Judaism & Death

[Gregory Matthews]

SDA Author Dr. Jan Sigvartsen, has had two academic books accepted for publication that discuss Jewish beliefs in the condition of people at death, as expressed in the writings of the apocrypha and in the pseudepigrapha.  Those beliefs typically included a belief in an immortal soul and a resurrection of the body. 

https://alumni.andrews.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Andrews-University-Press-Release-Jan-Sigvartsen-1.pdf

 

[Gustave]

My understanding was that the Sadducees were the only Jewish group who rejected that there was [continuing] life [of the soul] after death. I don't think there is any doubt that the Pharisees taught this, the Apostles believed this & that Jesus affirmed it when He answered the question the Sadducees didn't answer. The concept can be seen in perhaps one of the oldest Books in the Bible. 

Job 14,18:  But the mountain falls and crumbles away, and the rock is removed from its place; the waters wear away the stones; the torrents wash away the soil of the earth;  so thou destroyest the hope of man. Thou prevailest for ever against him, and he passes; thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away. His sons come to honor, and he does not know it; they are brought low, and he perceives it not. He feels only the pain of his own body, and he mourns only for himself.

What is perhaps the oldest book in the Bible depicts the dead as not having awareness on what happens under the sun after death but in some way being aware - i.e. some form of consciousness. 

As a practicing Jew there is no doubt Jesus and the Apostles (during their lifetime) would have participated in many Kaddish services - the Kaddish is said for no more than 11 months  because the Rabbi's believed no one was "bad enough" to be tortured in gehinom beyond 12 months. This wasn't abstract or minority belief in Judaism - it was as standard and common to Jewish belief as is the Sabbath is to SDA's. Knowing this adds background to what Jesus said about the worm not dying and the fire being unquenched. Obviously I am the odd man out here.