by tenyearsafter 41 Replies latest jw friends
I'm real fuzzy on the subject and can't quote names or Bible books, but wasn't there warnings about talking with the dead in the OT? Didn't Saul supposedly talk to the dead using a witch? I'm fuzzy on the details.
If that is the case, there seems to have been a belief that the dead were in a state where they could be talked to. Which seems to indicate they believed the dead progressed to some afterlife.
jws
Quite right. The prohibition of necromancy in the Torah ultimately depends on the centralisation and standardisation of worship in Deuteronomy, which bans it along with other features of older Israelite religion (e.g. "high places" or sanctuaries which also included oracles, cf. the "ephod" stories). It was banned but not considered "fake" as an anachronistic, rationalistic, modern misunderstanding has it. Much like other gods were not to be worshiped -- not that they did not exist, but because Yhwh was jealous...
The En-Dor story in 1 Samuel 28 makes no sense if necromancy was not seen as really working -- I would range the quotation marks around "Samuel" next to "Jehovah" in the NT in the list of NWT aberrations...
Jews and Muslims generally believe/d paradise to be heavenly. It is sometimes described as the abode of the righteous when they die until the end of this present world.
bookmarked
Looking from the very start, Genesis says nothing of any future life for Abel... period. The only one I can think of early on with any vague thought of life after death is the account of Enoch which is muddy on providing an answer...
(Genesis 5:21-24) 21 And E´noch lived on for sixty-five years. Then he became father to Me·thu´se·lah. 22 And after his fathering Me·thu´se·lah E´noch went on walking with the [true] God three hundred years. Meanwhile he became father to sons and daughters. 23 So all the days of E´noch amounted to three hundred and sixty-five years. 24 And E´noch kept walking with the [true] God. Then he was no more, for God took him.
The footnote on that last phrase: "Because God transferred him," LXX. Compare Heb 11:5.
(Hebrews 11:5) 5 By faith E´noch was transferred so as not to see death, and he was nowhere to be found because God had transferred him; for before his transference he had the witness that he had pleased God well.
Took/Transferred"... what the hell does that mean? That is left to whatever anybody believes "hell" is... or "heaven" as well.
In my "scholarly" opinion I'd answer your question with another question... "Why did the vast majority of "worshippers of Jehovah" also worship other gods, or completely leave him to worship other gods? If you read the OT, Jehovah is an angry God of the Hebrews that didn't have all the answers that humans need in their daily lives and in planning for their future.
B the X
Here is Josephus' version of the En-Dor story:
"Saul asked through the prophets for an oracle from God concerning the battle and its outcome. But, as no response came from God, Saul was yet more afraid and his heart failed him, forseeing inevitable disaster since deity was no longer at his side. However, he gave orders to search out for him a woman among the mediums and those who call up the souls of those who had died (tón tethnékotón psukhas), that he might learn how matters would turn out for him. For this sort of medium brings forth the souls of the dead (tas tón nekrón psukhas) and through them foretells the future to those who inquire of them. And one of his servants told him that there was such a woman in the city Endor, but was known to nobody in the camp.... Having convinced her by his oaths to not be anxious, he directed her to bring up the soul of Samuel (tén Samouélou psukhén). The woman, ignorant of who Samuel was, summoned him from Hades (kalei touton ex Haidou). When he appeared, the woman beheld a venerable and godlike man (andra semnon kai theoprepé) and she was thrown into confusion and alarmed by the vision.... When Saul questioned why she was in a state of confusion, she said that she saw one coming up with a form similar to God (tó theó tén morphén homoion).... And the soul of Samuel asked him why he had disturbed him and forced him to be brought up (kinéseien autén kai anakhthénai poiéseien) and Saul replied in a lament that he was facing dire circumstances.... But seeing that Saul's change (metabolés) was now overdue, he said: 'It is pointless for you to wish to still learn from me (eti par' emou mathein), seeing that God has deserted you. But hear now that David must rule as king and be successful in war. You howver will lose both your rulership and your life, you who disobeyed God in the war against the Amalekites and did not keep his commands, just as I predicted to you while alive (proephéteusa soi kai zón). Know then that the people too will be subjected to the enemy, and that tomorrow you will be with me (aurion met' emou genésomenon) after falling in battle, along with your sons' " (Antiquitates, 6.328-334).
And here is the version of Pseudo-Philo (first century AD):
"And when the woman saw Samuel rising up and she saw Saul with him, she shouted out and said, 'Behold you are Saul, and why have you deceived me?' And he said to her, 'Do not be afraid, but tell what you have seen?' She said, 'Behold forty years have passed since I began raising up the dead for the Philistines, but such a sight as this has never been seen before nor will it be seen afterward.' And Saul said to her, 'What is his appearance?' She said, 'You are asking me about divine beings. For behold his appearance is not the appearance of a man. For he is clothed in a white robe with a mantle placed over it, and two angels are leading him.' And Saul remembered the mantle that Samuel tore when he was alive, and he struck his hand on the ground and pounded it. And Samuel said to him, 'Why have you disturbed me by raising me up? I thought that the time for being rendered the rewards of my deeds have arrived. And so do not boast, King, nor you, woman; for you have not brought me forth, but that order that God spoke to me while I was still alive, that I should come and tell you that you have sinned now a second time in neglecting God. Therefore after rendering up my soul my bones have been disturbed so that I who am dead should tell you what I heard while I was alive. Now therefore tomorrow you and your sons will be with me when the people have been delivered into the hands of the Philistines" (64:5-8).
Billy.....About Abel, here is what the Book of Watchers (late third century BC) has to say about that:
"From there I traveled to another place. And he showed me to the west a great and high mountain of hard rock. And there were four hollow places in it, deep and very smooth. Three of them were dark and one, illuminated, and a fountain of water was in the midst of it. And I said, 'How smooth are these hollows and altogether deep and dark to view.' Then Raphael answered, one of the holy angels who was with me, and he said to me, 'These hollow places are intended that the spirits of the souls of the dead (Greek: ta pneumata tón psukhón tón nekrón) might be gathered into them. For this very purpose they were created, that here the souls of all the sons of men (Aramaic: npsht kl bny 'nsh'; Greek: pasas tas psukhas tón anthrópón) should be gathered. And behold, these are the pits for the place of their confinement. Thus they were made until the day on which they will be judged, and until the time of the day of the end of great judgment, which will be exacted from them.' There I saw the spirit of a dead man (Aramaic: rwch 'nsh mt; Greek: anthrópous nekrous) making suit, and his lamentation went up to heaven and cried and made suit. Then I asked Raphael, the watcher and holy one who was with me, and said to him, 'This spirit that makes suit, whose is it, that thus his lamentation goes up and makes suit unto heaven?' And he answered me and said, 'This is the spirit that went forth from Abel (Greek: touto to pneuma estin to exelthon apo Abel), whom Cain his brother murdered. And Abel makes accusation against him until his seed perishes from the face of the earth, and his seed is obliterated from the seed of men'.... Here their spirits are separated for this great torment (Greek: hóde khórizetai ta pneumata autón eis tén megelén basanon tautén), until the great day of judgment, of scourges and tortures of the cursed forever, that there might be a recompense for their spirits. There he will bind them forever. And this has been separated from the spirits of them that make suit, who make disclosure about the destruction, when they were murdered in the days of the sinners" (1 Enoch 22:2-7, 11-12).
Leolaia, Narkissos and JWFacts...thank you very much!! I hadn't even thought of the relationship of the state of the dead in the En-Dor story.
How would you answer the question as it pertained to Adam and Eve prior to their disobedience? Did they have a concept of death (and an afterlife) or were they "programmed" to live forever on earth? Since God told them they would die "that day" if they ate of the fruit, did they have an expectation of dying at some point even if they remained faithful? I realize that this is dependent on taking the Bible at literal face value, but that is what makes sense to JW's (most of the time!).
I apologize for so many questions, but this one piqued my curiosity!
tenyearsafter....Your question is precisely the kind that inspired midrash over the millennia. The original narrative in Genesis is laconic and has very little exploration of the characters' thoughts and feelings; the first hint of any interior characterization is only in 2:25 ("they felt no shame"). But the story does have enough elements for an interpreter to work with, whether by filling in the gaps with imagination (as is common in midrash) or by making exegetical inferences from the narrative presentation. Ha-'adam (the man) and Ha-'ishah (the woman) before their "eyes are opened" are both naive and display childish innocence (easily influenced, feeling no shame in nakedness, have their needs provided for by Yahweh Elohim, etc.), and they have no life experience to rely on. Yahweh Elohim gives the command to Ha-'adam in much the same way that a parent tells a child to not touch a stove (for in the moment you touch it, it would burn you). The man's understanding of the command is nowhere related, but in light of the theme of childish innocence, it is possible that he and Ha-'ishah are pictured as having an immature understanding of life/death. This is especially heightened in the contrast between them and the 'arum (shrewd) serpent who, by virtue of being a serpent, knows all about life and death (as serpents rejuvenate themselves by shedding their skin and thus were commonly thought in the ANE to be extraordinarily long-lived). So Ha-'ishah tacitly accepts the serpent's understanding of the lethality of the tree of knowledge of good and evil as her own by partaking of the fruit, setting aside her prior understanding of the divine command (which, incidentally, she distorts in several key ways). Only subsequently, after gaining a more adult knowledge of shame, female subordination, sexual desire, and painful childbirth (see 3:10-20) does Ha-'ishah discover the truth about life and become Hawwah (Eve), the life-giving mother of "all living"; the name puns on the Hebrew word for "life" but etymologically it is derived from the word for "serpent". As for Ha-'adam, he keeps his name because "dust you are and dust you shall return" (= 'adamah "soil, ground"); in other words, while Ha-'ishah's new name emphasizes her new understanding of life, Ha-'adam's name is revealed to him as pointing to his eventual death.
BTW, regarding the reference to "that day" in the divine warning, there is a subtlety in the grammar that cannot be expressed easily in translation. The phrase b-ywm + infinitive construct in Genesis 2:17 could be taken literally to mean "in [the] day" or it could simply mean "when" or "once" (cf. 2:4). It is ambiguous, possibly intentionally so by the author.
Here is a close parallel in 1 Kings 2:37, concerning a Benjaminite named Shimei: "It shall be that once you leave (b-ywm ts'tk, lit. "in [the] day that you leave") and pass over the river Kidron, you shall certainly know that you shall certainly die". This latter text is quite interesting because it is strikingly similar to Genesis 2:17 in its phrasing (i.e. b-ywm + infinitive construct with solemn intensified "you shall certainly die" as a consequent). In this story of Shimei, he did not realize that he was going to die on that day he crossed the Kidron, or at the same time he crossed it, but sometime later, after he had returned from his trip (v. 40-46). That he even returned shows that he did not expect to die. Yet his death was inevitable once he crossed the Kidron. It is pretty much the same thing in Genesis 2-3. "Once you eat it you shall (thenceforth) truly die" is one way of understanding the prohibition. By banishing the man and woman from Eden and limiting access to the tree of life, death was thenceforth inevitable.
