RESURRECTION, NOT INHERENT IMMORTALITY

For centuries the Jews did not share the pagan belief in the immortality of the human soul. The Jews were an educated people, and any literate Jew could read scores of texts in the Hebrew Scriptures that state in no uncertain terms that the “soul” (Hebrew, neʹphesh) can die. Here are just a few: Genesis 19:19, 20; Numbers 23:10; Joshua 2:13, 14; Psalm 22:29 (verse 30 in Jewish Bibles); Ezekiel 18:4, 20.

So the early Jewish hope of life on earth in a paradise restored by the Messiah rested on the belief in the resurrection, not in inherent immortality. The Jewish Encyclopedia confirms this, stating: “Resurrection formed part of the Messianic hope (Isa. xxvi. 19; Dan. xii. 2). . . . At first resurrection was regarded as a miraculous boon granted only to the righteous . . . , but afterward it was considered to be universal in application and connected with the Last Judgment . . . Whether the process of the formation of the body at the Resurrection is the same as at birth is a matter of dispute between the Hillelites and Shammaites.”​—Vol. 5, page 216.

This same authoritative Jewish reference work states concerning “Gehenna” (Christendom’s “hell”): “There is no Scriptural basis for the belief in retribution for the soul after death; this was supplied by the Babylonians and Persians, and received a Jewish coloring from the word ‘Gehinnom’ (the valley of Hinnom), made detestable by the fires of the Moloch sacrifices of Manasseh (II Kings xxiii. 10).”​—Ibid., page 217.

So how is it that today Jewish theologians generally teach the doctrines of inherent immortality and of eternal punishment? The Supplément au Dictionnaire de la Bible supplies us with the following information: “[For the Jews] Salvation was first thought of as being on earth . . . ; however bright the Messianic hope was and however long the future reign was due to be​—some even appearing to believe that it would be everlasting—​the national and earthly nature of that religious era was fundamental. Then a new prospect asserted itself: the ‘discovery’ of a happy existence after death.” (Italics ours)

How did the Jews “discover” that man has a “soul” that survives the death of the body? Once again, authoritative reference works provide conclusive information. The Jewish Encyclopedia admits: “Only through the contact of the Jews with Persian and Greek thought did the idea of a disembodied soul, having its own individuality, take root in Judaism.” This is confirmed by the Dictionnaire Encyclopédique de la Bible, which states: “The concept of immortality is a product of Greek thinking, whereas the hope of a resurrection belongs to Jewish thought. . . . Following Alexander’s conquests Judaism gradually absorbed Greek concepts.”

If anyone doubts that the Jews did not originally believe in the immortality of the soul, suffice it to say that as late as the first century of the Common Era the question was still not settled in Jewish minds, as proved by the fact that the Pharisees believed in immortality, whereas the Sadducees did not.​—See Josephus, Antiquities, Book 18, chapter 1, paragraphs 3, 4; Wars, Book 2, chapter 8, paragraph 14; compare Acts 23:8.

ORIGINAL MESSIANIC HOPE TRANSFORMED

Just as the Jews gradually abandoned their hope for a future life through the resurrection and adopted the pagan idea of inherent immortality of a separate “soul,” so their original Messianic hope became transformed.

The earthly hope of a “Sabbatical millennium” during which the Messiah would bring about a “golden age of paradisiacal bliss,” “a world of perfect peace and harmony among all creatures,” was replaced by a vague heavenly hope based on the concept of inherent immortality borrowed from the Babylonians, the Persians and the Greeks.