It seems to me that we could say this: Early Judaism did not involve a common orthodoxy concerning the bodily resurrection of the dead. Alongside beliefs in bodily resurrection (exhibited in 2 Maccabees, for example), was a range of beliefs about the immortality of the soul and the nature of the afterlife.
The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides evidence a Jewish belief in immortality of the soul:
For souls [psuchai] remain unharmed in those who have perished. For the spirit [pneuma] is God’s loan to mortals [thnētoisi], and his image. For we have a body from the earth; and then after we are released to earth again, we are dust [konis]. But the air receives the spirit.[1]
The soul [psuchē] is immortal [athanatos] and ageless, living forever.[2]
Likewise, the Wisdom of Solomon envisages the afterlife as involving immortal souls:
They [that is, the immortal souls of the once-persecuted righteous] will judge the nations [krinousin ethnē], and rule over peoples [kratēsousi laōn], and the Lord will rule [basileusei] over them for eternity.[3]
I was a good child, receiving a good soul [psuchēs… agathēs], or rather, being good, I came into an undefiled body [sōma amianton].[4]
The Epistle of Enoch looks ahead to the blessed survival of good souls after death:
I swear to you: I understand this mystery [mustērion]…. That goodness and joy and honour have been prepared and written down for the souls of those who have died [apothanontōn] while godly [eusebōn].[5]
Similarly, Josephus appears to hold to the immortality of the soul, as opposed to the temporality of the body:
For [in the act of sex] the soul [psuchēs] is divided, departing to another place; for it suffers [kakopathei] when being implanted in bodies [sōmasi] and similarly at death when it is divided from them. Therefore purifications for all of these things are commanded.[6]
According to Josephus, even the Pharisees, like the Essenes, held to a Greek-like idea of an immortal soul for all people. Unlike the Essenes, they held that good souls would also receive new bodies:
For this is their doctrine [that is, the Essenes]: That bodies [sōmata] are mortal [phtharta], and their material is not permanent; but that souls [psuchas] are immortal [athanatous] and endure forever; and that they come out of thin air, so that they are bound to their bodies as to a prison, drawn in by a certain natural [phusikē] enticement; but being released from their fleshly bonds [tōn kata sarka desmōn], as set free from a long slavery, they then rejoice and rise upwards. And this is similar to the opinions of the Greeks who hold that good souls have a dwelling beyond the ocean.[7]
[The Pharisees say that] every soul [psuchēn] is immortal [aphtharton], but that only those of good people are removed into another body [sōma]; while those of the simple are subjected to everlasting punishment.[8]
The Psalms of Solomon, arguably representative of Pharisaic thought, only once refer to resurrection, and there the reference is not unambiguously to a bodily experience:
The destruction [apōleia] of the sinner is forever [eis ton aiōna] and such a person will not be remembered when God visits the righteous. This is the fate of sinners forever; but those who fear the Lord will be raised [anastēsontai] to eternal life [zōēn aiōnion]. And their life will be in the light of the Lord, and it will not go out.[9]
In contrast, Paul appears to hold that even those who belong to Christ lack immortality until they experience bodily resurrection. The reason seems to be that Paul’s conception of the future/afterlife has become utterly Christocentric: Until Christ’s cosmic vindication is completed with his appearance and judgement of death, it is inconceivable that those who belong to Christ will pre-empt the sharing of his immortal exaltation. Rather, they must follow in his footsteps and, at his appearing, share his bodily glory:
But each in its own order: Christ the firstfruits, then, at his coming, those who belong to Christ. (1 Cor 15:23)
And just as we have borne the image of the one of dust, so also we will bear the image of the one of heaven. (1 Cor 15:49)
For this mortality must be clothed with immortality (1 Cor 15:53)
[1] Sentences, 105-108
[2] Sentences, 115
[3] Wisdom of Solomon 3:8
[4] Wisdom of Solomon 8:19-20
[5] 1 Enoch 103:1-3
[6] Against Apion, II, 203
[7] Jewish War: BJ II, 154-155.
[8] Jewish War: BJ II, 164.
[9] PsSol 3:11-12.
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