There may be some interest in this article:
"No Heavenly Hope for the Old Testament Saints?"
http://www.catholic-forum.com/members/popestleo/otsaints.html
It deals with the WT interpretation of the subject.
No Heavenly Hope for the Old Testament Saints?
by daveignatius 6 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Leolaia
In certain forms of second-Temple Judaism (including the Pharisees?), the paradise of Eden was believed to have been preserved in heaven, and in various pseudepigrapha, it was the home of the souls of Adam and Eve, the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, and so forth. Moreover, it was widely believed that Enoch and Elijah were bodily taken into heaven (see especially 1 Enoch for Enoch, and Malachi and the NT on the expected return of Elijah). The "bosom of Abraham" apparently was just such a place (cf. the Testament of Abraham). Josephus, moreover, expressed a belief that the righteous dead exist in heaven in their intermediate state prior to their resurrection. The belief of heaven as the destination of the resurrected dead and/or current believers is expressed in various sources as well, but there is also a chiliast vein in certain post-70 apocalyptic writings which expects a future revealing and/or restoration of heavenly paradise on the (replacement) earth (cf. 4 Ezra, Testament of Levi, Revelation, possibly Papias of Hierapolis). It is important to recognize that this eschatological conception was not generally shared throughout Christianity and Judaism (it appears to have been peculiar to Asia Minor), and that the JW concept of a "paradise earth" is very, very different from this, as discussed in earlier threads.
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M.J.
Leo,
Was there also a school of thought that disembodied souls rest in 2 areas of sheol, not located in heaven but within the earth?
by the way, how does the WTS account for Elijah?
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Leolaia
No more underdog?
In 1 Enoch, particularly in the "Book of the Watchers" (ch. 22), there is an implicit division of the dead after death....with distinct subterranean abodes for the righteous and the unjust until Judgment Day arrives. This is probably what you are thinking of....
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LittleToe
Added to the story of the rich man and Lazarus, where Lazarus laying in the bosom of Abraham, in heaven...
And what about being surrounded by a cloud of witnesses?
I only ever saw that in the cafe during morning tea-break -
kingdoman
You are all looking at the catholics for fault when it fact they are a cult the same as you
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slimboyfat
So Catholics and Jehovah's Witnesses are both cults? And 'Evangelcials' are not in a 'cult' I suppose.