction with the world-tocome. If this interpretation is correct, then there is no need to link Adam’s rising for judgment in Gen. 3:19 with the resurrection. Adam can get to the world-to-come and judgment day without being resurrected. If this is correct, resurrection in PJ refers to the resurrection of the dead in this world only. The second explanation is structural. It begins with the recognition that the expansion at Gen. 3:19 came from Proto-PT. For some reason, PJ’s targumist left in this Proto-PT reference to the resurrection in the world-to-come for the purpose of judgment even though he carefully worked to remove the others. In fact, he left intact nearly all the Proto-PT material in the Adam and Eve story (Gen. 2-3). The story thus continues to depict Proto-PT’s theology of the afterlife and the resurrection, even where it disagrees with PJu’s.46 To turn this into a general observation, PJ’s layers can be seen not only in the identification of the two major sources of its expansions, Proto-PT and PJu, but also in the differing theological concepts contained within those layers. In some cases, PJ’s targumist clearly has tried to make the theology consistent throughout the targum—as we have seen with the resurrection of the dead—but he has not been totally successful. The ability to identify the Proto-PT source—not only in PJ but in the other Palestinian Targums to the Pentateuch— enables the identification of theological roots and not merely elements of literary construction. 46 For my analysis of the afterlife theology of the two sources, see the article referenced in n. 1.

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To indicate the importance of this combination of sources and theologies, let me turn briefly to the Isaiah Targum. Bruce Chilton’s important study, The Glory of Israel, analyzes what he terms the “exegetical framework” of the Isaiah Targum. Through judicious comparison of targumic exegesis with Rabbinic literature, he found that the targum contained two frameworks: the earlier one “reflects developments from just prior to the destruction of the Temple until the beginning of the Bar Kokhba revolt,” while “a later meturgeman who helped to shape the [second] framework voices the concerns of the Amoraic period.”47 Chilton’s achievement is all the more remarkable because he discovered the two theological frameworks using the evidence of only a single targum. What the Palestinian Targums to the Pentateuch provide for the analysis of PseudoJonathan is not only the final version—equivalent to the Isaiah Targum Chilton used—but also targums containing the earlier framework. TN and the FTs reveal the character of the Palestinian Targums prior to their recasting by PJ’s targumist. So future studies of PJ using the methodology of Chilton’s exploration of Targum Isaiah can be carried out with a higher level of confidence and certainty because the sources and their theological character—both before and after—are known. Bibliography Campbell, R.M., “A Fragment-Targum without a Purpose? The Raison D’etre of MS Vatican Ebr. 440,” Ph.D. thesis, Northwestern University, 1994. Carmona, A.R., Targum y Resurreccion. Estudio de los textos del targum Palestinense sobre la resurreccion (Granada, 1978) Chilton, Bruce, The Glory of Israel: The Theology and Provenience of the Isaiah Targum (Sheffield, 1982). Clarke, E.G., et al., eds., Targum Pseudo-Jonathan of the Pentateuch: Text and Concordance (Hoboken, 1984). Diez Macho, A., ed., Neophyti I: Targum Palestinense Ms de la Biblioteca Vaticana, vol. 1 (Barcelona, 1968). Flesher, Paul V.M., “Exploring the Sources of the Synoptic Targums to the Pentateuch,” in Flesher, P.V.M., ed., Targum Studies, vol. 1 (Atlanta, 1992), pp. 101-134. 47 B. Chilton, The Glory of Israel: The Theology and Provenience of the Isaiah Targum (Sheffield, 1982), p. 12. [Brackets mine.]

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Flesher, Paul V.M., “Is Targum Onkelos a Palestinian Targum? The Evidence of Gen. 28-50,” in Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 19 (1999), pp. 35-79 Flesher, Paul V.M., “Mapping the Synoptic Palestinian Targums of the Pentateuch,” in Beattie, D.R.G., and M.J. McNamara, eds., The Aramaic Bible: Targums in Their Historical Context (Sheffield, 1994), pp. 247-253. Flesher, Paul V.M., “The Theology of the Afterlife in the Palestinian Targums to the Pentateuch: A Framework for Analysis,” in Neusner, Jacob, ed., Approaches to Ancient Judaism, New Series, vol. 16 (Atlanta, 1999). Heinemann, J., “The Messiah of Ephraim and the Premature Exodus of the Tribe of Ephraim,” in Harvard Theological Review 8:1 (1975), pp. 1-15. Isenberg, S., “An Anti-Sadducee Polemic in the Palestinian Targum Tradition,” in Harvard Theological Review 63 (1970), pp. 433-444. Klein, Michael L., ed., Genizah Manuscripts of Palestinian Targum to the Pentateuch, vol. 1 (Cincinnati, 1986). Klein, Michael L., ed., The Fragment-Targums of the Pentateuch according to Their Extant Sources, 2 vols. (Rome, 1980). Levine, E., “Neofiti 1: A Study of Exodus 14,” in Biblica 54 (1978), pp. 301330. Levine, Etan, The Aramaic Version of the Bible: Contexts and Context (Berlin, 1988) McNamara, M., M. Maher, and K. Cathcart, eds., The Aramaic Bible (Wilmington, 1987-1991; Collegeville, 1992- ). McNamara, Martin, The New Testament and the Palestinian Targum to the Pentateuch (Rome, 1966). Mortensen, B.P., “Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: A Document for Priests,” Ph.D. thesis, Northwestern University, 1994. Pearson, B.W.R., “Dry Bones in the Judean Desert: The Messiah of Ephraim, Ezekiel 37, and the Post-Revolutionary Followers of Bar Kokhba,” in Journal for the Study of Judaism 29:2 (1998), pp. 192-201. Shinan, A., The Aggadah in the Aramaic Targums to the Pentateuch (Jerusalem, 1979) (in Hebrew). Sysling, H., Tehiyyat Ha-Metim: The Resurrection of the Dead in the Palestinian Targums to the Pentateuch and Parallel Traditions in Classical Rabbinic Literature (Tübingen, 1996)

GENERAL INDEX Afterlife Apocalyptic literature of, 119-39 in the Dead Sea scrolls, 189-210 early death in Psalms, 71-82 eschatology in Philo and Josephus, 163-84 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch, 130-31 fullness of life afterdeath, 74-82 divine justice in the Apocrypha, 143-55 funerary inscriptions and Jewish notions of death and afterlife, 293308 judgment in afterlife, 141-61 God’s justice and judgment, 14143 lasting life and fullness of life, 70-71 in Palestinian Targums, 311-30 and Rabbinic Judaism, 243-87 resurrection in Daniel, 125-27, and in prophetic texts, 119-20 sources of belief, 27-29 spread of beliefs in, 129 Abusch, Tzvi, on Biblical references to afterlife, 44 Albright, William Foxwell, on judgment day, 41 Ancestor cult memory venerating ancestor, 87-100 and intervention for descendants, 39-40, 50, 53-56 Apocalyptic literature and belief in afterlife, 119-39 Archi, Alphonso, 94 Augustine and the history of resurrection, 235-37 Avery-Peck, Alan J., on death and afterlife in Rabbinic literature, 243-66 Bailey, L. R., 68 Ben Sira, 110-13 Biblical literature and afterlife, 35-43 Bloch-Smith, Elizabeth, burial practices in northern Israel, 37, 39-40, 43 Borgen, Peder, messianic belief as national eschatology, 169-72

Brichto, H. C., on ancestor veneration, 39-40, 43, 48 Carnley, Peter, on resurrection in the gospels, 224 Charles R. H., 293 Chilton, Bruce, on resurrection and day of judgment, 330 Cooley, R. E., on afterlife, 36 Cooper, Alan, 42, 45 Cult of departed spirits, 39-40 Dahood, Mitchell, on afterlife, 61, 68, 74-77, 79, 92 Daniel, Book of, and resurrection, 12527 Day of Judgment in Palestinian Targums, 311-30 Dead Sea scrolls on death, resurrection and life after death, 189-210 Death abode of the dead (netherworld), 8889, and inhabitants of netherworld, 89-92 death and dying in the Mishnah and Tosefta, 244-47; defined, 62-74; mortuary cults, 92-96 Ecclesiastes and Wisdom literature, 101116 Enochic literature and the Book of the Watchers, 121-25 Essenes, Dead Sea scrolls on death, resurrection and life after death, 189-210 Fiorenza, Francis Schüssler on the risen Jesus, 225 Fischer, U., 296-97 Fortes, Myers, 94 Frey, Jean-Baptiste, 293-96 Funerary inscriptions and Jewish notions of death and afterlife, 293-308 Garrett, D. A., on Wisdom literature, 109 Gilman, Neil, on afterlife, 36, 46

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God in combat with death, 45 Gospels Jesus and resurrection, 215-26 Halpern, Baruch, on ancestor veneration, 40-41, 50 Hebrew Bible, scarcity of references concerning death and afterlife, 35-59 Immortality in Wisdom of Solomon, 115 Jesus and resurrection, 215-26 Job in Wisdom literature, 101-116 Josephus and eschatological beliefs, 17484 Kearns, C., 114 Kennedy, Charles A., 42-43 Kirkpatrick A. F., 85 Kolarcik, M., 115 Lewis, Theodore J., on ancestor veneration, 40, 43, 48 Lifshitz, B., 294-95 McCarter, P. Kyle, 41-42 Martin-Achard, Robert, on resurrection, 56 in Mesopotamian religion, 35-36 Mowinckel, S., 71 Nagakubo, S., 296-97 Numa Denis Fustel de Coulange, 93 Odeberg, H., 293 Ogden, G., on Wisdom literature, 109 Oppenheim, A. Leo, possibility of judgment day, 41 Origen and the refinement of spiritual resurrection, 230-35 Osten-Sacken, P. von der, on afterlife in the Dead Sea scrolls, 201 Paul the Apostle on resurrection, 226-30 Pitard, Wayne T., burial pactices, 38 Prophecy of afterlife, 53 resurrection and belief in afterlife, 119-20 Proverbs, and Wisdom literature, 101116 Psalms on death and afterlife, 61-85 early death, 71-74

fullness of life, and Death in Life, 6970, 74-82, 79 lasting life, 70 realm of death, 66-69 Puech, Emile, on resurrection, 208-9 Qumran sect and Dead Sea scrolls on death, resurrection and life after death, 189-210 Rabbinic literature on death and afterlife, 243-291 in Book of Daniel, 125-27 death and dying, 244-47 resurrection of the dead, 247 the world-to-come, 249-53, 263-64 Resurrection and day of Judgment in world to come, 319-30 in the Dead Sea scrolls, 189-210 God’s judgment and punishment, 257-61 Gospels mentioning, 215-239 and Palestinian Targums, 311-30 in second Temple Judaism, 96-97 Ribar, J. W., tomb installations and afterlife, 36 Schaeffer, Claude, 92 Schoors, A., on Wisdom literature, 108 Sirach, in Wisdom literature, 109-114 as “church book”, 110 Talmudic literature and death and afterlife, 267-91 Van der Toorn, Karel, 42 Weiser, A., 71 Whitley, C. F., on Wisdom literature, 108 Wisdom literature on death and afterlife, 101-116 Wisdom of Solomon, 115-16 Woman Wisdom in Wisdom of Solomon, 115 World-to-come in Rabbinic literature on death and afterlife, 249-53, 263-64 resurrection, and day of judgment, 319-30

INDEX OF BIBLICAL AND ANCIENT REFERENCES Bible Old Testament Amos 2:2 2:20 6:7 9:2 12:2 18:1 26:14 34:6

45 73 45, 98 190 76, 96 44 40 47

Daniel 2 2:38 3 6 10 11:33-35 12 12:1-3 12:3 14:29-34 19:9-12 79-14 94-19

180 180 153, 154 153, 154 127 126 128, 134, 199 126 194 206 206 217 146

Deuteronomy 3:9-4:4 147 3:9-13 147 3:13-35 147 8-31 141 14:1 98 18:11 98 25:5-7 73 26:24 98 28 170, 173 28:12 323 30:15 141 32:16-18 147 32:36 148 32:39 314, 322-23, 325 33:29 147

Ecclesiastes 1:3 1:11 2:15-16 2:16 2:17 3:9 3:18-22 3:19 3:21 4:2-3 5:5 6:1-2 6:4-5 7:1 7:13 7:15 7:17 7:26 8:7 8:14 9:1-3 9:2-3 9:5-10 9:10 12:7

109, 143 107 107 107 107 143 109 107, 108 108 108 103 73 62 113 107 143 103 73 107 143 107 107 55 108 102, 107, 108, 113

Exodus 7:1 13:17 15:12 20:2-3 20:4 20:18 24:11 30:22

49 327 314, 317 326 76 326, 328 75 325

Ezekiel 37 37:12 37-39 38:2 38:5 38:19 41:18

55, 96, 146, 191, 321 318 320-22 321 321 321 64

336 Genesis 1 1:27 2 2-3 2:7 3 3:19

index of biblical and ancient references

3:24 4:7 5 5:22 5:24 6 14:1 14:5 15 19:26 19:31 22 24:34 25:29 25:32 25:34 26:14 28:22 30:22 31:30 31:52-54 32 37;35 42:38 44:3 44:29 46:1 50:12-23

49 237 49 329 102 82 102, 311, 314-15, 319, 328-29 315 315 79 190 78, 97 123 48 42 216 314, 319, 323, 325 42 216 323 324-25 324, 329 317-18, 323, 325 48 43 314, 318, 323 43 43 216 47 47 47 47 43 49

Hosea 3-14 6:2

96 55

Isaiah 8:19 14:9 19:3 24-27 26 26:14 26:19 29:4 36:4

44, 90, 98 42, 91 44, 89, 98 119 55 42, 89 45, 76, 96 98 108

38:18 40-55 52:13-53:12 52-53 53 54:1 57:2 41:43 45:1 64:4 65:17-25 66:24 16:5

190 191 143 160 96 173 302, 307 80 80 229 120 126 98

Job 1:9 3:11-19 3:13-19 3:23 4-6 5:22-27 5:26 7:1-6 7:7-10 7:8 7:9-10 7:14-15 7:17-118 7:21 10 10-17 10:21-22 14:12 14:12-14 15:2-4 15:20-34 16:22 17:11 17:12-14 17:13-16 18:5-21 18:7 19:26-27 19:27 20:5-9 21:23-26 23:26-31 25:6 26:15 29:2-20 33 33:4

192 62 102 105 159 106 83 74 63 105 105 65 73 105 77 159 105 76 55 159 106 105 79 68 105 106 159 75, 66 106 106 113 124 120 120 104 158 106

index of biblical and ancient references 33:18 33:22 33:28 33:30 34:4 34:14-15 38:16-17 42:17 52:5

106 106 106 106 106 108, 13 45 65 106

Jonah 2:7

45

Joshua 15:9 18:6 21:8-11

42 42 49

Judges 1-2 8:32

141 47

1 Kings 2 2:6 2:8 2:9 17:2

46 47 47 47 51

2 Kings 2 2:1 2:1-12 2:4 4 5:9 13 21:6 23:24

52 79 97 79 51 79 52 98 43-44, 98

Lamentations 3:6 70 3:24 81 4:16 71 Leviticus 19:27-28 19:31 20:6 20:27 21:5 26

49 48 48, 170 48 48 173

Nehemiah 9;25

78

Numbers 6:24-26 11:26 12:8 16 16:30 16:33 23:10 24 24:7 25:1-5 25:2 33:2

37 320-21, 323-25, 327 75-76 68 47 47 79 170 170, 171 47 43 47

Proverbs 1:4 1:12 2:18 3;18 4:2 5:1 5:5 6:32-35 7:27 8:22-31 8:35 9:1-6 9:13-18 9:18 10:2 10:7 11:4 11:30 13:12 13:14 14:12 14:27 15:1 15:4 16:4 16:22 16:25 21:16 22:1 24:14 27:20

72 68, 103 42, 66, 102 103 102 79 103 103 103 191 102, 104 104 104 42, 66, 102 104, 113 107, 112, 305 104 103 103 103 103 103 66 104 113 104 103 66 112 104 67

337

338 Psalms 1 8 8:5 9:14 9:14-15 9:18 11 11:6-7 13 14 15 16 16:10-11 16:11 17:14 18 18:5-6 18:17 21 21:5 22:30 24:7-10 27:4 28:1 30:4 30:10 31 31:13 36 39 39:4 39:5-7 39 41 41:9-12 42:3 44 49 49:5 49:6 49:15 49:17-20 50:1-6 52:10-11 55:5 55:16 63:10-11 69 69:2-3 72:5 73

index of biblical and ancient references 193 73 73 45 63 72 75, 77 75 68 156 156 79 85 76, 77 76 67, 68, 73, 74, 79 64, 67 79 71 70 74 45 74 62 62, 101 111 68 64 78 63 63 72 101 71 71 84 82 83, 97, 101 66 65 66, 67 67 71 70 65 68 68 67 69 71 83, 97, 143

73:4 69:15-16 88 88:5 88:11 88:12 88:16 89:49 90 90:2 90:10 91 91:5-6 102:12 104:29 106:28 107:18 116:3 118:5 119 124:3-5 128 139:8 139:18 140:14 143:3 143:7 144

67 67 69, 190 62 42, 66, 89 62 69 101 113 70 74 84 66 73 83 43 45 67 67 193 68 142 66, 190 80 83 69, 70 69 73

1 Samuel 2:2 2:5-6 2:6 2:18 15:32 19:13 20:6 22:6 25:29 28 28:13 28:13-14

80 150 209 80 73 42 40 47 305, 307 44-45 43 89, 90

2 Samuel 5:18 5:22 12:23 14:14 18:18

42 32 102 107 73

Zephaniah 1:5

135

index of biblical and ancient references 2:12

135

New Testament Acts 2:25-36 9:3-18 9:7 17:32 22 26:12-18 26:19

95 225 225 181 225 225 224

1 Corinthians 2 230 2:10-11 229 2:12 230 6:19 231 9:1 226 15 137, 226, 228, 230 15:1-11 227 15:5 221 15:8 224 15:12 226 15:15-19 227 15:20-28 228 15:29 228 15:30-32 228 15:35-39 229 15:44 229 15:45 230 15:50 223, 224, 232 2 Corinthians 5:1-10 238 12:2-4 133 Galatians 1:15-16 4:4-6 4:6 4:21-31

226 227 218 233

John 20:1-10 20:6-9 20:11-18 20:20 20:24-29 20:31 21

222 225 222 222 222 217 222

21:7 21:12

223 223

Luke 1:1-4 7:11-17 8:40-42 8:49 11:2-4 20:24-38 20:27-33 20:36 24:1-12 24:4-8 24:13-35 24:16 24:18-27 2:22-23 24:31 24:34 24:36-52

217 223 223 223 219 216 216 236 220 220 220 223 220 200 223 220 221

Mark 2:26-27 5:21-24 5:35-43 8:31 9:9 9:31 9:42-48 10:15 10:33, 34 12:18-23 12:24-27 12:25 16:1-8 16:6,7 16:7

83 223 223 218 218 218 238 238 218 216 216 236 218 218 220

Matthew 6:9-13 9:18-19 9:23-26 15:13-14 16:1-8 16:7 16:17-19 19:12 22:23 22:23-28 22:29-32 22:30

219 223 223 227 218 221 221 230-331 189 216 216 236

339

340 28:2-4 28:7 28:10

index of biblical and ancient references 221 221 221, 227

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 224, 226 Revelation 13:17-18

180

Romans 8:15

218

Augustine City of God 20.9 22.8 22.18 22.21

236 236 236 237

Confessions 5.10.20

236

2 Baruch 1:1-3:8 1:20 1:22 1:28 3:4-11 3:36-37 4:1 4:4-8 4:5 4:8-5:9 30 39:2 50:2-3 51:2 51:3 51:10 51:12

146 146 146 146 147 147 147 147 147 147 130 131 131 131 131 131 131

Book of Biblical Antiquities (Pseudo-Philo) 16:3 157 19:12 157 23:6 157 23:13 157 28:10 1 Enoch 1:36

121

8:2 10:10 10:13 15:2 15:4 18:14-16 21 22:1 22:9-14 25:3 25:5-6 37:71 39:5-7 45:5 51:1 53:3 53:10 58:2-4 65 71:16 85-90 90:9-10 91-105 102:4-5 103:3-4 103:8 104:2-6 104:7-8

127 122 122 121 121 122 122 121 121 122 122 124 125 125 125 125 125 194 125 125 123 124 124 124 124, 194 124 125 128

2 Enoch 22:9-10

133

Eusebius History of the Church 6:3 230 4 Ezra 7:30-33 7:36 7:75 9:15-16 11-12

130 130 130 130 180

Josephus Antiquities of the Jews 1.2.3 181 10.10.4 180 10.11.4 180 18.1.3 176 18.1.4 177

index of biblical and ancient references The War of the Jews 2.8.11 176 2.8.14 176 3:8.1-7 175 3.8.3 178 3:8.5 175 4.6.3 179 6.2.1 180 6.5.2 179 6.5.4 177 1 Maccabees 2:51-66 3:1-40 4:1-l5:10 5:1-16:17 6:16-8:4 6:18-7:42 7:7-17 7:9 7:11 7:14 7:17 7:18-33a 7:19 7:22-23 7:23 7:27-28 7:35-37 9:1-12 33-36 37:38

148 148 148 148 148 148 149 149 149 149 149 149 149 150 149 150 149 149 149 149, 150

2 Maccabees 3-7 6-7 7 7:1 7:6 7:22 7:27-29 12 16:18-19 17:11-15 17:20-22

151 157 156 147, 149, 150 148 150 150 305 151 151 152

Origen On First Principles 2.10.3 232 2.10.8 233 2.11.2 234 2.11.3 234

2.11.4 2.11.6

234 234

Psalms of Solomon 1-2 156 3 156 8 156 13 156 14 156 15 156 17 156 Sibylline Oracles 3 171 4 137 4:179-82 136 5 171 Sirach 1:11-13 1:13 2:1-6 7:17 11:26-28 14:11-16 14:17-19 16:22 24:8-11 24:23 30:4 30:5 33:15 38:20-21 39:25 39:27 40:1-17 40:8 40:11 41:1-2 41:2-3 41:11 41:11-13 41:13 42:15-25 50:1-21

114 114 111 114 139 112 113 114 147 147 112 112 111 112 111 111 112 112 108, 113 113 113 112 112 113 111 110

Tobit 1:1-8 1:10-12 1:16-20 2:1-14 3:10

144 144 144 144 145

341

342 4:5-6 4:7 4:9 11-12

index of biblical and ancient references 145 145 145 144

Wisdom of Joshua b. Sira 17:27-28 146 24 146 Wisdom of Solomon 1-6 154 1:1-6:11 152 1:6 115 1:13 115 1:15 104, 115, 116 1:16 154 1:16-2:20 153 2:1-5 153 2:1-20 153 2:5 153 2:6-11 153 2:10-20 153 2:24 115 3:1 116 3:1-9 153 4:16-5:2 153 4;18-19 115 5:2-14 154

5:4-13 5:5 5:15-16 9:15

153 115 154 116

Dead Sea Scrolls 1:1-2:1 197 1QH 204 1QM 16:11 203 1QS 1-2 202 1QS 3:6-8 199 1QS 4:12-14 199 1QS 4:16 201 1QS 3:13-4:26 198 4Q186 200 4Q213a 132 4Q285 203 4Q415-18 196 4Q418 196 4Q521 208 4Q534 200 4Q561 200 11Q14:9-10 203 Testament of Abraham 11-12 160 12-14 159

HANDBUCH DER ORIENTALISTIK Abt. I: DER NAHE UND MITTLERE OSTEN ISSN 0169-9423 Band 1. Ägyptologie 1. Ägyptische Schrift und Sprache. Mit Beiträgen von H. Brunner, H. Kees, S. Morenz, E. Otto, S. Schott. Mit Zusätzen von H. Brunner. Nachdruck der Erstausgabe (1959). 1973. ISBN 90 04 03777 2 2. Literatur. Mit Beiträgen von H. Altenmüller, H. Brunner, G. Fecht, H. Grapow, H. Kees, S. Morenz, E. Otto, S. Schott, J. Spiegel, W. Westendorf. 2. verbesserte und erweiterte Auflage. 1970. ISBN 90 04 00849 7 3. Helck, W. Geschichte des alten Ägypten. Nachdruck mit Berichtigungen und Ergänzungen. 1981. ISBN 90 04 06497 4 Band 2. Keilschriftforschung und alte Geschichte Vorderasiens 1-2/2. Altkleinasiatische Sprachen [und Elamitisch]. Mit Beiträgen von J. Friedrich, E. Reiner, A. Kammenhuber, G. Neumann, A. Heubeck. 1969. ISBN 90 04 00852 7 3. Schmökel, H. Geschichte des alten Vorderasien. Reprint. 1979. ISBN 90 04 00853 5 4/2. Orientalische Geschichte von Kyros bis Mohammed. Mit Beiträgen von A. Dietrich, G. Widengren, F. M. Heichelheim. 1966. ISBN 90 04 00854 3 Band 3. Semitistik Semitistik. Mit Beiträgen von A. Baumstark, C. Brockelmann, E. L. Dietrich, J. Fück, M. Höfner, E. Littmann, A. Rücker, B. Spuler. Nachdruck der Erstausgabe (1953-1954). 1964. ISBN 90 04 00855 1 Band 4. Iranistik 1. Linguistik. Mit Beiträgen von K. Hoffmann, W. B. Henning, H. W. Bailey, G. Morgenstierne, W. Lentz. Nachdruck der Erstausgabe (1958). 1967. ISBN 90 04 03017 4 2/1. Literatur. Mit Beiträgen von I. Gershevitch, M. Boyce, O. Hansen, B. Spuler, M. J. Dresden. 1968. ISBN 90 04 00857 8 2/2. History of Persian Literature from the Beginning of the Islamic Period to the Present Day. With Contributions by G. Morrison, J. Baldick and Sh. Kadkanı¯. 1981. ISBN 90 04 06481 8 3. Krause, W. Tocharisch. Nachdruck der Erstausgabe (1955) mit Zusätzen und Berichtigungen. 1971. ISBN 90 04 03194 4 Band 5. Altaistik 1. Turkologie. Mit Beiträgen von A. von Gabain, O. Pritsak, J. Benzing, K. H. Menges, A. Temir, Z. V. Togan, F. Taeschner, O. Spies, A. Caferoglu, A. Battal-Tamays. Reprint with additions of the 1st (1963) ed. 1982. ISBN 90 04 06555 5 2. Mongolistik. Mit Beiträgen von N. Poppe, U. Posch, G. Doerfer, P. Aalto, D. Schröder, O. Pritsak, W. Heissig. 1964. ISBN 90 04 00859 4 3. Tungusologie. Mit Beiträgen von W. Fuchs, I. A. Lopatin, K. H. Menges, D. Sinor. 1968. ISBN 90 04 00860 8 Band 6. Geschichte der islamischen Länder 5/1. Regierung und Verwaltung des Vorderen Orients in islamischer Zeit. Mit Beiträgen von H. R. Idris und K. Röhrborn. 1979. ISBN 90 04 05915 6 5/2. Regierung und Verwaltung des Vorderen Orients in islamischer Zeit. 2. Mit Beiträgen von D. Sourdel und J. Bosch Vilá. 1988. ISBN 90 04 08550 5 6/1. Wirtschaftsgeschichte des Vorderen Orients in islamischer Zeit. Mit Beiträgen von B. Lewis, M. Rodinson, G. Baer, H. Müller, A. S. Ehrenkreutz, E. Ashtor, B. Spuler, A. K. S. Lambton, R. C. Cooper, B. Rosenberger, R. Arié, L. Bolens, T. Fahd. 1977. ISBN 90 04 04802 2 Band 7 Armenisch und Kaukasische Sprachen. Mit Beiträgen von G. Deeters, G. R. Solta, V. Inglisian. 1963. ISBN 90 04 00862 4 Band 8. Religion 1/1. Religionsgeschichte des alten Orients. Mit Beiträgen von E. Otto, O. Eissfeldt, H. Otten, J. Hempel. 1964. ISBN 90 04 00863 2 1/2/2/1. Boyce, M. A History of Zoroastrianism. The Early Period. Rev. ed. 1989. ISBN 90 04 08847 4

1/2/2/2. Boyce, M. A History of Zoroastrianism. Under the Achaemenians. 1982. ISBN 90 04 06506 7 1/2/2/3. Boyce, M. and Grenet, F. A History of Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrianism under Macedonian and Roman Rule. With a Contribution by R. Beck. 1991. ISBN 90 04 09271 4 2. Religionsgeschichte des Orients in der Zeit der Weltreligionen. Mit Beiträgen von A. Adam, A. J. Arberry, E. L. Dietrich, J. W. Fück, A. von Gabain, J. Leipoldt, B. Spuler, R. Strothman, G. Widengren. 1961. ISBN 90 04 00864 0 Ergänzungsband 1 1. Hinz, W. Islamische Maße und Gewichte umgerechnet ins metrische System. Nachdruck der Erstausgabe (1955) mit Zusätzen und Berichtigungen. 1970. ISBN 90 04 00865 9 Ergänzungsband 2 1. Grohmann, A. Arabische Chronologie und Arabische Papyruskunde. Mit Beiträgen von J. Mayr und W. C. Till. 1966. ISBN 90 04 00866 7 2. Khoury, R. G. Chrestomathie de papyrologie arabe. Documents relatifs à la vie privée, sociale et administrative dans les premiers siècles islamiques. 1992. ISBN 90 04 09551 9 Ergänzungsband 3 Orientalisches Recht. Mit Beiträgen von E. Seidl, V. Korosˇc, E. Pritsch, O. Spies, E. Tyan, J. Baz, Ch. Chehata, Ch. Samaran, J. Roussier, J. Lapanne-Joinville, S. S¸ . Ansay. 1964. ISBN 90 04 00867 5 Ergänzungsband 5 1/1. Borger, R. Einleitung in die assyrischen Königsinschriften. 1. Das zweite Jahrtausend vor Chr. Mit Verbesserungen und Zusätzen. Nachdruck der Erstausgabe (1961). 1964. ISBN 90 04 00869 1 1/2. Schramm, W. Einleitung in die assyrischen Königsinschriften. 2. 934-722 v. Chr. 1973. ISBN 90 04 03783 7 Ergänzungsband 6 1. Ullmann, M. Die Medizin im Islam. 1970. ISBN 90 04 00870 5 2. Ullmann, M. Die Natur- und Geheimwissenschaften im Islam. 1972. ISBN 90 04 03423 4 Ergänzungsband 7 Gomaa, I. A Historical Chart of the Muslim World. 1972. ISBN 90 04 03333 5 Ergänzungsband 8 Kornrumpf, H.-J. Osmanische Bibliographie mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Türkei in Europa. Unter Mitarbeit von J. Kornrumpf. 1973. ISBN 90 04 03549 4 Ergänzungsband 9 Firro, K. M. A History of the Druzes. 1992. ISBN 90 04 09437 7 Band 10 Strijp, R. Cultural Anthropology of the Middle East. A Bibliography. Vol. 1: 1965-1987. 1992. ISBN 90 04 09604 3 Band 11 Endress, G. & Gutas, D. (eds.). A Greek and Arabic Lexicon. (GALex ). Materials for a Dictionary of the Mediæval Translations from Greek into Arabic. Fascicle 1. Introduction—Sources— æ – æ-kh-r. Compiled by G. Endress & D. Gutas, with the assistance of K. Alshut, R. Arnzen, Chr. Hein, St. Pohl, M. Schmeink. 1992. ISBN 90 04 09494 6 Fascicle 2. æ-kh-r – æ-s.-l. Compiled by G. Endress & D. Gutas, with the assistance of K. Alshut, R. Arnzen, Chr. Hein, St. Pohl, M. Schmeink. 1993. ISBN 90 04 09893 3 Fascicle 3. æ-s.-l – æ-l-y. Compiled by G. Endress, D. Gutas & R. Arnzen, with the assistance of Chr. Hein, St. Pohl. 1995. ISBN 90 04 10216 7 Fascicle 4. Ila- – inna. Compiled by R. Arnzen, G. Endress & D. Gutas, with the assistance of Chr. Hein & J. Thielmann. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10489 5. Band 12 Jayyusi, S. K. (ed.). The Legacy of Muslim Spain. Chief consultant to the editor, M. Marín. 2nd ed. 1994. ISBN 90 04 09599 3 Band 13 Hunwick, J. O. and O’Fahey, R. S. (eds.). Arabic Literature of Africa. Editorial Consultant: Albrecht Hofheinz. Volume I. The Writings of Eastern Sudanic Africa to c. 1900. Compiled by R. S. O’Fahey, with the assistance of M. I. Abu Salim, A. Hofheinz, Y. M. Ibrahim, B. Radtke and K. S. Vikør. 1994. ISBN 90 04 09450 4 Volume II. The Writings of Central Sudanic Africa. Compiled by John O. Hunwick, with the assistance of Razaq Abubakre, Hamidu Bobboyi, Roman Loimeier, Stefan Reichmuth and Muhammad Sani Umar. 1995. ISBN 90 04 10494 1

Band 14 Decker, W. und Herb, M. Bildatlas zum Sport im alten Ägypten. Corpus der bildlichen Quellen zu Leibesübungen, Spiel, Jagd, Tanz und verwandten Themen. Bd.1: Text. Bd. 2: Ab-bildungen. 1994. ISBN 90 04 09974 3 (Set) Band 15 Haas, V. Geschichte der hethitischen Religion. 1994. ISBN 90 04 09799 6 Band 16 Neusner, J. (ed.). Judaism in Late Antiquity. Part One: The Literary and Archaeological Sources. 1994. ISBN 90 04 10129 2 Band 17 Neusner, J. (ed.). Judaism in Late Antiquity. Part Two: Historical Syntheses. 1994. ISBN 90 04 09799 6 Band 18 Orel, V. E. and Stolbova, O. V. (eds.). Hamito-Semitic Etymological Dictionary. Materials for a Reconstruction. 1994. ISBN 90 04 10051 2 Band 19 al-Zwaini, L. and Peters, R. A Bibliography of Islamic Law, 1980-1993. 1994. ISBN 90 04 10009 1 Band 20 Krings, V. (éd.). La civilisation phénicienne et punique. Manuel de recherche. 1995. ISBN 90 04 10068 7 Band 21 Hoftijzer, J. and Jongeling, K. Dictionary of the North-West Semitic Inscriptions. With appendices by R.C. Steiner, A. Mosak Moshavi and B. Porten. 1995. 2 Parts. ISBN Set (2 Parts) 90 04 09821 6 Part One: æ - L. ISBN 90 04 09817 8 Part Two: M - T. ISBN 90 04 9820 8. Band 22 Lagarde, M. Index du Grand Commentaire de Fah-r al-Dı-n al-Ra-zı-. 1996. ISBN 90 04 10362 7 Band 23 Kinberg, N. A Lexicon of al-Farra- æ’s Terminology in his Quræa-n Commentary. With Full Definitions, English Summaries and Extensive Citations. 1996. ISBN 90 04 10421 6 Band 24 Fähnrich, H. und Sardshweladse, S. Etymologisches Wörterbuch der Kartwel-Sprachen. 1995. ISBN 90 04 10444 5 Band 25 Rainey, A.F. Canaanite in the Amarna Tablets. A Linguistic Analysis of the Mixed Dialect used by Scribes from Canaan. 1996. ISBN Set (4 Volumes) 90 04 10503 4 Volume I. Orthography, Phonology. Morphosyntactic Analysis of the Pronouns, Nouns, Numerals. ISBN 90 04 10521 2 Volume II. Morphosyntactic Analysis of the Verbal System. ISBN 90 04 10522 0 Volume III. Morphosyntactic Analysis of the Particles and Adverbs. ISBN 90 04 10523 9 Volume IV. References and Index of Texts Cited. ISBN 90 04 10524 7 Band 26 Halm, H. The Empire of the Mahdi. The Rise of the Fatimids. Translated from the German by M. Bonner. 1996. ISBN 90 04 10056 3 Band 27 Strijp, R. Cultural Anthropology of the Middle East. A Bibliography. Vol. 2: 1988-1992. 1997. ISBN 90 04 010745 2 Band 28 Sivan, D. A Grammar of the Ugaritic Language. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10614 6 Band 29 Corriente, F. A Dictionary of Andalusi Arabic. 1997. ISBN 90 04 09846 1 Band 30 Sharon, M. Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum Palaestinae (CIAP). Vol. 1: A. 1997. ISBN 90 04 010745 2 Vol.1: B. 1999. ISBN 90 04 110836 Band 31 Török, L. The Kingdom of Kush. Handbook of the Napatan-Meroitic Civilization. 1997. ISBN 90 04 010448 8 Band 32 Muraoka, T. and Porten, B. A Grammar of Egyptian Aramaic. 1998. ISBN 90 04 10499 2

Band 33 Gessel, B.H.L. van. Onomasticon of the Hittite Pantheon. 1998. ISBN Set (2 parts) 90 04 10809 2 Band 34 Klengel, H. Geschichte des hethitischen Reiches 1998. ISBN 90 04 10201 9 Band 35 Hachlili, R. Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology in the Diaspora 1998. ISBN 90 04 10878 5 Band 36 Westendorf, W. Handbuch der altägyptischen Medizin. 1999. ISBN Set (2 Bände) 90 04 10319 8 Band 37 Civil, M. Mesopotamian Lexicography. 1999. ISBN 90 04 11007 0 Band 38 Siegelová, J. and Sou‘ek, V. Systematische Bibliographie der Hethitologie. 1999. ISBN Set (3 Bände) 90 04 11205 7 Band 39 Watson, W.G.E. and Wyatt, N. Handbook of Ugaritic Studies. 1999. ISBN 90 04 10988 9 Band 40 Neusner, J. Judaism in Late Antiquity, III,1. 1999. ISBN 90 04 11186 7 Band 41 Neusner, J. Judaism in Late Antiquity, III,2. 1999. ISBN 90 04 11282 0 Band 42 Drijvers, H.J.W. and Healey, J.F. The Old Syriac Inscriptions of Edessa and Osrhoene. 1999. ISBN 90 04 11284 7 Band 43 Daiber, H. Bibliography of Philosophical Thought in Islam. 2 Volumes. ISBN Set (2 Volumes) 90 04 11347 9 Volume I. Alphabetical List of Publications 1999. ISBN 90 04 09648 5 Volume II. Index of Names, Terms and Topics. 1999. ISBN 90 04 11348 7 Band 44 Hunger, H. and Pingree, D. Astral Sciences in Mesopotamia. 1999. ISBN 90 04 10127 6 Band 45 Neusner, J. The Mishnah. Religious Perspectives 1999. ISBN 90 04 11492 0 Band 46 Neusner, J. The Mishnah. Social Perspectives 1999. ISBN 90 04 11491 2 Band 47 Khan, G. A Grammar of Neo-Aramaic. 1999. ISBN 90 04 11510 2 Band 48 Takács, G. Etymological Dictionary of Egyptian. Vol. 1. 1999. ISBN 90 04 11538 2 Band 49 Avery-Peck, A.J. and Neusner, J. Judaism in Late Antiquity IV. 2000. ISBN 90 04 11262 6