Do you believe in the bodly resurrection of Jesus?
Tom Wright sets the stage for these next several posts by noting that , many Christians today use the word “resurrection” very loosely, to mean something that it did not mean in the first century. It is often used today simply as a somewhat exalted way of talking about “going to heaven when you die.”
Assuming that Wright is making a valid observation, the question then arises, what did resurrection mean in the first century? Interestlingly, his answer partakes of both a sense of continmuity and the recognition of a mutaion (an evolution) in the commonly understood meaning of the idea.
As at this point in our series, we will begin to look at what the Bible tells us about both the future of the world and the future of the individual. That is to say that “hand in hand” with the notion of resurrection, we must also find traditional perceptions of an “afterlife.”
Wright generally picks up his discussion examining the period of Second Temple Judaism, first century CE and the previous couple of hundred years. For a more full discussion, I want to look at the article by James Tabor that has been referenced in earlier posts. For me, this article serves as a road map into the obvious complexity of what one finds when one explores the Bible. Tabor writes:
There is no simple and single response to the question of what the Bible really says about the future. What one finds is just what one would expect in any book composed of documents from many times, places, circumstances, and authors–variety and development.
Tabor begins his discussion by speaking of cosmology – the broad shape of the world. Today, we understand that the current physical world is a universe, but in early Biblical times, our world was generally understood to have three stories. In it’s earliest manifestation, life existed on a seriew of what might be called dewcending evels. The firmament was the heavenly realm. This was God’s space and it was shared with angels and planets and other heavenly creatures. Human beings lived on the earth not in heaven. The Psalmist notes that God made human beings a little lower than the angels. In fact, originally according to Tabor, in this picture, heaven was never for human beings. While one might talk of a couple of exceptions to this rule, Enoch, Eklijah and depending on the source Moses, but human beings did not readily ascend the ladders that ocassionally angels might descend in order to deliver a message from God.
But, if one doesn’t go to the heavens, where does one go after death? The earliest Jewish people spoke of a place called Sheol. Now, the origin of the Hebrew term is ambiguous. Perhaps. it it rooted in the word for pit, or for abyss. Sheol is generally thought of as under (or in) the flat disc of the earth. Sheol has a gate 9there always seems to be gates) and it is usually found toward the West.
Agaian, in the earliest images of this cosmology, there is not upward transition between the levels. If there were direction signs they would point down. Those who had died in a sense are a little lower than those who were alive.
Tabor describes Sheol in detail.
The ancient Hebrews had no idea of an immortal soul living a full and vital life beyond death, nor of any resurrection or return from death. Human beings, like the beasts of the field, are made of “dust of the earth,” and at death they return to that dust (Gen. 2:7; 3:19). The Hebrew word nephesh, traditionally translated “living soul” but more properly understood as “living creature,” is the same word used for all breathing creatures and refers to nothing immortal. The same holds true for the expression translated as “the breath of life” (see Gen. 1:24; 7:21-22). It is physical, “animal life.” For all practical purposes, death was the end. As Psalm 115:17 says, the dead go down into “silence”; they do not participate, as do the living, in praising God (seen then as the most vital human activity). Psalm 146:4 is like an exact reverse replay of Genesis 2:7: “When his breath departs he returns to his earth; on that very day his thoughts [plans] perish.” Death is a one-way street; there is no return. As Job laments:
But man dies, and is laid low;
man breathes his last, and where is he?
As waters fail from a lake,
and a river wastes away and dries up,
so man lies down and rises not again;
till the heavens are no more he will not awake,
or be aroused out of his sleep. (Job 14:10-12)
All the dead go down to Sheol, and there they lie in sleep together–whether good or evil, rich or poor, slave or free (Job 3:11-19). It is described as a region “dark and deep,” “the Pit,” and “the land of forgetfulness,” cut off from both God and human life above (Pss. 6:5; 88:3-12). Though in some texts Yahweh’s power can reach down to Sheol (Ps. 139:8), the dominant idea is that the dead are abandoned forever. This idea of Sheol is negative in contrast to the world of life and light above, but there is no idea of judgment or of reward and punishment.
So isn’t this bleak? Perhaps, but Tabor continues,
If one faces extreme circumstances of suffering in the realm of the living above, as did Job, it can even be seen as a welcome relief from pain–see the third chapter of Job. But basically it is a kind of “nothingness,” an existence that is barely existence at all, in which a “shadow” or “shade” of the former self survives (Ps. 88:10).
Now it is fair to note that there are other metaphors at work in the scriptures as well. Clearly, found within the Genesis creation accounts, they speak of paradise, a kind of really cool garden. Depending on one’s interpretation, the gates are closed and guarded by angels with really big nasty looking swords. The first human beings are shut out, although there is a sense of that in the end the gates will be opened again. Tom Wright points out that in the conversation between Jesus and the insurgent hanging to his right (thieves were not generally crucified) finds Jesus saying that “today you will be with me in Paradise.”
Two conclusions must be drawn. First, that Paradise must be heavenly – a place to be in the afterlife. but to speak of the resurrection is not to speak of going to Paradise. We will return to this image in due time.
In our next post, we will begin to look at how these earliest images of Sheol in the Jewish tradition compare and contrast with other images abroad and moreover, we will look at how they begin to shift, for “Resting in Peace” in Sheol forever is not extinction – it becomes existentially problematic. So we will not be surprised to find other images emerging as the history of the Jewish people and the story of the promise of the land, these initial images change and grow.
Previous Posts in the Series:
Taking a Second Look at Resurrection – Confusion
Taking a Second Look at Resurrection – Credentials
Taking a Second Look at Resurrection – Resources
Taking a Second Look at Resurrection – Questions
All material posted in this series is copyrighted (c) and at this time may not be reproduced.
