In the classic Greek view the soul at death descended into Hades, the mythical realm of the dead, where it was judged, reborn to another human life in a cycle of reincarnation, and ideally, after eons of time, could ascend to the higher celestial realms wholly free from the restrictions, contaminations, and imperfections of the lower physical world. Ironically, given this perception of reality, death, which released the soul, was viewed as “life,” while birth, which imprisoned the soul, was like a kind of “death.”
In the second most famous death in Western history, that of Socrates, Plato relates how his master courageously, even cheerfully, drank the bowl of hemlock, choosing death over exile, all the while admonishing his disciples to weep for themselves, not for him, since his release from the body was at hand and he was departing to a better place. He presents an extended philosophical argument on the nature of the body and the soul as he lies dying, concluding, “it is perfectly certain that the soul is immortal and imperishable, and our souls will exist in Hades.”7
Cicero’s Republic, a text much closer to the time of Jesus and Paul, provides a concise précis of this philosophical dualism that was so popular in the Greco-Roman world:
Strive on indeed, and be sure that it is not you that is mortal, but only your body. For that man whom your outward form reveals is not yourself; the spirit is the true self, not that physical figure that can be pointed out by the finger. (6:24)8
Platonic body/soul dualism became the standard belief in Greco-Roman antiquity, even among some Hellenized first-century Jews such as Philo and Josephus.9 The great early Christian theologians, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Augustine, considered Plato a kind of honorary “pre-Christian” and reshaped their exposition of the Christian faith almost wholly in Platonic categories.
As a result it is extremely difficult for people today, whether Christian, Jewish, or in any other Western spiritual tradition, to conceive of life after death other than in Platonic terms—the body perishes and the immortal soul passes on to an unseen realm of the spirit.
THE ANCIENT HEBREW VIEW OF DEATH
The Jewish concept of resurrection of the dead, adapted by the Christians and put at the center of their faith, insisted that the dead would live again at the “end of days,” rising up from their graves in newly created bodies. This view of afterlife, unique to Jews and Christians, developed out of a distinctively different understanding of the human person, the nature of death, and the importance of a body. God “formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7). The phrase in Hebrew, “living being,” was translated in the King James Version and some older translations as “a living soul,” which is quite misleading since it might imply some parallel to the Greek notion of the immortal soul. The Hebrew word (nefesh) simply means a “breathing creature” and the same phrase is used for the various animals that also have what is called the “breath of life” (Genesis 1:24; 7:15). When a human or an animal dies, the breath of life departs and the body returns to the ground, thus Adam is told, “You are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19). So in Hebrew one can speak of a “dead” nefesh (Numbers 9:7). The book of Ecclesiastes, the most philosophical in the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament, provides the starkest summary:
For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of animals is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts; for all is vanity. All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again. (3:19–20)
Apparently the author has heard other views here and there, perhaps from Greek influence, but he skeptically concludes, “Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down to the earth?” (Ecclesiastes 3:21).
Like the Greeks, the Hebrews had a concept of an underworld of the dead that they called Sheol, somewhat akin to Hades, but it was primarily a metaphor for the grave, and was often referred to as the “pit” (Psalm 30:3). Sheol is described as a land of silence and forgetfulness, a region gloomy, dark, and deep (Psalms 115:17; 6:5; 88:3-12; Isaiah 38:18). All the dead go down to Sheol, and there they make their bed together—whether good or evil, rich or poor, slave or free (Job 3:11–19). The dead in Sheol are mere shadows of their former embodied selves; lacking substance they are called “shades” (Psalm 88:10).10 There is one “séance” story in the Hebrew Bible in which the infamous medium of Endor conjures up the “shade” of the dead prophet Samuel at the insistence of King Saul, who wants to communicate with him. When Samuel appears, rising up out of the earth, he asks Saul, “Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?” (1 Samuel 28:8–15). But even Samuel must then return to Sheol. Death is a one-way street; it is the land of no return:
But man dies, and is laid low; man breathes his last, and where is he? As waters fail from a lake, and a river wastes away and dries up, so man lies down and rises not again; till the heavens are no more he will not awake, or be aroused out of his sleep. (Job 14:10–12)
It is surprising to most people to realize that this starkly realistic view of death is consistent throughout the Hebrew Bible or Christian Old Testament. Whether Abraham, Moses, or David, one dies, is buried, and descends into Sheol. The body returns to the dust, the life-breath or spirit returns to God, who gave it, and the “soul” or shade of the former person rests in the underworld (Ecclesiastes 12:7).
Nothing is ever said about any kind of a blessed or vital afterlife, much less the notion of an immortal soul leaving the body and joining God in heaven.11 The Hebrews understood the cosmos as tripartite: the heavens were the spiritual realm of God and the angels; the earth was the domain of humans and all living creatures; and below the earth was Sheol, the realm of the dead. For humans the good earth was the designated place to be. They were forever cut off and banished from the Tree of Life, in the middle of the Garden of Eden, that would have allowed them to be like gods and live forever (Genesis 3). Psalm 115 puts things succinctly:
The heavens are Yahweh’s heavens,
But the earth he has given to the sons of men.
The dead do not praise Yahweh,
nor do any that go down into silence.
But we, the living, will bless Yahweh
from this time forth and for evermore. (verses 16–18)
The notion of resurrection of the dead has to do with a very obvious and simple question—will the dead, resting in Sheol, ever return to life? Death is death and life is life, but is it possible that one who has died and returned to dust might be raised up, escaping the grip of Sheol? And if so, in what sort of body would one come?
TWO IDEAS OF RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD
There are two related but separate concepts of resurrection of the dead in the Bible. The first involves the rare case where a prophet or holy man resuscitates the corpse of one who has recently died, so that the person has a reprieve on death, but eventually grows old and dies like anyone else. The other concept affirms that at the end of time those in Sheol, or Hades, will come forth, newly embodied in a transformed immortal form. Though both can be called “resurrection,” these two concepts have little in common.