Tanakh
The belief in a resurrection of some or all of the dead is attested only rarely in the Tanakh and in relatively late writings. Much more widespread and older was the idea of the primeval and paternal stories in Genesis, according to which people who obeyed God's commandments were rewarded for this with a long earthly life and buried as dead with their ancestors (Gen 25:8 EU):
"Abraham ... died in a good old age, when he was old and full of life, and was gathered unto his fathers."
From the prophets Elijah (1 Kings 17:17-24 EU) and Elisha (2 Kings 4:17-37 EU) the Bible records the temporary revival of some who had already died, as a sign of their endowment with God's Spirit.
The idea of a resurrection of the Israelites is first hinted at in 8th century prophecy. So it says in Hos 6,1-3 EU:
"Come, let us return to the Lord! For he has torn (wounds), he will also heal us; he has wounded, he will also bind up. After two days he restores us to life; on the third day he restores us, and we live before his face. Let us strive for knowledge, for the knowledge of the Lord. He comes as surely as the dawn; he comes to us like the rain, like the spring rain that waters the earth."
The future action of God is presented here like a healing of the sick and as a certainty like the change of the day and seasons. The new restores the previous life of those struck by God's judgment in such a way that they henceforth fulfill God's will. This signifies an inner-historical turn for the good and was not related to a new life of the righteous after death until after the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 BC.
Since the Israelite faith regarded the body and soul of man as an inseparable mortal unity (Gen 2:7, 19 EU), biblical images of resurrection also encompass the whole person. Thus, in his vision of the bones of the dead, the prophet Ezekiel, who was active in the Babylonian exile (586-539 B.C.), experienced God's power over death as the restoration of all decayed Israelites to a new bodily life that includes the emptying of the graves (Ez 37:1-14 EU). Similarly, the post-exilic so-called Isaiah Apocalypse says in Isa 26:19 EU:
"His dead shall rise, and their dead bodies shall be raised."
Again, this is about Israel, not mankind. The passage uses the verbs "resurrect" and "raise" in parallel, and in the passivum divinum points unspokenly to the author of the new life. In Isa 25:8 EU it was previously said of YHWH:
"He will swallow up death forever. And YHWH will wipe away the tears from all faces, and will lift up the reproach of his people in all lands: for the LORD hath spoken it."
In the Tanakh, resurrection or raising from the dead means first of all God's exclusive act of salvation for his chosen people, which at the same time opens a perspective for all people. Here the overcoming of death is promised to them as a necessary component of salvation for Israel. Inner-temporal and other-worldly salvation go hand in hand.
It was not until the book of Daniel (from 170 B.C.) that this promise was extended to the expectation of a universal raising of the dead at the final judgment of God (Dan 12:2-3 EU):
"And many that lie asleep in the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to everlasting shame and disgrace."
Jewish apocalyptic connected this thought with the aeon turn, i.e. an abortion of world history brought about by God, which would completely transform creation. The fate of the individual human being was included in this collective expectation. Theological starting point is God's unbreakable self-commitment to the final liberation of Israel, expressed in the 1st commandment (Ex 20,2 EU), which aims at the salvation of all peoples from inhuman tyranny (Dan 7,13-14 EU). The faithful Jews held on to this hope even in the hopeless threat to their existence.
Deuterocanonical writings
The 2nd Book of Maccabees (100-50 B.C.), written after the Maccabean Wars, teaches in several chapters the resurrection of the righteous martyrs among the Jews killed for their fidelity to YHWH's Torah. For example, chapter 7, considered a legendary insertion, describes the torture death of seven brothers and their mother ordered by the foreign ruler Antiochos IV. They stand for all Jews who, in the face of certain cruel death, refused the required renunciation of their faith and held fast to YHWH's commandments. They are cited as witnesses to God's power over this unjust death to encourage later generations to faithfulness and martyrdom and to announce God's judgment to the foreign rulers:
"We would rather die than transgress the laws of our fathers. [...]
Thou inhuman! You take this life from us; but the King of the world will raise us up to a new, eternal life, because we have died to
his laws. [...]
God has given us the hope that he will raise us up again. That is what we gladly wait for when we die at the hands of men. But for you there is no resurrection to life. [...]
You are a corruptible man, and yet you have power among men to do what you will. But do not think that our people are forsaken by God. Go on! You will feel his mighty power when he chastises you and your descendants. [...]
You will do nothing. For we ourselves are to blame for our suffering, because we have sinned against our God. That is why such inconceivable things have happened. But do not think that you will get away in one piece, for you have dared to fight with God."
Finally, the Mother relates the doctrine of the resurrection in summary to God's power to create:
"... The Creator of the world formed the nascent man when he came into being; he knows the genesis of all things. He graciously restores breath and life to you because you do not pay attention to yourselves now for the sake of his laws. [...]
Look at the heavens and the earth; see all that there is, and realize: God created that out of nothing, and so also do men come into being. Do not be afraid of this executioner; be worthy of your brothers and accept death! Then I will get you back with your brothers at the time of grace."
The belief in the resurrection of the righteous, however, remained controversial in Judaism at that time. In many cases, defeats and deaths of Jewish freedom fighters were attributed to previously committed commandment transgressions that called into question their future justification by God. In contrast, the leader of a successful liberation battle also prayed and sacrificed for the resurrection of the Jews who had fallen because of idolatry, as an episode in the 12th chapter of the 2nd Book of Maccabees shows:
["But the noble Judas exhorted the people to keep themselves pure from sins, for they had seen with their own eyes the consequences of the offense of the fallen ones. He organized a collection, in which all took part, and sent about two thousand silver drachmas to Jerusalem, that they might offer a sin-offering there. In this he acted very beautifully and nobly; for he thought of the resurrection. For if he had not expected the fallen to rise again, it would have been superfluous and useless to pray for the dead. Also he kept in mind the glorious reward that is deposited for those who die in piety."
In the Dead Sea Scrolls, the resurrection is only hinted at in fragment 4Q521 as a statement about God:
"He heals the pierced, revives the dead, proclaims justice to the poor ..."
This was a continuation of the prophetic tradition, according to which God would save and rehabilitate from death precisely those who had fallen short in this life, the poor, those who had been unjustly killed.
In the Ethiopic Book of Enoch the hope of resurrection is already found in early passages (c. 50 B.C.), which, however, are not yet clearly distinguished from the idea of an immortal soul (among others 20:8; 22; 90:33, 38; 91:10; 92:3). It is not until the imagery speeches added around 70-100 AD (chapters 37-71) that the future transformation of dead and decayed bodies into a new life on this earth is anticipated. "In those days the earth will return those who are gathered in it, and Sheol also will return what it has received, and hell will give out what it owes" (Enoch 51:1). Previously (46:6; 48:9-10) this promise is limited to the righteous, sinners are excluded from it.
The 4th Book of Ezra (7:32) and the Syriac Baruch Apocalypse (21:23f; 42:7; 50:2) also allude to these passages. In these, however, resurrection is thought of as the reunion of an immortal soul with a new mortal body in a transformed earth. Even younger Jewish writings such as the Pseudo-Philo tried to balance both complexes of ideas in different ways.
Rabbinic Theology
As the Sadducee question (Mk 12,18-27 EU) shows, the bodily resurrection was a controversial issue in 1st century Palestinian Judaism. The Sadducees rejected this belief because it did not occur directly anywhere in the Torah, which for them was the only valid document of revelation. The Pharisees on the other hand, following later Jewish writings, believed predominantly in the resurrection of the righteous (2nd Book of Maccabees), some also in a resurrection of all the dead at the final judgment (Book of Daniel).
Grave inscriptions of that time do not clearly show the belief in resurrection. A statement that the buried person (Greek psyche) was alive, for example, left open whether this meant a new body or a spiritual continuation of life. Accordingly, ideas about life after death in Jewish theology between 100 B.C. and A.D. 100 were neither uniform nor prioritized over other beliefs.
After the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 AD, the Pharisees or rabbis (Torah teachers) gained the leading role in Judaism. They gave priority to communal prayer in synagogue worship over the Temple sacrifice cult, which could no longer be practiced. The eighteen petition prayer summarizes the consensus of faith at that time on the resurrection in the 2nd Benediction:
"Thou art mighty for ever, O Lord; thou quickenest the dead; thou art strong to help. You feed the living with mercy, revive the dead in great compassion, support the falling, heal the sick, release the bound, and keep faith with those who sleep in the dust. Who is like thee, O Lord of all power? and who is like thee, O King, who killeth and quickeneth, and causeth salvation to spring up? And faithful art thou to revive the dead. Praised be thou, Eternal One, who revivest the dead!"
The resurrection is here derived from God's saving omnipotence, grace, and faithfulness to all life.
A tractate of the Mishnah then declared it dogma and excluded from salvation those who did not believe it (San X:1b):
"The following have no part in the world to come: he that saith there is no resurrection of the dead from the Torah ..."
It remained controversial whether the Torah already taught resurrection and what the new life of the dead would be. Most rabbis limited the resurrection to eternal life to Jews recognized by God as righteous; some taught that only Jews buried in Israel would be resurrected. Beginning in the 4th century, it became common to bury the Diaspora dead with some soil from Israel; underground connections would allow their return to resurrection in Israel. In the Talmud, overly material conditions of salvation and descriptions of the life to come are averted (bBer 6 17a):
"In the world to come there is no eating and drinking, no procreation and no multiplication ... Rather, the righteous sit there, their crowns on their heads, enjoying the splendor of the glory of God."
For this purpose Bible passages such as Isa 64,3 EU were referred to the world to come (bBer 34b):
"No eye hath seen it [God's kingdom] save God alone."
Medieval
Only Jewish theologians of the Middle Ages attempted to reconcile the conflicting rabbinic doctrines on the resurrection. Saadiah Gaon wrote a separate chapter on this in his work Ha-Emunot we-ha-Deot, which came into circulation as a separate excerpt attributed to Rabbi Eliezer. He taught a temporary bodily resurrection of the righteous in the Messianic Last Days, to which he attributed traditional material propositions, and a completely unimaginable resurrection of all the dead after God's final judgment.
Maimonides put the resurrection as the last of his 13 articles of faith. In other places, however, he seemed to teach the immortal soul. Attacked for this, he explained his belief in Ma'amar Techiat Ha-Metim (1191): the bodily resurrection applies in the messianic time and ends with the death of all the resurrected; in the world to come in the hereafter, a purely spiritual state follows as an immortal soul life.
His main opponents in this dispute were Meir ha-Levi Abulafia (c. 1165-1244) and Moses ben Nachman (1194-1270). The latter declared in Torat ha-Adam that one could believe in God's rewarding and punishing justice according to the Torah even if one rejected bodily resurrection.
Modern Times
In modern times, three doctrines have emerged, each linking to different statements in the Tanakh:
- One assumes that all men die body and soul, but are resurrected bodily in the Messianic age (Sanhedrin 10:1 with reference to Dan 12:2 EU).
- The other assumes that the pure immortal soul, untainted by birth, life and death, returns pure to God. It assumes that this free soul lives on after death, independent of the body (Shabbat 152b with reference to Prov 12:28 EU).
- The third assumes that the soul of man lives on after the death of his body until the messianic time, finally unites with a newly created body and thus resurrects bodily.
In liberal Reform Judaism, under philosophical influence, belief in bodily resurrection is rejected in favor of belief in the immortal soul. Thus liberal rabbis declared after a conference in Pittsburgh in 1885:
"We reassert the doctrine of Judaism, that the soul of man is immortal, grounding this belief on the divine nature of the human spirit.... We reject as ideas not rooted in Judaism the beliefs both in the bodily resurrection and in Gehenna and Eden."
The assembly leader Isaac Mayer Wise (1819-1900) already in 1857 deleted allusions to the bodily resurrection from his Jewish prayer books. He was followed by new editions in the USA, while European new editions of these prayer books transmit the traditional text, but interpret it in the sense of the immortal soul. How this soul lives on after death and what it is, Judaism has never exactly represented.
