The Person in Jewish Thought
Beginning around the second century BCE, there were two independent
developments in Jewish thought concerning the afterlife. Prior
to that point, the Jewish tradition had taken death to be the
final end of human life. One development was the expectation of
bodily resurrection at the end of time. The other was the adoption
of a dualist account of the person, according to which the soul
survives the death of the body. Neil Gillman says:
In their original form, the two doctrines of the resurrection
of the body and the immortality of the soul appear independent
of each other. One knows nothing of bodies, the other knows nothing
of souls. One ascribes personal identity to the body; the other,
to the soul. One teaches that at the end of time, the body will
be revived. The other insists that the soul is immortal and needs
no revival.
However, Rabbinic Judaism (from around 200 CE) conflated these
traditions, teaching that the soul leaves the body at death but
receives a resurrected body at some later time.
Neil Gillman points out that while many Jews since the Enlightenment
have given up all concepts of life after death, there is a current
movement within Judaism to recapture the doctrine of bodily resurrection
(rather than immortality of the soul). Gillman asks:
[W]hy stress bodily resurrection rather than immortality of
the soul? For many reasons: Because the notion of immortality
tends to deny the reality of death, of God's power to take my
life and to restore it; because the doctrine of immortality implies
that my body is less precious, important, even "pure,"
while resurrection affirms that my body is not less God's creation
and is both necessary and good; because the notion of a bodiless
soul runs counter to my experience of myself and of others; because
immortality implies the absorption of my soul into an All-Soul
thus denying my individuality; and because resurrection affirms
the significance of society.
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| Contributed by: Dr. Nancey Murphy
|
