9 – Sectarian Life in New Testament Times
Jewish societal views about the immortality of the soul and of the afterlife began to be merged from the 1st century BCE until the 1st century CE. The early Christian church, however, initially rejected the idea that the soul is immortal, but as Christianity spread throughout the Hellenistic world, belief in the immortality of the soul became integrated into church doctrine. Surviving epitaphs and graffiti reveal that by the 3rd and 4th centuries CE belief in the afterlife was widespread within Jewish and Christian communities. Resurrection and the immortality of the soul was not typically the subject of inscriptions on tombstones. Most of these focused on the life and death of the occupants of tomb. Pieter W. van der Horst provides an assortment of these inscriptions in the final chapter of his book “Ancient Jewish Epitaphs: An Introductory Survey of a Millennium of Jewish Funerary Epigraphy (300 BCE-700 CE).” A widely quoted example from page 146 does not mention of the afterlife:
Here under the shelter of this stone lie…
Demas, deserting the old age of his very pitiable mother
And his pitiable little children and his mourning wife.
He helped many men by his skill.
Weep for the man who has left the most honorable…
And his city, and the abodes and friendship of men.
Demas, about thirty years old, in the fifty-fourth year
The third of the month Hathyr.
You too, Alexander, friend of all and without reproach,
Excellent one, farewell.
Later examples do refer to life after death, including these two from the late Antique era:
I, Hesychios, lie here with my wife. May anyone who dares to open [the grave] above us not have a portion in eternal life.
Whoever would change this lady’s place [the woman who was buried in the grave], He who promised to resurrect the dead will Himself judge.
The Book of Jubilees, which purports to be a revelation delivered to Moses, is centuries older than the preceding epitaphs but resists being precisely dated. It was influential for the Qumran community. Jubilees introduces the division of the Genesis narrative, up to the time of Moses, into 49-year Jubilee periods. Portions of the 23rd chapter of this work describing circumstances just after the death of Abraham are eschatological. End times tribulation is the subject of Jubilees 23:8-13:
And he lived three jubilees and four weeks of years, one hundred and seventy-five years, and completed the days of his life, being old and full of days. For the days of the forefathers, of their life, were nineteen jubilees; and after the Flood they began to grow less than nineteen jubilees, and to decrease in jubilees, and to grow old quickly, and to be full of their days by reason of manifold tribulation and the wickedness of their ways, with the exception of Abraham. For Abraham was perfect in all his deeds with the Lord, and well-pleasing in righteousness all the days of his life; and behold, he did not complete four jubilees in his life, when he had grown old by reason of the wickedness and was full of his days. And all the generations which shall arise from this time until the day of the great judgment shall grow old quickly, before they complete two jubilees, and their knowledge shall forsake them by reason of their old age and all their knowledge shall vanish away. And in those days, if a man live a jubilee and a-half of years, they shall say regarding him: "He has lived long, and the greater part of his days are pain and sorrow and tribulation, and there is no peace: For calamity follows on calamity, and wound on wound, and tribulation on tribulation, and evil tidings on evil tidings, and illness on illness, and all evil judgments such as these, one with another, illness and overthrow, and snow and frost and ice, and fever, and chills, and torpor, and famine, and death, and sword, and captivity, and all kinds of calamities and pains." And all these shall come on an evil generation, which transgresses on the earth: their works are uncleanness and fornication, and pollution and abominations. Then they shall say: "The days of the forefathers were many, unto a thousand years, and were good; but behold, the days of our life, if a man has lived many, are three score years and ten, and, if he is strong, four score years, and those evil, and there is no peace in the days of this evil generation."
A happy ending is the subject of Jubilees 23:26-31:
And in those days the children shall begin to study the laws,
And to seek the commandments,
And to return to the path of righteousness.
And the days shall begin to grow many and increase amongst those children of men
Till their days draw nigh to one thousand years.
And to a greater number of years than (before) was the number of the days.
And there shall be no old man
Nor one who is not satisfied with his days,
For all shall be as children and youths.
And all their days they shall complete and live in peace and in joy,
And there shall be no Satan nor any evil destroyer:
For all their days shall be days of blessing and healing.
And at that time the Lord will heal His servants,
And they shall rise up and see great peace,
And drive out their adversaries.
And the righteous shall see and be thankful,
And rejoice with joy for ever and ever,
And shall see all their judgments and all their curses on their enemies.
And their bones shall rest in the earth,
And their spirits shall have much joy,
And they shall know that it is the Lord who executes judgment,
And shows mercy to hundreds and thousands and to all that love Him.
Since the bones of the righteous will remain in the earth, this resurrection seems to incorporate Hellenistic belief in the immortality of the soul. Increased joy is described as pertaining to the “spirit,” rather than to the soul. Greek conceptions of the soul’s immortality were later frequently associated with bodily resurrection in apocalyptic writings, but the Book of Jubilees provides the first example of this syncretism.
The author revisits difficult to date, but unquestionably pre-Christian chapters 37-71 of First Enoch. Previous comments related the content of the Book of Enoch to the priesthood, secret knowledge, heavenly transformation, and to the Qumran community. A more detailed analysis will shed light on the thought processes of a time and place which was the setting for early Christianity. The “parables” of Enoch are missing from the Enoch literature discovered at Qumran, leading to speculation that they may be a later, possibly even a Christian composition. This portion of First Enoch is most prominent in the version incorporated into the broadly inclusive, 81-book Ethiopian Christian canon. Unique to the Orthodox Ethiopian (Tewahedo) canon are the Paralipomena of Jeremiah (Fourth Baruch), Jubilees, Enoch, and the three books of Meqabyan. Enoch, narrator of his book and identified as being a proto-Christian Son of Man, is a Messianic figure. He is righteous and privy to secret divine knowledge. First Enoch 46:2-3 states:
And I asked the angel who went with me and showed me all the hidden things, concerning that Son of Man, who he was, and whence he was, and why he went with the Head of Days. And he answered and said unto me: This is the son of Man who hath righteousness, With whom dwelleth righteousness, And who revealeth all the treasures of that which is hidden, Because the Lord of Spirits hath chosen him, And whose lot hath the pre-eminence before the Lord of Spirits in uprightness forever.
He is victorious over the mighty of the earth and afterward judges the wicked, functions described in First Enoch 46:4-8:
And this Son of Man whom thou hast seen Shall raise up the kings and the mighty from their seats, and the strong from their thrones and shall loosen the reins of the strong and break the teeth of the sinners. And he shall put down the kings from their thrones and kingdoms because they do not extol and praise Him, nor humbly acknowledge whence the kingdom was bestowed upon them. And he shall put down the countenance of the strong and shall fill them with shame. And darkness shall be their dwelling, and worms shall be their bed, and they shall have no hope of rising from their beds because they do not extol the name of the Lord of Spirits. And these are they who judge the stars of heaven, and raise their hands against the Most High, and tread upon the earth and dwell upon it. And all their deeds manifest unrighteousness, and their power rests upon their riches, and their faith is in the gods which they have made with their hands, and they deny the name of the Lord of Spirits, and they persecute the houses of His congregations and the faithful who hang upon the name of the Lord of Spirits.
The 7th chapter of the Book of Danial does not portray the Son of Man as being a Messiah, but the Book of Enoch does, as a heavenly ascender and heir to the divine realm. Contemporary Christians are familiar with the concept of messiahship but are largely unaware that this concept first emerged in the Book of Enoch. As prophesized by Daniel 12, First Enoch describes the righteous as rising from the earth with the Son of Man to receive eternally new garments of glory from the Lord of spirits. The author compares this undressing and redressing with the process of ritual baptism, a salient practice of the Qumran community.
In the final two chapters of First Enoch, 7-71, Enoch is mystically transformed into the figure of the Son of Man seated upon the throne, the fulfillment of a prophecy contained in Daniel 12. This unprecedented transformation served as an archetype for all subsequent transformations, Christ’s transformation into the Son of Man was not a unique event in the eyes of Ethiopian Christians, but rather the most noteworthy example of a series of subsequent transformations. In First Enoch 90:37-39 believers are mystically transformed into white bulls, or cattle which apparently symbolize the Messiah:
And I saw that a white bull was born, with large horns and all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air feared him and made petition to him all the time. And I saw till all their generations were transformed, and they all became white bulls; and the first among them became a lamb, and that lamb became a great animal and had great black horns on its head; and the Lord of the sheep rejoiced over it and over all the oxen. And I slept in their midst: and I awoke and saw everything.
First Enoch 91:10 explicitly states that the righteous will be resurrected:
And the righteous shall arise from their sleep, and wisdom shall arise and be given unto them.
The reference to sleep indicates that this text is based on Isaiah 26 and Daniel 12. Here is Isaiah 26:19-21:
Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead. Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. For, behold, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.
Daniel 12:1-2 similarly states:
And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
First Enoch chapters 102-104 do not explicitly describe a general resurrection of the dead, but only a reward for those who have lived righteous lives. First Enoch 103:3-8 provides details:
That all goodness and joy and glory are prepared for them,
And written down for the spirits of those who have died in righteousness,
And that manifold good shall be given to you in recompense for your labors,
And that your lot is abundantly beyond the lot of the living.
And the spirits of you who have died in righteousness shall live and rejoice,
And their spirits shall not perish, nor their memorial from before the face of the Great One
Unto all the generations of the world: wherefore no longer fear their contumely.
Woe to you, ye sinners, when ye have died,
If ye die in the wealth of your sins,
And those who are like you say regarding you:
“Blessed are the sinners: they have seen all their days.
And how they have died in prosperity and in wealth,
And have not seen tribulation or murder in their life;
And they have died in honor,
And judgement has not been executed on them during their life."
Know ye, that their souls will be made to descend into Sheol
And they shall be wretched in their great tribulation.
And into darkness and chains and a burning flame where there is grievous judgement shall your spirits enter;
And the great judgement shall be for all the generations of the world.
Woe to you, for ye shall have no peace.
This portrayal distinguishes between unrighteous people who will have to bear the tortuous consequences of their misdeeds on earth during the tumultuous last days and miscreants who have escaped this calamity by dying beforehand and descending to Sheol. Emptied of the righteous, Sheol becomes Hell, the site of punishment for sinners. The righteous will experience in heaven rewards withheld from them during their lives. First Enoch 104:2-7 encourages the righteous to remain faithful and expectant despite undeniable evidence of the temporal power and prosperity of evildoers:
Be hopeful; for aforetime ye were put to shame through ill and affliction; but now ye shall shine as the lights of heaven, ye shall shine and ye shall be seen, and the portals of heaven shall be opened to you. And in your cry, cry for judgement, and it shall appear to you; for all your tribulation shall be visited on the rulers, and on all who helped those who plundered you. Be hopeful and cast not away your hopes for ye shall have great joy as the angels of heaven. What shall ye be obliged to do? Ye shall not have to hide on the day of the great judgement and ye shall not be found as sinners, and the eternal judgement shall be far from you for all the generations of the world. And now fear not, ye righteous, when ye see the sinners growing strong and prospering in their ways be not companions with them but keep afar from their violence; for ye shall become companions of the hosts of heaven.
Promises of resurrection, ascension, and transformation into angelic beings were contained in the literature of Qumran and other sectarian groups, as were encouragements to martyrdom and a distaste for elite Jews who collaborated with occupying forces. These ideas were attractive for Jewish society, so they spread beyond their sectarian points of origin, even exerting an influence upon the Pharisees. This dissemination was accompanied, however, by Hellenistic conceptions of the immortality of the soul.
The Septuagint is an example of this melding of Greek and Judaic sensibilities, the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Hebrew. Its title (from the Latin septuaginta, meaning seventy) is derived from a story recorded in the Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates that "the laws of the Jews" were translated into the Greek language at the request of Ptolemy II Philadelphus by seventy-two Hebrew translators, six from each of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The first five books of the Hebrew Bible were translated from Biblical Hebrew into Koine Greek by Jews living in the Ptolemaic Kingdom, centered in Alexandria, in the early or middle part of the third century BCE. The remaining books and addenda are assumed to have been translated in the 2nd century BCE, the Second Temple period, an era when the Hebrew language was supplanted by Koine Greek and Aramaic.
The Septuagint differs from the Hebrew Bible in both content and meaning. First and Second Maccabees were included in the Septuagint, but later excluded by Rabbinic Jews. The Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh, was divided into three parts: the Torah (Law), the Nevi'im (Prophets), and the Ketuvim (Writings). The Septuagint was split into four parts: law, history, poetry, and prophets. Literal translation of some portions of the original is mixed with sections that blend translation with commentary. The theme of resurrection is introduced into the Septuagint, an innovation that is absent in the received Hebrew, “Masoretic” text. Ambiguous sections of the Hebrew version are translated in a manner that favors the existence of an afterlife. English translations, including the King James Version, often replicate the biases of the Greek translation, thus sweeping aside the more ambiguous meanings of the Hebrew original. Examples of this are found in Deuteronomy 32:39, First Samual 2:6, and Second Kings 5:7:
See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.
The Lord killeth, and maketh alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up.
And it came to pass, when the king of Israel had read the letter, that he rent his clothes, and said, Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man doth send unto me to recover a man of his leprosy? wherefore consider, I pray you, and see how he seeketh a quarrel against me.
The original Hebrew words utilized to describe God’s sovereignty over life and death were general, rather than specific to the life, death, and restoration to life of an individual. Recasting some verbs from the present to the future tense caused many passages of the Septuagint to seem to describe pending apocalyptic events, rather than the unchanging nature of God. The text of Psalms 49:15 was examined back in the third chapter of this book:
But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave: for he shall receive me. Selah.
The “for” contained in “for he shall receive me” (the Hebrew word “ki”) is more accurately translated from the original text less imperatively as “when.” The Greek translation implies that a beatific afterlife immediately follows the death of an individual, an example of biases that were easily embraced by both Rabbinic Jews and nascent Christianity.
Proverbs 12:28 provides another example of partisan influenced partial mistranslation:
In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death.
The original Hebrew text states that:
There is life in the path of righteousness, but another path leads to death.
The Septuagint translates it this way:
In the roads of righteousness there is life but the roads of those remembering evil is death.
Connotations of immortality are atypically absent in the Septuagint translation of Psalms 12:28, which represents an effort to recover the meaning of corrupted source material. The phrase “’al mavvet” (“to death” in the Hebrew text) can be alternately interpreted as “not death” (immortality) when an alternate, secondary definition of “’al,” or “’el,” meaning “to” is selected. This questionable latter interpretation has nevertheless been incorporated into most Christian translations of the Book of Psalms. This is a case of secondhand Hellenistic influence on translations of the Hebrew Old Testament, since the 70+2 Alexandrian translators unintentionally replicated its original meaning. Overall, the letter and spirit of the Septuagint and works derived from it provide ample evidence that conceptions of immortality pervaded the culture of its era and has continually exerted an influence on biblically based religions up to the present day. The immortality of the souls of every human, however, is not supported by scripture. Jews and Christians alike nevertheless became enchanted with this concept, and Greek ideas adopted by the Jewish elite {who were eager to please their Ptolemaic overlords) ultimately were adopted by less affluential Israelites. As noted in the webpage titled “Goodness” featured on this site, Platonism cast an extremely long shadow over the development of Western philosophy and religion. This shadow tended to obscure and adulterate new light emanating from the Hebraic canonical writings. Protestant reexaminations of this canon largely failed to purge the Bible of Hellenistic era influences.
Sectarian Jews and Christians of the Second Temple period were focused on resurrection, but Jewish speculation about the immortality of the soul was instituted by an aristocracy that had been educated in Greek, was interested in Greek philosophy, and whose knowledge of the Greek language was more complete than that of those who employed Koine Greek as a lingua franca, a language that communication possible between groups of people who do not share a native language or dialect. Literary Koine was the medium of much post-classical Greek literary and scholarly writing, such as the works of Plutarch and Polybius. Koine is also the language of the Septuagint, the Christian New Testament, and of most early Christian theological writing by the fathers of the Church. The works of Plato, however, were classical, rather than post-classical, so investigating Plato’s descriptions of and “proof” for the immortality of the soul required knowledge of classical Greek. This topic appealed to upper class Jews for the same reasons that it appealed to the Greeks; it viewed intellectual endeavor as the supreme attainment and highest pursuit of humanity. Wealthy, literate Jews such as Philo consciously labored to meld Judaism with contemporary Hellenistic ideologies.
The pinnacle of the Jewish aristocracy was occupied by the Sadducees, who rejected ideas about the immortality of the soul. Many Sadducees could study classical Greek philosophy but preferred to study the works of the Stoical and Epicurean schools since these better aligned with received Hebrew religious texts. Platonism, and Platonic conceptions of the immortal soul, was embraced and advocated by those who earned their living in a Greco-Judean society and hoped that their Greek intellectual attainments would enhance their prestige and credibility. They were members of the client class who served the interests of the upper-class rulers, and in some cases themselves members of the ruling elite. Examples of this type are Philo Judaeus, Josephus, and the rabbis, sucessors to the Pharisees who renounced sectarianism and later rose to become the leaders of the Jews who eventually synthesized the concepts of an immortal soul and a bodily resurrection. This synthesis did not occur so easily in the context of Christianity, but many Christian writers interestingly undertook to effect this synthesis in the following centuries.
Philo Judaeus (circa 20 BCE to 50 CE) was a Jewish Hellenistic philosopher who was unique in his attempts to fuse Jewish and Hellenistic thought, and also unique for having produced nearly as many philosophical works as Plato and Aristotle. For Philo, the Hebrew Bible and Greek philosophy advocate identical philosophical truths. Between the two, the Bible possesses a moral advantage. Philo was more of a commentator than an expositor of philosophical systems. His overarching views on any subject can only be determined by reading every word that he wrote, and then drawing a conclusion. The author provides a brief characterization of Philo’s views on the afterlife.
Philo was born into an extremely wealthy Alexandrian family and was a contemporary of Jesus and Paul. Like Paul, Philo was born in a major center of Hellenistic culture, but the sophistication of Alexandria far outclassed that of Paul’s native city Tarsus, and Philo was much, much wealthier than was Paul. Although details of Philo’s upbringing are not revealed in his numerous writings, they do offer a glimpse of the Jewish aristocracy and the intellectual elite at their highest level. His writings make it clear that he did not believe that his participation in typical Hellenistic activities (exercising in the nude, for example) did not compromise his perfect observance of Jewish law. Pharisaism, with its exacting demands, had little impact in the 1st century on the practices of everyday Jews, and especially upon those of the Diaspora. A variety of equally legitimate views about proper observance of the law coexisted in this era.
As a good Platonist, Philo discussed the immortality of the soul without so much as mentioning the subject of bodily resurrection. He believed, like Plato, that perfection of the intellectual and moral faculties is what leads to immortality of the soul. Continuity of consciousness, rather than bodily preservation, was the goal of this Platonic process of perfection. Philo exclusively utilized the Greek term athanasia, which means immortality, to refer to the afterlife. Jewish martyrs, which sectarian writers had rewarded with resurrected bodies, are admired by Philo but are instead rewarded with athanasia, or immortality, for their acts of self-sacrifice.
Philo was the first philosopher to describe the sum of every idea in the universe with the term kosmos noetos, meaning the intelligible world. Philo identified this intelligible world with a hypostasis, a separate manifestation of God which he called the logos, the rational pattern of the world. Translations of the Gospel of John use “Word” instead of “logos,” which John proclaims to be the creative force in the world. Here is John1:1-3:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
“Logos” possessed a technical meaning in Stoicism, but Philo’s attempt to blend Stoicism and Platonism caused him to develop new meanings and uses for the term. Logos, for Stoics, means “rational principle or blueprint” and functioned like Plato’s nous, which means “reason or divine mind.” For Philo, logos described the way that God acts in the world but would have disagreed with John’s identification of logos with Jesus Christ. He also used it to refer to biblical YHWH, which by Philo’s era was being translated to the Greek term Kyrios, meaning Lord. Philo further considered logos and Kyrios as names for a divine presence who was God’s principal angelic messenger to the world. Philo regarded the 1st chapter of Genesis as God’s creation of the world of ideas and the 2nd and 3rd chapters as descriptions of the creation of the material world. The cosmology of Plato features an eternal and changeless world of ideas. The logos, sometimes designated as “Wisdom” in the Bible, is described as eternal in the 8th chapter of Proverbs (especially in the Greek translation) and later became an important aspect of Jewish and Christian mysticism. Philo’s identification of the logos with the intelligible was influential for Neoplatonic definitions of the “self.”
Plato described immortality as an attribute of the mind, and death as a function of the body. Philo opposed this mind/body split by asserting that souls can only obtain immortality by having passed a moral corporeal existence. Sins committed in the flesh will lead to punishment in the afterlife or to nonexistence, the allegorical meaning of the story of the garden of Eden. Since Philo regarded the content of Genesis 2-3 as absurd, he recast its literal meaning into the form of allegory. Philo believed that the Bible could only yield ultimate truths when interpreted allegorically, interpretations that served as a critique of Plato’s view on the immortality of the soul. The life of a hypothetically ideal Greek philosopher would conform with biblical precepts, but the reasoning of mortal philosophers is imperfect compared to the commandments of God. Death to self, a philosophical ideal Plato described in words he attributed to Socrates, was regarded by Philo as being the product of a moral education that equips human beings to come into the presence of God and transforms us into immortal beings. The afterlife of Platonists selectively preserved aspects of selfhood, but Philo believed that souls entered immortality with all their faculties intact, including their memory. Without memory, the punishment of evildoers would be pintless. Philo’s version of the condition of immortal souls was an adaptation of Plato’s original. It continues to serve as the standard Western model of immortality. Philo managed to harmonize Judaism with Greek philosophy, but only reducing each system to its fundamental building blocks, then imaginatively reassembling them into a composition that best furthered Philo’s philosophical agenda.
Portions of Philo’s writings reveal his knowledge of contemporary Jewish beliefs about the afterlife, but he pulls up short of admitting any possibility of corporeal resurrection. The elevation of sages and teachers after their deaths to starlike status is describes in line 61 of “On the Giants” as a disembodied, properly Platonic transition:
Lastly, those who are born of God are priests and prophets, who have not thought fit to mix themselves up in the constitutions of this world, and to become cosmopolites, but who having raised themselves above all the objects of the mere outward senses, have departed and fixed their views on that world which is perceptible only by the intellect, and have settled there, being inscribed in the state of incorruptible incorporeal ideas.
Philo coded his philosophy according to gender. Matter is feminine and passive compared to the masculine, ethereal logos and nous. Unrestrained sexuality is described as harmful for both men and women, but the author notes that Philo seems to be obsessed with the influence of women upon men. This significant distraction must be, according to Philo, limited by rules and regulations. Platonists regarded females as being less subject to reason than males. Philo advised partial or complete avoidance of women by men, praising the celibacy of the Therapeutae. Philo's description of the doctrines and practices of the Therapeutae leaves great ambiguity about what religion they are associated with. In “De Vita Contemplativa” (The Contemplative Life) he writes that they lived chastely with utter simplicity; they "first of all laid down temperance as a sort of foundation for the soul to rest upon, proceed to build up other virtues on this foundation.” They renounced property and followed severe discipline. They were dedicated to the contemplative life, and their activities for six days of the week consisted of ascetic practices, fasting, solitary prayers and the study of the scriptures in their isolated cells, each with its separate holy sanctuary, and enclosed courtyard. On the seventh day the Therapeutae met in a meeting house, the men on one side of an open partition, the women modestly on the other, to hear discourses. These practices were like those of the Qumran community.
Philo lauded the advantages of philosophical meditation and noted that meditation need not always culminate with a transcendent vision. In “De posteritate Caini” (On the Posterity of Cain) he writes:
Therefore we sympathize in joy with those who love God and seek to understand the nature of the living do, even if they fail to discover it; for the vague investigation of what is good is sufficient by itself to cheer the heart, even if it fail to attain the end that it desires. But we participate in indignation against that lover of himself, Cain; because he has left his soul without any conception whatever of the living God, having of deliberate purpose mutilated himself of that faculty by which alone he might have been able to see him.
Philo died assured that he had successfully reconciled Judaism with the philosophy of Plato. He distilled both systems down to their essence, redefined existing philosophical terms to better support his program, and regarded the Hebrew Bible as a collection of allegorical fables. Philo carved a path into strange new land which millions, if not billions of people decided to call home.
Philo’s effort to infuse Platonic philosophy with Hebraic morality was paralleled by the efforts of Josephus, who aspired to explain Judaism to cosmopolitan, Hellenistic readership. As noted, Josephus frequently sidestepped truths that might offend the temporal overlords of his native land, Judea. Flavius Josephus, who was born in Jerusalem, initially fought against the Roman Empire during the First Jewish–Roman War as general of the Jewish forces in Galilee. In AD 67, these forces surrendered to the Roman army led by military commander Vespasian after the six-week siege of Yodfat. Josephus opportunistically claimed the Jewish messianic prophecies that initiated the First Jewish–Roman War predicted that Vespasian would become the emperor of Rome. Vespasian responded to this flattering news by deciding to keep Josephus as a household slave and interpreter.
After Vespasian became emperor two years later, he granted Josephus his freedom. Josephus expressed his gratitude by assuming the emperor’s family name of Flavius. He was granted Roman citizenship. He became the advisor and friend of Vespasian's son Titus, and served as his translator when Titus led the renown siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Since the siege failed to curtail the Jewish revolt, the walls of Jerusalem were breached, the city was pillaged and looted, and the Second Temple was destroyed.
Josephus wrote a history of the Great Jewish Revolt of 66–70 CE which included the siege of Masada. His most important works are “The Jewish War,” written about 75 CE, and “Antiquities of the Jews” written a few decades later. “Antiquities of the Jews” recounts the history of the world from a Jewish perspective for an ostensibly Greek and Roman audience. These works provide valuable insight into first-century Judaism and the historical context of Early Christianity. Josephus's works serve to supplement the Bible as a source for information about the history and antiquity of ancient Israel and provide an independent account of such figures as Pontius Pilate, Herod the Great, John the Baptist, James, brother of Jesus, and Jesus of Nazareth.
Like Philo, Josephus used popular philosophical terminology to explain Jewish conceptions of the afterlife to his educated Roman readership. He likewise asserted that belief in the immortality of the soul was confined to upper class Jews who were clients of the Roman state, and that belief in resurrection was advocated by those who were opposed to Roman rule. His descriptions of the three primary Jewish sects, Sadducees, Pharisees, and Essenes was supplemented by a description of a fourth sect comprised of Zealots, political revolutionaries that Josephus regarded as bandits or terrorists. He thought that the Zealots were heretics but described them rathernas sectarians for a Greek and Roman audience who did not recognize the existence of unacceptable religious views.
Josephus, describing the Sadducees, reaffirms that this group felt no need for an afterlife since their lives on earth were so comfortable and satisfying. Josephus compared the Sadducees to the Greek Epicureans who believed that life must be steadfastly and bravely confronted without hope of a better world to come. Jewish conceptions of Sheol are analogous to Greek conceptions of Hades, the subterranean, nonjudgemental destination for all who die. The millennialists firmly believed in a resurrection that provides justice for those who have suffered in life and heavenly transformation for those who have been martyred for the cause. Pharisees were not so easy to define, despite their belief in an afterlife where rewards and punishments are distributed.
The Sadducees were an aristocratic and priestly class, so simply adopting their Greek-influenced philosophy would make one a Sadducee. They not only denied any possibility of life after death but conceived of God as a distant and uninvolved deity. In “Antiquities” Josephus writes:
And for the Sadducees, they take away fate, and say there is no such thing, and that the events of human affairs are not at its disposal; but they suppose that all our actions are in our own power, so that we are ourselves the causes of what is good and receive what is evil from our own folly.
The belief that rewards and punishments were conferred upon the living, rather than upon the dead, supported self-conceptions of moral superiority for the wealthy Sadducees. The author identifies a connection between Josephus’s description of this group and an interaction between Jesus and the disinterested Sadducees contained in Matthew 22:23-23:
The same day came to him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked him, Saying, Master, Moses said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. Now there were with us seven brethren: and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and, having no issue, left his wife unto his brother: Likewise the second also, and the third, unto the seventh. And last of all the woman died also. Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her. Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. And when the multitude heard this, they were astonished at his doctrine.
The multitude may have been astonished by this doctrine, but the complaisant Sadducees probably remained unimpressed. Although the Sadducees were aware of the promises of resurrection contained in the Book of Daniel, their perspective was better reflected in books such as Job and Ecclesiastes. Apocryphal Ecclesiasticus (The Wisdom of Jesus Ben Sira) is free of references to a beatific afterlife, so this book would have particularly prized by the Sadducees. A privileged social standing does not necessarily exclude belief in an afterlife as the examples of the Egyptian Pharaohs and Alexandrian Philo Judaeus demonstrate. The Sadduceean view is based on a traditional, literal interpretation of the Hebrew Bible which rarely mentions the possibility of life after death. As Hellenists, Sadducees easily identified Hebraic Sheol with Greek Hades, and, like the equally prosperous Greek Epicureans, could enter paradise by merely walking into the lavish gardens attached to their homes. Less prosperous Jews adopted these gardens to serve as a model for their vision of a just, beatific afterlife that would reward the disenfranchised of the world and punish indifferent sybarites like the Sadducees.
Despite their position at the apex of Jewish society, the Sadducees had to share their religious authority with the Pharisees, a skilled class of craftsmen and scribes who studied the biblical laws in detail. Josephus describes them as the most skilled interpreters of the law and infers that they already possessed an “oral law” that was characteristic of the rabbis, laws that were not contained in the Torah. He provides the following information in the 18th Book of “Antiquities of the Jews:”
Now, for the Pharisees, they live meanly and despise delicacies in diet; and they follow the conduct of reason; and what that prescribes to them as good for them they do; and they think they ought earnestly to strive to observe reason's dictates for practice. They also pay a respect to such as are in years; nor are they so bold as to contradict them in anything which they have introduced; and when they determine that all things are done by fate, they do not take away the freedom from men of acting as they think fit; since their notion is, that it hath pleased God to make a temperament, whereby what he wills is done, but so that the will of man can act virtuously or viciously. They also believe that souls have an immortal rigor in them, and that under the earth there will be rewards or punishments, according as they have lived virtuously or viciously in this life; and the latter are to be detained in an everlasting prison, but that the former shall have power to revive and live again; on account of which doctrines they are able greatly to persuade the body of the people; and whatsoever they do about Divine worship, prayers, and sacrifices, they perform them according to their direction; insomuch that the cities give great attestations to them on account of their entire virtuous conduct, both in the actions of their lives and their discourses also.
This description is very similar to those of Greco-Roman philosophical communities, lives of scholarship, meditation, and communal living. The Pharisees were a client class, exercising a degree of power delegated to them by the Romans and were anxious to maintain peaceful relations with the occupying forces, forces they did not particularly admire but realistically accepted as overpowering and undefeatable. The Pharisees worked to suspend Roman hostilities, efforts that Josephus resented due to his more militant sympathies as advisor to the Roman army and his indebtedness to its generals Vespasian and Titus. Post-revolt Judea was subjected to stricter Roman control, and the Pharisees became Josephus’s preferred intermediary between the Empire and the populus. The political aspirations of Josephus were more aligned with those of the engaged Pharisees rather than those of the disinterested Sadducees, despite his upper-class background. The New Testament subjects the Pharisees to both praise and condemnation. Josephus, and the Romans, may have seen them as the best of a bad lot.
Pharisaical views about resurrection were imperfectly publicized by Josephus who wrote the following in the 2nd Book of “The Jewish Wars:”
These ascribe all to fate [or providence], and to God, and yet allow that to act what is right, or the contrary, is principally in the power of men, although fate does co-operate in every action. They say that all souls are incorruptible, but that the souls of good men only are removed into other bodies, but that the souls of bad men are subject to eternal punishment.
The preceding statement is an example of Josephus reimagining Jewish doctrines in a manner that would make it more intelligible to a Hellenistic reader since it introduces Platonic concepts about the immortality and transmigration of the soul. An undiluted description would reveal that the Pharisees believed that righteous persons would receive, after death, new and incorruptible bodies. First Corinthians 15:12-22 is a discourse about resurrection written by a learned ex-Pharisee and fervent convert to Christianity:
Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
Segments of Jewish society could be categorized based on whether they believed in Platonic immortality of the soul (Sadducees) or bodily resurrection (Pharisees and their offshoot, the Rabbinical Jews). The author states that similar divisions based on politics and social class were later evident in the religious history of the United States. What Josephus described as the third of the three classes of Jewish society, the Essenes, most likely embraced Pharisee beliefs about bodily resurrection which were augmented by conceptions about martyrdom. Josephus writes that the Essenes were tortured by the Romans for refusing to renounce their Jewish practices, particularly dietary laws. The 2nd Book of “The Jewish Wars” describes Essene endurance and determination in the face of Roman persecution:
They [the Essenes] are long-lived also, insomuch that many of them live above a hundred years, by means of the simplicity of their diet; nay, as I think, by means of the regular course of life they observe also. They contemn the miseries of life, and are above pain, by the generosity of their mind. And as for death, if it will be for their glory, they esteem it better than living always; and indeed our war with the Romans gave abundant evidence what great souls they had in their trials, wherein, although they were tortured and distorted, burnt and torn to pieces, and went through all kinds of instruments of torment, that they might be forced either to blaspheme their legislator, or to eat what was forbidden them, yet could they not be made to do either of them, no, nor once to flatter their tormentors, or to shed a tear; but they smiled in their very pains, and laughed those to scorn who inflicted the torments upon them, and resigned up their souls with great alacrity, as expecting to receive them again.
Josephus’s described the Essenes in terms that the Romans could relate to, brave endurance in the midst of torment, a trait that Romans would later admire in Christian martyrs. Josephus uses the word “soul” when describing resurrection, but his intent to refer to bodily resurrection becomes clear in his discussion of the suicides of the defenders of Masada. Although Josephus portrays the defenders as comparable to the Greek philosophers, he was inwardly aware of their belief in physical resurrection. This renown act of martyrdom concluded the First Jewish Revolt against Rome. In the 8th chapter of the 7th Book of “The Jewish Wars” the historian inserts an imagined speech, a spur to heroism, by Eleazar ben Yair, one of the leaders of the defenders of Masada against the Roman siege. Below is an excerpt from Eleazar's exhortation:
Since we, long ago, my generous friends, resolved never to be servants to the Romans, nor to any other than to God himself, who alone is the true and just Lord of mankind, the time is now come that obliges us to make that resolution true in practice. And let us not at this time bring a reproach upon ourselves for self-contradiction, while we formerly would not undergo slavery, though it were then without danger, but must now, together with slavery, choose such punishments also as are intolerable; I mean this, upon the supposition that the Romans once reduce us under their power while we are alive.
We were the very first that revolted from them, and we are the last that fight against them; and I cannot but esteem it as a favor that God hath granted us, that it is still in our power to die bravely, and in a state of freedom, which hath not been the case of others, who were conquered unexpectedly. It is very plain that we shall be taken within a day's time; but it is still an eligible thing to die after a glorious manner, together with our dearest friends.
A passage in the Book of Acts, Luke’s record of words spoken by Paul, confirms that controversy about the nature of life after death persisted in Judea into the First Century CE. Here is Acts 23:6-9:
But when Paul perceived that the one part were Sadducees, and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee: of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question. And when he had so said, there arose a dissension between the Pharisees and the Sadducees: and the multitude was divided. For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit: but the Pharisees confess both. And there arose a great cry: and the scribes that were of the Pharisees' part arose, and strove, saying, We find no evil in this man: but if a spirit or an angel hath spoken to him, let us not fight against God.
By the First Century CE, both Jewish beliefs about resurrection and Greek belief in the immortality of the soul were evident in Jewish culture. The predominance of either system in various religious texts varied according to the social standing and predispositions of the writers. The heterogenous nature of these texts reflects social fragmentation that accompanied the Greek conquests of the Fourth Century BCE. Beginning in the First Century BCE, opposing views about the afterlife coalesced within the context of distinct and well-defined social classes. Occasionally, these viewpoints overlapped, but for the most part they faithfully reflected the doctrines and the aspirations of the groups that produced them.
The First Century sectarian group that the author designates the “Jesus Movement” is described as a millenarian group. At the dawn of the Twentieth Century, apocalypticism grew to dominate contemporary assessments of the life and legacy of Jesus Christ. In 1906 Albert Schweitzer wrote a book titled “The Quest of the Historical Jesus.” Schweitzer takes the position that the life and thinking of Jesus must be interpreted in the light of Jesus' own convictions, which he characterizes as those of "late Jewish eschatology" and that Jesus defies any attempt at understanding him by making parallels to the ways of thinking or feeling of modern times. In Schweitzer's view, Jesus genuinely believed that his ministry would bring about the end of history and did not see any prolonged period elapsing between his time on earth and God's final judgment. The author writes that “Jesus was an apocalypticist, at least in some of his teaching, and that fact must be faced squarely.” He also notes that “There are some strong logical reasons why Jesus must have headed an apocalyptic movement.”
Enlightenment philosophers had called into question the historicity of the Gospel. To counter this antireligious trend, several 19th and 20th century scholars developed analytical criteria that could be applied to any historical source, including the New Testament. It is logical to conclude from the written record that Jesus lived as a Jew and died for his beliefs, that the Romans regarded his doctrine as subversive, and because his followers expected he would immediately return after his ascension, he must have been the leader of a small apocalyptic movement. Based on the Book of Daniel and other writings, his followers believed that, after his ascent, Jesus became enthroned beside God in heaven, thus inaugurating the final consummation of history. The Gospel identification of Jesus with the Son of Man of the Book of Daniel emerged only after the resurrection. Daniel 7:13-14 describes this manlike figure:
I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.
Psalms 8 and 110, taken together with the verses from Daniel, support the identification of Jesus with the Son of Man. Here is Psalm 8:
(To the chief Musician upon Gittith, A Psalm of David.) O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!
Here is Psalm 110:
(A Psalm of David.) The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. The LORD shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth. The LORD hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek. The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath. He shall judge among the heathen, he shall fill the places with the dead bodies; he shall wound the heads over many countries. He shall drink of the brook in the way: therefore shall he lift up the head.
The combination of the three preceding passages serves as a narrative of the resurrection and ascension of Jesus to become enthroned next to God. The visions of Daniel 7:12 contain first biblical references to the resurrection of the dead, and the earliest Christians naturally associated these prophecies with their resurrected founder. Apocalypticism alone, however, cannot explain the success of Jesus’ earthly ministry since the Judean wilderness was replete with apocalyptic sects and their charismatic leaders. His example and teachings distinguished Christ from the militantly rebellious Zealots and quietly rebellious separatists such as the Qumran community. The Book of Acts discloses that early Christians pooled their resources, a form of primitive communalism like that of Qumran. This implied bias against private property, wealth, and wealthy people presented a barrier to properous aspiring Christians. The humble social background of the typical church member is described in First Corinthians 1:26-29:
For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence.
Jesus was a visionary but, atypical for his time and place, did not create an elaborate literary apocalypse. The New Testament account of Jesus and his kinsman John the Baptist portrays them both as apocalyptic Jews. Both stressed an urgent need for repentance, but Jesus augmented his appeals with prophetic warnings about divine retribution against those who refuse to renounce their sin, as well as warnings to his followers that, in this world, they would suffer tribulation. After his death by crucifixion, a resurrected Jesus appeared before his followers, convincing them that he had been raised to divine and angelic status. They also believed that this resurrection signaled the imminent end of time. This end did not occur as soon as the first Christians expected it would. The delay required adjustments to their eschatological timetable which have continued to evolve up to the present. Peter, leader of the early Christians, assures them that the promise of Christ’s return will ultimately, if not immediately be fulfilled. Below is Second Peter 3:1-12:
This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance: That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour: Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus obfuscates his Messiahship until the night of his trial before the Sanhedrin. In Mark 8:27-31, he commands his disciples to keep this information private:
And Jesus went out, and his disciples, into the towns of Caesarea Philippi: and by the way he asked his disciples, saying unto them, Whom do men say that I am? And they answered, John the Baptist: but some say, Elias; and others, One of the prophets. And he saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Peter answereth and saith unto him, Thou art the Christ. And he charged them that they should tell no man of him. And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
When Jesus finally reveals that he is the Messiah, he is immediately sentenced to death, an incident that explains why he hesitated to reveal his true identity before the conclusion of his earthy ministry. Below is Mark 14:60-65:
And the high priest stood up in the midst, and asked Jesus, saying, Answerest thou nothing? what is it which these witness against thee? But he held his peace, and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. Then the high priest rent his clothes, and saith, What need we any further witnesses? Ye have heard the blasphemy: what think ye? And they all condemned him to be guilty of death. And some began to spit on him, and to cover his face, and to buffet him, and to say unto him, Prophesy: and the servants did strike him with the palms of their hands.
Jesus died a martyr’s death. For his followers, his death and resurrection symbolized the fulfillment of God’s promised recompense for the suffering of the righteous, as a sign that the apocalyptic consummation had begun in earnest. The verses in Daniel that refer to the Son of Man proclaimed that the identity of this “manlike figure” would remain secret until it was unveiled at the end of time. The first Christians were convinced that Jesus was the figure that Daniel had prophesized. Consequently, they were equally convinced that time was about to come to its end and that Jesus was the crucified and risen Messiah, the Son of God who would shortly return to punish sinners and grant eternal life to his saints.