lindborg@cs.washington.edu (Jeff Lindborg) (03/06/91)
>[It's true that scholars believe that relatively concrete ideas about >personal judgement after death were formulated fairly late in Judaism. >However as far as I know those who ascribe them to outside influences >believe it came from contact with Persians during the exile. Perhaps I should have been more clear. The ideas of *resurection* did indeed (as far as we know) enter Judaism through Persia in the neighborhood of the mid 5th century BCE. Resurection, of course, dealing with an event that is to take place at the end of history when the dead are raised and brought under divine judgment. Judaism seemed to embody this idea with the concept of Sheol as being some sort of "shaddow" existence. A Jewish friend of mine explained it as a "cosmic waiting room for the end of time". Simplistic but it works. However the concept of the imorality of the soul and an immediate life after death (in some form or another) is a Greco-Roman idea that entered Judaism around 300-200BCE when Hellenism was in 'vouge' for young thinkers... There is a fundamental difference between the two, of course. >Of course from early days there had been a confidence in God as a judge >who would make things come out right, and it appears that there was at >least some kind of survival in Sheol after death (though in the >earlier books not much is said about it, and there is even a comment >somewhere about not being able to praise God in Sheol). One of the >changes in the prophets, e.g. Ezekiel, was an increasing >personalization of the religion, so that for example it was no longer >believed that children would be held responsible by God for the sins >of their parents. It seems quite consistent with these developments >that God's judgement should be seen as including people after their >death, and not just the eventual triumph of the nation. My >suspicion is that exposure to Persians during the exile may have in >some ways catalyzed changes in concepts, but that those changes were >consistent with the natural course of development of Judaism -- >otherwise it's unlikely that Jews would have adopted them. Actualy an interesting side note along this line: The first concrete reference to a life after death (as opposed to some sort of vauge resurection belief) that I can find occurs about the time of the collapse of the Zadok line (around 150-140 BCE). Confronted by Antiockus's threat of death to any Jew who remained true to their law, and confronted with the question of WHY one whould die for the law if there could (obviously!) be no reward in this world for it, a group of soferim responded by proclaiming that God had revealed two laws and not just one. This "other" revealed law (latter termed "oral torah") proclaimed that God would reward with eternal life those who gave up their lives. Of course the support they received allowed them to overthrow the Zadokite high priesthood and invoke thier own authority in 142 BCE. Jeff Lindborg
davidh@tektronix.tek.com (David L Hatcher) (03/09/91)
In article <Mar.5.23.14.22.1991.22870@athos.rutgers.edu> lindborg@cs.washington.edu (Jeff Lindborg) writes: > Perhaps I should have been more clear. The ideas of *resurection* >did indeed (as far as we know) enter Judaism through Persia in the >neighborhood of the mid 5th century BCE. This would be through the Zoroastrian religion. The Magi were Zoroastrian's. I've read in many places that Judaism did not have any concept of "evil", "hell" or "satan" as we know it until the Zoroastrian's came onto the scene and freed them from from their exile in Babylonia. David Hatcher