Heaven Begins (Thoughts About After-Life Around the First Century)
November 8, 2011 6 Comments
Before the time of the Maccabean Revolt (approximately 165 B.C.E), Judaism only concerned itself with earthly life. Jewish discussion about God hardly included thoughts about a life after present existence. Rather, Judaism was concerned with interpreting the struggles and tragedies that people suffered in the early realm. This gives reason why the Tanakh does not offer much about what comes after death. [1] Dr. Diarmaid MacCulloch provides in his book “Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years”, that the Tanakh does suggest that human life comes to an end, but for a few exceptional people, that is it. Perhaps this line of thinking is the reason for the phrase, “when you are dead you are done.”
The first Jewish texts to give attention to what happens to the soul after death appear in the Hellenistic period. These texts can be found in Inter-Testamental literature dating after the Tanakh, such as the “Wisdom of Solomon” written between the mid-second century BCE and the early first century BCE. [2] Another literary work that included the idea of individual resurrection of the soul in a transformed body The Book of Daniel, which made its way into the Tanakh around the second century. This shift within Judaism was not without controversy and provoked on-going arguments. [3]
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