The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Evolution of the Hebrew view of the afterlife: anyone?

Does anyone have some good info./links/book recom., etc. on the evolution of the Hebrew view of the afterlife?

Sherman (away for a few days?) or Bob Wilson probably do. I vaguely remember someone talking about it a few months back…

I’ve read somewhere that they believed that Gehenna only lasted about a year. I’ll have to find it.

shamash.org/lists/scj-faq/HT … 12-08.html

Hey thanks nimblewill, but I was actually hoping to find some info. on the conceptual evolution that took place between the pre and post-exilic period, long before rabbinic Judaism and their clearly defined concept of heaven/hell, reward/punishment was established.

I don’t have much information on the development of the doctrine pre-Exile or post-Exile/intertestamental.

But I thought I would point out that, whenever that rabbinic teaching mentioned by Nimblewill developed, it’s mirrored quite well in RevJohn, especially at the end (though without setting any upper-limit terminus on how long sinners would remain in that state.)

I’d like to see info on this too, but one quick picture we can grab from OT scripture is that they believed the place of the dead was the same for everyone and was called Sheol. It was more akin to Hades than hell. Souls simply descended down to the dull and dreary grave with everyone else who had gone before, where they were unable to use their senses in an ordinary fashion. This is all from memory… and then possibly they would all be resurrected at the end to be judged? Not sure about that last part or how widespread that belief was.