Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 17.djvu/82

RESUBBECTION. 66 EESTJRRECTION. circles in Israel; if man had been allowed to re- main in the Garden of Eden he might have con- tinued liis existence indelinitcly by the magic virtue of the life-giving fruit; but as he was driven out of the garden, he returns to dust and is no more. Nevertheless, the survival of an- cestral worship and necronumcy shows that to many miiuls there were exceptional personalities rising above the average lot of the shades in Sheol (q.v), still possessing high rank, power over the living, and supernatural insight. The valley of hones in Ezekiel x.-xvii. does not sug- gest, but rather precludes, familiarity with the doctrine of a resurrection. In Job xix. 25-27 the text has evidently suffered much in transmission, but the whole trend of the thought clearly shows that there can be no reference to either a life beyond or a resurrection. The possibility of such a return to life is emphatically denied in chapter xiv. The first reference in Hebrew literature to the resurrection is found in the Book of Dan- •» iel, written in B.C. 165. According to Daniel xii. 2, some of those that sleep in the dust are to be raised. Evidently the Maccabean martyrs and the apostates are intended. An apocalypse writ- ten e. 110 B.C. and preserved in Isaiah xxvi. de- clares that Yahweh's dead shall live and his dead bodies shall arise, for his dew is a dew of healing and the earth shall cast forth the dead. Whether all Israelites are meant is uncertain. Within the camuiical Old Testament these are the only passages that show an acquaintance with the doctrine. How long before the year B.C. 165 it became known in Israel we have no means of de- termining. In the earliest part of the Cook of Enoch, written c.108 B.C., there is an allusion to some who are neither slain on the judgment day nor raised from the place of torture (xxii. 13). The resurrection is apparently limited to right- eous Israelites. This is clearly the conception in Enoch xci. 10 ; xeii. 3-5, written c.88 B.C. ; in the Psalter of .Solomon iii. 12. xiii. 11, xiv. 9, xv. 13, written c.60 B.C.; in II. Maccabees vii. 9, 14, 23, 29, 36, xii. 43. 44, written c.20 A.D. ; and in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Jude xxv., and probably originally in Benjamin .. A num- ber of apocalyptic works written apparently in the reign of Domitian seem to contemplate a uni- versal resurrection. This is most clearly the case with IV. Ezra vii. 32; probably also with Baruch xlii. 7, 1. 2, li. I (though in xxx. the resurrection is limited to the just) , and with Enoch li. In the Apocalypse of Moses, which in reality is a life of Adam and Eve, the resurrection of the whole human race is clearly taught (x., xiii., xxviii., xii.. xliii.). the addition "all that are a holy peo- ple" in xiii. being probably an interpolation; also in Sibylline Oracles ii. 214-237, written c.200 A.o. The prevailing view, however, in the Talmudic and Midrashic period was that the heathen would not rise from the dead, but that the resurrection would be only for the righteous. Whether this would include all Israelites was a mooted ques- tion, the opinion being frequently expressed that some classes would be excluded. Thus the Jlishna tract Sanhedrin xi. I excludes from the world to come those who deny the resurrection of the dead and the divine origin of the law as well as the Epicureans, while it records the opin- ions of Rabbi Akibah. who excluded also those reading non-canonical books, and of Abba Shaul, who added any person pronouncing properly the name of Yahweh (sec Jehovah), and Ecthuh- Jioth 111 b distinctly states that "the peopleof the land [i.e. the unlearned] shall not be raised to life." Before the third century a.d. the resurrec- tion is alwaj's a work of God Ilimself. But Rabbi Samuel taught in the name of Rabbi Jonathan that the righteous would raise the dead {I'esa- chim, 68 ) . Later it was held by many teachers that the ^Messiah would raise the dead. The gen- eral opinion was that resurrection would occur in Palestine. Even the Jews who had died out- side of the holy land were supposed to be led through subterranean passages to Palestine, where they were to be raised {Pesiktah rahhath i.). Many supposed that of the human body one bone would never molder into dust, and that from this 'almond of the spine,' or us sacrum, the resurrection body would be formed (Be- resihith rabha xxviii.). There probably never was a time when the belief in a resurrection was universally held in Israel. While it was championed in one form or another by the Pharisaic party, it was strong- ly opposed in uurny circles. It is not known or accepted by the authors of Ecclesiasticus, Judith, Tobit, and I. Maccabees, and it is of course em- phaticall.y denied by Ecclesiastes. The Sadducees adhered to the old idea of Sheol and rejected the doctrine of a resurrection. The Samaritans seem to have maintained the same attitude in earlier times, though they subsequently accepted the doctrine. (See Samaritans.) The Essenes cherished a view concerning the nature of the soul and the future life closely resembling that of the Pythagoreans, ultimately due to Indian or Persian influences, according to which the soul has existed before birth and will exist eternally after its bondage to the body is ended. A similar view was held by Jewish Gnostics. Where Greek thought prevailed the idea of immortality (q.v.) was accepted rather than that of a resurrection. This may be seen not only in the Wisdom of Solo- mon iii. 1-9, iv. 7, v. 16, vi. 20; IV. Maccabees xvii. 5, 18, xviii. 3; and Philo, De vita Mosis ii. 633, De Ahr. 385; De 8omn.. 586; De migra- tione 407, but also in Palestinian works like Jubilees .xxiii., xxv., and Slavonic Enoch Ixv. 8, 9, 10, l.xvi. 7. Even where the term was kept, the idea of a resuscitation of the physical body was abandoned, as by Josephus (cf. especiall_y Bel. J ml. iii. 8, 5) for the thought of an endowment with a spiritual organism. As a result of con- tact with Arabic learning, there was an immis- takable tendency to substitute the doctrine of a natural immortality of the soul for that of a resurrection of Israel only. It was not wrongly that Maimonides was accused of having set aside completely the doctrine of a resurrection in his More Nebuchin or "Guide of the Erring." Mod- ern .Judaism has been largely determined in this as in other respects by Moses Mendelssohn, whose work, Phiidon oder iiber die Unsterblichkeit der Seele (1767), made a profound impression on his age. The attitude of Jesus on this question cannot be determined with certainty. Aside from Luke xiv. 14, which, if genuine, shows that Jesus looked forward to a recompense at the resurrec- tion of the just, there is but one saying of His recorded in the Synoptic Gospels that has any di- rect relation to the subject. This is found vari- ously reported in Matthew xxii. 23-32. ilark xii. 18-27, and Luke xx. 27-38. Jesus evidently re- jects the view of the Sadducees on the ground