Question for our scholars... (page 4)

slimboyfat

that was pleasure to read Leolaia.

You joker quietlyleaving, there is nothing in that message!

I know what you mean - the earlier messages. But it just tickled my funny bone that you wrote that after a message that is (currently) empty for some reason.

Leolaia

I'm having trouble with the danged formatting! Gosh! [/Napoleon]

There are still bugs in them thar HTML tags, and that previous post cannot be edited for some unknown system error.

quietlyleaving

that was pleasure to read Leolaia.

You joker quietlyleaving, there is nothing in that message!

I know what you mean - the earlier messages. But it just tickled my funny bone that you wrote that after a message that is (currently) empty for some reason.

- the world of appearances and disappearances

Leolaia

The writing by Josephus is VERY interesting. It is remarkable that a first century Jew would hold a concept that so closely parallels the concepts held by many modern Christians (not to mention "pagan" societies like the Greeks and Persians).

Well, it may seem remarkable from a JW viewpoint, for the Society rejects certain beliefs of the afterlife (e.g. a dualistic view of the soul as immortal and distinct from the body, survival of the soul after death, postmortem torture of the soul in eternal fire, etc.) as representative of first-century Judaism and Christianity, regarding these as later corruptions of an "original" biblical faith when in reality these ideas were in place prior to the inception of the Jesus movement and were shared by many early Christians (including certain writers of the NT). The philosophy of Hellenistic culture commonly had a dualistic view of the self, positing a sharp dichotomy between the material body and the soul. Platonism in particular viewed the body as an imprisoning receptacle for the soul and death was thought to be a moment of liberation for the immaterial soul. Judea came under Hellenistic influence in the late fourth century BC, and particularly from the second century BC onward, and many religious texts from the period up to the founding of Christianity show strong influence from Greek modes of thought, including the kind of non-holistic dualistic anthropology found in Platonism. It is during this period that the word "soul" (nephesh in Hebrew and psukhé in Greek) was used unambiguously to refer to an internal essence dichotomously separate from the body (sóma in Greek). Such concepts are found all over the place in the literature of the period, such as in Wisdom, 4 Maccabees, the Psalms of Solomon, the Assumption of Moses, Philo of Alexandria, 4 Ezra, Josephus, the Testament of Abraham, the Greek Life of Adam and Eve, etc. A good example of this dualism can be found in the Apocryphon of Ezekiel (first century BC) which relates a parable with the following explanation: "In the same way the body is connected to the soul (to sóma té psukhé sunaptetai) and the soul to the body (hé psukhé to sómati), to convict them of their common deeds. And the jugment becomes final for both body and soul (sómatos te kai psukhés), for the works they have done whether good or evil" (cited in Epiphanius, Panarion 64.70.5-17; cf. b. Sanhedrin 91b). The second century AD Epistle to Diognetus gives a classic early Christian statement on the dualistic relationship between the soul and body:

"In a word, what the soul is to the body, Christians are to the world. The soul is dispersed through all the members of the body (espartai kata pantón tón tou sómatos melón hé psukhé), and Christians throughout the cities of the world. The soul dwells in the body (oikei men en to sómati psukhé), but is not of the body (ouk esti ek tou sómatos); likewise Christians dwell in the world, but are not of the world. The soul, which is invisible (aoratos), is confined in the body (phroureitai tó sómati), which is visible; in the same way, Christians are recognized as being in the world, and yet their religion remains invisible....The soul is enclosed in the body (egkekleistai men hé psukhé tó sómati), but it holds the body together (sunekhei auté to sóma); and though the Christians are detained (katekhontai) in the world as if in a prison (hós en phroura), they in fact hold the world together. The soul, which is immortal (athanatos), lives in a mortal dwelling (en thnétó skénómati katoikei); similarly Christians live as strangers amidst perishable things, while waiting the imperishable in heaven" (6:1-8).

Now the older Israelite belief found in the OT was rather different. It had a holistic anthropology; the person was viewed as a single entity, a unity that dissolves at death. There wasn't any abstract concept analogous to Greek dualism and essentialism; the language didn't have a word for the specific concept of a "body" (other than Late Biblical Hebrew gwfh "body, corpse" in 1 Chronicles 10:12), as opposed to "flesh" (basar) which is not exactly the same thing. Nephesh, as it was used in the OT, had a wide range of nuances owing to diverse usage but mainly referred to the life manifest in a creature or person, and by extension, a living being (cf. napshitu in Babylonian, which has the senses of "life" and "individual, person"). A creature becomes a nephesh through receiving the breath of God (Genesis 2:7), i.e. the creature becomes a living being. The life of the creature, the nephesh, is in the blood (Genesis 9:4, Leviticus 17:11, 14); blood spurts, it moves through the veins, the blood is visibly alive, and a person dies if he or she bleeds excessively. That is why the consumption of blood was taboo; one would be feasting on another creature's life given to it from God (as opposed to mere flesh, which quickly spoils without its life). And when the blood seeps into the ground, it takes the nephesh with it; even after death, the blood of a murdered person may call out from the ground for recompense (Genesis 4:10; cf. 1 Enoch 22:5-7, which interprets Genesis 4:10 as referring to Abel's spirit in Sheol making suit against Cain and his offspring). But the nephesh is also closely tied to respiration and the act of breathing (cf. 2 Samuel 16:4, 1 Kings 17:21-23, Job 41:21, Jeremiah 2:24, 15:9), desire, hunger, and appetite, and also one's vitality and energy (cf. Exodus 15:9, Numbers 21:5, Ruth 4:15, Proverbs 25:25, Isaiah 55:2, 66:3), crying (1 Samuel 1:15, Job 30:16, Psalm 42:5-7), and one's personal self with all its intellect and emotion (cf. Leviticus 26:11, Deuteronomy 4:29, 6:5, 1 Samuel 1:10, 1 Kings 2:4, 8:48, Job 10:1, Psalm 31:7, 107:18, Proverbs 29:24, Isaiah 53:11, Jeremiah 14:19, 32:41, Jonah 2:7). It is through this connotation of personhood that nephesh acquired its usage as a quasi-pronoun, with "my nephesh" meaning something akin to "I" or "me" (cf. Genesis 12:13, 19:19, Numbers 23:10, 1 Kings 20:32, etc.). But this isn't a concept of the self that identifies the nephesh as a distinct entity that merely resides in the body; the nephesh is wholly characterized in terms of the physicality of living. Much of this accords somewhat with the Society's characterization of the OT teaching of the "soul" although the details may differ in a few respects.

The Society however denies that there was any OT concept of an afterlife, and this is most certainly is not the case. The clearest instance of this, of course, is the story of Saul and the necromancer of En-Dor in 1 Samuel 28 which as Narkissos pointed out above only makes sense if the spirit was really Samuel. He speaks with the authority of a prophet of Yahweh (v. 16-17), as Yahweh's representative he explains to Saul the reason why Yahweh has not responded to his prayers (v. 18), and Samuel makes a true prophecy of Saul's imminent doom (v. 19). In no sense does the author qualify the references to Samuel. "Immediately Saul fell full length on the ground, filled with fear because of Samuel's words" (v. 20); the spirit that appeared was indeed Samuel for the author. Another example of a biblical character possibly experiencing an afterlife is Rachel, the wife of the patriarch Jacob who was the mother of Joseph and Benjamin. The prophet Jeremiah was informed by Yahweh that Rachel was heard in the Benjaminite city of Ramah as mourning the capture and exiling of her descendents following the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BC (Jeremiah 31:15). There is a related tradition in midrash that Jacob buried Rachel on the road from Ramah so that Jews would pass her grave as they were taken in captivity to Babylon and she would be able to pray for them (Pesikta Rabbati, 3, 83). The dead were also described as having some sort of continued semi-conscious existence and activity (when they are not sleeping) in the underworld, or Sheol:

Job 26:5-6: "The rephaim (h-rp'ym) tremble (ychwllw) underneath (m-tcht), the waters and their denizens as well. Before his eyes, Sheol (sh'wl) is laid bare and Abaddon itself is uncovered".
Psalm 22:28-29: "Dominion belongs to Yahweh and he rules over the nations. All who sleep in the ground/underworld (kl-yshny 'rts) will feast and worship him ('klu w-yshtchww), all who go down to the dust (kl-yrdy `pr) will kneel (ykr`w) before him, the one who cannot keep his nephesh alive (npshw l' chyh)".
Psalm 88:3-12: "My life is on the brink of Sheol (sh'wl), I am numbered among those who go down to the Pit.... You have plunged me to the bottom of the Pit, into the darkness of the gloomy depths (b-mchshkym b-mtslwt), weighted down by your anger, drowned beneath your waves.... Do you show marvels to the dead (l-mtym)? Shall the rephaim(rp'ym) rise up and praise you (yqwmw ywdwk)? Does anyone talk of your love in the grave, of your faithfulness in the place of Abaddon? Does anyone know about your marvels in the darkness (b-chshk), about your righteous deeds in the land/underworld of oblivion (b-'rts nshyh)?"
Proverbs 2:17-18, 9:18, 21:16: "The adulteress has left the partner of her youth and has ignored the covenant she made with God. Her house leads down to death and her paths to the rephaim(rp'ym)... But he does not know that the rephaim are there (rp'ym shm), and that her guests (qr'yh) are in the depths of Sheol (b-`mpy sh'wl).... The man who strays from the way of prudence will rest (ynwch) in the assembly of the rephaim (b-qhl rp'ym)".
Isaiah 8:19-22: "When men say to you, "Consult (drshw) ghosts and familiar spirits ('l h-'bwt w-'al h-yd`nym), who chirp and mutter (mtsptspym w-mhgym). Should not the people consult their god ('lhyw ydrsh), or the dead ('l h-mtym) for the sake of the living, for instruction and testimony?" — surely there will be no dawn for one who speaks like this. He will wander around [in the land/underground] while severely distressed and hungry, and when he is hungry he will rage and curse his king and his god ('lhyw). He will turn his face upward (ypnh l-m`lh), and see only the ground/underworld ('l h-'rts ybyt). Behold, there is only distress and darkness (tsrh w-chshkh) for him, the blackness of despair (m`wp tswqh), as he is expelled into the darkness ('plh mndch)".
Isaiah 14:9-11, 15: "On your account Sheol underneath (sh'wl m-tcht) is astir to greet your arrival (rgzh l-k l-qr't bw'k). To honor you he rouses (`wrr) the rephaim of all the rulers of the land/underworld (l-k rp'ym kl `twdy 'rts). He makes all the kings of the nations get up (hqym) from their thrones. Each has something to say (klm y`nw) and what they will say (y'mrw) to you is this: 'So you too have become weak like us (hlyt kmwnw). You too have become like us ('lynw nmshlt). Your magnificence has been flung down to Sheol with the music of your harps underneath you a bed of maggots, and over you a blanket of worms...Now you have fallen to Sheol to the very bottom of the Pit ('l yrkty bwr)' ".
Isaiah 26:14, 18-19: "The dead (mytm) will not come to life and the rephaim will not rise (rp'ym bl-yqmw), for you have punished and destroyed them, and wiped out their memory....We have not won your deliverance for the ground/underworld ('rts), nor have its inhabitants been born (bl yplw yshby tbl). But your dead (mtyk) will come to life; their corpses will rise (nblty yqwmwn). The dwellers in the dust (shkny `pr) will awake and short for joy. For your dew is like the dew of dawn and the ground/underworld will give birth to the rephaim ('rts rp'ym tpyl)".
Isaiah 29:4: "And you will be brought down, and you will speak from the ground/underworld (m-'rts tdbry), and your speech will mumble from the dust (m-`pr tshch). Your voice will be like that of a ghost from the ground/underworld (k-'wb m-'rts), and your speech will chirp from the dust (m-`pr ttsptsp)".
Ezekiel 32:18-25: "Son of man, wail for the hordes of Egypt and consign to the ground/underworld (hwrdhw 'l 'rts) to the places underneath (tchtywt) both her and the daughters of mighty nations, with those who go down to the Pit (yrdy bwr). Say to them, 'Are you more favored than others? Go down and be laid among the uncircumcised ('t `rlym)'. They will fall among those killed by the sword. The sword is drawn; let her be dragged off with all her hordes. From within Sheol (m-twk sh'wl) the mighty leaders ('ly gbwrym) will say (ydbrw) of Egypt and her allies, 'They have come down and they recline with the uncircumcised (shkbw h-`rlym), with those killed by the sword' ....All who had spread terror in the land of the living went down uncircumcised to the ground/underworld to the places underneath ('l 'rts tchtywt). They bear their shame (ysh'w klmtm) with those who go down to the Pit. They have set a bed (ntnw mshkb) for her among the slain, with all her hordes around her grave. All of them are uncircumcised, killed by the sword. Because their terror had spread in the land of the living, they bear their shame (ysh'w klmtm) with those who go down to the Pit; they are laid among the slain".

The dead are not portrayed here as nonexistent but as residing in Sheol, a place in the ground ('rts "earth, ground, land" is an ambiguous term, but it is used in Akkadian and Ugaritic as a term for the underworld) that is in the nether regions (tchtywt) below the oceans. As denizens of Sheol, they are called rephaim (literally, "healers") who sleep until they are roused, who tremble in fear before God, who kneel before Yahweh, who experience distress and the gloom of darkness, who bear their shame for their deeds done in life, and who form an assembly and greet newcomers who have become like them (even setting up a bed so the guest may recline with them). The dead seem to bear some resemblance with the people they were in life. Saul recognized Samuel from his mantle he used to wear, the dead kings in Isaiah 14 still sit on thrones in Sheol, and the slain Egyptians of Ezekiel 32 go down to Sheol still circumcised. They may be roused from their slumber and speak from the ground with a chirping or muttering sound. Samuel was described in 1 Samuel 28:13-15 as "ascending out of the ground/underworld" (`lym mn h-'rts) after he was "stirred" (hrgztny, cf. the same verb rgzh in Isaiah 14:9 to refer to the rephaim of Sheol being made astir). The En-Dor story also refers to Samuel as an 'elohim "god" and this word is also used to refer to the dead in Numbers 25:2 (cf. Psalm 106:28) and Isaiah 8:19. Samuel is also indirectly called an 'ob ('wb, cf. Arabic 'awaba/'aaba "a spirit that returns [from the underworld]") in 1 Chronicles 10:13 and this is the word that is used in Isaiah 8:19 and 29:4 to refer to the spirits of the dead called up by mediums. The polemic in Isaiah 8 (with parallels to the law against necromancy in Deuteronomy 18:9-11, cf. also Isaiah 65:4) was not that the dead cannot communicate with the living but that Yahweh forbids his people to obtain prophecy and divine instruction from any other source than himself through his prophets. But while the Deuteronomistic law forbade necromancy (which was not banned in the older JE law code), giving food to the dead was not. The tithe stipulation in Deuteronomy 26:14 presupposes that food was indeed "given to a dead person" in ancient Israel and does not prohibit it; it only forbids any use of such food in the tithe. Since uncleanness was mentioned in the preceding clause as making tithes unacceptable, the prohibition probably had in view the uncleanness resulting from contact with the dead. The tacit permission of the feeding the dead (except in connection with tithing) thus indicates again that the dead were normally viewed as having some sort of afterlife existence. Telling too is Tobias' advice on the feeding of the dead in Tobit (fourth century BC): "Be generous with bread and wine on the graves of virtuous men but not for the sinner" (4:17).

It is also important to note the very close parallels between these OT passages and other ANE (particularly West Semitic) texts. As mentioned above, rephaim was a term for the dead in Sheol, applied also in Isaiah 14 to dead kings. The word 'elohim "gods" was also applied to the dead and 'erets was possibly used in some passages to refer to the underworld (such as 'rts nshyh "land/underworld of oblivion"). The Canaanite texts from Ugarit use the equivalent words in the same way. In the Baal Cycle, the sun goddess Shapsh encounters the rephaim/gods during her nightly journey through the underworld: "Shapsh, the rephaim (rp'um) are under you, Shapsh the chthonian gods ('ilnym) are under you, the gods ('ilm) are your company, indeed the dead (mtm) are your company" (KTU 1.6 VI 1-6). In the Kirta Epic, the god El gives the king Kirta the following blessing: "Be greatly exalted, Kirta, among the rephaim of the underworld (rp'i 'arts), in the assembly of the Ditanites (qbts dtn)" (KTU 1.15 III 2-4, 13-15). Another text refers to a feast prepared for the rephaim by El: "The rephaim will feast (rp'um tdbchn), seven times the chthonic deities ('ilnym), eight times the dead (mtm), ... After sunrise on the third day the rephaim arrived at the threshing-floors, the chthonic gods in the fields ... There was Thamaq, the rephaim of Baal, the warrior of Baal and the warrior of Anat. There was Yahipan the valorous, the prince of eternal kingship (zbl mlk 'llmy)... Throughout the day El poured wine of Thamaq, the foaming wine of rulers, wine to delight the thirsty, the wine of ecstasy, high up in the Lebanon, dew transformed into foaming wine by El. Behold, a day and a second, the rephaim ate and drank, a third, a fourth day, a fifth, a sixth day, the rephaim ate and drank in the lofty banqueting-house on the peak in the heart of the Lebanon (KTU 1.20 I 1-3, II 7-9, 1.22 II 25-27, I 10-25). The royal funeral liturgy of KTU 1.161 also invoked the ancient rephaim by name: "You are invoked, O rephaim of the underworld (rp'i 'arts), you are summoned, O assembly of the Didanites. Invoked is Ammithtamru the king, and invoked as well is Niqmad the king. O throne of Niqmad, may you be mourned! And lamented be his footstool. Let the table of the king be mourned in his presence. But let their tears be swallowed and their dreadful lamentation. Go down, Shapsh, go down O great luminary! May Shapsh shine upon him. After your lords from the throne, after your lords into the underworld go down, into the underworld go down and fall down into the dust, down to Sidanu-and-Radanu, down to Thar the eternal one, down to the ancient rephaim, down to Ammithtamru the king, and also down to Niqmad the king" (KTU 1.161 R 2-26). The rephaim are also known from Phoenician funerary incriptions (sixth and fifth centuries BC) cursing potential tomb robbers:

"Whoever you are, any man who comes upon this coffin, do not open my cover and disturb me, for no silver is gathered with me and no gold is gathered with me or any kind of riches. I alone am lying in this coffin. Do not open my cover and disturb me, for such a thing would be an abomination to Ashtart! And if you do open my cover and disturb me, may you have no offspring among the living under the sun nor resting place with the rephaim(rp'm)" (Sarcophagus Inscription of Tabnit, king of Sidon, lines 3-8).
"Whoever you are, any ruler or ordinary man, do not open this resting place and look for anything in it .... Even if men tell you otherwise, do not listen to their lies! For any ruler or ordinary man who opens the cover of this resting place or carries off the coffin of my resting place and moves from this resting place, let him have no resting place with the rephaim(rp'm), nor be buried in a grave, nor have son or seed in their place... Let him have no root below or fruit above or form among the living under the sun" (Sarcophagus Inscription of Eshmunazor, king of Sidon, lines 4-12).

This leaves the question of how the dead were conceptualized; exactly how were rephaim (or, say, the Samuel called up from the ground/underworld) continuations of those who died if West Semitic culture did not have an abstract dualistic concept of the soul? The Society assumes that a holistic anthropology excludes the possibility of a conscious afterlife but this is a non sequitur; the meaning of nephesh does not alone establish what the Israelites believed about death. The above shows that they did believe in a postmortem existence of the dead; they simply had another term for the beings that continue to exist after death — rephaim. Most cultures also have some belief of continued postmortem existence and these are hardly dependent on the kind of abstract philosophy that Platonism is representative of. As some scholars have suggested, the Israelite belief was that a rephaim is simply what remains of a person after the fleshly parts have decayed and turned into dust. It is not wholly immaterial like the soul of Platonism; it is a residue of what used to be a physical living being. The dead in the OT may still eat and drink, they may be circumcised or uncircumcised, and they may look like the person who died (as in the case of Samuel, who looked like an old man wearing a mantle). At the same time they are ethereal beings like the gods (cf. the use of 'elohim, 'ilnym, and 'ilm to refer to them), although lacking their strength and power. This raises the question of whether the nephesh, the life that resides in a creature infused with the breath of God, was viewed as a bodily but non-fleshly component of a living individual — giving life to the flesh but also needing flesh to have any sort of strength and vitality. Since the nephesh is what bears a person's sense of personhood, it may well be the link between the rephaim and living people if it can exist apart from one's flesh. There are quite a few indicators that this was thought to be the case. Several early Aramaic inscriptions (dating to the 8th century BC) use the word to refer to the part of a person that continues to exist in the afterlife:

"I am Kuttamuwa, servant of Panamuwa, who had this stele prepared for me while I was still alive (b-chyy). I placed it in my eternal chamber (b-syr 'lmy) and I have feasted (chggt) in this chamber: a bull for Hadad of Qirupdal, produce for the images opposite, produce for Shamash, produce for Hadad of the vineyards and for his vessel, and produce for my nephesh that is in this stele (l-nbshy zy b-ntsb zn). Now whoever of my sons or the sons of another who enters this chamber should take the very best of the aforementioned vineyard and give an offering every year and slaughter it on behalf of my nephesh (yh rg b-nbshy), and lay out for me a thigh (yshwy ly shq)" (Kuttamuwa Stele, servant of King Panamuwa, lines 1-13).
"I [Panamuwa I] have erected this statue of Hadad and the place of the Panamuwa, son of Qarli, king of Yi'ady, with this statue as a burial chamber. Whoever of my sons seizes the scepter and sits upon my throne and maintains power, he will sacrifice to Hadad and with this oath he sacrifices to Hadad. Then he shall say, 'May the nephesh of Panamuwa eat with you (t'kl nbsh pnmw 'mk), Hadad, and may the nephesh of Panamuwa drink with you (tshty nbsh pnmw 'mk). Let him always invoke the nephesh of Panamuwa ('d yzkr nbsh pnmw) with Hadad" (The Hadad Inscription, king Panamuwa I, KAI 214, lines 17-22)
"My father Panamuwa died while following his lord Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, in the campaigns. Even his lord, Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, wept for him and his relative kings wept for him, and all of the cmap of his lord, the king of Assyria, wept for him. And his lord, the king of Assyria, took [an offering to my father and said], 'May his nephesh [eat and drink] ([t'kl wtsht]y nbshh)'. And he set up a memorial for him in the way" (Panamuwa Inscription, KAI 215, lines 15-19).

So here the nephesh may survive death and feed with the gods, sharing the sacrifices given to them. The nephesh may also be reside in the stele memorial raised on behalf of the dead person. There is also a Ugaritic reference to the nephesh leaving the body at death. Anat, planning to kill Danel's son Aqhat, tells her henchmen: "Pour out his blood like emptying a bucket, pour it on his knees as one slaughtering an animal. Let his nephesh go out like the wind (tsy km rch npshh), like spittle his spirit (km 'itl brlt), as smoke from his nostrils (km qtsr b-'aph)" (KTU 1.18 IV 25-27). The nephesh here is compared to wind (rch, cf. Hebrew rwch), spirit (brlt), and smoke (qtsr). In a very similar manner, the OT refers to the nephesh departing a dying person and descending to Sheol. In the case of Rachel, she died when her nephesh departed (bts't npshh ky mth) and in the case of the widow's son at Zarephthah, the child was dead when "no breath was left in him (l' nwtrh bw nshmh)" but was revived by Elijah when "the nephesh of the child returned to him (tshb npsh h-yld `l-qrbw)" (Genesis 35:18-19; 1 Kings 17:17-22), making him breathe again. Similarly, Jonah asks Yahweh to kill him by taking away his nephesh (qch 't-npshy m-mny) and David begged to be put to death because he was in intense anguish and yet "my whole nephesh is still in me (kl `wd npshy by)" (Jonah 4:3; 2 Samuel 1:9). Fascinating in his connection is the priestly legislation about ceremonial uncleanness arising from contact with a npsh mt "dead nephesh" or more probably "nephesh of a dead person" (cf. Leviticus 21:11, Numbers 6:6). The sense might be more the latter on account of the construct relationship and the parallel expression "nephesh of a man who dies" (npsh h-'dam 'shr-ymwt) in Numbers 19:13. If a person is out in the open and touches someone who has died, he or she would be unclean for a week (Numbers 19:16). But if a person is inside a tent at the time somebody dies, he does not have to touch the dying person to become unclean; he is unclean by virtue of being contained within a tent with the person (v. 15). This suggests that contact is made anyway in the air inside the tent. The following verse confirms this by adding that "every open vessel without a sealed cover" would become unclean as well if unsealed at the time of death (v. 16). The contents within a vessel exposed to the air become defiled in the presence of a person who dies; the departure of the nephesh into the air and confined by the ceiling and walls of the tent may be the implied agent of contamination. There is another difficult passage that might allude to the nephesh departing people at death:

Ezekiel 13:19-21: "By lying to my people who listen to lies, you have killed nephashoth(hmyt npshwt) who should not have died ('shr la-tmwtnh) and have spared those who should not live. Therefore this is what the Lord Yahweh says: I am against your magic charms (kstwtyknh) with which you hunt nephashoth like birds (mtsddwt 't h-npshwt l-prchwt) and I will tear them (qr`ty 'tm) from your arms; I will let the nephashoth you hunt go free like birds (shlchty 't h-npshwt 'shr mtsddwt 't-npshwt l-prcht). I will also tear your nets (mspchtykn) and save my people (htslty 't-`my) from your hands, and they will no longer fall prey to your power".

This passage is hard to interpret because nephashoth (plural of nephesh) appears to be used to refer to living beings in v. 19, such that killing nephashoth is analogous to killing persons, and yet the nephashoth hunted through the use of magic charms are compared to birds that are captured with nets and which must be torn from the veiled witches' arms so they may fly to freedom. The latter metaphor does not suit the sense of nephesh as "living person" very well but rather accords with the notion that the nephesh giving life to a person may depart at death and have an independent existence. The same metaphor is used in Psalm 124:7: "Our nephesh has escaped like a bird (npshnw k-tspwr nmlth) from the fowler's net (m-pch ywqshym); the net is broken (h-pch nshbr) and we have escaped". Isaiah 3:18-20 has another obscure polemic against the daughters of Jerusalem who dishonor Yahweh with their "crescent necklaces, earrings and bracelets and veils, headdresses and ankle chains and sashes, nephesh boxes (bty h-npsh) and charms (h-lchshym)". The phrase bty h-npsh (lit., "houses of the nephesh") is difficult to understand, although the traditional interpretation of "perfume vials" probably unlikely. But if these are amulets thought to have magic power, they may well have been conceived as receptacles for nephashoth of the dead. Or such charms may have been used to drain the vitality of certain living people. A few OT passages suggest that in times of illness and peril, one's nephesh withdraws and even descends to Sheol:

Psalm 30:2-3: "O Yahweh my God, I cried to you and you have healed me (trp'ny, the same root as rp'ym, the rephaim). O Yahweh, you have brought up my nephesh from Sheol (h`lyt mn-sh'wl npshy), and have kept me alive (chyytny), that I should not go down to the Pit (m-yrdy bwr)".
Psalm 86:13: "Great is your love toward me, for you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol (htslt npshy m-sh'wl tchtyh)".

Notice first of all the unambiguous references to the nephesh existing in Sheol; this is perhaps the strongest evidence that the rephaim are the nephashoth of dead people in Sheol. But the psalmist is here praising and thanking Yahweh for not letting him die but for healing him and delivering his nephesh from Sheol. Of course, it is also possible that the prospect of going to Sheol is here taken proleptically as the condition already manifest. Another passage seems to refer more clearly to the dead as nephashoth in the underworld:

Psalm 49:14-19: "Like sheep they are destined for Sheol (shty l-sh'wl) and death will feed on them. The upright will rule over them in the morning; their forms will decay in Sheol (tsyrm l-blwt sh'wl) far from their princely mansions. But God will redeem my soul from Sheol (ypdh npshy m-yd sh'wl) and he will surely take me to himself. Do not be overawed when a man grows rich, when the splendor of his house increases; for he will take nothing with him (l' yqh h-kl) when he dies, his splendor will not descend with him (l' yrd 'chryw). Though while he lived he blessed his nephesh (npshw ybrk) and men praise you when you prosper, he will go to his ancestors' generation (tbw' `d-dwr 'bwtyw) who shall never see the light (l' yr'w 'wr)".

The dead here descend to Sheol to be with their ancestors. A similar expression is used in 1 Kings 2:10, 11:43, 13:22, 14:31, 15:8, etc. in the case of the Israelite and Judean kings. Abraham is told in Genesis 15:15 that "you shall go to your ancestors in peace (tbw' 'l-'btyk b-shlwm) and be buried at a good old age", and Jacob looks forward to "resting with my ancestors (shkbty `m-'bty)" in 47:30. As for the Israelites who had been delivered from Egypt, "that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors (kl h-dwr n'spw 'l-'bwtyw)" before the Israelites entered Canaan (Judges 2:10). The psalmist however wishes to have a different fate, to be taken from Sheol to be with Yahweh himself. This hope is rather close to that in 1 Samuel 25:29: "Even though someone is pursuing you to take your nephesh, the nephesh of my master will be bound securely in the bundle of the living (npsh 'dny tsrwrh b-tsrwr h-chyym) with Yahweh your god. Jewish epitaphs in the later period frequently alluded to this verse, such as the following inscription: "May his spirit have eternal life (nshmtw l-chyy `wlm), may his nephesh rest in the bundle of the living (tnwt npshw b-tsrwr h-chyym)". Perhaps the hope in Psalm 49:15, if not referring to deliverance from danger or illness, has in view the kind of fate that people like Enoch and Elijah experienced when they were taken away by Yahweh (cf. Genesis 5:24, 2 Kings 2:9-18). This is how the later Essenes characterized the thought of Psalm 49:15 in the Thanksgiving Hymns (c. 100-50 BC), referring to the prospect of blessedness in heaven with God:

1QH 11:19-22: "I thank you, O Lord, because you have saved my nephesh from the Pit (pdyth npshy m-shcht), and from the Sheol of Abaddon you have lifted me up to an eternal height (m-sh'wl 'bdwn h-`lytny lrwm `wlm), so that I can walk on a boundless plain. And I know that there is hope for someone you fashioned out of dust for an everlasting community (l-swr `wlm). The depraved spirit you have purified from great offense so that he can take a place with the host of the holy ones (`m tsb' qwdshym), and can enter in communion with the assembly of the sons of heaven (lbw' b-ychd `m `dt bny shmym)".

So there is evidence that the holistic anthropology of the Israelites allowed for the nephesh to survive death as the non-fleshly residue of the dead person, as the person's life-force no longer active in flesh. Rather than viewed as impersonal, this life-force was thought to the vehicle of the emotions, desires, and personhood of a living person. This is not the dichotomous immortal soul of Greek philosophy, nor is there any clear sign that the postmortem existence of the nephashot or rephaim is truly immortal. While the psukhéof Platonism does not fully enter into life until it is freed of the flesh, the nephesh of the OT depends on the flesh to experience any life and vitality; the rephaim in Sheol are defined by their deathly, weakened existence. But there is a common thread as well, if the nephesh was the vehicle by which a person has a continued conscious existence after death. It thus not surprising that the Greek translators of the LXX used psukhé to render nephesh in the third and second centuries BC. Some specialists also believe that Enochic and Essene concepts of the "immortality of the soul" were not only influenced by Greek philosophy but develop a native concept of the postmortem soul already present in early Judaism. The OT thus may not contain a single understanding but attest a gradual doctrinal development that anticipated to some extent the views of philosophical Hellenism. It is worth quoting again the explicit statement in 1 Enoch (written in the late third century BC and which is heavily used in the epistle of Jude) that describes the chambers in Sheol containing the spirits and souls (npsht, psukhón) of the dead:

1 Enoch 22:2-7: "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".

The NT for the most part uses psukhé in much the same way as nephesh in the OT, to refer to life, the loss of which results in death (cf. Matthew 20:28, Mark 3:4, Luke 6:9, John 10:11, 15, 17, Acts 20:10, 24, Romans 11:3, 16:4, 2 Corinthians 1:23, Philippians 2:30, 1 John 3:16, Revelation 8:9), as the seat of vitality, thought, emotion, and will (cf. Matthew 11:29, 22:37, 26:38, Mark 12:30, 14:34, Luke 2:35, Acts 4:32, 14:2, 15:24, Ephesians 6:6, Philippians 1:27, Hebrews 4:12, 1 Peter 1:22, 2 Peter 2:8, 14, 3 John 2, Revelation 18:14), as a living being or human person (cf. Acts 2:41-43, 27:37, Romans 13:1, Revelation 16:3), and as the self (Matthew 12:18, Luke 1:46, Hebrews 10:38). Striking is the use of the adjective psukhikos to refer, not to the spiritual and divine sphere, but to what is earthly and sensual and base (cf. James 3:15, Jude 19). But here usage departs from the OT because writers like Paul presume a dualism between what is psukhikos and what is pneumatos. So while Paul never uses psukhé to talk about a non-corporeal soul within a person, and he uses psukhikos to refer to what is corporeal and physical, he nonetheless has a very sharp antithesis between flesh (sarx) and spirit (pneuma), with the latter granted by God through his Spirit:

Romans 8:5-7: "Those who are according to the flesh (kata sarka) are disposed to the things of the flesh (ta tés sarkos phronousin), whereas those who are according to the spirit (kata pneuma) are disposed to the things of the spirit (ta tou pneumatos). The disposition of the flesh (phronéma tees sarkos) is death (thanatos), but the disposition of the spirit is life (zóé) and peace; the disposition of flesh is hostile to God".
Galatians 5:16-17: "So I say, walk in the spirit and do not gratify the lusts of flesh (epithumian sarkos), for the flesh lusts against the spirit (sarx epithumei kata tou pneumatos), and the spirit against the flesh (to pneuma kata tés sarkos), and these oppose each other (tauta allélois antikeitai)"

The flesh is presented as oppressing the spirit and leading the person to sin and weakness; the dichotomy between the two is not too distant from the Platonic view of the body as distressing the soul inside. In fact, there are similarities with the Platonism of early gnostics who distinguished between two classes or races of people, hylic persons who lack the spirit of God in their flesh whose souls are only made of matter and pneumatic persons who have the spirit and the potential to realize their divine nature. Philo of Alexandria (early first century AD) also divided people into two classes — those who live rationally according to the divine pneuma and those who live irrationally according to blood and the pleasures of the sarx "flesh" (Quis Rerum Divinorum 55.12) — although unlike Paul Philo never used phukhikos in a derogatory sense in an antithesis to pneumatikos. The somewhat different idea in Paul is that people are born with a sóma psukhikon (a member of the broader class of sómata epigeia "earthly bodies") which is defined by its sarx (flesh), whereas people in the resurrection will receive a sóma pneumata (a member of the broader class of sómata epourania "heavenly bodies") which is defined by its doxa (glory), and the Christian who lives to the last times would receive a sóma pneumata without even experiencing death (1 Corinthians 15:38-54), with the psukhén zósan "living soul" of Adam (= npsh chyh from Genesis 2:7) being transformed into a pneuma zóopoioun "life-giving spirit" (v. 45). Paul's concept of the resurrection is distinct from classical Platonism as it conceives the person as not a disembodied spirit (pneuma asomatos) but rather a living being with a body -- like the nephesh/psukhé of the OT but having pneuma (which is incorruptible and immortal, v. 52-53) as its substance rather than flesh (cf. Philo of Alexandria, Legum Allegoriae 3.161.4-5 on the psukhéas made of aether). As in other Jewish and Christian writings of the period, the concept is something of a blend of older OT anthropology and the Hellenistic views. Man is still viewed to some extent as a unity and there will be a resurrection of the body (both Jewish concepts), but the resurrected person will be an "immortal" (athanatos) spirit without the weaknesses and deficiencies of flesh (a more Hellenistic concept). The dichotomy inside a person that Paul especially emphasizes is not between an immortal soul one is born with and the body, but rather between the flesh one is born with and the Holy Spirit that one receives from God.

But that doesn't mean that Paul lacks a dualistic concept of an internal essence separate from the body that survives death. In 2 Corinthians and Philippians, the anthropological dichotomy is far more overt and Paul also describes the intermediate state between death and resurrection, although he does not use pneuma or psukhé to refer to what remains of a person after death. In 2 Corinthians 5:1, Paul refers to the body as "our earthly tabernacle dwelling (hé epigeios hémón oikia tou skénous)" and a few verses later states that "when we are in this tabernacle (hoi ontes en tó skénei), we groan out of being burdened (stenazomen baroumenoi), not because we wish to be unclothed (ekdusasthai) but to be clothed (ependusasthai) such that life would swallow up mortality" (v. 4). Paul does not use psukhé "soul" to refer to the internal essence but he does presume that there is an "I" (and collectively a "we" among his readership) that lives within the tabernacle of the body and that the body "clothes" -- and oppresses -- this internal person. Paul also used the clothing metaphor in 1 Corinthians; in the resurrection, "what is corruptible must put on (endusasthai) incorruption" (15:53), "mortality must put on immortality (endusétai tén athanasian)" (v. 54). This is explicit dualism -- the real person is contained and housed within the body. The author of 2 Peter mixes the clothing and housing metaphors as well, claiming that he was writing "while I am in this tabernacle (eimi en toutó tó skénwmati) ... knowing that shortly I must put off my tabernacle (apothesis tou skénómatos mou)", i.e. death was shortly at hand (1:13-14). Like Paul, the author here is picturing himself as the "I" housed and clothed by the tabernacle of his body. When Paul refers to his future death, he conceptualizes it as a departure of himself from his body into the presence of Christ:

2 Corinthians 5:2-3, 6-8: "We long to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling (to oikétérion hémón to ex ouranou ependudasthai) because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked (gumnoi)....But we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body (endémountes en tó sómati) we are away from the Lord (ekémoumen apo tou kuriou). We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body (ekdémésai ek tou sómatos) and at home with the Lord (endémésai pros ton kurios)".
Philippians 1:22-23: "If I am to go on living in flesh (to zén en sarki), this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ (ekhón eis to analusai kai sun khristó einai), which is better by far, but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the flesh (epimenein en té sarki)".

Since the person is "away from the Lord" while in the body but "with the Lord" once he is out of the body, this text suggests that a Christian goes to be with Christ immediately at death. The text however is somewhat unclear whether one is "clothed with our heavenly dwelling" immediately at death or whether this waits until the resurrection; the reference to one being found "naked" (gumnos) may point to the latter. One also does not have to be dead to be "outside of the body (ektos tou sómatos)" as 2 Corinthians 12:2 suggests; one can depart from the body during a revelatory vision. The same concept appears in Philo of Alexandria who says that Moses was "made incorporeal (asómaton genomenon) in order to hear the heavenly music on Mount Sinai when he was in God's presence (De Somniis, 1.36). More to the point, the Ascension of Isaiah (second century AD) describes the prophet Isaiah receiving a vision and "he was taken by a trance and his mind was taken from this world (érthé ho dialogismos autou apo tou kosmou toutou)", whereupon he ascended the seven heavens and witnessed the glories of the divine presence; he was not dead however because "breath was still in him" (6:10-13). Then "his soul returned into his body (epestrepsen hé psukhé autou en tó sómati autou)" and he related his vision (6:16, 11:35). The metaphors of housing, clothing, and nakedness also appear in Greek and Hellenistic Jewish literature of the time. The Pythagoreans in particular referred to the body as a "tabernacle" or tent. Pseudo-Hippocrates (De Septimanis, 52.22) wrote that at death "the soul leaves the tabernacle of the body (apoleipousa hé psukhé to tou sómatos skénos)" and similar statements can be found in Timaeus Locrus 104D and Pseudo-Plato, Axiochus 366A. Another appearance of the expression in Jewish literature can be found in 4 Baruch 6:6 (first century AD) which refers to one's "fleshly dwelling" (to sarkikó oikó) as a "tabernacle" (to skénwmati) and when one dies God will "take you out of your tent (arei se ek tou skénómatos sou)". The thought in 2 Corinthians 5:1-2 is closest to that in Wisdom 9:15 (written by a Hellenistic Jew in the first century BC): "The perishable body weighs down the soul (phtharton sóma barunei psukhén), and this earthy tent burdens the thoughtful mind (brithei to geódes skénos noun poluphrontida)". Compare with Plato, Phaedo 81C where the physical body is said to be baru "heavy", embrithes "burdensome", and geódes "earthly". Philo of Alexandria (De Somniis 1.122) uses oikos "dwelling, home" to refer to the body, saying that "the body is an abode bound up by nature with the soul (ton sumphua tés psukhés oikon to sóma)". As for Paul's use of gumnos "naked" as a metaphor for the disembodied state of the dead, this same metaphor occurs in Plato (cf. Cratylus 403, Gorgias 523). But Paul completely disagrees with Plato on the desirability of being gumnos in death; he sees it as a shameful and uncomfortable fate, arguing that God has better things in store for his followers. And Paul's description of the dead leaving their bodies to be with Christ has parallels in Philo of Alexandria as well. In one passage, Philo wrote that "it is not possible for one who is dwelling in the body (katoikounta en sómati), in a race that is mortal, to be united with God (theó suggenesthai), but only he whom God delivers from that prisonhouse (ton hon ek tou desmótériou theos diarrhuetai)" (Legum Allegoriarum, 3.42), and in another he encouraged his readers to "rouse yourselves up and seek to accomplish a migration (metanastasin) from your own habitation (ton idion oikon) not to death but to immortality (ou thanaton all' athanasian)" (De Migratione Abrahami, 189).

Finally, there are a few places in the NT where pneuma seems to refer to disembodied spirits or those raised to life. In Luke 24:37-39, the disciples mistook the risen Jesus for a ghost: "In a state of alarm and fright, they thought they were seeing a spirit (edokoun pneuma theórein). But he said, 'Why are you so agitated, and why are these doubts rising in your hearts? Look at my hands and feet; yes it is I indeed. Touch me and see for yourselves; a spirit has no flesh and bones (pneuma sarka kai ostea ouk ekhei) as you can see I have". In Hebrews' description of "the heavenly Jerusalem where the millions of angels have fathered for the festival with the whole Church in which everyone is a firstborn son and citizen of heaven", the throng includes the "spirits of the just who have been made perfect (pneumasin dikaión teteleiómenón)" (12:22-23; cf. Abel as dikaios in 11:4 and Abraham in 11:10, 15-16 as awaiting the heavenly city). 1 Peter 3:19 has the famous reference to Christ preaching to the "spirits in prison (en phulaké pneumasin)" when he was raised to life in the Spirit, although here the "spirits" may simply be the Watchers imprisoned before the Flood (cf. Jude 6, 2 Peter 2:4). One passage appears to employ psukhéas a term for the part of a person antithetical to the body: "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul (tén psukhén mé dunamenón apokteinai) but instead fear the one who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna (dunamenon kai psukhén kai sóma apolesai en Geenné)" (Matthew 10:28). Here the psukhén cannot be killed even if the body is put to death but it may be destroyed together with the body in the fires of Gehenna; since Gehenna was pictured as where the punishment of the resurrected dead takes place after Judgment Day (cf. 4 Ezra 7:32-36), the allusion in Matthew 10:28 is probably to a resurrected person consisting of both psukhé and sóma. The thought in 4 Maccabees 13:14-15 (written in the early first century AD) is close: "Let us not fear him who thinks he is killing us, for great is the struggle of the soul (psukhés agón) and the danger of eternal torment (kindunos en aiónió basanó keimenos) lying before those who transgress the commandment of God". In the NT, the clearest reference to psukhé as a soul of a dead person (as mentioned above) is at Revelation 6:9-11:

Revelation 6:9-11: "When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar (i.e. in heaven) the souls of those who had been slain (psukhas tón esphagmenón) because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, 'How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?' Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed".

That these souls were waiting for vengeance means that they were in the intermediate state between martyrdom and resurrection. Their resurrection is related later in ch. 20: "I saw the souls of those who were beheaded (psukhas twn pepelekismenón) for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God ... and they came to life (ezésan) and reigned with Christ for a thousand years" (20:4). There is also a strikingly similar description of the dead awaiting their resurrection in 4 Ezra (late first century AD): "Did not the souls of the righteous in their chambers ask about these matters saying, 'How long are we to remain here? And when will come the harvest of our reward?' And Jeremiel the archangel answered them and said, 'When the number of those like yourselves is completed' " (4:35-36).

Anyway, I hope this sketches out some of the particulars of beliefs of the afterlife in both the OT and in the NT, with attention paid to the ANE and Hellenistic context. There is not a single perspective in the Bible because it embraces literature written over many hundreds of years and attests many developing ideas within Judaism and early Christianity. And our knowledge of what the ancients believed is still fragmentary and open to interpretation and debate (not to mention that it is somewhat daunting to bring all this data into one analysis). But it should be clear that it is not true that OT has no concept of a continued postmortem existence. It is also untrue that influence from Greek philosophy dates only after the death of the apostles, as resulting from some sort of "great apostasy"; the influence was there already in the Judaism that preceded the emergence of Christianity. Even the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection and a notion of postmortem existence, were possibly influenced by Greek philosophy; there is an Epicurean and Cynic flavor to the views attributed to them and the proto-Sadducee philosophy attested in Ecclesiastes and Sirach is also similar to Epicureanism (cf. Ecclesiastes 5:17-19, 9:4-10, 10:19, Sirach 10:10-11, 11:26-28, 14:19, 17:27-30, 38:21).

Narkissos

Wow. I should be used to it by now but I am really impressed.

One particularly interesting feature, re: the older Israelite view(s) of life and death, is the notion of a kind of "twilight zone" between what we tend to construe as mutually exclusive opposites, and of a more or less gradual process of "descending to the netherworld" which doesn't exactly coincide with the moment of death in the clinical sense; one potential lexical track for research is the use of the verb yrd (to descend, go down) in combination with she'ol, shachat, bôr etc. You can descend to the netherworld "alive" (sudden death, e.g. in the Qorah story) or as a slow and continuous process from which rescue is possible (not to be confused with resurrection, although it will be reinterpreted thus later).

Narkissos

Here are a few examples:

Alive Numbers 16:30,33; Psalm 55:16; Proverbs 1:12; cf. Isaiah 5:14 (a noisy city descending to she'ol)

In blood (violent death) 1 Kings 2:9; Psalm 30:10

At midlife Psalm 55:24

Cast Isaiah 14:19

Profaned/pierced (chll) Ezk 28:8

In grief Genesis 37:35; 44:29,31

In peace 1 Kings 2:6

Rescue (hoped for or despaired): 1 Samuel 2:6; Jonah 2:7; Psalms 28:1; 30:4; Job 7:9; 17:16 etc.

The entire Psalm 88 is interesting from this perspective (also for the "oceanic" references, cf. Psalms 16, 22 and of course Jonah):

For my soul is full of troubles,
and my life draws near to Sheol.
I am counted among those who go down to the Pit;
I am like those who have no help,
like those forsaken among the dead,
like the slain that lie in the grave, like those whom you remember no more,
for they are cut off from your hand.
You have put me in the depths of the Pit,
in the regions dark and deep. Your wrath lies heavy upon me,
and you overwhelm me with all your waves.
(...)
Do you work wonders for the dead?
Do the shades rise up to praise you?
Is your steadfast love declared in the grave,
or your faithfulness in Abaddon?
Are your wonders known in the darkness,
or your saving help in the land of forgetfulness?
(...)
O LORD, why do you cast me off?
Why do you hide your face from me?
Wretched and close to death from my youth up,
I suffer your terrors; I am desperate.
Your wrath has swept over me;
your dread assaults destroy me.
They surround me like a flood all day long;
from all sides they close in on me.

Cf. also 115:17; 143:7.

There is certainly a part of poetical prolepsis (suffering, oppression and despair as an anticipation of death) but the consistency of metaphors is remarkable nonetheless.

tenyearsafter

Leo and Narkissos....what can I say but WOW!

Leo, I am blown away by your research and explanations...thank you for taking the time to share this!!

Leolaia

Thanks! I've wanted to write a post like that for years and years but I was always intimidated by the breadth and complexity of the subject matter. Maybe some day I will edit it, break it into sections, add some sections on early beliefs on the resurrection and postmortem judgment and punishment. But at least it's a good start.

Good examples, Narkissos. I am reminded also of Mesopotamian parallels of this theme. Although the Ludlul Bel Nemeqi (7th century BC) is well known, the similarity is closer with an earlier Akkadian school exercise from Ugarit:

"My liver omens remain obscure; they become like [...]. The diviner could not reach a ruling concerning me, the judge does not give any sign. The messages are confused, the oracles discordant. The inquirer has run out of incense; the diviner has no sheep left. The scholars who deliberate on tablets concerning my case do not tell me the time limit of my sickness. My family gathered around to bend over me before my time, my next of kin stood by ready for my wake. My brothers were bathed in blood like the prophets and my sisters anoint me with choice oil. Until the Lord raised my head and brought me back from the dead.... I was wasting away from the sickness I suffered. Were it not for Marduk, my breath had gone from me, would not the mourner have cried out 'Alas for him!' I praise, I praise, what the lord Marduk has done, I praise him! ... He threw me down, then lifted me high. He snatched the jaw of death and he raised me up from the underworld. He smashed the smiter's weapon and he wrested the shovel from the digger of my grave" (RS 25460, lines 2-16, 22-43).

Narkissos

Very interesting text.

Another observation that could be made from this survey is that Jewish beliefs about death and afterlife in the Hellenistic period were never simply borrowed or imported from Persian or Greek sources but resulted from a reinterpretation of native material from a new (and foreign-influenced) cultural perspective. Reading old texts with new lens as it were.

Snatching a (living) person from (the gates of) the netherworld through healing or vindication would be read as actual resurrection from the dead (cf. the use of Psalms in Acts, which might just as well have used the Ugaritic text above as prooftext); the relief, rest and peace that the netherworld meant to the oppressed, and the reunion with the fathers, would develop into a positive and collective blessedness (merging with the notion of heavenly "paradise" with the patriarchs, e.g. Abraham's bosom in Luke 16); the shame and humiliation that it meant for the oppressors would develop into eternal torment (Isaiah 66 -> Daniel 12, where the prime characteristic of the punishment is still shame). Otoh this "inflationist" tendency would be countered by an opposite, minimalistic one (Ecclesiastes -> Sadducees), where the comparative less-being of the netherworld would be reduced to, or absolutised as, (almost) pure non-existence -- this being as much of a conceptual move as the symmetrical, positive one.

Gentile influence in this process is everywhere, as has been pointed out, but it is not everything, as its interaction with "original" Israelite material produces something "original" as well. 1st-century Judaism (and Christianity) could be permeated with Greek culture and still stand apart from the Greek-speaking Roman world.

(Another observation, more loosely connected to the topic: the "conservative," "identitary" party tends to use the former foreign cultural influence against the current one; in the reaction to Hellenism that characterises Daniel, 1 & 2 Maccabees, Qumran and to an extent the Enoch tradition, Persian thinking -- dualism, angelology/demonology, eschatology and resurrection -- is the main tool or weapon in conservative hands; it seems to be above suspicion, and probably no more discerned as "foreign"; to an extent it is quite possible that the same applied to Hellenistic concepts -- such as anthropological dualism -- when the main threat to identity turned to be Roman.)

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