Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

Herman:

The New Testament carried on the tradition that the 
afterlife was seldom mentioned; not because it was 
irrelevant, but because it was unimportant. It was 
theologians who really play up the issue. Even the 
New Testament book of Revelation finds the afterlife 
so important that it is described in only two of its 
22 chapters.

Job, whom from his style I take as a late, pre-Exile 
writer, mentions that after death yet he will see 
his redeemer in a way that implies resurrection. 
Because of its lack of importance, I struggle to 
remember other verses I recall reading. Most of 
Tanakh is narrative and instructions for daily life, 
where discussing the afterlife logically does not 
fit in.

Sheol is the place of the dead, all the dead. It is 
also a synonym for being dead, in a poetic manner. 

By the way, where do you get the idea that the book 
of Daniel was Hellenistic? Daniel wrote well over a 
century before Alexander the Great was born. Or was 
Hellenism the idea already suffused throughout 
Babylon and Persia during the Exile?

Karl W. Randolph.

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Herman Meester" <crazymulgogi AT gmail.com>
> 
> I agree, the various notions exist side by side without cancelling each 
> other.
> However, the idea of eternal life whether for good or for bad (heaven
> or hell) seems to be a novelty of the Hellenistic time that is not
> there in the oldest/ most classic parts of the Hebrew biblical corpus
> (of which Daniel isn't a part: Daniel is a rather Hellenistic text).
> 
> 


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