“wake up o sleeper”: an exploration of resurrection as an ... · 18. so m. hengel, judaism and...

Daniel Hayter Wake up O Sleeper

“Wake up O Sleeper”: An Exploration of resurrection as

an eschatological reality in Second Temple Judaism.MA Dissertation for MA in Biblical Studies (7AATC299)

Name: Daniel Hayter

Supervisor: Prof. Joan Taylor

Deadline: 18/09/2012

Word count: 15600 (including comments in footnotes)

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CONTENTS

Title Page 1

Contents 2

Abbreviations 3

INTRODUCTION 4

PART I: NO RESURRECTION TO TELL OF 5

1. No afterlife involved 5

2. Future life, but no resurrection 6

PART II: RESURRECTION IN SECOND TEMPLE JEWISH TEXTS 13

1. 1 Enoch 13

2. 2 Maccabees 19

3. The Dead Sea Scrolls 22

4. The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs 28

5. Sibylline Oracles 31

6. Pseudo-Philo 32

7. 4 Ezra 35

8. 2 Baruch 37

9. Josephus 39

10. Apocalypse of Moses 42

CONCLUSION 45

Bibliography 47

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Abbreviations

AB Anchor Bible

AGJU Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums

AnBib Analecta biblica

AUU Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Historia religionum

BETL Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium

Bib Biblica

CBC Cambridge Bible Commentary

CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly

CBR Currents in Biblical Research

CEJL Commentaries on early Jewish literature

ConBNT Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah

EBib Etudes Bibliques

GCS Griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller

Hermeneia Hermeneia: A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible

HBM Hebrew Bible Monographs

HSS Harvard Semitic Studies

HTS Harvard Theological Studies

JBL Journal of Biblical Literature

JSJSup Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism

LCL Loeb Classical Library

NRSV New Revised Standard Version

OTL Old Testament Library

PVTG Pseudepigrapha Veteris Testamenti graece

RevQ Revue de Qumran

SBS Stuttgarter Bibelstudien

SC Sources Chrétiennes

SCS Septuagint and Cognate Studies Series

SPB Studia post-biblica

SPCK Society for Promoting of Christian Knowledge

STDJ Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah

SVTP Studia in Veteris Testamenti pseudepigrapha

TynBul Tyndale Bulletin

WUNT Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament

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INTRODUCTION

The Belief in the eschatological resurrection of the dead lay at the very core of early Christianity

and Rabbinic Judaism. On the Christian side, Jesus' own resurrection, of course, took the centre-

stage, but many New Testament writings also refer to the resurrection of the saints at the eschaton.1

On the Jewish side, after the crisis of 70 CE, resurrection of the dead eventually became one of the

litmus tests for orthodoxy.2 It is therefore surprising that the Hebrew Bible, considered authoritative

by both early Christians and Jews, only sparsely addresses the idea of an afterlife, let alone of

resurrection. We find mentions of a shadowy underworld called Sheol3 and some clues that the dead

might in fact not have ceased to exist completely,4 but by and large, and for various reasons, the

topic is not significantly addressed. It is only in Daniel 12.2 that we find an undisputed mention of

the hope of future resurrection in Israel's (and the early Christians') scriptures.

Since the Hebrew Bible is mostly silent on the issue, this study explores Jewish writings on

resurrection from the time of the Second Temple to provide a historical backdrop for the later

Christian and Rabbinic beliefs. After a brief summary of Jewish eschatological beliefs which did

not explicitly involve resurrection (Part I), we will analyse (in Part II) major writings on

resurrection from the Second Temple period. These writings will be read with two particular

questions in mind – questions which seem to have driven Paul in 1 Cor. 15. Firstly, who is raised?

Does the writing envisage a general resurrection, or does it restrict it to a select group of people? It

shall become clear that whereas most early writings on resurrection restrict resurrection to the

righteous, some later texts witness to the emergence of a strong belief in universal resurrection,

which developed alongside the continuing belief in a restricted resurrection. Secondly, and most

importantly, we ask what the nature of the resurrection in each text is, or, to paraphrase Paul, with

what kind of body are the dead raised? Although many scholars commonly talk of “spiritual

resurrection” as short-hand for “non-material” or “non-bodily” resurrection, we shall see that this

idea is not clearly attested in the texts.5 Resurrection, it seems, is something which happens to the

body. Sometimes, this body is transformed, but it does not thereby stop being a material body.

1. E.g. (outside the Jewish belief in the gospels) Rom. 6.5; 1 Cor 15; Phil 3.11; 2 Tim. 2.17; Heb. 6.2; Rev. 20.4-6.2. E.g. mSanh 10.1.3. Cf. Gen. 37.35; 42.38; 44.29, 31; Num. 16.30, 33; Deut. 32.22; 1 Sam. 2.6; 2 Sam. 22.6; 1 Kings 2.6, 9; Is. 5.14;

14.9, 11, 15; 28.15, 18; 38.10, 18; 57.9; Ezek. 31.15–17; 32.21, 27; Hos. 13.14; Amos 9.2; Jonah 2.3; Hab. 2.5; Psa. 6.6; 9.18; 16.10; 18.6; 30.4; 31.18; 49.15–16; 55.16; 86.13; 88.4; 89.49; 116.3; 139.8; 141.7; Job 7.9; 11.8; 14.13; 17.13, 16; 21.13; 24.19; 26.6; Prov. 1.12; 5.5; 7.27; 9.18; 15.11, 24; 23.14; 27.20; 30.16; Song. 8.6; Eccl 9.10.

4. E.g. 1 Sam. 28.5. Throughout this paper, the terms “Physical” and “Material” will be used somewhat interchangeably.

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PART I: NO RESURRECTION TO TELL OF

Before we analyse texts that mention resurrection in Part II, we briefly survey of other ancient

Jewish beliefs in the afterlife in this section. These beliefs range from a denial of post-mortem

existence through to a Platonic conception of the immortality of the soul.

1. No afterlife involved

The seasoned reader of the New Testament will be aware that the Sadducees “say that there is no

resurrection (aÓna¿stasin mh\ ei•nai)”.6 This just as clear in Josephus' account of the their beliefs

on the afterlife:

They also take away the belief of the immortal duration of the soul, and the punishments and rewards in Hades.7

But the doctrine of the Sadducees is this: That souls die with the bodies;8

A similar view is expressed in the apocryphal book of Sirach.9 This Jewish work from the second

century BCE, originally from Palestine but subsequently very popular in Alexandria,10 offers a

similar perspective to that of most of the Hebrew Bible. For example, rewards for the righteous take

the form of an enduring name:11

If he lives long, he will leave a name greater than a thousand, and if he goes to rest, it is enough for him.12

The human body is a fleeting thing, but a virtuous name will never be blotted out.13

6. Mk. 12.18f; Cf. Matt. 22.23f; Lk. 20.27f; Acts 23.6-8.7. War 2.162 trans. H. S. J. Thackeray, Josephus: The Jewish war, books I-III (LCL; London: Heinemann, 1927).8. Ant. 18.16 trans. L. H. Feldman, Josephus: Jewish antiquities, books XVIII-XX (LCL; London: Heinemann,

1965). Puech also cites mAb. [Rec A] 5, mSanh. 10.1 and bSanh. 90b-91: E. Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens en la Vie Future: Immortalité, Résurrection, Vie Éternelle? Histoire d’une Croyance dans le Judaïsme Ancien (EBib; Paris: J Gabalda, 1993), 202–12.

9. On the Hebrew of 48.11 attesting to resurrection, cf. Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 74–75. Cf., however, A. A. Di Lella & P. W. Skehan, The Wisdom of Ben Sira (AB; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1987), 534.

10. Cf. Di Lella & Skehan, The Wisdom of Ben Sira, 8–9; R. J. Coggins, Sirach (Guides to Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 18–20, 45-48.

11. Cf. Di Lella & Skehan, The Wisdom of Ben Sira, 83–87.12. Sir. 39.11 (NRSV).13. Sir. 41.11.

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Conversely, punishment for sinners is envisaged in terms of death or troubles in life:

Before making a vow, prepare yourself; do not be like one who puts the Lord to the test. Think of his wrath on the

day of death, and of the moment of vengeance when he turns away his face.14

Those who rejoice in the fall of the godly will be caught in a snare, and pain will consume them before their death15

Even Hades, elsewhere thought of as the home of the conscious dead or as a place of punishment,16

resembles the Hebrew Bible's shadowy realm of Sheol, particularly as it is described in Isaiah

38.18:

Who will sing praises to the Most High in Hades in place of the living who give thanks? From the dead, as from one

who does not exist, thanksgiving has ceased; those who are alive and well sing the Lord's praises17

Sirach, then, not unlike the Sadducees, rejected any form of afterlife except a possible shadowy

existence in Sheol/Hades.18

2. Future life, but no resurrection

Other Jewish texts do envisage life beyond death, but either leave no room for resurrection, or lack

specific details. For example, The Wisdom of Solomon, of an uncertain date (2nd BCE – early 1st

CE) but probably from an Alexandrian background,19 clearly teaches the post-mortem continuation

of the soul since it claims that “the souls of the [dead] righteous are in the hand of God” (3.1).20 The

14. Sir. 18.23-24.15. Sir. 27.29.16. Particularly in Greek thought: e.g. Aesch. Supp. 207; Apollod. Lib. 1.4, 9; Epit. E.2.1; Diog. Laet. Lives 8.1.4-5,

21; Hom. Od. 11.567f. Cf. also Josephus War 2.154, 162; Lk. 16.23.17. Sir. 17.27-28.18. So M. Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism: studies in their encounter in Palestine during the early Hellenistic

period, trans. John Stephen Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974), 197.19. Cf. D. Winston, The Wisdom of Solomon: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary 1st ed (AB 43;

Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday, 1979), 20–25; L. L. Grabbe, Wisdom of Solomon (Guides to Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 87–91.

20. On immortality in Wis. cf. C. Larcher, Études sur le Livre de la Sagesse (EBib; Paris: J Gabalda, 1969), 237–327; Winston, The Wisdom of Solomon, 25–32. On death in Wis. 1-6 cf. M. Kolarcik, The Ambiguity of Death in the Book of Wisdom 1-6: A Study of Literary Structure and Interpretation (AnBib 127; Rome: Pontificio Ist Biblico, 1991).

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book does not necessarily advocate a fully platonic anthropology, but it has visibly been influenced

by Greek thought.21

Wis. does not contain any explicit resurrection language.22 However, it does mention that “the

righteous will stand (sth/setai) with great confidence in the presence of those who have oppressed

them” (5.1) – an expression which could imply resurrection.23 Yet Cavallin rightly cautions that the

focus of the passage is not so much the bodily existence of the righteous as their vindication.24 The

(potentially symbolic) expression should not be pressed too far.

An earlier passage, 3.7-8, has also been adduced as evidence for resurrection:

In the time of their visitation (ejpiskophvß) they will shine forth, and will run like sparks through the stubble. They

will govern nations and rule over peoples, and the Lord will reign over them forever.

According to Wright, in the Septuagint, ejpiskoph is used of God's visitation to enforce justice.25

Here, it apparently refers to God's eschatological coming,26 and hence, post-dates the time of death

described in 3.1-3.27 Therefore, the time of visitation coincides with the time at which other texts

envisage final resurrection.28 However, the lack of explicit references to resurrection in Wis. should

deter us from making confident assertions. At most, we can suggest that Wis. does not necessarily

exclude resurrection.

The second-century BCE Palestinian29 book of Jubilees gives an ambiguous view of the afterlife:

And the LORD will heal his servants, and they will rise up and see great peace. And they will drive out their

enemies, and the righteous ones will see and give praise, and rejoice forever and ever with joy; and they will see all

of their judgments and all of their curses among their enemies. And their bones will rest in the earth, and their

21. Cf. for example Wis. 8.19-20; 9.15.22. Cf. however N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God: Christian origins and the question of God

(London: SPCK, 2003), 170.23. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 170.24. H. C. C. Cavallin, Life After Death: Paul’s Argument for the Resurrection of the Dead in I Cor 15: Part I: An

Enquiry into the Jewish Background (ConBNT 7:1; Lund: Gleerup, 1974), 129. Furthermore, Kolarcik, The Ambiguity of Death, 101 notes that sth/setai has “a formal function in biblical trial proceedings.”

25. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 169n168 notes Gen. 50.24f; Ex. 3.16; 4.31; Num. 16.29; Isa. 10.3; 23.17; 29.6; Jer. 6.15; 10.15f; Sir. 16.18; 23.24.

26. So Cavallin, Life After Death, 127–28.27. So Larcher, Études sur le Livre de la Sagesse, 301–21. Contra G. W. E. Nickelsburg, Resurrection, Immortality,

and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism (HTS 26; London: Oxford University Press, 1972), 89 who equates the death of the righteous with their visitation.

28. See Part II.29. Cf. Wintermute in J. H. Charlesworth, ed., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Vol 2: Expansions of the “Old

Testament” and Legends, Wisdom and Philosophical literature, Prayers, Psalms and Odes, Fragments of lost Judeo-Hellenistic works (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1985), 43–45.

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spirits will increase joy, and they will know that the LORD is an executor of judgment; but he will show mercy to

hundreds and thousands to all who love him.30

Some have argued that this passage describes resurrection, either of the body31 or of the spirit,32 but

the lack of explicit resurrection terminology (the closest we get is “rise up” in v.30) suggests

otherwise. Additionally, as the text stands, those who “rise up” could be those who are alive at the

time of the final reversal. The author, then, would mark a difference between the “servants”, who

are alive at the time described in 23.28f and drive out their enemies, and the righteous (dead) ones,

who observe from their post-mortem state and rejoice.33 Whatever the case, a non-bodily existence

for the righteous would make sense of the separation between bones and spirits (which happens

after the rising up of the servants).34

Philo of Alexandria, whom Vermes has rightly dubbed “the personification of a fully Hellenized

Jew”,35 wrote of the immortality of the soul and gave no room for bodily resurrection to creep in. In

fact, by qualifying the body as a prison,36 Philo suggests that resurrection would be more of a

punishment than a reward.37 In his view, individuals must strive to render their souls immortal

30. Jub. 23.30-31 trans. Wintermute in Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Vol 2 (my italics).31. E.g. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 144.32. Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 104–5; J. J. Collins, Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls (London:

Routledge, 1997), 113.33. For a similar view, cf. J. M. Scott, On Earth as in Heaven: The Restoration of Sacred Time and Sacred Space in

the Book of Jubilees (JSJSup; Leiden: Brill, 2005), 179–81.34. When speaking of disembodiment throughout this paper, we should bear in mind that the soul was often more

substantive in ancient thought. In Homer, the souls of the dead are certainly more like ghosts (intangible), but still have an appearance (Il. 23.99-107; Od. 11.206-8; 219-22; cf. J. N. Bremmer, The Early Greek concept of the soul (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 76–9). Many pre-Socratic philosophers saw the soul as material (cf. D. Furley, “The early history of the concept of soul,” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, University of London 3 (1956): 10–17; J. Barnes, The Presocratic Philosophers rev. ed. (The arguments of the philosophers; London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982), 472–77): some (e.g. Heracleitus) saw it as made of fire (cf. Clem. Misc. vi.17.2; Stob. Anth. iii.5.8; Plut. Rom. 28.7.); others (e.g. Democritus) of atoms (cf. Arist. De Anima 406b.15-25). Plato viewed the soul as immaterial and indiscernible to the senses (e.g. Phaedo 78b-80b.), whereas Aristotle, whilst still maintaining the immateriality of the soul, attributed some form of substance (oujsi/a) to it and saw it as what gives a living thing its essence (e.g. De Anima 406b.15-25; 412b.10-413a.10; Alexander, Supplement to on the Soul 113.26f; cf. M. Frede, “On Aristotle’s Conception of the Soul,” in Essays on Aristotle’s De anima, ed. Amélie Oksenberg Rorty and Martha C. Nussbaum (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 93–107). The later Epicureans and Stoics held to a physical (atomistic) soul, but only the Stoics viewed it as continuing after death (e.g. Lucretius iii.161-76, 417-58; Nemesius, Human Nature ii.22.3-6; Alexander, Supplement to on the Soul 117.1-9). Philo's view on the matter was that the higher portion of the soul was made of upper air, the substance of divinity (e.g. Leg. Al. 3.161; Immutabilis 46-47; De Op. 135; De Plantatione 24; Quis rarum divinarum sit 55-56). That being said, however substantive the soul was, it was not a body and hence, as we shall argue, immortality of the soul was not a way of speaking of resurrection.

35. G. Vermes, “Jewish Attitudes to Afterlife in the age of Jesus,” in With Wisdom as a Robe: Qumran and Other Jewish Studies in Honour of Ida Fröhlich, ed. Károly Dániel Dobos and Miklós Kőszeghy (HBM 21; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2009), 349.

36. E.g. De Migr. 9.37. Cavallin, Life After Death, 137; Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 165. However, C. D. Elledge, Life After

Death in Early Judaism: The Evidence of Josephus (WUNT 208; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 30n122 notes that

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through philosophy and virtue. Death then becomes the way to escape from the mortal body and

enter into disembodied bliss:

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.38

If Philo believed in bodily resurrection, it would clearly be odd for him to write this. He is less clear

on the punishment of the wicked: he writes, in one place, of the annihilation of the souls of the

wicked, and elsewhere, of the eternal punishment of evildoers.39 One thing is clear, though: no body

was better in Philo's view.

Pseudo-Phocylides seems to describe conflicting views of the afterlife.40 Whilst vv.103-4 depict

what van der Horst calls “a very literalistic doctrine of the resurrection”,41 the following lines

envisage a disembodied future life:

For the souls remain unharmed among the deceased. For the spirit is a loan of God to mortals, and (his) image. For

we have a body out of earth, and when afterward we are resolved again into earth we are but dust; and then the air

has received our spirit. […] All alike are corpses, but God rules over the souls. Hades is (our) common eternal home

and fatherland, a common place for all, poor and kings. We humans live not a long time but for a season. But (our)

soul is immortal and lives ageless forever.42

These verse are unlikely to have anything to do with resurrection;43 rather, they are about the soul

surviving death. Furthermore, the author seems to have held a very Greek view of disembodied

immortality in vv.105-115 when he writes of the soul living forever and of Hades being an eternal

home (do/mwn aijw¿nia).

Wolfson has suggested that resurrection lies beneath Philo's doctrine of the immortality of the soul.38. De Gig. 14 trans. F. H. Colson & G. H. Whitaker, Philo II (LCL; Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press,

1929). Cf. De Migr. 9.39. Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 164 lists De Post. 39; De Praem. 69. Cf. also Cavallin, Life After Death,

136–37.40. On dating and provenance, cf. P. W. van der Horst, The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides (SVTP; Leiden: Brill,

1978), 81–83.41. van der Horst, Pseudo-Phocylides, 185. So also Cavallin, Life After Death, 152; Puech, La Croyance des

Esséniens, 161; W. T. Wilson, The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides (CEJL; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2005), 145. vv.103-4 read: “we hope that the remains of the departed will soon come to light (again) out of the earth; and afterward they will become gods.” trans. van der Horst in Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Vol 2.

42. Ps.-Phoc. 105-115 (van der Horst).43. Contra Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 162.

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The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,44 as will be shown in Part II, mostly speak of

resurrection as the eschatological hope of the righteous. There is one exception in T. Ash. 6.5, which

apparently envisages an eternal disembodied future:45

For when the evil soul departs, it is harassed by the evil spirit which it served through its desires and evil works. But

if anyone is peaceful with joy he comes to know the angel of peace and enters eternal life.46

Similarly The Testament of Abraham (Recension A)47 makes no reference to resurrection

whatsoever. Rather, the author writes the following:

At this time you are about to leave this vain world and depart from the body48

this is the one sent from God, who is about to take your righteous soul from you49

The writer may have in view an intermediate state during which the dead await resurrection, but the

fate of the dead in chaps 11-14 suggests that judgement happens immediately upon death with

rewards for the virtuous and punishments for wicked souls.50 Apart from the short reference in

recension B (7.16), resurrection is absent from T. Abr.; each soul enters into punishment or reward

upon death.51

The book of 2 Enoch might presuppose resurrection, but it does not actually mention it. During a

tour of the seven heavens, Enoch is shown the eternal resting places of the righteous (8-9) and the

wicked (10). These places are not yet inhabited since the wicked still await judgement:

44. On dating and provenance cf. below.45. So Cavallin, Life After Death, 55; Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 124.46. Trans. Kee in J. H. Charlesworth, ed., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Vol 1: Apocalyptic Literature and

Testaments (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1983).47. On the likelihood of at least a Jewish, rather than Christian, “Urtext” for T. Abr., cf. D. C. Allison, Jr., Testament

of Abraham (CEJL; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2003), 28–31.48. T. Abr. 1.7 trans. E. P. Sanders in Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Vol 1.49. T. Abr. 7.8. (Sanders). See also 15.7 and 16.15.50. So Cavallin, Life After Death, 97; G. W. E. Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature Between the Bible and the Mishnah:

A Historical and Literary Introduction (London: SCM Press, 1981), 253.51. Nickelsburg, drawing on G. H. McCurdy's 1942 study suggests the possible influence of Greek platonic ideas on

the writer of the testament: G. W. E. Nickelsburg, “Eschatology in the Testament of Abraham: A Study of the Judgment Scenes in the two Recensions,” in Studies on the Testament of Abraham, ed. George W. E Nickelsburg, (SCS; Missoula, Mont: Scholars Press, for the Society of Biblical Literature, 1976), 27–29.

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And they showed me, and I saw a darkness greater than earthly darkness. And there I perceived prisoners under

guard, hanging up, waiting for the measureless judgment52

This judgement is described in detail in 65.6-10, but here, the destiny of the righteous takes centre-

stage:

And when the whole of creation, visible and invisible, which the LORD has created, shall come to an end, then each

person will go to the LORD's great judgment […] And all the righteous, who escape from the LORD's great

judgment, will be collected together into the great age. And the great age will come about for the righteous and it

will be eternal.53

The earth, destroyed in 65.6, is apparently not re-created and, in chaps 8-9, paradise is “an eternal

inheritance” for the righteous (9.1 Rec. J). In view of this, it seems that the great age for the

righteous will be spent in the third heaven in the paradise described in chaps 8-9. Second Enoch,

then, envisages a future life in heavenly rather than earthly terms.54

Unlike its source, 2 Maccabees, which clearly speaks of resurrection (see below in Part II), 4

Maccabees paints a more Greek-like picture of immortality.55 The work argues for the supremacy of

reason over the emotions and, as such, “is colored throughout by an unmistakable, if eclectic,

Stoicism.”56 The author re-tells the stories of the martyrdom of Eleazar, and the seven sons and their

mother (cf. 2 Macc. 6-7). Each person gladly embraces their fate, not with the hope of receiving a

new body, but with the hope of obtaining immortality. For example:

in no way did he [Eleazar] turn the rudder of religion until he sailed into the haven of immortal victory (ajqana/tou

ni/khß lime/na)57

Antiochus, however, is promised eternal suffering:

52. 2 En. 7.1 Rec. J trans. F. I. Anderson in Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Vol 1 (my italics). Cf. also 2 En. 40.13 Rec. J.

53. 2 En. 65.6-8 Rec. J (Anderson).54. On the possibility of this involving revivification: Cavallin, Life After Death, 165.55. Cf. Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature, 223.56. S. D. Moore & J. C. Anderson, “Taking It Like a Man : Masculinity in 4 Maccabees,” JBL 117, no. 2 (1998):

252n6. Cf. also Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature, 223–24.57. 4 Macc. 7.3 (NRSV).

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Because of this, justice has laid up for you intense and eternal fire and tortures, and these throughout all time will

never let you go.58

The author's concluding remarks aptly summarise the book's understanding of post-mortem

rewards:

But the sons of Abraham with their victorious mother are gathered together into the chorus of the fathers, and have

received pure and immortal souls (yuca\ß ajgna\ß kai« ajqana/touß) from God, to whom be glory forever and ever.

Amen59

No resurrection is required. Instead, the righteous sufferers have already attained immortality of the

soul are gathered to their fathers.

This short survey should suffice to show that resurrection was not the only form of belief in the

afterlife which was common in Second Temple Judaism. Some, like the Sadducees and the author

of Sirach, denied any existence after death. Others spoke of the individual awaiting an everlasting a

disembodied existence. Yet others did not specify the envisaged eschatological mode of existence.

This highlights some of the variety which existed in the Second Temple period alongside a belief in

resurrection. It is to this belief in resurrection that we now turn.

58. 4 Macc. 12.12.59. 4 Macc. 18.23-24.

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PART II: RESURRECTION IN SECOND TEMPLE JEWISH TEXTS

In this section, we analyse the most pertinent Jewish texts from the Second Temple period which

mention resurrection. In order to bring out any possible developments more clearly, our analysis

will be, broadly speaking, chronological, rather than thematic; instead of ordering the texts by

literary genres, we will begin with writings from the 2nd century BCE and finish with some from the

late 1st/early 2nd centuries CE. As noted in the introduction, we are primarily interested in (1)

whether resurrection is universal or restricted to a particular group and (2) the what kind of body, if

any, is raised.

1. 1 Enoch

The “Book of Watchers” (1 Enoch 1-37) is usually dated to the late third/early second century

BCE.60 The book's later chapters (17-36) contain a couple of references which apparently refer to

resurrection. In chap. 22, Enoch is shown a cave with four corners61 where different categories of

souls are stored as they await final judgement: the righteous, sinners who remained unpunished

during their lifetime, those who were murdered wrongly and those who, it seems, received some

form of punishment during their life and will receive lesser punishment than the rest.62 The sinners

“will not rise up from there.”63 According to this expression, the wicked are denied resurrection.

Some have argued that this resurrection applies to the spirit, rather than the body.64 However, a

subsequent reference in chap. 25 would suggest otherwise:65

[The tree] is for the righteous and the pious. And the elect will be presented with its fruit for life … they shall be

glad and rejoice in gladness, and they shall enter into the holy (place); its fragrance shall (penetrate) their bones,

long life will they live on earth, such as your fathers lived in their days.66

60. Cf. Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 106; Elledge, Life After Death, 7 referring to G. W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 1-36; 81-108  (Hermeneia; Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2001), 293.

61. The reference to three is problematic and usually primacy is given to the idea of four corners: cf. Cavallin, Life After Death, 49n16.

62. Cf. on this last group Cavallin, Life After Death, 41; Elledge, Life After Death, 8.63. 1 En. 22.13 trans. E. Isaac in Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Vol 1.64. So Cavallin, Life After Death, 41–2. Puech simply maintains that it is unclear what kind of resurrection is at play

here, but that immortality of the soul is unlikely: Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 110.65. Cf. 24.1; 25.3. In 2 En., however, paradise is situated in the third heaven.66. 1 En. 25.5-6 (Isaac).

13


This description, as Elledge puts it, is “remarkably physical and this-worldly”.67 Future life for the

righteous takes the form of a reversal to a long earthly life. Is this life everlasting, though? The

expression, “long life … such as your fathers lived in their days” (v.6) could refer to a life as long as

that of the antediluvian heroes. However, the writer point to eternal life by mentioning of the tree of

life, which in Gen. 3.22 is guarded in order to prevent humans living forever (Mlol yjw). Whatever

the case, the mention of bones in v.6 emphasises the physicality of this existence. Whether or not

this is what we might call transformed physicality, the book clearly envisages an earthly, bodily

resurrection for the righteous. The wicked, however, do not seem to be raised (cf. 22.13).

Additionally, the historical setting of the book (prior to Antiochus' edict in 167 BCE) suggests that

belief in resurrection was not necessarily triggered by persecution.68

A few passages in the book of the “Similitudes” (1 Enoch 37-71), dating from ca. 1st century BCE to

1st century CE,69 clearly teach bodily resurrection.70 The work is especially pertinent to our study

because these descriptions of bodily resurrection appear alongside expressions which scholars often

take to refer to “spiritual” resurrection.

According to 1 Enoch 46.6, at the final judgement,

[t]he faces of the strong will be slapped and be filled with shame and gloom. Their dwelling places and their beds

will be worms. They shall have no hope to rise from their beds, for they do not extol the name of the Lord of the

Spirits.

The wicked are denied resurrection by having no hope of rising from their beds (a euphemism for

the grave). Rather, resurrection seems to be reserved for the righteous.71 This is echoed a couple of

chapters later when the author writes that, “[the wicked kings] shall not rise up. For they have

denied the Lord of the Spirits and his Messiah.” Both passages imply resurrection,72 especially in

light of subsequent references, but the nature of the body is not yet specified.

67. Elledge, Life After Death, 8.68. Cf. on this C. D. Elledge, “Future Resurrection of the dead in early Judaism: Social dynamics, contested

evidence,” CBR 9, no. 3 (2011): 407.69. Cf. E. Isaac in Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Vol 1, 7; Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens,

119; Elledge, Life After Death, 10 and the discussion in note 33.70. Cavallin, Life After Death, 48 writes “it seems quite evident … that the resurrection of the body is explicitly

proclaimed only by Sim, the latest section”. In view of what we have discussed concerning the other sections of 1 Enoch, this seems too cautious.

71. So Cavallin, Life After Death, 46. M. Black, The Book of Enoch, or I Enoch: A New English Edition (SVTP 7; Leiden: Brill, 1985), 208 suggests that this could be a reference to Dan 12.3.

72. So Black, The Book of Enoch, or I Enoch, 211.

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The clearest reference to resurrection in the Similitudes is in chap. 51, but here a universal

resurrection seems to be envisaged.73 It is worth reproducing the passage in full:

In those days, the earth will bring together all her deposits and Sheol will bring together all her deposits which she

has received74 and hell will give back all that which it owes. And he shall choose the righteous and the holy ones

from among (the risen dead), for the day when they shall be selected and saved has arrived. In those days, (the Elect

One) shall sit on my throne, and from the conscience of his mouth shall come out all the secrets of wisdom, for the

Lord of the Spirits has given them to him and glorified him. In those days, mountains shall dance like rams; and the

hills shall leap like kids satiated with milk. And the faces of all the angels in heaven shall glow with joy, because on

that day the Elect One has arisen. And the earth shall rejoice; and the righteous ones shall dwell upon her and the

elect ones shall walk upon her.75

Bodily resurrection is likely here, since the earth gives back its deposits and the righteous dwell and

walk upon the earth.76 According to an alternative translation, the righteous themselves become

angels.77 If this rendering is correct, then the author has used angelic imagery to describe a

thoroughly material resurrection. This should make us cautious not to drive a wedge between so-

called “spiritual” resurrection and bodily resurrection; the two are not mutually exclusive. This is

also the case in 58.1-2 – a passage which, through the imagery of the sun, describes a resurrection

in which there is physical transformation.78

A further couple of allusions to resurrection are made in chaps. 61-62. In 61.5, those who have

died in the desert or been devoured by wild beasts return to life. The author does not qualify the

nature of their resurrected state. However, he does detail the place where they have died (the desert)

and thereby suggests that they return in the same state in which they departed (i.e. in the body).79

A radical transformation is envisaged in in chap 62:

73. Conta Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 119 who thinks that the book of Similitudes does not describe a general resurrection.

74. We have preferred, along with most scholars, to include “the earth” (so Charles' text and the 18th century ethiopic manuscript (B)). The following scholars (amongst others) opt for this rendering: Cavallin, Life After Death, 44–5; Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 155; Elledge, Life After Death, 11.

75. 1 En. 51.1-5 (Isaac)76. So Cavallin, Life After Death, 45; Elledge, Life After Death, 11.77. Knibb, cited in Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 155.78. Elledge, Life After Death, 11 following D. S. Russell, The Method & Message of Jewish Apocalyptic, 200 BC-

AD 100 (OTL; London: SCM Press, 1964), 377–78; Cavallin, Life After Death, 46.79. So Cavallin, Life After Death, 46. In fact, Puech includes this in a list of two passages (along with 51.1-5) which

clearly speak of bodily resurrection: Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 117.

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The righteous and elect ones shall rise from the earth and shall cease being of downcast face. They shall wear the

garments of glory. These garments of yours shall become the garments of life from the Lord of the Spirits. Neither

shall your garments wear out, nor your glory come to an end before the Lord of the Spirits.80

Black has claimed that, ever since Dillman, commentators have tried to suppress any reference to

resurrection in these verses.81 Yet resurrection is very likely because of the instances of resurrection

elsewhere in the Similitudes, the mention of rising from the earth in v.15 and, according to Black,

the description of the “garments of glory”. Furthermore, the author seems to have had a transformed

existence in view, but one which, in light of the rest of the book, was still physical. The raised

righteous, as in 51.5, would dwell on the earth in new glorious bodies.

It is difficult to tell whether the Similitudes envisage a general resurrection or a resurrection of

the righteous alone. Passages such as 46.6 and 48.10 deny resurrection to the wicked, whereas 51.1-

5 suggests that all are raised and that the righteous are then transformed. Scholars cannot seem to

agree on which of the two ideas should be prioritised.82 Both might be at play, but we could lessen

the tension by suggesting that which is denied to the wicked in chaps 46 and 48 is actually the full

transformation and glorification of 61.15-16, not simply the return from death. However, this is

speculative at best. As for the eternal destiny of the unrighteous, they are apparently banished from

the earth and destroyed,83 but in chaps. 62-63, the wicked ruling class undergo torments.

The “Book of Visions” (1 Enoch 83-90), which most likely dates to the Maccabean era,84 only

contain one reference to the afterlife. In 90.20f, a description of final judgement, the wicked, both

human and angelic, are cast into a fiery abyss (vv.24-27). Although we should be wary of drawing

anything concrete from an allegorical depiction of history, the vision of the sheep's bones burning in

90.27 may imply a physical punishment for the wicked.

Subsequently, the second temple is transformed,85 after which the author writes the following:

80. 1 En. 62.15-16 (Isaac).81. Black, The Book of Enoch, or I Enoch, 237.82. Resurrection of the righteous: e.g. Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 119. Universal: e.g. Elledge, Life After

Death, 12.83. Cf. 1 En. 38.6; 45.3-6; 53.84. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 361.85. On the role of the Second Temple in the book of visions, cf. e.g. M. Himmelfarb, “Temple and Priests in the

Book of the Watchers, the Animal Apocalypse and the Apocalypse of Weeks,” in The Early Enoch Literature, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini and John Joseph Collins (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 219–35.

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All those which have been dispersed, and all the beasts of the field and the birds of the sky were gathered together in

that house86

Most think that resurrection is meant, here.87 However, most are also rightly cautious about

asserting what this resurrection entails. Again, due to its genre, the text should not be pressed for

too much information,88 but I think that an earthly location is quite likely since the dispersed are

gathered in Jerusalem. The author may also envisage a transformation of the righteous since the

Temple itself is said to be transformed (v.28), but nothing is made explicit.

The final section of the book of 1 Enoch, the so-called “Epistle of Enoch” (chaps. 93-105) is

somewhat difficult to date precisely as a whole. The “Apocalypse of Weeks” (93.1-10; 91.11-17),

most likely written just prior to the Maccabean uprising,89 may pre-date the rest of the epistle,90

which was likely to have been composed somewhere between the mid-2nd century and early 1st

century BCE. As such, it still provides early evidence for beliefs in the afterlife.

This work clearly refers to resurrection, but not much is said about its nature. In fact, Elledge

writes that, in the epistle, “[t]here is no explicit concern for the bodies of the dead.”91 The earliest

references appear in 91.10 and 92.3-5:

The righteous one shall arise from his sleep, and the wise one shall arise92

The Righteous One shall awaken from his sleep; he shall arise and walk in the ways of righteousness; and all the

way of his conduct shall be in goodness and generosity forever. He will be generous to the Righteous One, and give

him eternal uprightness; he will give authority, and judge in kindness and righteousness; and they shall walk in

eternal light. Sin and darkness shall perish forever, and shall no more be seen from that day forevermore.93

86. 1 En. 90.33 (Isaac).87. E.g. Cavallin, Life After Death, 40; Black, The Book of Enoch, or I Enoch, 279; Puech, La Croyance des

Esséniens, 113; Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 405–6; D. Assefa, L’Apocalypse Des Animaux (1 Hen 85-90): Une Propagande Militaire?: Approches Narrative, Historico-Critique, Perspectives Theologiques (JSJSup 120; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 199–200.

88. Cf. P. Grelot, “L’Eschatologie des Esséniens et le Livre d’Hénoch,” RevQ 1 (1958): 120: “Le seul passage du Livre des Songes qu'on allègue parfois (90, 33) reste difficile à interpréter, étant donné son genre littéraire” (italics in final clause mine).

89. Cf. J. C. VanderKam, “Studies in the Apocalypse of Weeks,” CBQ 46 (1984): 511–23.90. Cf. note 380 in L. T. Stuckenbruck, 1 Enoch 91-108 (CEJL; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2007), 212.91. Elledge, Life After Death, 10. Cf. also Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 116.92. 1 En. 91.10 (Isaac).93. 1 En. 92.3-5 (Isaac).

17


In both cases, “righteous one” is probably a collective singular, representing those saved at the

eschaton, and not the title of an individual.94 Clearly, resurrection only applies to the righteous here.

Nickelsburg suggests that the conduct of the righteous one, in 92.3-5, describes the community

being awakened to wisdom, rather than being resurrected at the eschaton.95 However, Stuckenbruck

has, in my view, rightly pointed out that an eschatological understanding is more likely due to

expressions such as “eternal light” and the similar description of glorification in 104.2.96

Furthermore, since there is no mention of the body some have seen here a resurrection of the

spirit.97 However, absence of reference does not mean absence of belief. Whatever the case, this is a

transformed resurrection.98

A later passage throws doubt on the idea of bodily resurrection:

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. Therefore, do not worry about their

humiliation.99

According to many scholars, this description applies to the spirits of the righteous rather than their

bodies. For example, Nickelsburg claims that “eschatological blessing and curse will be granted to

the soul or spirit and not the body.”100 Wright, however, suggests that in view of the rest of the

epistle, this probably describes bodily resurrection.101 This is a puzzling assertion, however, since

the rest of the epistle does not clearly mention resurrection of the body. The spirits of the righteous

are clearly in view.

That being said, commentators are often too hasty to suggest that 103.4 refers to the eternal

destiny of the righteous. It could refer to an intermediate state – something which was already

suggested in 100.4-9. Indeed, in 103.4, the writer tells the reader not to worry about the humiliation

(i.e. death) of the righteous. This suggests that the author had the immediate reality after death in

mind. It is, however, difficult to tell for certain and various layers of editing may lie behind this. At

94. So Cavallin, Life After Death, 42; Black, The Book of Enoch, or I Enoch, 282.95. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 432.96. Stuckenbruck, 1 Enoch 91-108, 228–29.97. So Grelot, “L’Eschatologie des Esséniens,” 121.98. So Cavallin, Life After Death, 42–3.99. 1 En. 103.4 (Isaac). Cf. also 104.2.100. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 523. So also Cavallin, Life After Death, 43–44; Stuckenbruck, 1 Enoch 91-108, 524.101. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 156n105, although he does admit the possibility of inconsistencies

in this epistle.

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most, we can say that the Epistle envisages some form of transformed resurrection (91.10; 93.3-5),

whether or not this is bodily or spiritual (if the two can be played off against each other).

2. 2 Maccabees

Second Maccabees contains some of the clearest descriptions of bodily resurrection from the

Second Temple period.102 Although a small minority of scholars, most notably Kellermann, claim

that the book speaks of a heavenly, transcendent resurrection upon death,103 the evidence in favour

of bodily, material resurrection at the eschaton is simply overwhelming. The book, which most

likely comes from a diaspora background,104 is one of the earliest pieces of evidence for such a

physical resurrection.105

Chapter 7 provides the clearest descriptions of resurrection in 2 Maccabees. It recounts, in rather

morbid detail, the torture and death, under Antiochus IV, of seven brothers and their mother, who

preferred “to die rather than transgress the laws of [their] fathers (tou\ß patri/ouß no/mouß).”106

Resurrection is given as an incentive to submit to the Torah in the midst of horrific suffering.

The first explicit mention of resurrection appears in the second brother's speech in v.9:

And when he was at his last breath, he said, "You accursed wretch, you dismiss us from this present life, but the

King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life (eijß aijw/nion ajnabi/wsin zwhvß hJmavß

ajnasth/sei), because we have died for his laws.107

Kellermann, somewhat puzzlingly, insists that this resurrection is not earthly, but heavenly,108 but

the rest of the chapter clearly describes a very physical, this-worldly resurrection. The expression

eijß aijw/nion ajnabi/wsin zwhvß may suggest transformed physicality, but this is uncertain. In the

102. So Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 89; Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 150; Elledge, Life After Death, 18.

103. E.g U. Kellermann, Auferstanden in Den Himmel: 2 Makkabäer 7 Und Die Auferstehung Der Märtyrer (SBS 95; Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1979).

104. Cf. J. R. Bartlett, The First and Second Books of the Maccabees (CBC; London: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 215; Elledge, Life After Death, 111; D. R. Schwartz, 2 Maccabees (CEJL; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008), 38.

105. The dating of 2 Maccabees is highly debated. Some place it as early as 143/2 BCE (Schwartz, 2 Maccabees, 11). Some place it as late as 40 CE (Zeitlin in Elledge, Life After Death, 15). However, the general consensus is that it is from before the common era and with most scholars placing it prior to the Roman occupation of Palestine (e.g. Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 85; Elledge, Life After Death, 15).

106. 2 Macc. 7.2 (my translation).107. 2 Macc. 7.9 (NRSV).108. Kellermann, Auferstanden in Den Himmel, 63–66.

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final clause, resurrection seems to be reserved for the martyrs, but this may well simply be due to

the author's particular purpose.

As his turn to face Antiochus comes, the third brother sticks out his tongue and shows his hands,

exclaiming, “from heaven I got these and because of his laws I despise/look beyond (uJperorw ◊)

them and from him I hope to get them back again.”109 This somewhat crude reference to receiving

back body parts from God shows beyond reasonable doubt that resurrection involves a restoration

of the body. Nothing precise is said about the timing of this event, but we should assume (especially

in light of 12.39-45) that it does not happen immediately upon death.

The fourth brother's speech provides another piece in the puzzle. He denies resurrection to the

wicked,110 exclaiming that for Antiochus, “there will be no resurrection to life (ajna/stasiß eijß

zwh\n).”111 The author may well have Dan 12.2 in mind here, but it is not clear that he envisages

Antiochus being raised to everlasting contempt. The wicked may simply cease to exist upon death

since the book does not mention post-mortem torments.112

When the seventh brother's turn comes to face his fate, Antiochus asks the boy's mother to talk to

him, thinking that she will convince him to obey the tyrant. The mother accepts, but contrary to

Antiochus' expectations, she encourages her son to disobey the king, urging him in the language of

their fathers:

I beg you, my child, to look at the heaven and the earth and see everything that is in them, and recognize that God

did not make them out of things that existed. And in the same way the human race came into being. Do not fear this

butcher, but prove worthy of your brothers. Accept death, so that in God's mercy I may get you back again along

with your brothers.113

Here, the hope of resurrection is emphasised by what looks like a statement of belief in creation ex

nihilo. It is unlikely that the argument is used to counter logical objections to resurrection, such as

how God might raise incinerated bodies. Rather, this in an a fortiori argument: since God was able

to create the universe out of that which did not exist (oujk ejx o¡ntwn – v.28), resurrection (the

reconstitution/transformation of pre-existent matter) will not present a challenge for the creator.114

109. 2 Macc. 7.11 (my translation). ∆Ex oujranou is a reference to God: cf. J. A. Goldstein, II Maccabees: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 41A; Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday, 1983), 306; Schwartz, 2 Maccabees, 305.

110. Cf. 1 En. 22.13; 46.6; 48.10.111. 2 Macc. 7.14 (NRSV).112. Contra Kellermann, Auferstanden in Den Himmel, 67.113. 2 Macc. 7.28-29.114. So Goldstein, II Maccabees, 308–11; Elledge, “Resurrection of the dead,” 18.

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The final son's speech, which Kellermann describes as a summary (Zusammenfassung), does not

add much to the chapter's description of the nature of resurrection. However, it does hint at the idea

of an intermediate between death and resurrection. The son claims that “our brothers after enduring

a brief suffering have drunk of ever-flowing life, under God’s covenant”.115 By this, the author does

not envisage a heavenly resurrection upon death. Far from it. It is clear from 12.39-45 that this is

not the case; resurrection happened at a time subsequent to death (see immediately below). Rather,

the brother most likely means that the martyrs already enjoy the beginnings of their reward in a

non-resurrected intermediate state.116

Two later passages support chapter seven's view of resurrection. Firstly, the account in 12.39-45

shows, as was suspected earlier, that resurrection involves a further stage to life after death. In other

words, resurrection is, to use N. T. Wright pithy expression, “life after 'life after death'”.117 In this

passage, Judas Maccabeus' army discovers objects dedicated to idols in the clothes of slain Jewish

soldiers. Judas concludes that these soldiers died because they possessed these objects. In response

to this,

[Judas and his men] turned to supplication, praying that the sin that had been committed might be wholly blotted

out. The noble Judas exhorted the people to keep themselves free from sin, for they had seen with their own eyes

what had happened as the result of the sin of those who had fallen. He also took up a collection, man by man, to the

amount of two thousand drachmas of silver, and sent it to Jerusalem to provide for a sin offering. In doing this he

acted very well and honorably, taking account of the resurrection. For if he were not expecting that those who had

fallen would rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead.118

A couple of things should be noted. Firstly, it is clear that, for this author, resurrection is something

subsequent to life after death. By having Judas intercede for the slain “taking account of the

resurrection”, he makes it evident that the resurrection of the dead had not yet taken place.119 Prior

to the time of resurrection,120 the dead could still be atoned for.121 Secondly, the fact that the author

somewhat unnecessarily insists that resurrection (rather than any form of post-mortem existence)

115. 2 Macc. 7.36.116. So Schwartz, 2 Maccabees, 316–17. Cf. Jos. War 3.374; Ant. 18.14.117. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 31 (italics in original).118. 2 Macc. 12.42-44.119. Cf. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 153.120. At the final judgement? Cf. 2 Bar. 50; 4 Ezra 7.33-44; Sib. Or. 2.214-220; 4.179-192; LAB 3.10.121. Cf. T. Abr. 14.10-15.

21


was the basis for intercession suggests that in early diaspora Judaism, many resisted the idea of a

future embodied existence.122

The account of Razis' suicide in 14.41-46 adds nothing further to what was made clear in chapter

7, but emphasises the author's point further. After describing how Razis first fails to kill himself

with his sword and then tries to throw himself to his death, the author writes:

Still alive and aflame with anger, he rose, and though his blood gushed forth and his wounds were severe he ran

through the crowd; and standing upon a steep rock, with his blood now completely drained from him, he tore out his

entrails, took them in both hands and hurled them at the crowd, calling upon the Lord of life and spirit to give them

back to him again. This was the manner of his death.123

Razis' appeal for God to give him his entrails back is similar to the third brother's conviction that he

would get his hands and tongue back from God (in 7.11) and highlights the thoroughly physical

nature of resurrection.

In summary, the writer of 2 Maccabees saw resurrection as a physical, material renewal to life.

He may have envisaged that the present body would be transformed (cf. 7.9), but the body is clearly

physical. Furthermore, resurrection happens after a time of post-mortem existence during which the

living are able to atone for and intercede for the dead. Paradoxically, in a diaspora environment,

which some might not see as an environment conducive to belief in bodily resurrection, this Jewish

writer vehemently defends the material resurrection of the body.

3. The Dead Sea Scrolls

Do the Dead Sea Scrolls mention resurrection? For a long time, scholars answered this question

with a sceptical “probably not”.124 The scrolls were mostly read through the lens of Josephus'

description of the Essenes' afterlife beliefs in War 2.154-58.125 The later and conflicting account of

the Essenes by Hippolytus, who claimed that “the doctrine of the resurrection has also derived

support among them; for they acknowledge both that the flesh will rise again”,126 was usually

considered to be too late and too highly influenced by Christian beliefs to be reliable. More recently,

122. Cf. Sir. See also S. Shepkaru, “From After Death to Afterlife: martyrdom and its recompense,” AJS Review 24, no. 1 (1999): 5; Schwartz, 2 Maccabees, 442.

123. 2 Macc 14.45.124. Eg. Nickelsburg, Resurrection, 144–67; Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism, 199.125. I am assuming, as most scholars do, that the Qumran community formed part of the Essene movement.126. Hippol. Ref. 9.27.1-3 trans. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 185.

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however, something of a sea change has come about, due to the publication of two non-sectarian

Qumran manuscripts, the Messianic Apocalypse127 and Pseudo-Ezekiel,128 and the seminal work of

Émile Puech on the afterlife beliefs of the Essenes.129 Puech saw bodily resurrection everywhere, so

to speak, and though most still not do share his optimism,130 even the most sceptical of scholars

acknowledges that 4Q521 and 4Q385 mention resurrection.131 Additionally, Puech's work suggests

that students of the scrolls should avoid reading them with this a priori assumption that Josephus'

was essentially right. The evidence of Josephus is important, but the scrolls themselves must take

priority.

Before turning to the relevant scrolls, something should be said about the distinction between

sectarian and non-sectarian works. In a 1995 article, Devorah Dimant characterised the “non-

sectarian” documents as “literary works without terminology connected to the community”.132

Puech considered 4Q521 to be a sectarian writing, but Dimant, and the overwhelming majority of

scholars, include both 4Q521 and 4Q385 (the only two undisputed references to resurrection at

Qumran) amongst the non-sectarian documents.133 Yet this categorization itself opens up a further

question: would a community as restrictive as the one which wrote the Community Rule (1QS)

allow such texts too make their way into its library if the community strongly disagreed with them?

The fact that a text is not sectarian does not mean that it does not represent the beliefs of at least

part of the community. In fact, even if the Qumran sect strongly rejected bodily resurrection, the

fact that 4Q521 and 4Q385 were found at Qumran illustrates just how widespread this belief was at

that time. Furthermore, nothing in the sectarian texts themselves excludes a belief in resurrection.

127. 4Q521.128. 4Q385, 386, 385b, 388, 385c.129. Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens.130. E.g. J. J. Collins, “The Essenes and the Afterlife,” in From 4QMMT to Resurrection: Mélanges Qumraniens en

hommage à Émile Puech, ed. Florentino García Martínez, Annette Steudel, and Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar (STDJ 61; Leiden: Brill, 2006), 52.

131. Cf. for example Collins, Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls, 126–28; M. Popovic, “Bones, Bodies and Resurrection in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in The Human Body in Death and Resurrection: Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2009, ed. T. Nicklas, F. V. Reiterer, and J. Verheyden (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009), 258–59; Vermes, “Jewish Attitudes to Afterlife in the age of Jesus,” 352.

132. D. Dimant, “The Qumran Manuscripts: Contents and Significance,” in Time to prepare the way in the wilderness: Papers on the Qumran Scrolls by Fellows of the institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem 1989-1990, ed. Devorah Dimant and Lawrence H. Schiffman (STDJ 16; Leiden: Brill, 1995), 27–30.

133. Dimant, “The Qumran Manuscripts,” 48. Cf. also Vermes, “Jewish Attitudes to Afterlife in the age of Jesus,” 352; G. J. Brooke, “The Structure of 1QH XII 5-XIII 4 and the meaning of Resurrection,” in From 4QMMT to Resurrection: Mélanges Qumraniens en hommage à Émile Puech, ed. Florentino García Martínez, Annette Steudel, and Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar (STDJ 61; Leiden: Brill, 2006), 17–18; A. L. A. Hogeterp, Expectations of the End: a Comparative Traditio-Historical Study of Eschatological, Apocalyptic and Messianic ideas in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament (STDJ 83; Leiden: Brill, 2009), 277.

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So then, whether or not the community itself believed in, was sympathetic towards, or out-and-out

rejected bodily resurrection, the evidence which follows should be taken seriously.

An analysis of every single possible reference to the afterlife in the Dead Sea Scrolls would be

impossible and unnecessary here. We will therefore focus only on the strongly suggestive sections

in the Hodayot as well as the clear evidence in Pseudo-Ezekiel and 4Q521.

Prior to the publication of 4Q521 and Pseudo-Ezekiel, discussions on resurrection in the Dead

Sea Scrolls centred around the thanksgiving hymns of cave 1 (1QH), which Puech dates to the

second half of the second century BCE.134 Some argued that these hymns describe resurrection.135

Others, however, thought that they depict realised eschatology or metaphorical resurrection.136 It

should be noted, though, that nothing within these texts excludes resurrection a priori.

The two most significant passages are 1QH 14.29f and 19.11f:

And then at the time of Judgement the Sword of God shall hasten, and all the sons of His truth shall awake to

[overthrow] wickedness … Hoist a banner, O you who lie in the dust! O bodies gnawed by worms raise up an ensign

for [...]137

that bodies gnawed by worms may be raised from the dust to the counsel [of Thy truth], and that the perverse spirit

(may be lifted) to the understanding [which comes from Thee]; that he may stand before Thee with the everlasting

host and with [Thy] spirits [of holiness], to be renewed together with all the living and to rejoice together with them

that know.138

Commentators disagree on whether these fragments describe a literal, physical resurrection or

whether they speak metaphorically about awakening to knowledge. This second option is at least

possible in the second passage (1QH 19), which, according to Cavallin, describes “a present,

realized resurrection.”139 This reticence to see resurrection, however, may also be due to an a priori

conviction that Josephus correctly described the Qumran community's belief. The first passage (in

1QH 14.29f) should make us wary of presupposing this, since the context (a description of the

134. Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 336.135. E.g. E. P. Sanders, Judaism: practice and belief, 63BCE-66CE (London: SCM Press, 1992), 302; Puech, La

Croyance des Esséniens, 335–419; Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 187–88. Cf. also Elledge, Life After Death, 22n86.

136. E.g. Nickelsburg, Resurrection, 146–56; Collins, Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls, 121–22.137. 1QH 14.29, 34 trans. G. Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (7th Edition) 7th Revised ed.

(London: Penguin Books, 2004).138. 1 QH 19.12-14 (Vermes).139. Cavallin, Life After Death, 64.

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eschatological battle) is precisely where we would expect to find resurrection. Puech, certainly sees

resurrection here.140 Collins, however, does not and suggests that those who lie in the dust could be

“those who are downcast during the dominion of Belial”.141 In my view, the biblical imagery of

dwelling in the dust as a metaphor for death (particularly in Isa 26.19 and Dan 12.2)142 as well as

the eschatological context make a literal, physical resurrection far more likely.

It would be odd for the community which out-and-out rejected resurrection to use this language.

At the very least, these passages show that the community was familiar with resurrection. It may

even be, as Brooke suggests, that a belief in resurrection underlies some sections of the Hodayot,

even if the doctrine is not explicit.143 Whether or not the author actually believed in eschatological

resurrection or whether he was simply familiar with the concept, his language shows that we are

speaking of bodies, since the eschatological battle happens on earth. Resurrection, however much

transformed, is something which happens to the body.

The various fragments which make up Pseudo-Ezekiel are immensely helpful to our discussion.

The earliest manuscript (4Q391), dated to the second half of the second century BCE, most likely

marks the terminus ad quem for the whole of the composition.144 The work reinterprets the vision of

the valley of dry bones in Ezek 37. The most relevant extract is worth reproducing in full:

[And I said, “Lord, I have seen many from Israel who have loved Thy name and walked [in] the ways [of

righteousness (?), and] when will [these] things come to pass? And how will their piety be rewarded?” And the Lord

said to me, “I will make the sons of Israel see and they will know that I am the Lord.” … [And he said,] 'Son of

man, Prophesy concerning the bones and say, [“Come together a bone to its bone, and a bit [to its bit.” ' And] s[o it

came to pas]s. And He said again, 'Prophesy concerning the four winds of heaven and let the win[ds of heaven]

blow [on them and they shall live].' And a great crowd of men revived and blessed the Lord of hosts wh[o made

them live.] And I said, 'Lord, when will these things come to pass?' And he Lord said to me …145

The wording here is very close to that of Ezek. 37.4-10, where Ezekiel uses physical resurrection as

a metaphor for the restoration of Israel.146 However, in Pseudo-Ezekiel resurrection hope provides

the answer to Ezekiel's concern with individuals whose piety has not been rewarded.147 National

140. E.g. Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 362.141. Collins, “The Essenes and the Afterlife,” 50.142. Cf. Nickelsburg, Resurrection, 17.143. Brooke, “The Structure of 1QH XII 5-XIII 4,” 33 on 1QH 12.5-13.4.144. Hogeterp, Expectations of the end, 273.145. 4Q385, fr. 2 completed with 4Q386, fr. 1 i and 4Q388, fr. 7 (Vermes).146. Ezek. 37.11 cf. M. Greenberg, Ezekiel 21-37: A New Translation with introduction and commentary (AB 22A;

New York: Doubleday, 1997), 741–51.147. A. L. A. Hogeterp, “Resurrection and Biblical Tradition: Pseudo-Ezekiel Reconsidered,” Bib 89 (2008): 64.

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restoration is replaced by individual reward.148 Although Tromp argues that Ezek. 37 was never

used speak of the resurrection of individuals prior to the Christian era,149 virtually all other

commentators, including those who are sceptical about resurrection in the Dead Sea Scrolls,

acknowledge that this author has applied Ezekiel 37 to individual eschatological resurrection.150

A couple of details should be noted. Firstly, the author restricts resurrection to the righteous and

defines the righteous as “many from Israel”. The fate of the wicked is not mentioned. Whether or

not it is described elsewhere in the original composition, this probably does not involve

resurrection, since the author of Pseudo-Ezekiel was probably guided by the text of Ezek. 37, which

fails to mention the destiny of the wicked. Secondly, it is difficult to think of a more vivid

description of bodily resurrection. The language of bones and flesh serves to highlight a strong

continuity between the resurrection body and the present body.151 Although the resurrection body

must be imperishable since it does not die in the age to come, its appearance is apparently not

changed. What we have then, is a very literal physical resurrection. If Josephus' description of the

Essenes accurately represented the Qumran community's beliefs, it is difficult to explain why the

group possessed documents which view bodily resurrection so highly.

We now turn to 4Q521. Puech dates the original document to the second half of the second

century BCE and associates it with the apocalyptic genre of that time.152 Although he argues that

the work is a sectarian composition,153 most scholars do not think this is likely.154 Of the 16-18

possible fragments,155 two clearly speak of resurrection. We reproduce the relevant sections below:

[the hea]vens and the earth will listen to His Messiah, and none therein will stray from the commandments of the

holy ones … Over the poor His spirit will hover and will renew the faithful with His power. And he will glorify the

pious on the throne of the eternal Kingdom. He who liberates the captives, restores sight to the blind, straightens the

b[ent]. And f[or] ever I will clea[ve to the h]opeful and in His mercy … And the Lord will accomplish glorious

148. Although Hogeterp has argued, based on 4Q386 that the original vision included a national aspect as well: Hogeterp, “Resurrection and Biblical Tradition”.

149. Tromp in Popovic, “Bones, Bodies and Resurrection,” 251–52.150. E.g. Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 614; É. Puech, “Messianisme, Eschatologie et Résurrection dans les

Manuscrits de la Mer Morte,” RevQ 18, no. 2 (1997): 290; Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 188; Brooke, “The Structure of 1QH XII 5-XIII 4,” 17–18; Elledge, Life After Death, 24; Hogeterp, Expectations of the end, 273.

151. So Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 613.152. See É. Puech, “Une Apocalypse Messianique (4Q521),” RevQ 15, no. 4 (1992): 515; Puech, La Croyance des

Esséniens, 663–64.153. Puech, “Une Apocalypse Messianique,” 515; Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 664–69.154. See above.155. J. Zimmermann, Messianische Texte aus Qumran: Königliche, priesterliche und prophetische

Messiasvorstellungen in den Schriftfunden von Qumran (WUNT 104; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998), 343.

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things which have never been as [He...] For he will heal the wounded, and revive the dead (hyjy Mytmw) and bring

good news to the poor.156

[the ear]th and all that is on it; and the sea [and all that is in it] and all the ponds of water and rivers … who are

doing good before the Lor[d] … like those who curse and are (destined) for death [when] the Life-giver will raise

the dead of His people (wmo ytm ta hyjmh M[wqy]). And we will thank and proclaim to you the righteousness of the

Lord, who …157

The first passage (fr. 2) obviously follows Isaiah 61. Some think that the expression hyjy Mytmw

simply refers to the kind of miracles that were performed by Elijah and Elisha, and later Jesus.158

However, this overlooks two particular clues which point towards an eschatological resurrection.

Firstly, as Hogeterp rightly points out, the expression “glorious things which have never been”

suggests an eschatological setting.159 Secondly, a close reading of the passage shows that the subject

of hyjy is God, rather than the Messiah.160 Clearly, resurrection is associated with the coming of the

Messiah (as in 4 Ezra 7), but God is the one who actually raises the dead. We may therefore be

dealing with the final resurrection of the saints. That being said, the strong similarity between the

language in this passage and the ministries of Elijah and Elisha suggest that the resurrection

envisaged here is unlikely to be anything other than bodily. Additionally, if disembodied bliss was

what was meant by resurrection, then there would be no real need to heal the wounded.

The context of the second extract (fr. 7) is clearly eschatological: we read of those who are

destined for death as well as those whom the “Life-giver” will raise. It has often been noted that the

expression “the Life-giver will raise the dead of His people (wmo ytm ta hyjmh M[wqy])” resembles

later Jewish prayers such as the Shemoneh Ezrei.161 In fact, Zimmermann thinks that this could be

one of the earliest formulations which Christians developed to speak of the God who raised Jesus

from the dead.162 Resurrection is obviously not universal since those who are destined for death are

not raised. Additionally, the mention of the earth and the sea may well suggest an earthly locus of

the resurrection, and therefore a physical (in some sense at least) body. Nothing is said, however, of

any difference between the present body and the resurrection body.

156. 4Q521 fr.2 ii.1, 6-9, 11-12 (Vermes).157. 4Q521 fr. 7 (Vermes).158. Cf. e.g. Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 685 (without excluding a possible reference to eschatological

resurrection); Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 187.159. Hogeterp, Expectations of the end, 280. Cf. also Matt. 24.3; Mk. 13.4; Lk. 21.7.160. So Zimmermann, Messianische Texte aus Qumran, 363–64.161. Cf. e.g. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 187.162. Zimmermann, Messianische Texte aus Qumran, 373. Cf. Acts 4.10; Rom. 10.9; Gal. 1.1.

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Other pieces of evidence from Qumran could be adduced in our discussion, but due to lack of

space we have focussed only on the most salient details. One might point to the oft-repeated

promise of inheriting “the glory of Adam” in various texts,163 or to the possible evidence of the

Qumran cemeteries,164 but neither of these offer conclusive evidence for a belief in resurrection. We

can, however, suggest the following from our brief survey. Firstly, it is clear that texts which the

community composed (in our case 1QH) contain language which is usually applied to bodily

resurrection. This language may or may not refer to actual resurrection, but it does suggests that the

authors were familiar with the idea. Secondly, two non-sectarian texts clearly reference this belief.

In both cases, resurrection is almost certainly bodily (definitely so in 4Q385) and restricted to the

righteous. The presence of 4Q385 and 4Q521 in the caves of Qumran suggests that, although these

texts may not be representative of the Qumran community's beliefs, the sect cannot have completely

rejected the idea of a very literal, bodily resurrection at the eschaton. Even if they did, these texts

still contribute significantly to our discussion.

4. The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs

The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs have clearly been edited by later Christians. Some claim it

is therefore impossible to restore the original Jewish core of this composition (if it ever existed).165

Kee, however, thinks that we can do so fairly confidently and dates this core to the second century

BCE.166 Whilst uncertainty remains, most agree that a Jewish original lies behind Testaments and

that they are therefore helpful for our study of ancient Judaism.167 We therefore include a brief

study of them here, but should avoid building any significant arguments on them.

Outside of T. Ash., which we highlighted above, “the concept of resurrection with its terminology

dominates the impressions which Te[s]tXIIPatr give about life after death”168 This is obvious in 4

163. Cf. e.g. 1QS iv.23; CD 3.20; 1QH 4.15. However, van Kooten has pointed out the inconsistent meaning of this expression: G. H. van Kooten, Paul’s Anthropology in context: the Image of God, assimilation to God, and tripartite  man in ancient Judaism, ancient philosophy and early Christianity (WUNT 232; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 18–20.

164. Cf. Puech, “Messianisme, Eschatologie et Résurrection,” 295–6. See the response in Popovic, “Bones, Bodies and Resurrection,” 257–58.

165. H. W. Hollander, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: A Commentary (SVTP 8; Leiden: Brill, 1985), 85.166. Cf. Kee in Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Vol 1, 778.167. Cf. for example Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 159; C. D. Elledge, “The Resurrection Passages in

the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: Hope for Israel in Early Judaism and Christianity,” in Resurrection: the origin and future of a biblical doctrine, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Faith and scholarship colloquies; London: T & T Clark, 2006), 89.

168. Cavallin, Life After Death, 55.

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explicit references to resurrection. Our first piece of evidence is in T. Sim. 6.7: “Then I shall arise

(to/te ajnasth/somai) in gladness and I shall bless the Most High for his marvels.”169 Not much is

said about the nature of the resurrection and the reference to “upon the earth” (ejpi ghvß) could be

part of the Christian interpolation in this verse. However, only Simeon is explicitly said to take part

in the resurrection.

The second passage which deals with resurrection is in T. Jud. 25.1-5:

And after this Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will be resurrected to life and I and my brothers will be chiefs (wielding)

our scepter in Israel […] And those who died in sorrow shall be raised in joy; and those who died in poverty for the

Lord's sake shall be made rich; those who died on account of the Lord shall be wakened to life. And the deer of

Jacob shall run with gladness; the eagles of Jacob shall fly with joy; the impious shall mourn and sinners shall weep,

but all peoples shall glorify the Lord forever.170

There are no obvious Christian interpolations in this section or anything which could not come from

the hand of a Jewish writer.171 The in-gathering of the twelve tribes172 and the patriarchs reigning in

Israel suggest an earthly resurrection.173 The aim of this passage, however, is not to give an

elaborate view of resurrection, but rather to comfort those who suffer in this present life:174 those

who “died in sorrow shall be raised in joy”. Additionally, according to the author, only the righteous

of Israel are raised.175 The unrighteous will mourn and weep, but are apparently not raised.

The next reference to resurrection in the Testaments is short and unclear. In T. Zeb. 10.2, Zebulun

claims: “I shall rise (ajnasth/somai) again in your midst as a leader among your sons and I shall be

glad in the midst of my tribe”. The author's interest, as in T. Jud. 25, seems to be wholly on the

resurrection of the patriarch. Although Cavallin protests that nothing implies that the resurrection is

earthly,176 the mention of his hearers son's (those alive at the resurrection) as well as the rest of the

Testaments would suggest that the locus of the resurrection is in fact the earth.

169. T. Sim. 6.7 trans. Kee in Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Vol 1.170. T. Jud. 25.1,4-5 (Kee).171. So Elledge, “Resurrection Passages,” 88–89; A. Hultgård, L’Eschatologie des Testaments des Douze

Patriarches (AUU 6; Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet, 1977), 246.172. Cf. Hultgård, L’Eschatologie des Testaments des Douze Patriarches, 236.173. Despite Cavallin's protests that nothing is said about the nature of the resurrection: Cavallin, Life After Death,

54.174. Elledge, “Resurrection Passages,” 84.175. So Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 123.176. Cavallin, Life After Death, 53.

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The final passage, in T. Ben. 10.6-10, is the most elaborate description of resurrection in the

Testaments. However, it is also the most Christianised. We include it here with the obvious

Christian interpolations excised:

And then you will see Enoch and Seth and Abraham and Isaac being raised up (ajnistame/nouß) at the right hand in

great joy. Then shall we also be raised (to/te kai« hJmei√ß ajnasthso/meqa), each of us over our tribe, and we shall

prostrate ourselves before the heavenly king. Then all shall be changed, some destined for glory, others for dishonor,

for the Lord first judges Israel for the wrong she has committed and then he shall do the same for all the nations.

Here, resurrection is apparently universal and the author mentions its order: first, the ancient heroes

of Genesis are raised, then the twelve patriarchs and then (apparently) the rest of humanity. This

order, according to Hultgård, is completely without parallel in ancient Jewish literature.177

Furthermore, resurrection, here, may lead to transformation (as in 2 Bar 49-51). Indeed, we read

that “all shall be changed” in v.8. However, an alternative Greek manuscript (a), reads to/te kai«

pa/nteß ajnasth/sontai. Hollander, de Jonge and Hultgård all adopt this reading. In my view, this

is preferable since the author is clearly drawing on the language of Dan. 12.2, which explicitly

mentions being awakened to eternal life and dishonour. However, being raised to glory does still

imply some kind of ensuing transformation.

The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs do not seem to contain a coherent eschatology, although

this may be due to different traditions and authors.178 Only two of the passages cited above extend

resurrection beyond the patriarchs and only T. Ben. seems to describe a universal resurrection.179

Moreover, in each case, resurrection seems to be very earthly. The renewal of creation is not

mentioned – all we have is the mention of being raised to glory in T. Ben. 10.8. However, the

Testaments often associates resurrection with the regrouping of the twelve tribes. It seems most

likely then, that the author(s) of these Testaments envisaged an earthly resurrection by which Israel

would be restored.

177. Hultgård, L’Eschatologie des Testaments des Douze Patriarches, 261.178. So Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 124.179. So P. Perkins, Resurrection: New Testament Witness and Contemporary Reflection (London: Chapman, 1984),

44; Elledge, “Resurrection Passages,” 91.

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5. Sibylline Oracles

In the Sibylline Oracles, which span from the second century BCE to (possibly) the seventh century

CE,180 not much is said about the afterlife; the main focus of the books is on God's intervention in

history. However, a few references do give us some more insight onto the eschatological beliefs of

Greek-speaking diaspora Judaism.

The oldest relevant text is in book 3, which is generally dated to the mid-second century BCE.181

Resurrection is not mentioned, but in vv.657-808 there is a lengthy section on the consummation of

history.182 The everlasting existence described in vv.744-95 is very this-worldly. This may

presuppose resurrection, but this is not made clear.183

Two later oracles, however, most likely dating from the first century CE,184 both clearly attest to

bodily resurrection:

Then the heavenly one will give souls and breath and voice to the dead and bones fastened with all kinds of

joinings … flesh and sinews and veins and skin about the flesh, and the former hairs. Bodies of humans, made

solid in heavenly manner (ajmbrosi/wß), breathing and set in motion, will be raised on a single day.185

But when everything is already dusty ashes, and God puts to sleep the unspeakable fire, even as he kindled it,

God himself will again fashion the bones and ashes of men and he will raise up mortals again as they were

before. And then there will be a judgment over which God himself will preside, judging the world again.186

The first passage is usually left out of treatments of Jewish views of the afterlife because book 2 has

been heavily redacted by later Christians.187 However, nothing in this text does not sound Jewish.

Indeed, Collins omits it from his list of sections in book 2 which are obviously Christian188 and

180. Cf. Collins in Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Vol 1, 317.181. So Collins in Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Vol 1, 354–55; Puech, La Croyance des

Esséniens, 155.182. Collins marks out 3.657-808 as a major oracle within the book: Charlesworth, The Old Testament

Pseudepigrapha: Vol 1, 354.183. Cf. Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 157.184. On the dating of books 2 and 4 cf. Collins in Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Vol 1, 331,

381.185. Sib. Or. 2.221-26 trans. Collins in Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Vol 1.186. Sib. Or. 4.179-84 (Collins).187. It is absent in Cavallin, Life After Death; Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens; Wright, The Resurrection of the

Son of God.188. Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Vol 1, 330.

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claims that it is “quite possibly Jewish”.189 Furthermore, the similarities between 2.221-26 and

4.179-84 suggest that the ideas expressed are essentially Jewish.

Both texts describe the destruction of this present world and all in it by fire:190 as Puech puts it,

“access to eternal life requires passing through death and resurrection which is itself followed by

judgement.”191 Resurrection is both universal, since it is followed by final judgement (a common

feature of later writings)192 and unambiguously physical. Bodies will be raised “as they were

before” (4.182) even to the hairs (2.224). This graphically physical resurrection is quite reminiscent

of Ezek. 37.1-10.193 Neither book 2 nor book 4 mention an intermediate state. Either the authors did

not believe in such a state or else did not feel the need to make mention of it.

6. Pseudo Philo

Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum (LAB), or Pseudo-Philo as it is probably better known, has much to

contribute to our discussion. The exact dating of the letter is debated, but the present scholarly

consensus places the book in the second half of the first century CE.194 The Latin text seems to be a

translation of a Greek one which itself goes back to a Hebrew original.195 This makes a Palestinian

provenance highly likely.196

When it comes to the interest of this paper, Jacobson's is somewhat overstating the case when he

claims that “any attempt to discover a coherent and consistent view of the afterlife and eschatology

in LAB is doomed to failure”.197 This is only true if one believes a priori that the language of sleep,

189. Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Vol 1, 333.190. Sib. Or. 2.196-213; 4.171-78. Cf. 2 Pet. 3.1.191. Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 158 (my translation).192. Cf. 2 Bar. 50; 4 Ezra 7.33-44; Sib. Or. 2.214-220; 4.179-192; LAB 3.10.193. Cf. Cavallin, Life After Death, 149.194. On dating, cf. Cavallin, Life After Death, 75; Harrington in Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha:

Vol 2, 299; Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 131; H. Jacobson, Commentary on Pseudo-Philo’s “Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum” (AGJU 31; Leiden: Brill, 1996), 199–210; D. J. Harrington, “Afterlife Expectations in Pseudo-Philo, 4 Ezra, and 2 Baruch, and their implications for the New Testament,” in Resurrection in the New Testament: Festschrift J. Lambrecht, ed. R. Bieringer, Veronica Koperski, and Bianca Lataire (BETL 165; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2002), 22.

195. The fragments of LAB in Hebrew from the 14th century Chronicles of Jerahmeel are most likely represent a re-translation of the Latin into Hebrew: cf. D. J. Harrington, ed., The Hebrew fragments of Pseudo-Philo’s Liber antiquitatum Biblicarum preserved in the Chronicles of Jera meelḥ (Pseudepigrapha series 3; Missoula, Mont.: Society of Biblical Literature, 1974).

196. Cf. Harrington in Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Vol 2, 300; Jacobson, Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, 210–11; Perrot in D. J. Harrington, C. Perrot, & P. Bogaert, Les Antiquités Bibliques (SC 229-230; Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1976), 28–39.

197. Jacobson, Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, 249–50.

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chambers of souls, post-mortem punishment and rewards, and resurrection cannot coexist. There are

a few problems to iron out, but all in all, LAB gives a relatively coherent view of the afterlife.

After death, which LAB describes as the separation of body and soul,198 the body sleeps in the

earth,199 whereas the soul (of the righteous) is taken and stored in chambers.200 Jacobson finds it

hard to reconcile the idea of storehouses with the notion of sleeping upon death.201 However, it is

quite likely that the language of sleep is used as a way to say that whilst the dead may appear to be

inactive to the living, they have not ceased to exist. The author obviously did not believe in “soul-

sleep”, since in 62.9 the souls of the dead are able to recognise each other. Rather, he envisages a

conscious post-mortem state.

This state, however, leads to final resurrection:

when the years appointed for the world have been fulfilled, then the light will cease and the darkness will fade away.

And I will bring the dead to life and raise up those who are sleeping from the earth. And hell will pay back its debt,

and the place of perdition will return its deposit so that I may render to each according to his works and according to

the fruits of his own devices, until I judge between soul and flesh. And the world will cease, and death will be

abolished, and hell will shut its mouth. And the earth will not be without progeny or sterile for those inhabiting it;

and no one who has been pardoned by me will be tainted. And there will be another earth and another heaven, an

everlasting dwelling place.202

In what is the most extensive description of the eschaton in LAB,203 the author clearly has bodily

resurrection in view, as suggested by the expression “those who are sleeping [in] the earth”.204

Furthermore, we are told that both Hell (Lat. Infernus – most likely Sheol, here) and the place of

perdition give back their debts and deposits – surely the souls of the dead.205 Resurrection, then,

involves the reuniting of the soul and body, which were separated at death. Furthermore, those who

are raised will live on “another earth and another heaven, an everlasting dwelling place”, not an

immaterial world. Jacobson seems to be right to claim that the locus of the resurrected saints is

probably like this world, but perfect and everlasting.206 This renewal of creation may well point to a

transformed physicality (see below), but it is still a material existence.

198. LAB 44.10.199. Cf. LAB 3.10.200. Cf. LAB 23.13; 32.13; So also 1 En. 22; 4 Ezra 4.42; 2 Bar. 30.2; Jos. War 3.374.201. Jacobson, Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, 249.202. LAB 3.10 trans. Harrington in Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Vol 2.203. F. J. Murphy, Pseudo-Philo: Rewriting the Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 256.204. So Cavallin, Life After Death, 75.205. Cf. 4 Ezra 7.32.206. Jacobson, Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, 328.

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The description in 3.10 points to universal resurrection. However, a couple of later passages

suggest otherwise and the discrepancy is difficult to iron out:

their dwelling place will be in darkness and the place of destruction; and they will not die but melt away until I

remember the world and renew the earth. And then they will die and not live, and their life will be taken away from

the number of all men207

Now the wicked he will shut up in darkness, but he will save his light for the just. And when the wicked have died,

then they will perish.208

It could be that the wicked finally die for the second time (there is no explicit mention of torment in

LAB) after they have been raised for final judgement,209 but this is not too clear and the discrepancy

with 3.10 is difficult to solve.

Transformation of the body is not explicitly mentioned in LAB. For some, the phrase “they will

be transformed” in Kenaz' vision in 28.9 is adduced as evidence for this phenomenon.210 However,

in my view, Jacobson is right to suggest that that “they will be transformed (mutabuntur)” is a

misunderstanding of an original Hebrew wpljy. In the Qal form, this verb generally means “pass on”

or “pass away”; In the Pi'el and Hiph'il, however, it can carry the meaning “change” or “transform”.

In Jacobson's view, the translator incorrectly understood wpljy, rendering it “transformed” rather

than “pass away”.211 This makes sense of the immediate context of 28.9, which speaks of humanity

passing away rather than being changed. That being said, even if 28.9 does not mention

transformation, the author assumes that the earth will be changed at the eschaton. He predicts that

God will “renew the earth” in 16.3 and in 32.17 we read of the “renewal of creation”. Furthermore,

the ultimate destiny of the righteous is to “be like the stars of the heaven”.212 Therefore, although

the author does not explicitly mention the transformation of resurrection bodies, it is quite likely

that LAB envisaged the resurrected saints being renewed along with the earth.

So then, for Pseudo-Philo, dead bodies sleep in the earth and righteous souls are stored in

chambers whilst awaiting resurrection. The souls of the wicked dead are shut up in darkness,

possibly awaiting resurrection and final death. Eventually, at least the righteous dead are raised

207. LAB 16.3 (Harrington).208. LAB 51.5 (Harrington).209. So Jacobson, Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, 248 (on 16.3).210. Cf. Harrington, Perrot, & Bogaert, Les Antiquités Bibliques, 2:164; Murphy, Pseudo-Philo, 133.211. Jacobson, Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, 821.212. LAB 33.5 (Harrington).

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bodily to eternal life on a renewed earth. The similarity of much of this eschatological scheme with

those of 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch has led Murphy to suggest (referring to 3.10) that it “probably reflects

common thought in first-century Palestinian Judaism.”213

7. 4 Ezra

Fourth Ezra, by scholarly consensus, is a Palestinian work dated towards the end of the first century

CE.214 In response to the crisis of 70 AD, the book asks some searching questions about justice,

evil, death and theodicy. It also has some important things to say about life after death and

resurrection.

As in LAB, death is envisaged as the separation between body and soul.215 This separation leads

to an intermediate state. In 4.42, Uriel, Ezra's angelic interlocutor, states that,

In Hades [lat. in inferno] the chambers of the souls are like the womb. For just as a woman who is in travail makes

haste to escape the pangs of birth, so also do these places hasten to give back those things that were committed to

them from the beginning.216

This passage anticipates the resurrection described in chapter 7. As in LAB, the souls of the dead are

kept in “chambers” (promptuaria). This idea is further developed in 7.75-101. Ezra asks:

If I have found favor in your sight, my lord, show this also to your servant: whether after death, as soon as every one

of us yields up his soul, we shall be kept in rest until those times come when you will renew the creation, or whether

we shall be tormented at once.217

Myers suggests that this question of an intermediate state was very important at the time when the

doctrine of resurrection was still taking shape.218 Ezra is told that upon death the spirits of the

wicked will “not enter into habitations, but shall immediately wander about in torments, ever

213. Murphy, Pseudo-Philo, 35.214. Cf. Metzger in Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Vol 1, 520.215. Cf. for example 4 Ezra 7.78, 88, 100. On the soul in 4 Ezra cf. M. E. Stone, Features of the Eschatology of IV

Ezra (HSS; Atlanta, Ga: Scholars Press, 1989), 144–45.216. 4 Ezra 4.42 trans. Metzger in Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Vol 1.217. 4 Ezra 7.75 (Metzger).218. J. M. Myers, I and II Esdras: Introduction, Translation and Commentary 1st ed. (AB 42; Garden City, N.Y:

Doubleday, 1974), 255.

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grieving and sad, in seven ways.”219 The opposite is true for the spirits of the righteous.220 They will

rejoice in seven various ways. First, however, they are given seven days of freedom to see all that

has been told Ezra (presumably in 7.75f) before they are gathered to their habitations.221

This is, of course, not the final state for the dead; they are to be raised after a messianic reign. In

7.26-44, Uriel describes the coming of the Messiah and the establishment of the messianic

kingdom, which lasts for 400 years. After this time, the messiah and all who are alive will die and

“the world will be turned back to primeval silence for seven day, as it was at the first

beginnings”.222 Subsequently, Uriel describes new creation and resurrection:

And after seven days the world, which is not yet awake, shall be roused, and that which is corruptible shall perish.

And the earth shall give up those who are asleep in it; and the chambers shall give up the souls which have been

committed to them.223

This picture is very similar to that of LAB 3.10.224 The expression, “those who are asleep in [the

earth]”, indicates that the author envisaged bodies being raised.225 Furthermore, the slightly

ambiguous “debt” and “deposit” of LAB 3.10 is made explicit here: the chambers give back the

souls of the dead. Resurrection, again, is thought of as the reuniting of soul and body.226 Stone

rightly points out that nothing in the description hints at a loss of physicality.227 Furthermore, 8.51f

indicates that the new creation is material. However, the writer clearly expected some kind of bodily

transformation to take place along with that of the cosmos.228 Indeed, the righteous are promised

that their faces will “shine like the sun” and that they will “be made like the light of the stars, being

incorruptible from then on.”229 Also, resurrection is clearly universal since, in 7.37, “the Most High

will say to the nations that have been raised from the dead, 'Look now, and understand whom you

have denied, whom you have not served, whose commandments you have despised!” The author

clearly extends resurrection to the wicked as well.

219. 4 Ezra 7.80 (Metzger).220. 4 Ezra 7.88f.221. 4 Ezra 7.101.222. 4 Ezra 7.30 (Metzger).223. 4 Ezra 7.31-32 (Metzger).224. See above.225. So Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 151.226. So Cavallin, Life After Death, 82; M. E. Stone, Fourth Ezra: A Commentary on the Book of Fourth Ezra

(Hermeneia; Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1990), 219; Harrington, “Afterlife Expectations,” 30.227. Stone, Fourth Ezra, 220.228. So Cavallin, Life After Death, 81; Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 152229. 4 Ezra 7.97.

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In conclusion, 4 Ezra describes a differentiation between the righteous and the wicked upon

death. The souls of the wicked suffer torments whilst the souls of the righteous undergo blessings.

After this, however, all are raised and thereafter face judgement.230 Subsequently, the righteous live

in a renewed creation in transformed bodies.

8. 2 Baruch

The Syriac apocalypse of Baruch, a late century CE or early second century document,231 is another

response to the Jewish crisis of 70 CE. This is not theology in a vacuum; it is an attempt at theodicy

in light of the destruction of Jerusalem and has much to teach us about how eschatology was viewed

as God's way of rendering justice.232 There are three clear references to resurrection in the corpus:

30.1-5; 42.7 and 50.1-52.7.233

In 30.1-5, Baruch is told that,

it will happen after these things when the time of the appearance of the Anointed One has been fulfilled and he

returns with glory, that then all who sleep in hope of him will rise. And it will happen at that time that those

treasuries will be opened in which the number of the souls of the righteous were kept, and they will go out and

the multitudes of the souls will appear together, in one assemblage, of one mind. And the first ones will enjoy

themselves and the last ones will not be sad. For they know that the time has come of which it is said that it is the

end of times. But the souls of the wicked will the more waste away when they shall see all these things. For they

know that their torment has come and that their perditions have arrived.234

This passage comes after a description of a coming messianic age. Instead of dying, as he did in 4

Ezra 7, the Messiah is translated into glory. Afterwards, those who died in hope of him235 are raised.

In light of subsequent references, this seems to be a bodily resurrection.236 However, in light of

chap. 51, the author may have seen this resurrection leading to transformation.237 Although Bogaert

230. See also 2 Bar. 50; Sib. Or. 2.214-220; 4.179-192; LAB 3.10.231. Cf. Cavallin, Life After Death, 86; A. F. J. Kiln in Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Vol 1,

617.232. Cf. on this T. W. Willett, Eschatology in the Theodicies of 2 Baruch and 4 Ezra (JSPSup 4; Sheffield: Sheffield

Academic Press, 1989).233. Willett, Eschatology, 119 also adds the ambiguous 23.4-5.234. 2 Bar. 30.1-5 trans. Kiln in Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Vol 1.235. Charles suggests that the words “of him” were an addition due to a corruption of the Syriac text: R. H. Charles,

ed., The Apocalypse of Baruch (London: A & C Black, 1896), 56. There is no manuscript evidence for this however.236. So Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 138.237. So Cavallin, Life After Death, 87.

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has argued the resurrection in view here is universal,238 the author clearly restricts it to those who

sleep in hope of the Messiah. Instead, “the souls of the wicked will the more waste away”.239 As

such only the righteous take part in the resurrection of chap. 30. The seeming discrepancy with

chaps. 49-51, where all are raised (see below), has led Puech to suggest an earlier date for this

passage.240

The second description of resurrection is in 42.7:

For corruption will take away those who belong to it, and life those who belong to it. And dust will be called,

and told, “Give back that which does not belong to you and raise up all that you have kept until its own time.”

As in many passages, one can hear echoes of Dan 12.2. The description strongly points to bodily

resurrection, since that which the dust gives back must be corpses.241 Also, the passage implies that

the unjust will not be raised since “corruption will take away those who belong to it” – in light of

the following clause this is a reference to the wicked. Again, as in 30.1-5, only the righteous are

raised.242

The most developed description of resurrection appears in chaps. 49-51 – a passage which Puech

thinks post-dates 30.1-5 and 42.7.243 Baruch asks God:

In what shape will the living live in your day? Or how will remain their splendor which will be after that? Will they,

perhaps, take again this present form, and will they put on the chained members which are in evil and by which evils

are accomplished? Or will you perhaps change these things which have been in the world, as also the world

itself?244

God replies that the dead, both righteous and wicked, will be raised in two stages. Firstly, they will

be raised in exactly the same body, “not changing anything in their form. But as [the earth] has

received them so it will give them back.”245 This is one of the most literal resurrections in Jewish

238. E.g. P. Bogaert, Apocalypse de Baruch: Introduction, Traduction du Syriaque et Commentaire (SC 144-145; Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1969), 1:420.

239. 2 Bar. 30.4 (Kiln – my italics).240. Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 308.241. So Cavallin, Life After Death, 91; Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 139; Harrington, “Afterlife

Expectations,” 30.242. Contra Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 139.243. Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 308.244. 2 Bar. 49.1-3. Cf. 1 Cor 15.35.245. 2 Bar. 50.2 (Kiln).

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literature of the time246 and it takes place in order “to show those who live that the dead are living

again”.247 This first stage serves the apologetic purpose of the author: when the wicked recognise

the righteous, it will accentuate their subsequent demise even further.248

Secondly, after the judgement alluded to in 50.4 (“my judgment will be strong”), the righteous

and the wicked are transformed:

And it will happen after this day which he appointed is over that both the shape of those who are found to be guilty

as also the glory of those who have proved to be righteous will be changed. For the shape of those who now act

wickedly will be made more evil than it is (now) so that they shall suffer torment. Also, as for the glory of those

who proved to be righteous on account of my law, those who possessed intelligence in their life, and those who

planted the root of wisdom in their heart – their splendor will then be glorified by transformations, and the shape of

their face will be changed into the light of their beauty so that they may acquire and receive the undying world

which is promised to them.249

Further on, the author writes that the righteous “will be like the angels and equal to the stars”250 and

also that “the excellence of the righteous will then be greater than that of the angels.”251 Whether or

not Bogaert is correct to suggest that the saints actually become angels,252 a radical transformation

clearly takes place. However, I think that Wright is probably correct to assert that this chapter does

not envisage an immaterial resurrection.253 The author has not collapsed resurrection into

immortality of the soul. Indeed, expressions such as “the shape of their face” (51.3) and “they will

be changed into any shape which they wished” (51.10) suggest that this is a certain form of bodily

existence, albeit a very transformed one. There is no talk here of disembodied spirits floating

around, but it is clear that the body is quite free from the constraints of the present earthly one.

9. Josephus

As we shall see, the reader often has to “read between the lines” in order to decipher Josephus'

treatments of the Jewish afterlife beliefs. Since our interest is in possible references to resurrection,

246. Cavallin, Life After Death, 88.247. 2 Bar. 50.3 (Kiln).248. So Willett, Eschatology, 117.249. 2 Bar. 51.1-3 (Kiln).250. 2 Bar. 51.10 (Kiln).251. 2 Bar. 51.13 (Kiln).252. Bogaert, Apocalypse de Baruch, 2:93.253. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 159–60.

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we will restrict our survey to Josephus' descriptions of the afterlife beliefs of the Pharisees as well

as his own personal beliefs, since these two are virtually identical.

We might be forgiven if we assumed that Josephus would associate the Pharisees afterlife beliefs

with resurrection. Yet we are faced with the puzzling conundrum that “within the entire corpus of

his works, one looks in vain for a single definitive reference to the resurrection from the dead.”254

Instead, in War, when Josephus describes the Pharisees beliefs and, later, his own views, we find the

following:

Every soul, [the Pharisees] maintain, is imperishable, but the soul of the good alone passes into another body, while

the souls of the wicked suffer eternal punishment.255

[the righteous'] souls, remaining spotless and obedient, are allotted the most holy place in heaven, whence, in the

revolution of the ages [ejk peritrophvß aiw/nwn], they return to find in chaste bodies [aJgnoi√ß sw/masin… ] a new

habitation256

Broadly speaking, Josephus' own view, coincides with that of his Pharisees. Yet where we expect

references to resurrection, we find what looks like a description of metempsychosis, the

reincarnation of a soul into another body. When reading this, Josephus' Graeco-Roman audience

may have been reminded of the Pythagorean doctrine of the transmigration of the soul from one

body to another.257 However, certain clues indicate that, although Josephus' language is thoroughly

Hellenistic, he is describing the Pharisaic doctrine of resurrection in such a way as to make it

understandable (or acceptable?) to his non-Jewish audience.258 Mason has highlighted a few key

differences between Josephus' account and the Greek idea of transmigration, which suggest that

Josephus himself believed in resurrection. Firstly, Mason notes that, in the ancient world,

reincarnation was usually associated with punishment – only the wicked were reincarnated.

However, in Josephus' view, re-embodiment is the privilege of the righteous. This idea runs against

the traditional understanding of metempsychosis.259 Secondly, in War 3 the souls of the righteous

pass into “pure bodies” (aJgnoi √ß sw/masin) rather than just another body, as was usually the case

254. Elledge, Life After Death, 45.255. War. 2.163 (Thackeray).256. War 3.374 (Thackeray).257. Cf. S. Mason, Flavius Josephus on the Pharisees: a composition-critical study (SPB; Leiden: Brill, 1991), 161–

62.258. On Josephus' apologetic purpose, cf. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 177–79; Elledge, Life After

Death.259. Mason, Flavius Josephus on the Pharisees, 161, 166.

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for the Greeks.260 Thirdly, it is likely that the expressions ejk peritrophvß aijw/nwn in War 3.374

and its abbreviation in Ap. 2.218 (ejk peritrphvß) refer to the Jewish concept of “this age” and the

“age to come” rather than an ongoing cycle of reincarnations.261 This cumulative evidence suggests

that although Josephus describes what looks like a form of transmigration, his language betrays an

underlying belief in the resurrection of the dead. Whether or not Josephus intended his audience to

realise this is another question and does not particularly matter for our purposes.

In a couple of other passages, this time from Antiquities and Contra Apion, Josephus describes

the Pharisaic belief in the afterlife as well as his own using slightly different language to that used

in War. In Ant 18, Josephus explains that the Pharisees,

believe that souls have the power to survive death and that there are rewards and punishments under the earth for

those who have led lived of virtue or vice: eternal imprisonment is the lot of evil souls, while the good souls receive

an easy passage to a new life [rJaøstw¿mhn touv ajnabiouvn].262

Here, commentators are uncertain whether ajnabiouvn refers to resurrection or transmigration. A

cognate of the term used in 2 Macc 7.9 to refer to resurrection,263 but Mason rightly cautions that in

Plato, the term simply means “to live again”.264 Furthermore, Josephus' insistence in Ap. 2.218 that

those who die for the laws of God will be granted a renewed existence (gene/sqai te pa/lin) need

not imply a resurrection.265 What is clear though, is that Josephus is again using very Hellenistic

language to make Jewish belief understandable to a Graeco-Roman world. All this makes the

Antiquities passage more difficult to decipher, but, as with War 2, it is likely that a belief in

resurrection underlies Josephus' description.

By reading between the lines and noting some differences between Platonic transmigration and

Josephus' descriptions, we can suggest a few things about the Pharisaic belief in resurrection, as

Josephus understood it. Firstly, resurrection, for Josephus and the Pharisees, includes a belief in an

intermediate state, which Josephus expresses as the immortality of the soul.266 This state is spent

either in heaven (War 3.374) or under the earth (Ant 18.14). For the righteous, this involves some

260. Mason, Flavius Josephus on the Pharisees, 167.261. Mason, Flavius Josephus on the Pharisees, 168; Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 176.262. Ant. 18.14 (Feldman).263. See above.264. Mason, Flavius Josephus on the Pharisees, 299.265. So Elledge, Life After Death, 55–56.266. See 1 En. 22; 100.4-9; 103.4 (?); 2 Macc. 7.36; 12.39-45; LAB 23.13; 32.13; 4 Ezra 4.42; 2 Bar. 30.2; Ap. Mos.

13.6.

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kind of reward, whereas for the wicked it involves punishment. Secondly, resurrection clearly

envisages a body. If this were not so, Josephus would not have mentioned righteous souls entering a

new body, especially not when this was considered a punishment in the Greek world. Thirdly,

resurrection apparently involves transformation because righteous souls enter “pure bodies”. It

seems that the resurrection body will not be exactly the same as the body in which the individual

died (although it could be a transformed version of the original body). Finally, Josephus envisages

an eternal imprisonment for the souls of the wicked (e.g War 3.375; Ant 18.14) rather than

resurrection to eternal shame. Drane is probably right, then, to writes that “[m]aking due allowance

for [Josephus'] desire to explain Jewish religion in terms of Greek philosophy, it would be possible

to fit his description of Pharisaic belief into something like that of 2 Baruch.”267

10. Apocalypse of Moses

The Apocalypses of Moses, a Greek midrash of Genesis 1-4 is difficult to date or situate

geographically.268 We must therefore be careful not to associate its afterlife beliefs with a particular

time or place. Despite arguments to the contrary, the majority opinion is that there is nothing

inherently Christian about the Apocalypse, apart from a few obvious interpolations.269 It is therefore

fitting to include it in our analysis.

These difficulties notwithstanding, the work exhibits a fairly coherent and developed

eschatological framework in which resurrection is central. The section which most clearly

articulates this belief is 13.2-6. Faced with Adam's imminent death, Seth and his mother Eve travel

to Eden to obtain oil from a tree which would heal him. As they arrive, however,

God sent Michael the archangel, and he said to them, 'Seth, man of God, do not labor, praying with this supplication

about the tree from which the oil flows, to anoint your father Adam; it shall not come to be yours now (but at the

end of time. Then all flesh from Adam up to that great day shall be raised (to/te ajnasth/setai pavsa sa\rx ajpo\

∆Ada\m e¢wß thvß hJme/raß ejkei÷nhß thvß mega/lhß), such as shall be the holy people; then to them shall be given

every joy of Paradise and God shall be in their midst, and there shall not be any more sinners before him, for the evil

heart shall be removed from them, and they shall be given a heart that understands the good and worships God

267. J. W. Drane, “Some ideas of Resurrection in the New Testament period,” TynBul 24 (1973): 103.268. On dating cf. Cavallin, Life After Death, 72; Johnson in Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Vol

2, 252; Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 129; M. D. Eldridge, Dying Adam with his multiethnic family: understanding the Greek Life of Adam and Eve (SVTP 16; Leiden: Brill, 2001), 20–30; Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 157n113.

269. See Eldridge's treatment in Eldridge, Dying Adam with his multiethnic family, 233–64.

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alone.) But you go again to your father, since the measure of his life is fulfilled, that is, in three days. And as his soul

departs, you are sure to witness its fearful upward journey.'270

Here, resurrection at the eschaton is clearly in view. The reference to all flesh (pavsa sa\rx) being

raised clearly presupposes a bodily resurrection.271 This idea is supported by the fact that the work

seems to envisage a reversal of the fall of Genesis 3 and a return to Eden272 and by the instruction to

bury the bodies of the dead until the day of resurrection in 43.2.

As indicated by 13.6, the author believed in an intermediate state,273 which is, apparently, a

blissful disembodied existence in the presence of God:

Take him [Adam] up into Paradise, to the third heaven, and leave (him) there until that great and fearful day which I

am about to establish for the world.274

It is difficult to decide whether resurrection is universal or not. Scholars sometimes consider 13.3b

to be an interpolation, inserted in order to curtail the author's universalism.275 However, the

expression o¢soi e¡sontai lao\ß a¢gioß need only imply that those who are raised (i.e. all

humanity) will be a holy people. This suggestion is reinforced by the claim in v.5 that no sinners

shall be in their midst, not because they have been destroyed, but because “the evil heart shall be

removed from them.” Likewise, in 41.3 Adam is promised resurrection “with every man of [his]

seed.” It seems, then, that the author envisaged a universal resurrection to life. However, matters are

complicated by 39.3. In this verse, those who listen to Adam's seducer (presumably Satan) “shall be

condemned”. It is possible that the author believed that, although all would be raised, not all would

attain to the glories described in 13.4. If this is so, the evil heart being removed in 13.5 may refer to

the ethical transformation of the righteous alone, rather than that of all humanity.

Despite this last uncertainty, the Apocalypse of Moses gives a fairly cogent picture of the

afterlife: upon death the soul enters into an intermediate disembodied state. At the end of time all of

humanity is raised bodily. In one passage, 39.3, punishment is predicted for sinners. The righteous

(at least), are restored to a pre-fall state. This work, then, has a belief in the goodness of God's

270. Ap. Mos. 13.2-6 trans. Johnson in Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Vol 2.271. Despite Cavallin's caution that it could simply mean all humans: Cavallin, Life After Death, 73.272. The section in Ap. Mos. 38-39 (Esp 39) envisages a return of humanity to a pre-fall state: cf. Cavallin, Life

After Death, 74.273. So Cavallin, Life After Death, 73; Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 130.274. Ap. Mos. 37.5 (Johnson). Cf. also 32.4.275. Cf. on this Cavallin, Life After Death, 73; Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens, 129.

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original creation at the centre of its eschatology. There is no need for a heavenly, transcendent state.

Rather, what is needed is a restoration of what was lost in Genesis 3.

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CONCLUSION

At the outset of this study, we asked ourselves two particular questions which we are now in a

position to answer. Firstly, did ancient Jewish writers who believed in the resurrection of the dead

envisage a universal resurrection, or a resurrection of the righteous only? With a few exceptions

(such as the “Similitudes of Enoch”), almost all of the earlier texts studied here restrict resurrection

to the righteous (most of 1 Enoch; 2 Maccabees; Dead Sea Scrolls). This strand of belief survived

into the first century of the common era in texts such as Josephus' writings and parts of the

Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, but, alongside it, there emerged a belief in universal

resurrection followed by transformation for the righteous and demise for the wicked. The texts

studied which would fit into this last category are 4 Ezra, 2 Bar., Sib. Or. 2, 4, LAB and T. Ben. 10.6-

10.

The second question which we asked at the start concerned the nature of the resurrection body. It

is still not uncommon for scholars to argue that resurrection passages which do not mention a body

imply a spiritual form of resurrection. But the expression “spiritual resurrection” is, at best,

somewhat ambiguous, and at worst, interchangeable for a resurrection of the spirit or disembodied

bliss. However, the texts which speak in most detail about the nature of the resurrection (i.e. 2

Macc. 7; Sib. Or. 4; 2 Bar. 49-51) make things very clear: we are dealing with a body, not a

immaterial spirit. In some texts, transformation of the body is described, using (quite likely)

metaphorical images of stars, or angels. This shows that the resurrection body may not look very

much like the pre-resurrection body, but nothing in these texts suggests that it therefore stops being

what it is: a body!

The only text we have studied which could hint at the resurrection of the spirit rather than of the

body is 1 Enoch 104.3, but we have seen that this may refer to an intermediate state. All of the other

writings, however, either mention a body or else do not qualify the nature of the resurrection. In my

view, instead of supposing, as many scholars do, that a text which does not mention a body implies

a lack of body, we should assume that resurrection is bodily unless the text says otherwise. The old

rule of biblical exegesis which states that one should interpret the more obscure text using the

clearer text is helpful here. Since all the texts which explicitly mention the nature of the resurrection

body assume that it is a material body (however much transformed), the texts which fail to mention

any body are more likely to assume a bodily existence. Furthermore, many of the writings which

have been analysed in this paper mention a renewal of the earth after the final judgement. If a

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disembodied, or non-physical existence was meant by “resurrection” in these texts, it would be very

odd to speak of the renewal of the earth and of the righteous walking or reigning on it.

A final point can be drawn from this study. Too often it has been assumed that if a text speaks of

a disembodied existence after death (i.e. immortality of the soul), then that text must thereby

exclude bodily resurrection. However, in the Jewish writings which clearly speak of resurrection,

the author often describes a disembodied, post-mortem state which precedes this resurrection (an

intermediate state).276 Because of this, the oft-made dichotomy between resurrection and

immortality of the soul can sometimes be misleading. Since, as we have seen, resurrection is clearly

not something which happens immediately upon death, it is necessarily true that a text excludes

resurrection because it mentions immortality of the soul.

All of this should also have significant implications for interpreting the New Testament

language of resurrection. For example, since resurrection in ancient Judaism was a way of

describing something that happened to a body, it will not do to claim, as some have, that the

disciples spoke of Jesus' resurrection as a way of referring to a new experience of grace, or to the

exaltation of Jesus' spirit, whilst his body remained in the tomb.277 Such suggestions will not bear

the weight of close historical scrutiny. When the early Christians proclaimed that Jesus had been

raised from the dead, they meant that his body as well as his spirit had been raised, whatever we

think of the historical veracity of such a statement. Jesus' body, according to the Gospel narratives,

was certainly transformed, but it was still clearly a body.278 Additionally, the evidence adduced in

this study should also be brought to bear on Paul's description of the resurrection body in 1 Cor. 15.

Studies on this chapter should bear in mind the writings analysed in Part II before claiming that the

expression sw ◊ma pneumatiko/n refers to a non-material body, despite what translations such as

the NRSV imply. Of these things, however, we cannot now speak in detail.

Resurrection, then, whether universal or restricted to the righteous, implied that the God of Israel

had not given up on this material world. In the face of Greek scoffing many ancient Jews could

envisage God looking at the prospect of a resurrected people living in pure bodies a renewed world

and seeing, as he had in Genesis 1, that it is very good.

276. E.g. 1 En. 22; 100.4-9; 103.4; 2 Macc. 7.36; 12.39-45; LAB 23.13; 32.13; 62.9; 4 Ezra 4.42; 7.88f; 2 Bar. 30.1-5; Jos. War 3.374; Ant. 18.14; Ap. Mos. 13.6.

277. E.g. E. Schillebeeckx, Jesus: an experiment in Christology, trans. Hubert Hoskins (London: Collins, 1979), 329–97; S. McFague, Models of God: Theology for an ecological nuclear age (London: SCM Press, 1987), 59–60; J. D. Crossan, The Historical Jesus: the life of a Mediterranean Jewish peasant (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), 404.

278. E.g. esp. Lk. 24.38-43.

46


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