What Job knew of the afterlife

  • I’m prob­a­bly behind the curve in find­ing this out, but a page in the Ortho­dox Study Bible about life after death gave me some perspective.

    I never thought about it too much before, but I assumed that our ances­tors always had the same basic idea of what hap­pens to us when we die — that our bod­ies dema­te­ri­al­ize but our souls are des­tined for either heaven or hell. But the foot­note page at Job chap­ter 14 tells me different:

    For the ancient Hebrews, death meant a return to the same earth from which all are taken: “For earth you are, and to the earth you shall return” (Gn. 3:19, Job 7:21). Nev­er­the­less, a gen­eral idea devel­oped that the souls of the dead do con­tinue, though only in a shad­owy, semi-comatose kind of exis­tence in a nether­world called sheol, or Hades (Gn 37:34, 35; Pss. 114:3, 138:8; Is 14:9–11), a land of “obliv­ion” (Ps 87:10–12; Job 1418–22). In sheol – the depths or abyss of the earth, “the Pit” — even the right­eous dead abide, with­out any power of deliv­er­ance. Yet there was at least a gen­eral hope that one’s mem­ory would be kept alive one’s com­mu­nity and descendants.

    And then the inter­est­ing thing is to see the revealed truth progress from the older to newer por­tions of the Old Testament …

    Only grad­u­ally did God reveal glimpses of a glo­ri­ous life after death to His peo­ple, a hope that would become avail­able to all through the power of Christ’s Res­ur­rec­tion. An early hint of this com­ing hope was revealed to Job. Amid his ter­ri­ble suf­fer­ing, Job asks, “If a man dies, shall he live again?” And through a flash of divine insight, he says: “I will wait until I arise”. Psalms also begin to reflect upon per­sonal res­ur­rec­tion to ever­last­ing life.(Ps 15:8–11; 48:15; 70:20–23; 90:1–16).

    The first indi­ca­tions of a cor­po­rate res­ur­rec­tion of the peo­ple of Israel are given in the 8th cen­tury BC through Hosea (Hos 6:1–3; 13:14) and Isa­iah (Is 26:19). In the early 6th cen­tury BC, Ezekiel receives the dra­matic vision of a mirac­u­lous recon­sti­tu­tion of “the whole house of Israel” on the plain cov­ered with dry bones (Ezk 37:1–14). …

    By the late first cen­tury BC, as seen in the Wis­dom of Solomon, immor­tal­ity is directly linked with liv­ing in wis­dom and right­eous­ness: “Kin­ship with Wis­dom is immor­tal­ity” (WSol 8:17); “The right­eous shall live forever”(WSol 5:15 …)…

    At the time of Christ, the Sad­ducees rejected belief in an after­life (see Mt 22:23), while the Phar­isees did believe in res­ur­rec­tion and immor­tal­ity (Acts 23:68). It was the Phar­isees’ view which came to dom­i­nate in later Judaism. Lazarus’ sis­ter Martha knew about a gen­eral “res­ur­rec­tion at the last day” (Jn 11:24), but Jesus declares to her that res­ur­rec­tion and eter­nal life come only through Him (Jn 11:25 …)

    I’ve got no big point to make about that … just thought it was inter­est­ing to see that in this as in so many ways, Christ’s appear­ing seemed to come at the per­fect time in our understanding.


    Related posts:

    1. Jonah and the end of the story
    2. This just in: Pres­i­den­tial job descrip­tion doesn’t include hand-holding, cuddling
    4. Are videogames doing a good enough job of prepar­ing our kids for the apocalypse?
    5. Bright Week do’s & don’ts

    March 13th, 2010 | Grace | 3 Comments |

3 Responses and Counting...

  • Anam Cara 03.13.2010

    “At the time of Christ, the Sad­ducees rejected belief in an after­life (see Mt 22:23),“
    That’s why they were sad, you see. : )

    Inter­est­ing, Job, who wrote 1000 years (give or take a decade or two) before the David and the Psalms, clearly knew of a bod­ily res­ur­rec­tion. I won­der why the idea didn’t catch on right away.…

    In 19:25–27 he says, “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!” (ESV)

    In the Ortho­dox Study Bible it reads, “For I know He is ever­last­ing, He who is about to set me free on the earth and to raise up my skin that endures these things; For these have been accom­plished for me by the Lord; which I myself am con­scious of, and my eyes have beheld, and not those of another. All has been accom­plished for me in my bosom.”

    Both trans­la­tions show that Job expects to have his body/skin again.

  • Mimi

    It’s inter­est­ing, I have a blog friend who is in sem­i­nary in Fin­land — she’s I’m think­ing Methodist — and she really finds the entire idea of John the Bap­tist going to Hades to tell that the Mes­siah is on the way and then Christ shat­ter­ing the gates of hell to be so foreign.

    And, yet, Job knew..

    Amen.

  • Grace

    Wow. I got chills.

    I hadn’t even thought of that. You think of how much of the Church’s lan­guage about the res­ur­rec­tion would’ve had a lot more impact to the early Chris­tians. When we talk about sheol and Hades, we tend to just think they’re just poetic words for hell.

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