Greek Influence upon Jewish Views of Resurrection and Immortality

[Note: I'm currently revising this piece so it will be updated in a few days - apr 10]

Throughout human history, people have wondered about what happens after death. Even the earliest humans had burial rituals and treated the bodies of their dead with respect, and they were sometimes buried with things needed for the afterlife. The Jews and the Greeks similarly had their own views on death and the afterlife, although they disagreed on many points. In this piece, we will look at the evolution of Greek and Jewish beliefs separately and then attempt to trace how the Jewish views were influenced by the Hellenisation process which occurred from the time of Alexander the Great onwards.

The standard account of the evolution of the Jewish beliefs (as found for example in Sanders) states that the belief in resurrection arose during the exile under the influence of Zoroastrianism, the official religion of the Persian kingdom. The Greek empire is then said to have spread the philosophy of the “intermediate state� or the immortality of the soul. These views are being increasingly challenged in several quarters, for example Glasson describes several ways in which the ideas of resurrection could have been obtained from Greek religion, for example Orphism. More recently, Tom Wright has argued that the idea of resurrection came from within Judaism rather than an external entity. He claims that the Jews started to believe that the love of YHWH, the God who created humans in the beginning, could stretch even beyond the grave, leading to a future hope of being raised bodily and justice at last being done.

In this essay, we will start by looking at the Jewish beliefs about the afterlife and see that they are not particularly influenced by Persian or Greek ideas. We will then briefly survey the Greek views on the afterlife and come up with a set of criteria we should look for to see Greek influence in some Jewish text. We will finally survey several different strands of Judaism and see how they were influenced in different amounts by the Hellenisation process which started at the end of the fourth century BC.

Traditional Jewish views on Resurrection and Immortality

If a man dies, will he live again?
(Job 14:14a)

There is not much mention of resurrection within the Hebrew Bible. However, a number of passages talk about death and Sheol. The typical view is expressed in Psalm 115:

The heavens are YHWH’s heavens,
but the earth he has given to human beings.
The dead do not praise YHWH,
nor do any that go down into silence.
(Psalm 115:16-17)

And, as King Hezekiah said when he thought he was going to die:

I am consigned to the gates of Sheol,
for the rest of my years
(Isaiah 38:10)

In these verses, and many others (eg Job 3:13-19), we see a silent, restful, shadowy existence in Sheol. There is no real idea in the texts that the dead are active. Some texts may avoid the subject, because it seems that this life was very unlike the life on earth, although it is quite clear that some form of ghost or spirit of the departed ancestor can be called up. It is equally clear that many in Israel were doing such a thing, because there were many laws against it1 and despite Saul trying to kill off the practise, he still manages to find someone to summon Samuel for him (1 Sam 28). There are other texts which may refer to God taking people out of Sheol, but they could equally apply to God granting them a long life (ie being spared from death)2. In short, the idea of Sheol is that it is a place where people go after death. They sometimes return as ghosts, but never with a physical body.

The Bible is quite clear on the reason for death: It is part of the curse for the fall of man. It does not seem that anyone was particularly gloomy about this prospect of their being no real life after one had died. The authors of the Old Testament simply accept this fact, as is seen throughout the books of history where the death of a king is recorded as he “slept with his ancestors, and was buried…â€?. Death is seen as a rest from the curse of hard work on the earth.

The main idea of judgement in ancient Israel was to do with the present life, hence the Deuteronomic blessings and curses for obeying and disobeying the laws in chapters 28 to 31. As Wright summarises, “If one can see nation and land flourishing, one can go to the grave in peace.�3 However, there are some hints of judgement after death, or of the righteous being rewarded by in some sense being nearer to God. The best example of this which does not imply bodily resurrection is in Psalm 73. The wicked are set up in “slippery places� and God causes them to “fall to ruin�. They are “destroyed in a moment� and “they are like a dream when one awakes; on awaking you despise their phantoms.� (Ps 73:18-20). By contrast, the righteous are continually with God; they are guided by him and afterwards they will be received with honour. The psalmist says that “God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever� (Ps 73:23-26). However, this view is not common in the Bible and the later Jewish thinking reserves judgement until after the dead have been raised.

This leads us on to resurrection in the Bible. We will only survey the two clearest passages, which are in later texts and represent a development of Hebrew thought. It need not worry us how these developments began, however we will see later that they could not have been initiated by Orphism, against Glasson’s claims. The earliest passage is in Isaiah

Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise.
O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy!
For your dew is a radiant dew,
and the earth will give birth to the shades
(Isaiah 26:19)

This passage gives birth to the idea of resurrection as the reversal of the “sleepâ€? of death. As one’s body in “sleepâ€? decays to dust, so it will be raised physically from the dust (with obvious echoes of Genesis 3:19). Earlier in the passage, it is stated that God will “swallow up death for everâ€? (Is 25:8a) encouraging the idea that this new bodily state will be eternal. Borrowing the awakening motif, Daniel writes:

Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.
(Daniel 12:2-3)

This idea of being raised to judgement is a development on Isaiah. As in Isaiah, the resurrection body is everlasting whether it be in “life� or “contempt� (with echoes of the blessings and curses in Deuteronomy 28-31). Against ideas of astral immortality, we must note that the construction of the comparison with stars is a simile. Thus, we see in these two Biblical texts the ideas of bodily resurrection and immortality of that body are firmly linked. This is true throughout Jewish literature: whenever resurrection is found, the resurrection body is immortal.

Greek Views on Resurrection and Immortality

The undiscovere’d country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns
(Hamlet 3.1.79f)

The earliest source of which we have a reasonably detailed knowledge is Homer, and his epics have two passages about the underworld. In the Iliad, there is a visitation from the ghost of a fallen warrior who had died but had not been buried4 Achilles is surprised and tries to grasp the ghost but but it disappears “like smoke�. He concludes that there is a “ghost and a semblance of him [a man], but without real being at all�. Similarly, in what might be considered a conflation of necromancy, Odysseus sails to a highly personified Hades in order to communicate with the shades5. In this scene, there is hopeless despair amongst the inhabitants, although there do seem to be one or two people busying themselves with tasks (eg Minos is judging people), the majority are not doing anything. For Homer therefore, all the dead alike are consigned to Hades. They are ghosts: they look and speak like human beings, but you cannot grasp them physically.

It is debatable as to how much people used Homer for their views on the afterlife. In Greek mythology, Hades was a depressing place as shown by the names of the rivers: Acheron (“woeâ€?), Styx (“hatredâ€?), Phlegethon (“fireâ€?), Lethe (“forgetfulnessâ€?) and Cocytus (“lamentationâ€?). However, there are many burial sites (notably in Egypt, although occurring independently all over the world) where everyday objects were buried alongside the corpse. This implies that some at least were more hopeful for the future than Homer. On the other hand, there are many tombstones with “I wasn’t, I was, I am not, I don’t careâ€?, which was often reduced to its initial letters (in both Latin and Greek) which shows that many people denied the dead any existence.

Several hundred years after Homer, Plato started his writings. He saw the afterlife as better than life, not least because if you are gloomy about the prospects, how can you possibly hope to get young men to serve in your army? He even proposes cutting out of Homer all the scenes which talk about the afterlife, because they will do the young no good6! Against Homer, who said that the true self is the body, Plato writes that upon death “our real self – our immortal soul, as it is called – departsâ€?7. He changes the idea of Hades to be a place where there is much to delight in (especially philosophy) and says that people don’t return because it is so good. The closest thing to resurrection in Plato is warrior’s near-death experience. Er8 died in a war and was about to be cremated on the 12th day when “revivedâ€? and told many stories about the afterlife. Plato uses this story to expound his views on the transmigration of souls (the theory that at some time after death, the soul goes into another body). Er returns without having drunk from the river of Forgetfulness which all other souls must do before they are allowed to return. These ideas of transmigration were probably inspired by mystery cults such as Orphism or the Pythagoreans. Glasson claims this is the origin of resurrection. He breaks down the views of the cults into (a) recompense in the underworld, with different treatment for good and evil; and (b) the final return of the soul to the divine realm. He says that the new thought in Judaism is that rather than a repeated event, this transmigration only happens once. This is an oversimplification of what these cults believe in because it is clear they do not envisage a bodily return to earth but rather a spiritual escape to “heavenâ€?. Transmigration is appealed to by some of the church fathers to support the idea of resurrection, but only when they are trying to engage with beliefs already existent in the Greek world to support their views and engage their hearers.

Besides Plato, there were also other widespread beliefs such as those of the Epicureans (the soul survives but the universe is reborn periodically) and Stoics (the soul breaks into its component atoms upon death). Still others believed they would become Gods or stars upon death. Resurrection did come up rarely, although never in a serious way; for example in Aristophanes’ play “The Frogsâ€?, there is a character who resurrects although we must remember that this is a comedy which is ridiculing the idea.

One final area which should be mentioned is that of dying and rising Gods. Many such gods were known throughout the ancient world, and were used to explain seasonal things, for example Proserpina was said to spend six months in Hades and then 6 months in life and was used to explain summer and winter. Ezekiel even makes mention that some women in Jerusalem took part in the Tammuz cult (Ez 8:14). However, whilst dying and rising could be expected of gods, everyone knew that they did not die to raise humans. As Wright concludes, “When Paul preached in Athens, nobody said, ‘Ah, yes, a new version of Osiris and such like.’â€?9
The only real example of belief in resurrection is that when Nero dies, three people declare themselves to be the revived Nero. One even managed to rally support from Nero’s old troops. It is to be doubted as to whether the troops even believed this, more likely they were just looking for someone to rally around in order to try to gain power. In short, there were a great variety of Greek views regarding the soul and body after death, but none of them involved a general bodily resurrection.

The Spectrum of Greek Influence

In this section, we will survey the three positions into which the vast majority of our knowledge of later Jewish literature and people fall. The positions are (1) Blissful disembodied existence with no hope of resurrection; (2) No bodily resurrection and (3) Resurrection with immortal bodies. However, we must remember that something can be influenced by Greek thought even if it reacts against it and comes to the opposite conclusion. Indeed, it seems that interest in the afterlife exploded during the second century BC and this continued for several hundred years. This could be a sign of Greek influence, probably increased by the LXX translating Sheol as Hades and hence assimilating the two ideas in the minds of ordinary people.

Blissful disembodied existence with no hope of resurrection
This is the group in which there is probably the most influence from Greek thought, because it denies traditional Jewish views on resurrection and instead affirms a Platonic-style afterlife. Interestingly, most of these texts seem to have originated from outside Judea, implying they are the work of diaspora Jews who are integrating into Greek society.

The main proponent of this group is Philo. He was an Alexandrian Jew, highly trained in philosophy, and he tried to merge Jewish observances and expectations with Greek philosophy (especially Plato). He believed that the soul is divided into parts, one of which is immortal and that the body is a prison in which the spirit (as breathed into humans by God) is trapped. Therefore the main calling in life is to point the soul or spirit towards God and stay away from sensuality. Eventually God will rescue the soul from its bodily prison and it will become “equal to the angelsâ€? (sac. 5). It is always hard to tell how far Philo’s views represented those of the wider Alexandrian community; however it would seem reasonable to say that there were a number of diaspora Jews who accepted Greek philosophy to a large degree.

Pseudo-Phocylides is a Jewish pseudepigraphical text written some time after the third century BC. It is clearly Jewish, but tries to hide the fact; for example when it states commandments from the Old Testament it only uses those which the majority of Greeks would agree with. It has clear Stoic influence and is written in hexameter. All of these things point to it being written by a Jew like Philo who has accepted a large quantity of Greek ideas. When we read the section about the afterlife (102-115), the ideas are strikingly like Philo’s, for example:

For the spirit is a loan of God to mortals and (his) image.
For we have a body out of earth, and when afterward we are resolved again into earth
we are but dust; and then the air has received our spirit.
(106-108)

Here we can see a prime example of Greek influence: the passage is clearly influenced by Genesis 1-3 with reference to the image of God and the body being taken out of the earth and then returning to dust; however in the wider section there is no hope of resurrection simply a hope like Philo’s that the spirit will return to God.

Another clear example of an author being so influenced by Greek philosophy that he goes against the idea of resurrection is 4 Maccabees. This book is based on 2 Maccabees 7, but the interesting thing is that the author removes any mention of bodily resurrection. 2 Maccabees is full of the hope of a future bodily resurrection, for example the fourth brother says to his torturers “One cannot but choose to die at the hands of mortals and to cherish the hope God gives of being raised again by him. But for you there will be no resurrection to life!� (2 Mac 7:14). The best hope expressed in 4 Maccabees is punishment for the souls of the oppressors and that “if we so die [as martyrs], Abraham and Isaac and Jacob will welcome us, and all the fathers will praise us.� (4 Mac 13:17). Thus, the author of 4 Maccabees has made a concious choice to replace all references to bodily resurrection by hope for the blissful immortality of the soul.

There are a few other examples of blissful immortality of the soul (eg the Testament of Abraham (Recension A) and 1 Enoch 103). The important thing to notice is that they are all the work of diaspora Jews who would have been more heavily influenced by the Greek teaching than those who lived in Palestine. Indeed a survey of the tombstones of ancient Jews reveals those outside of Palestine were much more pessimistic, and used more Greek ideas about death than those within.

No bodily resurrection

The only group that we know of in Judaism which denied the afterlife in all forms were the Sadducees who seem to have originated around 200BC and lived in Palestine. They were the aristocratic ruling party of the day, and to keep their positions they would have wanted to maintain peace at all costs. Their concerns were well justified as after 70AD they simply disappeared. From this we can see the reason why they would want to deny the afterlife: someone is not as likely to struggle for freedom from the rulers if they believe that this life is all there is. They based their theology on the Pentatuch, and as we have seen above, there is no real evidence for resurrection in those books. The book of Sirach represents these views.

Resurrection with immortal bodies

In the end, the vast majority of literature that we have is firmly in support of the traditional views of the immortal bodily resurrection which we have seen in the Bible. The Pharisees clearly believed in this, and Herod fears that Jesus is John resurrected from the dead (Luke 9:7-9). 2 Maccabees clearly believes in the bodily resurrection as do several sections of 1 Enoch10. Similarly, the Psalms of Solomon believe in bodily resurrection (3:11f) and also 4 Ezra 7:28-32. The most important development though, is that of the LXX. The translation probably originated in Alexandria, but unlike 4 Maccabees, it doesn’t remove any mention of resurrection but rather changes sections which deny resurrection. For example, Job 14:14 is changed from the question “If a man dies shall he live again?â€? to a positive statement. We see similar tendencies with the Greek translation of ben Sirach: the Hebrew has very much Sadduceen tendencies, whereas the Greek translation leaves more room open for the afterlife. Perhaps the LXX is trying to avoid Greek-speakers reading it without challenging their philosophies.

Conclusion

How the idea of resurrection originated remains debatable, but it is clear that a large proportion of the Jewish populous believed in the resurrection of an immortal body. Following the destruction of the temple, this increased as the Sadducees were wiped out. However, some Jews who were more mixed into the Greek culture adopted Greek views that the resurrection would not occur but souls would carry on living in bliss in heaven.

Bibliography
Charlesworth, James H. (ed.); The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (vols 1 and 2); Darton Longman & Todd Ltd., 1985
Glasson, T. Francis; “Greek Influence in Jewish Eschatology� [Biblical monograph 1]; SPCK 1961
Hengel, Martin; Judaism and Helenism; SCM, 1974
Horbury, William; Davies, W. D; Sturdy, John (eds.); The Cambridge History of Judaism, volume Three: The early Roman Period
Nickelsburg, George W. E.; Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah; SCM Press, 1981
Nickelsburg, George W. E.; Resurrection; Harvard University Press, 1972
Sanders, E. P; Judaism: Practice and Belief 63bc-66ad; SCM, 1992
Wright, N. T.; The Resurrection of the Son of God; SPCK, 2003