Must Read: The Death of Death

Neil Gillman offers his view of life after death in this National Jewish Book Award winning second printing of his book. He recognizes that the Hebrew Bible has no clear statement about life after death and that the concept was not introduced into Judaism until after the second century BCE. He cites the Jewish historian Josephus who writes that the more conservative Sadducees of the second century BCE rejected the notion of life after death, while the Pharisees, who stressed the existence of the Oral Torah, accepted the notion. He notes that the idea of a soul is not found in Pharisaic writings until a century later. Since Rabbinical Judaism developed from the Pharisaic teachings, the ideas of life after death and the soul achieved a kind of canonical status.

He points out that Jews and the rest of the western world took the notion of a soul and its survival after death from the Greek pagan philosopher Plato (429-347 BCE). The idea is discussed in detail in Plato’s description of the death of his teacher Socrates in Phaedo. (He does not mention that Plato’s student Aristotle, like the Jewish philosopher Maimonides [1138-1204] rejected the notion and used the term “soul” to denote all bodily functions that keep people alive, such as the nutritive and respiratory systems. All parts of the “soul” die when the body dies, they said, except for one system, intelligence, which joins, according to their science, “the active intellect.”)

He sees three biblical passages, none earlier than 200 BCE, that “unambiguously affirm that at least some individuals will live again after their death.” He notes that the Bible’s nefesh does not mean “soul,” but “life” or “person.” He dismisses Genesis 5:24 that “God took” Enoch and II Kings 2:11 that “Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind” as metaphors, which as other biblical metaphors, is not meant to be taken literally.

One passage is Daniel 12:2 and 9. The first verse reads: “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to eternal life, others to reproaches, to everlasting abhorrence.” Daniel 12:9 is: “But you, go on to your end; you shall rest, and arise to your destiny at the end of the days.” These may be the first mentions of life after death, but they do not speak of a soul. However, they may be metaphors: although the current generation may not see success against their Greek persecutors, later generations will triumph and the dead will be vindicated. In any event, the notion of life after death is in no Jewish writing before this time.

The other passages are Isaiah 25:7-8 and 26:18-19, which scholars date after 200 BCE. The first says that God “will destroy death forever” and the second says: “let Your dead revive.” These passages may express the belief in everlasting life, but many scholars read them as hopes against “the kind of mass dying caused by warfare.”

The idea of resurrection – the reemergence of body and soul on earth after death – is totally distinct from the notion of a continued life after death in an undisclosed place. Gillman suggests that Jews took the idea from Christians who took it from Egypt and Persia, most likely from Zoroastrianism. It is not even hinted in the Hebrew Bible.

Gillman offers many other ideas. He discusses the views of mystics concerning what transpires between death and resurrection. He examines some modern views on the subjects. He admits that he does not know if there is life after death. He speaks of “My hope for the hereafter.” He writes: “That kind of hope takes me beyond the conclusion of my rational self.” Noting that Judaism offers no clear answer, he asks: why be Jewish? And he answers: “Not because it is `the’ Truth, not because it originated in the explicit word and will of God, but rather because of its intrinsic richness, its ability to help us cope with life, to make sense of our world.”

In the Death of Death, Conservative Jewish theologian Neil Gillman writes a history of the development of Jewish views about the afterlife. He begins by explaining that what Orthodox Jews consider history is in fact simply “myth.” Gillman is quite clear that he does not believe that God revealed His word to His special people, but that Judaism is rather the result of some men grasping to understand God. He affirms belief in God and believes that God has sown knowledge of Himself throughout his creation, but to believe that God has revealed Himself to man is to engage in idolatry. This position is much more assumed than demonstrated.

Most of the rest of the book is a much more straightforward presentation of the history of Jewish views on the afterlife. Like most scholars, Gillman finds little evidence of firm views on any kind of afterlife in the earlier books of the Old Testament. His review of the relevant passages is informative as he traces an increased concern for the afterlife, culminating in the affirmation of bodily resurrection. Although Gillman entertains the possibility that foreign influence was at least partly responsible for the development of resurrection belief, he seems to lean towards it being a natural outgrowth of core Jewish belief.

As we move beyond the Old Testament, Gillman continues tracing Jewish beliefs, noting the introduction of the concept of the immortality of the spirit. His use of sources is somewhat less helpful here. Although Jewish sources are reviewed proficiently, he gives insufficient attention to first century Christian sources. While lamenting a lack of sources about the Pharisees – and dismissing the Torah as a credible source for their beliefs – he gives short shrift to valuable Christian sources from the time period, such as Paul’s letters and Acts.

Gillman then charts the “Canonization” of bodily resurrection in Jewish thought through the Talmud and into the Middle Ages. He spends an entire chapter on Maimonides, a Jewish philosopher whom he credits with moving Judaism away from bodily resurrection to an emphasis on spiritual resurrection. Thereafter, he discusses the mystics, who also played a role in spiritualizing Jewish afterlife belief. Add in the Enlightenment and Jewish intellectual, though not religious, assimilation into modern Europe, and the Reform and Conservative Judaism of the 19th century has largely abandoned bodily resurrection, once the cornerstone of its faith, in favor of spiritual immortality, the hallmark of Judaism’s long-time competitor, Greek philosophy. Little space is given to the Orthodox.

But Gillman’s book is not just about history, it is about the present. He sees a return to an emphasis on bodily resurrection in Reform and Conservative Judaism, though still couched in terms such as “symbol” and “myth.” The return to an emphasis on bodily resurrection is explained well as a return to Judaism’s emphasis on God’s concern for the present life and his power to shape our futures. But as with the author’s own apparent re-embrace of bodily resurrection, it is unclear just what is meant. It is accepted, but only as “myth” and “symbol.” To Gilman, to believe it is literally true is to “trivialize” God. This assertion, like the one that to believe God revealed His word to Moses is to engage in anti-Jewish idolatry, are disappointingly conclusory. It comes across more as one mired in quasi-naturalistic assumptions than a rigorous theological or even philosophical conclusion.

The history in the book, with the exception of neglecting Christian sources and the knowledge they can shed on Second Temple Jewish afterlife beliefs, is well presented. Gillman ably covers 3,000 years of Jewish attitudes on the afterlife. Also well presented is the reasoning behind certain shifts in beliefs and the leading thinkers behind those shifts. The book, however, is steeped in the author’s less-than-adequately-explained use of terms such as “symbol” and “myth” and “literal,” that left this reader at times wondering just what it is that was really believed. Put another way, what do you really believe if you say you believe in bodily resurrection but only as a “symbol” and not as a “literal” redemption? In what way does that give hope and affirm God’s goodness and value for the present human condition? There may be answers to these questions but I did not find them in this book.

I liked this book because it presented a fairly objective historicist approach of the subject of immortality and the afterlife throughout the age of literature.

The author discusses the impact that Platonian and Socratic thought had on the subject of the immortality of the soul and how this notion in conjuction with the Hebraic notion of resurrection gave rise to a whole new theology.

The beginning few chapters dealing with the “original sin” and the purpose of death were intriguing and would be a great subject of debate in any arena of thought.

Medieval thought through the influence of Maimonides is disussed in fairly comprehensive terms and the adoption of logical thought and the age of reason becomes obvious as its influence is spread throughout the centuries.

Overall, a decent argument is presented on how the transformation of religious thought to answer questions introduced through critical thinking of the afterlife.

Professor Gillman gives us an excellent history of the origin and development of two doctrines relating to the afterlife, bodily resurrection and the concept of the immortal soul. In the use of Hebrew biblical reference, (before reading his book I never realized there were so few), he reviews the seeming contradictions between the more numerous texts which describe immediate human fate after death versus bodily resurrection. He also reviews the Platonic/Hellenist origin of the immortal soul doctrine which has high influence on current Jewish thought in reformed and conservative circles to this day. He reveals however that there is recent development among Jewish scholars challenging this concept and reviews these arguments as well. There are various interesting side topics touched on such as the Noahide commandments and the suffering servant of Isaiah 53. As a non-Jew, I found it refreshing that in Prof. Gillman’s conclusions he finds the doctrine to be universally applicable to all peoples; not a salvation exclusive only to one who is born Jewish. This book is certainly worth reading to anyone interested in the subject. The only area I found somewhat scanty was the time period from Daniel to Josephus as far as the doctrinal position of the developing pharisaic movement (perhaps because there is not much available writing on the doctrine from that time).

Rabbi Gilman starts out with the proposition that an afterlifeis a Jewish concept but that the development of this concept is postbiblical. In other words, for the most part, the Jewish Bible implies that the soul does not live on after death with the possible exceptions of references made in the books of Daniel and Ezikiel. However, in post Biblical tradition, the concept of after life takes two forms, first, the body and soul die but are later resurrected. The second concept is that of the soul living on in an afterlife. Rabbi Gilamn concludes his fascinating study by giving a view of each of the branches’ of Judaism stands on the issue. Each branch, even the Reform, acknowledge some form of afterlife. This book is fascinating and I highly recommend it to those interested in the subject.