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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If you really want to know what a religious person actually believes look at the hymns and songs they sing. We learn more from our hymn books and prayer books than we do from sermons or theological books. Few Christians read theological books or listen critically and thoughtfully to sermons, but nearly all sing in church. And the words of those hymns and songs both shape and reflect their faith. And if you want to know what the wider church believes, the denominational bodies to which many churches belong, then look at the prayer books and liturgies those bodies authorise. As our theological understanding of God, humanity and creation develop (as they must) those developments make their way into the wording of our prayers of praise and supplication. Recently, traditionalists were shocked by the suggestion that the Church of England baptismal liturgy should no longer asked parents to renounce "the devil and all his works", no doubt because the idea of a real, actual devil is no longer theologically fashionable. ' Similarly our understanding of the afterlife is reflected in our funeral liturgies and prayers and I have known for some time that within the Christian tradition the biblical emphasis on resurrection and new creation has been downplayed in more recent funeral liturgies where an emphasis on personal immortality has become more important. But I until I read Jon Levenson's wonderful book Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel I had no idea that the same tendency was evident in Judaism too. Levenson argues powerfully and persuasively that the way the Gevurot Prayer, which proclaims a faith in the "God who raises the dead", has been treated in various revisions of the prayer books of the Reform tradition in Judaism reflects a growing embarassment in Judaism with the idea of bodily Resurection. That simple affirmation of faith in the power of God to overcome even death itself has been replaced by affirmations of the value and power of the human person and the hope of 'immortality' within the hearts and minds of those who love us. This, Levenson argues, is a denial of the original biblical faith of Rabbinic Judaism. Instead of the belief in the God "who keeps faith with those who sleep in the dust" worshippers using the Reformed prayer book Gates of Prayer say the following words "We pray . . . for love through which we may all blossom into persons who have gained power over our own lives." Belief in personal autonomy and human flourishing have replaced faith in the power of God to defeat death. In this post I outline the various changes in the wording of the Gevurot prayer and discuss, with the help of Jon Levenson, the reasons why this has happened. The answers hold great importance for the way we, as Christians, respond to our historic faith in The Resurrection. "Given the solid biblical precedent for seeing the individual as altogether and properly mortal, why have liturgical innovations in modern Judaism so emphasized the immortality of the soul? Why have they not followed those streams in biblical literature that see the self as unitary and unable to survive its physical demise (that is, without supernatural intervention)? One answer surely lies in the vastly greater concern with the individual in modern thought. The notion, self-evident in much biblical literature, that God’s promise to a person can be fully realized in his descendants after his own death rubs against the grain of this characteristically but not uniquely modern attitude. That God’s promise to me may not be fulfilled in my own lifetime but only in that of my descendants or other kinfolk (including my nation) seems unjust today in ways that, for the most part, it did not in biblical times. However much it may offend the materialist orientation of much modern thought, the doctrine of personal immortality at least allows for the relative detachment of the individual from the group in ways with which many moderns feel more comfortable—and more comforted." Jon Levenson Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel p 14 |
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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