Has it ever bothered you that some of the beliefs that are crucial to Christianity developed in the “intertestamental” period among certain sects of Judaism, and then were assumed by New Testament writers before being codified in the creeds of the church? The most obvious example is the “resurrection of the dead” – by which I mean general resurrection. The Old Testament doesn’t explicitly insist on this. But, one could argue, oppression in the time of the Maccabees resulted in a yearning for God’s redemption of the impossibly lost lives of his faithful people. Gradually, ideas of a future general resurrection developed, and by the time of the New Testament, this view was a firm belief of the influential Pharisees. After it was claimed that Jesus himself rose from the dead, the belief in a future general resurrection became gospel.
But is that the best way to think of it?
As I think about it, I reckon that we believe in the resurrection of the dead because of our doctrine of God. And we develop our doctrine of God from his revelation as a God who makes and keeps covenant. In other words, who is God? God IS “the one who gives life to the dead”.
- Jesus makes this point to the Sadducees, insisting that if God is “the God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob”, then there must be future resurrection – because they are presently dead
- Paul makes this point in Romans 4 and 1 Corinthians 15 and 2 Corinthians 1, insisting that the God we believe in is the “God who gives life to the dead” – it is this God who made and kept impossible promises to dead Abraham
- Paul uses the same sort of logic in Romans 9-11, where his doctrine of God (as one who keeps covenant) drives him to expect that God must somehow bring about the salvation of “all” Israel, despite the fact that this is apparently impossible
So did ideas of resurrection develop greatly in the “intertestamental” period? Yes; but I would say that this development – often occurring in the heat of oppression – represented a right extrapolation from a doctrine of God that was steeped in the formative narratives of Israel.
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Only it was rising of spirits instaneously at the death of the body, the one to judgement, the other to glory, depending on whether one had obeyed the Spirit and had a pure spirit.
The pharisees did not exist at the time Jesus was supposed to have been on earth.
That was one belief in early Judaism, but certainly not everyone held to that version – it’s clear that some believed in bodily resurrection, some believed in the immortality of the soul, etc etc… Philo and 2 Maccabees, for example, hold to completely different ideas of afterlife.
The pharisees did not exist at the time Jesus was supposed to have been on earth?? That’s bonkers in my book
There was only one belief in early Judaism, and that was a belief that a person was given a spirit that enlivened his body. When that spirit departed, the body died. This was the view of priests and prophets. Priests believed that spirits went to a waiting place below ground to await judgement. Prophets believed that a spirit would rise instaneously to judgement, one for glory, the other for condemnation. The texts have been altered to give a different view which you state.
Significanntly, the pharisees are not in the Scrolls, or in Philo. The writings attributed to Josephus have also been tampered with, extensively.