"Heaven" in the OT

[Me Died Blue]

What do you think about the common claim by historians that there was no concept of "Heaven" or an afterlife in the OT Jewish culture?

 

[C. Matthew McMahon]

I'd tell them to try reading their Bibles before reading Field and Stream Magazine. Those who say that have not worked through OT theology at all. It is an absurd statement.

Just a few:

Genesis 21:17 And God heard the voice of the lad. Then the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said to her, "What ails you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is.

Genesis 22:11 But the Angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" So he said, "Here I am."

2 Samuel 22:14 "The LORD thundered from heaven, And the Most High uttered His voice.

2 Chronicles 6:27 "then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of Your servants, Your people Israel, that You may teach them the good way in which they should walk;

Nehemiah 1:5 And I said: "I pray, LORD God of heaven, O great and awesome God, You who keep Your covenant and mercy with those who love You and observe Your commandments,

Job 16:19 Surely even now my witness is in heaven, And my evidence is on high.

Psalm 11:4 The LORD is in His holy temple, The LORD's throne is in heaven; His eyes behold, His eyelids test the sons of men.

Daniel 4:37 Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, all of whose works are truth, and His ways justice. And those who walk in pride He is able to put down.

Zechariah 6:5 And the angel answered and said to me, "These are four spirits of heaven, who go out from their station before the Lord of all the earth.

And so on.


Deuteronomy 32:22 For a fire is kindled by my anger, And shall burn to the lowest hell; It shall consume the earth with her increase, And set on fire the foundations of the mountains.

Psalm 55:15 Let death seize them; Let them go down alive into hell, For wickedness is in their dwellings and among them.

Psalm 139:8 If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.

Proverbs 7:27 Her house is the way to hell, Descending to the chambers of death.

Proverbs 15:11 Hell and Destruction are before the LORD; So how much more the hearts of the sons of men.

Proverbs 27:20 Hell and Destruction are never full; So the eyes of man are never satisfied.

Ezekiel 31:16 'I made the nations shake at the sound of its fall, when I cast it down to hell together with those who descend into the Pit;

Amos 9:2 "Though they dig into hell, From there my hand shall take them; Though they climb up to heaven, From there I will bring them down;

and so on....

If you want to ask whether Jews today believe in hell, then the answer is usually "no." But when you force them to look at the Scriptures of the OT, they have no choice but to admit "yes." (I've done this with Jews time and time again. They simply live in denial.)

 

[Me Died Blue]

The claim was made by my Humanities 101 professor. We were talking about the nature of the Abrahamic Covenant, and what the promises and obligations were on both sides. On God's side, we established that He promised to make Abraham's offspring "as the stars," then he asked what else was promised, to which the final answer was "protection," meaning protection from the other nations. But before that answer was mentioned, another student suggested, "Heaven" as another thing God promised in that covenant. It was then that the teacher replied that while the OT speaks of God's dwelling in the heavens, that there was no concept of an afterlife that the Jewish people of that time were striving to get to, or that such an afterlife was part of the covenantal promises. After stating that, he told us to think on that, and dismissed the class.

 

[fredtgreco]

Chris,

You can read through (or slog through, being more accurate) the first couple of chapters of Ridderbos' [i:6ca5afcf78]The Coming of the Kingdom[/i:6ca5afcf78] as a good refutation to this.

 

[JohnV]

What comes to mind is Job asserting that "in my flesh I shall see God." Combine this with the texts that Matt gave, and no other conclusion is possible but that there was a clear notion of an afterlife in the OT. Also the texts in the letter of Peter and to the Hebrews in which there is references to the hope that the OT saints had in the promises of the coming messiah. They did not receive it in their lifetimes, but did not thereby think that the promises had failed them. If there was no notion of an afterlife in the OT then these NT letters attribute falsehoods to these witnesses of faith.

 

[Abd_Yesua_alMasih]

I had this problem earlier this year with my lecturer although to give them SOME credit (although they still have no idea what they are talking about) few of the verses the webmaster posted above actually explicitly mention an afterlife except for the word 'heaven' and mamby pamby liberals would dispute that the ancient Israelites thought of it differently... Plus you cant point to the NT because these same liberals/atheists/agnostics dont believe the bible is inspired - so while it makes a lot of sense to us those people are blinded to the truth and are trying to reinvent the wheel to suit themselves.

Edit - I should have added that yes the later quotes do make refrence to the afterlife which does cause the advocates of this idea to have a bit of a problem. My lecturer anyway claimed Daniel was the first place you so refrence to it because they had borrowed it off the Babylonians in captivity. That does not explain psalms or proverbs... instead these people date these books later so they fit into their theory

 

[dkicklig]

I wrote a 10 page paper on the Afterlife in the Psalms in undergrad. The Psalms are rife with references to the afterlife. Now if I could just find that paper.