Jewish and Greco-Roman expectations about resurrection

Program / Course 16: Historical Defense / Lesson 5.4

What you will learn

• Describe the range of Jewish beliefs about life after death in the first century.
• Describe Greco-Roman views of death and the afterlife.
• Explain what the background suggests about the originality of the Christian claim.
• Evaluate the argument that the background makes invention of the resurrection belief unlikely, and the opposing argument that it made visions more likely.

The big idea

In the first century many Jews hoped that God would raise the righteous dead at the end of the age, and Greeks and Romans mostly thought that bodily resurrection was either impossible or undesirable. The Christian claim was therefore unusual in both worlds. It spoke of one person raised ahead of the general resurrection, and it was raised in a transformed body. Some scholars argue that this unexpected shape makes it unlikely that the disciples simply projected their expectations. Others argue that the existing Jewish hope made it easier for grief and visionary experience to take a resurrection form. Both points need to be weighed.

Key terms

General resurrection

The Jewish hope that God would raise all the dead, or all the righteous, together at the end of the age.

Pharisees and Sadducees

Two Jewish groups of the period. The Pharisees affirmed the resurrection of the dead, and the Sadducees denied it (Acts 23:8).

Second Temple Judaism

Jewish religion and life from the rebuilding of the Temple in the sixth century BC to its destruction in AD 70.

Apocalyptic

A kind of Jewish writing and belief that expects God to intervene decisively to end the present age and judge the world.

Immortality of the soul

The belief that the soul survives death, held in various forms by many Greek thinkers, usually without resurrection of the body.

Dying and rising gods

A label for ancient deities such as Osiris or Adonis said to die and return. Scholars now dispute whether these parallel resurrection.

Background

To understand the early Christian claim one must know what the people who made it already believed and what their neighbors believed. If the idea of resurrection were common and expected, then the disciples might have adopted it naturally. If it were strange, the claim needs a different explanation. The evidence shows a mixed picture.

The mixture is important. The Hebrew Bible says little about the afterlife in most books, and later Jewish writers developed several views. The Greek and Roman world had its own ideas, and these differed from Jewish ones. N. T. Wright, whose large study of the subject is in the readings, argues that the background is decisive. Other scholars give it less weight. This lesson summarizes the evidence.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: Jewish hopes in the Scriptures

Most of the Hebrew Bible speaks of the dead as going to Sheol, a shadowy place, without clear hope of return. A few passages point toward resurrection. Isaiah 26:19 says that the dead shall live and their bodies rise. Ezekiel 37 describes the valley of dry bones coming to life, which in context is a picture of Israel’s restoration, though later readers took it as a promise of literal resurrection. Daniel 12:2 states plainly that many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame. Most scholars date Daniel to the second century BC.

The books of the Maccabees, written about the same time, tell of martyrs who expect to be raised in the body (2 Maccabees 7). Resurrection was linked to the hope of vindication for those who died for God’s law.

Step 2: Jewish views in the first century

By the time of Jesus, belief in resurrection was widespread but not universal. The Pharisees affirmed it, and the Sadducees did not (Mark 12:18-27; Acts 23:8). Josephus describes the groups differently, and presents the Pharisee view in terms close to a Greek idea of the soul. Some writings, such as the Wisdom of Solomon, speak of immortality of the soul in language close to Greek thought. Others, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, have texts that seem to speak of resurrection, though one of them (4Q521) is debated.

The usual hope was of a general resurrection at the end of the age, not a single resurrection in the middle of history. No Jewish text clearly expects the Messiah to die and be raised. Martha’s reply when Jesus says her brother will rise again, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day (John 11:24), reflects this expectation.

Step 3: Greek and Roman views

In Greek and Roman literature the dead typically go to a shadowy underworld, as in Homer, or the soul is freed from the body, as in Plato. The Epicureans said death was the end. The idea of the dead returning to bodily life was mostly treated as impossible. In Aeschylus’ Eumenides the god Apollo says that when a man has died there is no resurrection. The Roman writer Pliny the Elder listed among things impossible even for God the restoring of the dead to life.

Some stories of revivals existed, such as a woman said to have been restored by Apollonius of Tyana in a later biography, and the god Asclepius was said to have raised the dead. These tend to be resuscitations, and the sources are late. When Paul speaks of resurrection in Athens, some mock him (Acts 17:32). The Greek world saw the body as something to leave.

Step 4: What follows for the Christian claim

The Christian claim combined a Jewish word and category with an unexpected content: one man raised, not the whole people at the end, and already raised. N. T. Wright argues that a movement that lost its leader to execution would more likely have said that he was among the righteous dead awaiting resurrection, or would have found another Messiah, as other Jewish messianic movements did. That they said he was already raised needs explanation.

Wright also notes that Christian beliefs about the afterlife changed in unexpected ways after Easter, such as the idea that resurrection was in two stages and that the Messiah’s rule had already begun, which suggests something caused the change.

Step 5: The opposing arguments

Critics reply in several ways. First, Jewish expectation of resurrection did exist and gave believers a ready category for interpreting an experience. Mark 6:14 reports that Herod thought that Jesus was John the Baptist risen from the dead, which shows that the idea of an individual raised was imaginable. Second, grief and visionary experience are common among bereaved people, and a community with a resurrection hope might interpret visions that way. Gerd Lüdemann and Dale Allison, in different ways, argue that such experiences are the best explanation.

A third point is that followers of a dead leader sometimes keep their loyalty in other ways, and some scholars compare later movements that continued after the death of their founder, though how far the comparison holds is debated. The question is whether the Christian pattern requires an extraordinary cause or only an unusual but human one. The next module takes up these explanations.

1. What did Jews of the period expect God to do at the end of the age?
2. What did Greeks and Romans think about the dead returning to life?
3. Was an individual resurrection in the middle of history expected by anyone?
4. How does an unexpected claim count as evidence, and what are the limits of that argument?
5. Could a pre-existing hope shape the interpretation of an experience?
6. What do other messianic movements show about how followers react to a leader’s death?

Examples

Different perspectives

N. T. Wright and similar scholars

They argue that the Jewish background supplies the meaning of resurrection but not the idea that it had already happened to one man. The unexpected combination requires an event as its cause. They regard it as one of the strongest arguments in the case.

Critical scholars who disagree

They argue that the Jewish background made the idea of resurrection available and the transition to belief that Jesus had been raised understandable without an actual resurrection. They give weight to grief, visions, and the pressure to vindicate Jesus.

Jewish perspectives

Traditional Judaism affirms the resurrection of the dead in the age to come and sees the Christian claim as mistaken about Jesus as Messiah. Jewish scholars note the variety of first century views and the danger of reading Christian categories back into Judaism.

Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant Christians

All three see the resurrection of Christ as the fulfillment of the hope in Daniel and the prophets, the firstfruits of the general resurrection. They regard the Jewish background as preparation, and none holds that the faith can be derived from the background alone.

Historians of religion

They caution against loose parallels between Christianity and dying and rising gods, noting that the deities of the nature cults do not return to bodily life in a historical setting, and that the comparison has been overstated. Others find the comparison useful to understand how ancient people thought about death.

Why it matters

Whether the resurrection belief was an expected development or a surprise matters to the historical argument on both sides. A student who knows the background can avoid false claims that Jews expected exactly this, or that nobody had ever imagined it, and can assess the argument from unexpectedness fairly.

Common misunderstandings

Knowledge check

Think it through

1. How much should it matter that an idea was unexpected in its setting?
2. Can a hope make a person more likely to see what they hoped for? How could one test this?
3. What does the Sadducee debate show about how Jews of the time argued?
4. How would the story differ if the disciples had been Greek in outlook?

Independent assignment

The argument from the background

In your own notebook, write 400 to 600 words. State Wright’s argument from the Jewish and Greek background, then state the strongest reply and your own judgment of how much weight the argument deserves. Do not send this to anyone.

Further study

• N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God Read the sections on Jewish and Greco-Roman views of death and life after death.
• Jewish Publication Society, The Hebrew Bible in English (JPS translation) Read Isaiah 26, Ezekiel 37 and Daniel 12.
• William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics Compare his argument with Wright’s.
• Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief Read for the philosophical question of how background beliefs affect the weight of evidence.
• Daniel 12:2 Many that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake.
• Acts 23:8 Sadducees say there is no resurrection.
• Acts 17:32 Some mocked when they heard of the resurrection of the dead.