Having established communities of Christ followers throughout the cities of the Mediterranean Roman world, the apostle Paul returned to Jerusalem to present to the 'mother church' there the collection that his new-found communities had raised for its support. When he went to the Temple (at the suggestion of the Jerusalem church leaders) he was attacked by Jewish zealots who accused him of undermining the Mosaic Torah. He was arrested by the Roman authorities and put on trial before the High Priest and Temple authorities. At one point during the trial Luke tells us that Paul noticed that there were both Pharisees and Sadducees present among those judging him. Paul declared 'I am on trial concerning the hope of the resurrection of the dead' (Acts 23.6-8). This set the two main parties among his accusers, the Sadducees and the Pharisees, against each other. As Luke explains 'The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, or angel, or spirit; but the Pharisees acknowledge all three'. They started arguing among themselves with Paul's fellow Pharisees taking his side. Of course that in itself didn't save Paul - he wasn't released (in Luke's account he was destined to travel to Rome to stand trial before the emperor) but the point is that when Paul said he was on trial because of the hope of the resurrection of the dead it was clearly an idea with which a significant group of fellow Jews identified. Clearly then, belief in the resurrection of the dead was an important part of the faith of at least some Jews in the first century A.D., to some extent defining the identity of the parties active within Judaism, and yet, as I have suggested in previous posts, the Hebrew Bible actually says very little about life after death (of any kind). For the most part, the hope of a godly Jew was a long life lived in harmony with God, with the land and with his or her community. 'Afterlife' consisted in having a good name and many descendants. Death was a terrible thing because it destroyed all of those relationships (for some, even with God - Psalm 6.5). The dead were silent, mere shades, forgetful and insignificant. At least that's how most of the texts in the Hebrew Bible regard it. It's virtually impossible to reconstruct now what the majority of 'ordinary' Hebrews really believed and it could well be that many were much more affirming of life after death than the biblical texts suggest. But my aim here is to try to describe 'what the bible really says about the afterlife' (see the header above!), and what the bible 'really says' is that the silent, shady Sheol was the common destination of all, and that wasn't something people looked forward to. So the obvious question is, how did Judaism get from the position of believing that death inevitably led to permanent sleep in Sheol, to the situation where some Jews could respond positively to Paul's claim that he was on trial because of his belief 'in the resurrection'? How did it get from being a religion with little or no hope of 'after-life', to one rich in resurrection hope and imagery? That is actually a complicated question to answer because the process was a subtle and complex one. There is probably no one moment and no one easily identifiable 'reason' why an expectation of resurrection emerged in Judaism. But if we want to understand that development we have to start with one very significant text from the book of Daniel. According to some commentators (but not me!) it is in fact the only biblical text that explicitly talks about a resurrection. It is a text which marks a distinct change in emphasis from the hope for a good and long life well lived to a hope for life beyond (and outside) the grave. It is a text which announces the possibility that the dead will rise. And yet it is a text which challenges most of our assumptions about what such a 'rising' might entail. To plagarise the famous (apocryphal) words of Spock from the original Star Trek "it's resurrection Jim, but not as we know it". One day as Daniel stood beside the river Tigris the angel Gabriel appeared to him and announced a forthcoming existential crisis in Israels' life. At the end of that crisis says Gabriel, the Lord will send Michael the great Archangel to bring an end to Israel's woes.
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When in 1498, during his third voyage, Christopher Columbus reached the gulf of Paria at the mouth of the Orinoco river (in what is now Venezuala) he thought that he had found the outward traces of the Garden of Eden, the biblical earthly paradise. Although he believed the garden itself must lie further inland and be situated high up, he thought that the waters of the Orinoco river he saw coming down to form the gulf must come from the primeval river that flowed out of Eden. He wrote in his journal I do not suppose that the earthly Paradise is in the form of a rugged mountain, as the descriptions of it have made it appear, but that it is on the summit of the spot which I have described as being in the form of the stalk [or stem end] of a pear; the approach to it from a distance must be by a constant and gradual ascent; but I believe that, as I have already said, no one could ever reach the top; I think also that the water I have described may proceed from it, though it be far off, and that stopping at the place I have just left, it forms this lake. It might seem incredible that an explorer like Columbus, intelligent and knowledgeable, would think that he had found the Garden of Eden. The most obvious question is why he or anyone else would ever have thought that the Garden of Eden was located in South America? The answer of course is that Columbus didn't know he had discovered the Americas - he was hoping to reach China and India (i.e. the 'East') by sailing west, and the biblical story located Eden in the east. It made perfect sense to Columbus that by sailing to the furthest point east he could imagine, he might discover the location of paradise But more fundamentally we might wonder why Columbus imagined he might find paradise on earth in the first place. Wasn't Eden a mythical garden? Wasn't it part of the primeval history in the book of Genesis, that collection of mythological stories about creation of the cosmos in seven days, the formation of the first humans out of clay and bones, impossible towers to heaven and a world-wide flood that wiped out all living creatures except those who were hiding in the giant boat Noah made (and the fish!). Why in the 15th century would an intelligent cultured European explorer think that he had found the mythical land of Eden? And the answer to that is that ever since the book of Genesis was written countless Jewish and Christian readers of that story in the subsequent centuries continued to believe that the Garden of Eden, paradise, was a real place, a location in space and time. Even though the story tells us that the garden God made was 'far, far away' and 'long, long ago' it was, in their minds, nonetheless a real place, where two historical human beings had once lived and where events took place that were drastically to shape their own history. Some writers and thinkers reflected on that story and believing that it was a story about a real place in the real world and reading that the tree of life had once stood there in the centre of the garden, began to imagine ways in which human beings might find their way back to paradise and to that tree which would heal them of their terrible propensity to die! Paradise became the object of intense speculation and aspiration. People believed that it still existed and they wanted to go back there. And so, over the centuries, people wrote stories trying to describe what may or may not have happened to Adam and Eve during their time in the garden and afterwards; they wrote imaginary visionary tales in which biblical heroes were taken by angels to visit the paradise garden; some people thought about how they could get to paradise without physically going there i.e by ascending to paradise through contemplation of the divine throne/chariot (that Ezekiel had seen); and, in the medieval era, people drew maps of the world in which paradise always featured at the top, as the historical and theological 'starting point' of the history of the world. When Columbus sailed to 'the east' (in a westerly direction!) he was fully aware that he was heading towards that 'far away and long ago place' where paradise lay. I have no idea whether he expected to find it on his voyages but when he discovered the rich, luxuriant beauty of the new land and saw the great Orinoco river flowing into the gulf of Paria, he had no problem in thinking that he had found the earthly paradise or, at least, signs of its proximity. In this post I want to explore the way in which the story of that first garden in Genesis came to have such powerful effect on subsequent expectation in Judaism and Christianity that one day we might find our way back there, and how the nature of the Genesis story laid the foundations for the subsequent paradise tradition. The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #5 'Stuck in the Middle With You'3/30/2016 The film Terminal, a film directed by Stephen Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks, is about someone who, for political and bureaucratic reasons, becomes a resident of the airport terminal at J.F.K. airport in the U.S.A. The story is that Tom Hank's character, Victor Navorski, arrives in the US from an unnamed eastern European country to discover that the U.S. authorities don't recognise the government which has just taken power in his country and that consequently his papers have become invalid. Because the authorities at J.F.K. airport won't allow him into the US and he because he can't go back home he has to live in the International Lounge of the airport. There he makes friends, learns English and falls in love! It is fascinating idea, that someone can become legally stateless, able to live only in that legal 'no-man's land' between countries which is the airport terminal. The film mirrors the true story of Merhan Nasseri who lived in the airport terminal at Charles de Gaulle Airport airport in Paris from 1988 until 2006 after his papers were stolen while travelling from Belgium to the United Kingdom. Charles de Gaulle spokesman Danielle Yzerman said of Nasseri's plight, "An airport is kind of a place between heaven and earth. He has found a home here." That description "a kind of place between heaven and earth" sums up exactly the situation of someone we read about in the ancient Jewish text, the Testament of Abraham. In this comic novel dating (probably) from some time in the late 1st century A.D., the great and righteous patriarch Abraham, the 'friend of God', visits the 'great assize' on the other side of the gate of heaven where the dead are judged. He is taken there by his angel-guide Michael, in order to grasp the cold, brutal severity of true justice. There Abraham sees the dead being judged in three ways; by means a great book which contains the infallible record of each person's life; by a balance, a set of scales held by an angel known as Dokiel, 'the angel of righteousness'; and by the testing fire held in the trumpet of the 'angel of fire', Puriel. In these three ways each soul is measured, weighed and tested and an unerring, precise measurement of their righteousness and wickedness is made. There is no room here for compassion, for mercy or for mitigation. One by one the souls are judged and taken either to paradise or to a place of torment and destruction. In this way Abraham is confronted with the consequences of his desire to call down the punishment of God upon the unrighteous people he has seen during his tour of the earth. But there is one individual for whom the system doesn't seem to work. In the case of one problematic soul no decision can be made. The lists of their good and bad 'works' are of the same length in the Great Book and their good and bad deeds are finely balanced in the scales. They don't fit - no decision can be made on them; they must wait until the coming of God at The Arrival, when the final infallible decision on all mankind will be made. Just like Viktor in Terminal this soul must remain at heaven's 'arrival lounge', unable to go further but equally (because she or he is dead) unable to return to the world to carry on with life. This unfortunate soul too is stateless, stuck 'in-between', inhabiting that 'no-souls land' between this life and the next. And so it would have remained had it not been for the intervention of Abraham. The plight of this one poor soul and the realisation that perhaps he could make a difference, inspires something new and wonderful in Abraham's heart. In this post I explain what that change was and what it meant for Abraham . . . . and for early Christianity. As a welcome relief to both blog writer (and readers), the words below are not mine. They belong to Karl Rahner and I use them here, today, because they express beautifully and profoundly the essential meaning of Easter. Rahner (1904-1984) was a Catholic theologian who taught theology at the universities of Munich and Munster and he was an influential voice at the Second Vatican Council. His collected essays make up 23 volumes in their printed English edition! These words are from The Content of Faith, a one volume collection of his theological writings. The pictures used here are by Sir Stanley Spencer (1891-1959) one of the 20th century's most distinctive British painters. He said he wanted ‘to take the inmost of one's wishes, the most varied religious feelings…and to make it an ordinary fact of the street’, and he is best known for pictures in which he set biblical events in his own village of Cookham. He painted several paintings depicting the Resurrection. Each one shows very ordinary people awakening to a life in world like yet unlike the one they once knew. It seemed to me that these pictures provide a fitting visual commentary to Rahner's words The Easter Message"It is difficult in well worn human words to do justice to the joy of Easter. Not simply because all the mysteries of the gospel have difficulty in penetrating the narrow limits of our being and because it is even more difficult for our language to contain them. The message of Easter is the most human news brought by Christianity. That is why we have most difficulty in understanding it. It is most difficult to be, do and believe what is truest, closest and easiest. For we people of today live by the tacitly assumed, (and therefore to us all the more self evident) prejudice, that what is religious is purely a matter of the innermost heart and the highest point of the mind, something which we have to do for ourselves alone and which therefore has the difficulty and unreality of the thoughts and moods of the heart. "The message of easter is the most human news brought by Christianity. |
Archives
April 2016
GalleryThis blog is as much about images as it is about text. Below is a slideshow of the pictures and images used in this blog. Click on any of the pictures to go to the post where that image is featured.
PostsLocating Paradise #1 In a Garden, Far, Far Away
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #5 'Stuck in the Middle With You'
The Resurrection According to Rahner
Today You Will Be With Me in Paradise
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #4 'And Who by Fire'
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #3: Held in the Balance
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #2: Once, Twice, Three Times a Sinner
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #1: The Broad and Narrow Gates
Daily Dante 7: Many Rivers to Cross
Daily Dante 6: 'You Gotta Serve Somebody'
In Hell Everyone Can Hear You Scream. The Vision of Tundale #3
Teeth, Spikes and Cleavers: At the Sharp end of Hell. The Vision of Tundale #2
'No Pain No Gain': The Vision of Tundale #1
'Hellzapoppin':
Illustrations from Le Livre de la Vigne nostre Seigneur, #2 'It's The End of the World as We Know It (and we feel fine)'. Illustrations from Le Livre de la Vigne nostre Seigneur, #1
Visions of Heaven. Botticini's Assumption of the Virgin #2 Blinded by the Light
Visions of Heaven. Botticini's Assumption of the Virgin #1: Glorious and Immortal
Daily Dante 5: What the gates said.
Daily Dante 4: When I find myself in times of trouble
Daily Dante 3: I'll take you there
Daily Dante 2: Fierce creatures
Daily Dante 1: If you go down to the woods today
In Seventh Heaven or 'What Enoch Did Next'
A World of Fire and Ice: Heaven according to Enoch
The Power and the Glory: Visions of God as king in the Hebrew bible
The Beautiful Bestiary of Catherine Cleves: Monsters and Demons in detail.
Heaven is for Real: Heaven as a physical space up above the sky
Resurrecting the Dead or Reviving the Flowers? The loss of resurrection faith in Judaism.
The Defeat of Death #1: The promise of resurrection in the Isaiah Apocalypse.
The Defeat of Death #2: Death as a hostile power and promise of God's victory in Isaiah
Scary Monsters and Super Creeps: The 'Last Judgement' according to Stefan Lochner
Hell in the Hospital: The 'Last Judgement' of Rogier van der Weyden in the Beaune altarpiece.
'Hell' in the New Testament #2: The gates of Hades shall not prevail
The Hours of Catherine Cleves: Imagining hell and purgatory in Catherine's prayer book
'On Earth as in Heaven': The kingdom of God as a revelation of heaven
'Hell' in the New Testament #1: Gehenna
Lost in Translation #1: How the King James version got it so wrong about hell
Heaven is not our home
Domes, Depths and Demons: The cosmology of the Hebrew world
A Bigger God
"See you in Sheol" - Sheol, the common destination of all
Heaven, Hell and Christian Hope
BooksBelow are some of the books which have helped me the most in the research and writing for this blog. Click on any image to find out more about that book at its page on Amazon uk.
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