NOTES
Preface
1 See e.g. Whanger and Whanger 1998.
2 cf. e.g. Mt. Pol. 9.2.
Chapter One: The Target and the Arrows
1 For the details, see Murphy-O’Connor 1998 [1980]; Walker 1999.
2 See JVG 109–12.
3 Substantial bibliographies on the resurrection, in addition to those in other works mentioned here, are available in e.g. Wissman, Stemberger, Hoffman et al. 1979; Alves 1989, 519–37; Ghiberti and Borgonovo 1993; Evans 2001, 526–9. A full-scale bibliography by G. Habermas is, I understand, due to be produced shortly. There have been several recent symposia on the resurrection: e.g. Avis 1993a; Barton and Stanton 1994; D’Costa 1996; Davis, Kendall and O’Collins 1997; Longenecker 1998; Porter, Hayes and Tombs 1999; Avemarie and Lichtenberger 2001; Mainville and Marguerat 2001; Bieringer et al. 2002. Cf. too Ex Auditu 1993. The major monographs with which I have been in implicit dialogue throughout include Evans 1970; Perkins 1984; Carnley 1987; Riley 1995; Wedderburn 1999; and, in rather different categories, Barr 1992, Lüdemann 1994 and Crossan 1998. (On Lüdemann see now Rese 2002.) Older works, notably Moule 1968; Marxsen 1970 [1968]; Fuller 1971, are presupposed (often with as much disagreement as agreement), but there has been little space for detailed interaction, any more than with recent continental scholarship, e.g. Oberlinner 1986; Müller 1998; Pesch 1999. On Marxsen and Fuller, see the useful critique in Alston 1997. I acknowledge a debt, too, to Gerald O’Collins, whose many works on the resurrection (e.g. 1973; 1987; 1988; 1993; 1995 ch. 4) have continued to stimulate, even where, again, I maintain some disagreements. I also here salute C. F. D. Moule, the opening remarks of whose 1967 monograph seem as relevant as ever. To the logical shape of his argument, though not its substance or in every respect its conclusions, I accord the sincerest form of flattery (cf. too Moule and Cupitt 1972).
4 See Via 2002, 83, 87, 91.
5 Carnley 1987, esp. ch. 2. Coakley 2002 ch. 8 takes Carnley as her starting-point, and never, to my mind, sees the deep flaws in his position.
6 A different though related position has been detected in Barth: ‘claiming historical reality for the resurrection and yet denying historians the right to pronounce on the matter’ (O’Collins 1973, 90, 99; see Coakley 2002, 134f.). There is, sadly, no space in this work to discuss Barth’s contribution to the subject; a good way in is via Torrance 1976, another extremely valuable work which cannot here find more than an occasional mention.
7 Williams 2000, 194.
8 Moule 1967, 78. See too 79: ‘the alternatives are not either mere history coupled with a rationalistic estimate of Jesus … or commitment to a preached but unauthenticated Lord.’ The Christian creed, he says, ‘is not a series of assertions made in a vacuum’, but relates inescapably to an event, which is itself ‘particular, yet transcendental’. My only quarrel with that is the ‘yet’, which seems to me to concede too much to the Enlightenment’s split-level worldview (see NTPG Part II).
9 As Coakley 2002, ch. 8 seems to imply. I fully agree with Coakley that the resurrection raises questions of a renewed epistemology as well as of a renewed ontology, but she seems to me to collapse the latter into the former, implying that ‘seeing the risen Jesus’ is a coded way of speaking about a Christian view of the world, ignoring the sharp distinction in all the early writers between the meetings with the risen Jesus during the short period after his resurrection and subsequent Christian experience.
10 It would of course be logically possible for someone to conclude (a) that the early Christians did not think Jesus had been bodily raised and (b) that in fact he had been. I know of no one, scholar or otherwise, who has taken this view. More importantly, it is vital not to collapse one’s own view of what ‘must have’ happened, or what ‘could’ or even ‘should’ have happened, into pseudo-historical statements of what the early Christians claimed had happened. On this, see O’Collins 1995, 89f.
11 As Davis 1997, 132–4 notes, it is easier to find scholars declaring that Jesus was not ‘resuscitated’ than to find a single writer who says that he was. The denial of ‘resuscitation’ is frequently used as the thin end of a wedge towards the denial of ‘resurrection’ itself, which as we shall see is a non sequitur.
12 The Latin resurrectio seems to be a Christian coinage; the earliest refs. noted in LS 1585 are Tert. Res. 1 and Aug. City of God 22.28, and then the Vulgate of the gospels. The standard articles in TDNT etc. are presupposed in what follows. See too the recent study of O’Donnell 1999.
13 Caird 1997 [1980], 50.
15 cf. NTPG 320–34.
16 Against e.g. Avis 1993b, who implies that this is mainly a modern problem.
18 Rom. 10:6–10; cf. Wright, Romans, 658–66 (with ref. also to the use of the passage in contemporary Jewish writings).
19 An example taken almost at random from popular Christian writing: McDowell 1981.
20 For fuller details, cf. NTPG ch. 4; and Wright, ‘Dialogue’, 245–52.
21 Contemporary English usage is confused at this point, with ‘historical’ often being used where, properly, ‘historic’ is meant; see below. Thus a sign on the A446, south of Lichfield, points to ‘The Historical Cock Inn’, though no one has ever, so far as I know, denied its existence or supposed that it only appeared to the eye of faith.
22 Plato Phaedr. 274c–275a, has Socrates warning against substituting written documents for oral traditions: people will stop using their memories, he says. See too Xen. Symp. 3.5; Diog. Laert. 7.54–6. In the early church, Papias is famous for having declared that he preferred living witnesses (Eus. HE 3.39.2–4).
23 A good example is provided by Nineham 1965, 16, discussed by Wedderburn 1999, 9: ‘historical’ events are those which are ‘fully and exclusively human and entirely confined within the limits of this world’.
24 cf. e.g. Johnson 1995; 1999.
25 cf. JVG 109–12; and e.g. Johnson, as prev. note.
26 Crossan 1991, xxvii. For Crossan’s account of the resurrection, see below.
27 Marxsen 1970 [1968] ch. 1; Marxsen 1968.
28 Crossan thinks the Gospel of Peter, or at least this part of it, is early, but would still not say, of course, that it is in any sense historically reliable; see below, 592–6.
29 See the various discussions in e.g. Moule 1968; Evans 1970, 170–83.
30 Polkinghorne 1994, ch. 2, esp. 31f. So, for that matter, do textual critics: Professor Alden Smith of Baylor University points out to me that the great C18 classicist Richard Bentley made exactly this sort of move in restoring the digamma (an archaic Greek letter) to certain passages in Homer whose metre would otherwise remain deficient. Via 2002, 82 is right to say that history moves from fragmentary evidence to full-blown reconstruction, but wrong to imply that this takes place in a kind of neutral zone free from all theological or religious presuppositions.
31 Troeltsch 1912–25, 2.732. Coakley 1993, 112 n. 14 suggests that if Pannenberg had used Troeltsch’s more mature work on analogy (3.190f.) he would have found Troeltsch less vulnerable to the criticism he advances (see below).
32 cf. Hume 1975 [1777] section x, with the famous line: ‘no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish.’
33 Pannenberg 1970 [1963] ch. 2; 1991–8 [1988–93], 2.343–63; 1996. See the incisive discussion in Coakley 1993, with other bibliography at 112 n. 6; Coakley 2002, 132–5.
34 See Wedderburn 1999, 19.
36 On the question of analogy see now O’Collins 1999, in debate with Carnley 1997 in particular.
38 cf. esp. Lüdemann 1994.
39 It is important to distinguish between different types of tradition-criticism: cf. Wright, ‘Doing Justice to Jesus’, 360–65.
40 cf. e.g. Crossan 1991, 395–416; 1998, 550–73.
41 See particularly Crossan 1995, an angry polemic against the work of Raymond Brown in particular.
42 cf. Caird 1997 [1980], 60f., speaking of ‘those sceptics who find that they cannot believe the biblical account of the trial, death and resurrection of Jesus and undertake to tell us instead “what actually happened” ’: ‘Anyone who takes [such conceits] seriously is more credulous than the most naive believer in the biblical text.’ He concludes: ‘We can respect the genuine agnostic who is content to live in doubt because he considers the evidence inadequate for belief, but not the spurious agnostic who prefers fantasy to evidence.’ See too Williams 2002, 2: ‘It is remarkable how complacent some “deconstructive” histories are about the status of the history that they deploy themselves.’
43 Not that some such serious attempts are not made; cf. e.g. Nodet and Taylor 1998; Theissen 1999.
44 cf. e.g. Frei 1993 chs. 2, 8 and 9; in a larger context, Frei 1975.
45 In the same way, a determined solipsism (the belief that the five senses tell one nothing about an external world, but only about oneself) will, if accepted, radically undermine other epistemologies, and the symbolic universes that depend on them.
46 Ac. 2:22; cf. Lk. 24:18–20; Ac. 10:36–9.
47 Sanders 1977; 1983; 1991.
48 Wright, Climax; Thielman 1989.
49 See below, chs. 17, 18. I think this may be a way of getting at what Frei was after in, for instance, 1993 ch. 9, without leaving so many issues so disarmingly open-ended.
50 A recent study on Barth and the resurrection is that of Davie 1998. On the relation between Barth and Frei, see e.g. Frei 1993 ch. 6, esp. (on this point) 173 (admiring Barth for affirming that both the possibility and the need for the factual event of ‘incarnate Reconciliation’, and hence also for faith in its saving power, ‘are … to be explained solely from the event itself’); and, more generally, Demson 1997. The relation between this point and the senses in which Frei admitted a continuing need for some level of ‘natural theology’ (e.g. 1993, 210) raises issues too complex to deal with here.
51 Barclay 1996a, 28 reports this view, without saying whether he agrees with it.
52 Moule 1967, 80f.
53 Thus e.g. Schlosser 2001, 159: one cannot pronounce on the reality of the resurrection, because that would be to pronounce on the reality of the transcendent, which is beyond historical enquiry.
54 Pannenberg 1991–8 [1988–93], 2.343–63. This forms part of a long chapter dealing with ‘The Deity of Jesus Christ’. The same problem recurs in e.g. Koperski 2002.
57 This point can be seen to good advantage in the remarkable thesis of Lapide 1983 [1977]; Jesus was indeed bodily raised from the dead, but this proves not that he was Messiah but that he was a crucial part of the god-given preparation for the Messiah.
59 cf. the recent discussion of Marcus 2001.
61 Nor by the kind of dismissive comments we find in Carnley 1987, 26–8, 85–7, where he implies that the concern to bring rigorous historical study to bear on the Easter events (he has ‘fundamentalist writers and ultra-conservative popularizers of the Easter faith’ in mind) is to show that one has ‘no present knowing of the raised Christ’, resulting in ‘the projected hostility of the believer’s own “shadow side” of repressed doubt’ against the wicked historical critics who point out discrepancies in the narratives, etc. Attempted psychoanalysis of one’s opponents, and making slurs against their personal spirituality, is hardly either scholarly or helpful. One stage worse is Wedderburn’s scornful attack (1999, 128) on those who pride themselves on a ‘strong’ faith as ‘some sort of virility symbol, or as a form of self-assertion’. Would he say that of Abraham’s faith—even granted its specific content!—in Rom. 4:19–22?
62 Pinnock 1993, 9 insists that ‘one cannot make the resurrection a historical construct and expect people to be transformed by it.’ What matters is preaching, witness and the Spirit. While not ultimately dissenting from this, it is quite clear that many people have succeeded in convincing others that, as a matter of history, the resurrection did not happen, and have thereby transformed people in a variety of ways. What people believe about what has actually happened is often an extremely powerful element in human transformation. The moment when Elizabeth Bennet learns what actually happened between Darcy and Wick-ham is, arguably, the turning-point of Pride and Prejudice (see, on this point, Marcus 1989).
63 cf. e.g. Barclay 1996a, 14. For Schillebeeckx’s use of ‘eschatological’ in this sense see ch. 18 below (701–6).
64 cf. Caird 1997 [1980], ch. 13; JVG chs. 2, 3, 6, esp. 207–9.
65 cf. especially the language of 1 Macc. 14:4–15.
67 One or two possible exceptions will be noted in the proper place: e.g. Euripides’ tale of Alcestis, and Herod Antipas’ reported comment about Jesus as a resurrected John the Baptist (below, 65–8, 412). The suggestion of Frei 1993, 47, that the early Christian claim was ‘not all unique’ on the grounds that ‘Gods were raised from the dead in liberal numbers in the ancient world’, thus providing ‘a very large number of candidates for the same unproved miraculous occurrence’, represents a remarkable misunderstanding of the historical situation: see further below, 80f.
68 cf. NTPG 122–6.
69 cf. NTPG 147 n.
70 cf. Neusner 1991, discussed in NTPG 471–3.
71 I am reminded of what the British Prime Minister John Major said about his opponent Neil Kinnock. When Mr Kinnock began to speak, declared Major, he never knew what he was going to say, and thus not unnaturally never knew when he had finished saying it.
72 OED lists two primary meanings: ‘the act or fact of dying’ (subdivided into ‘of an individual’ and ‘in the abstract’), and ‘the state of being dead’. The quotation is from John Donne’s ‘Holy Sonnets’ no. 6. Cf. too e.g. Barr 1992, 33–5.
73 As e.g. in 1 Cor. 15:26; Rev. 20:14; 21:4.
75 This confusion is present in Marcus 2001, 397. Some within the Lubavitcher messianic movement have apparently used ‘resurrection’ language in relation to their Rebbe (who died in 1994) as a way (Marcus suggests, following Dale Allison) of ‘speaking of a dead person being alive’. What seems to be happening, rather, is that some have picked up a misunderstood Christian term and used it in a sense that goes against their own ancient literature. Another example, almost at random, is the essay of Wiles 1974, 125–46.
76 See e.g. the remarkably imprecise, arm-waving remarks of Goulder 2000, 95.
Chapter Two: Shadows, Souls and Where They Go: Life Beyond Death in Ancient Paganism
1 Il. 24.549–51 (tr. Rieu). The last sentence, literally translated, is even more emphatic: ‘you will not resurrect him [oude min ansteseis] before you suffer a further evil.’
2 Il. 24.756. Achilles’ mocking prophecy that the Trojans he has slain ‘will rise up from the murky darkness’ (21.56) is simply a way of expressing astonishment that Lycaon has escaped from slavery in Lemnos; he proceeds to kill him in order, he says, to see whether he will also return from the underworld (21.61f.), which of course he does not.
3 Aesch. Eumen. 647f. The key final phrase is outis est’ anastasis.
4 Soph. El. 137–9. Cf. too, similarly, Aesch. Ag. 565–9, 1019–24, 1360f.; Eurip. Helen 1285–7; cp. Aristot. De Anima 1.406b.3–5. Aristoph. Ecclesiaz. 1073 fantasizes about a witch ‘risen up’ (anestekuia) from among ‘the majority’ (i.e. the dead), but this is dismissed as ‘scoffing’ (1074).
5 Hdt. 3.62.3f. The passage plays off ‘rise up’ as resurrection against ‘rise up’ as rebellion. Astyages, Cyrus’ grandfather, ruled Media 594–559 BC, dying more than thirty years before the present incident.
6 cf. Eurip. Madn. Hercl. 719; Herod. Mim. 1.41–4 (a ref. 1 owe to Michael C. Sloan).
7 Pindar Pyth. 3.1–60; the key passage is 3.55–7, which speaks of bringing back from death one who is its lawful prey.
8 Aen. 6.127–31.
9 Pliny (the Elder) NH 7.55.190, towards the end of a section cataloguing, and ridiculing, various standard beliefs about life after death. Here he refers particularly to Democritus, on whom see below.
10 Callimachos Epigrams 15.3f. There were, however, compensations: in Hades, you could buy a large ox for a single copper coin (15.6).
11 cf., emphatically, Bowersock 1994, 102f., citing also the article on Resurrection in RAC (Oepke).
12 MacMullen 1984, 12.
13 Beard, North and Price 1998, 2.236, with further refs.; Klauck 2000, 80. Some examples miss out the second stage.
14 Il. 9.413 (Achilles); Polybius Hist. 6.53.9–54.3.
15 Burkert 1985 [1977], 197 (referring in particular, as typical of this attitude, to a statue with inscription from Merenda in Attica: details in Burkert 427 n. 29).
16 In Sall. Cat. 51.20, Julius Caesar, speaking as pontifex maximus, declares that ‘death puts an end to all mortal ills and leaves no room either for sorrow or for joy.’ When Dido finds love for Aeneas stirring within her, she wrestles with her duty to her own late husband, and invokes a curse on herself that if she forgets him (‘May the Almighty Father hurl me with his bolt to the shades—the pale shades and abysmal night in Erebus’). Her sister Anna then tells her that ‘dust and buried shades’ will pay no attention to her mourning (Aen. 4.25–7, 34).
17 cf. e.g. Lucretius De Rer. Nat. 3.31–42, 526–47, 1045–52, 1071–5. In 3.978–97 he insists that the mythical torments of Tantalus, Tityus and Sisyphus are descriptions of present rather than future life. For Epicurus himself see e.g. Diog. Laert. 10.124–7, 139 (‘Death is nothing to us’, echoed in Lucret. De Re Nat. 3.830), 143. See also e.g. Eurip. Helen 1421. Other refs. in Riley 1995, 37f.
18 For Epicurus’ critique, cf. Cic. Tusc. Disp. 1.34.82; see the discussions in e.g. Bailey 1964, 226 (Epicurus called Democritus ‘Lerocritus’, i.e. ‘nonsense’), 353, 363, 403f; Guthrie 1962–81, 2.386–9, 434–8. It remains an open question (for Cicero, as for modern writers) whether Epicurus, and other writers like Pliny (see above), were thus misrepresenting Democritus’ main point (that it was difficult to tell the precise moment of death, because, for instance, hair and nails can continue to grow after apparent death), or whether Democritus really did believe in the possibility of the reassembling of atoms. That is the proposal Lucretius dismisses at 3.847–53: even if, he says, time (aetas) shall gather together our matter (materia) after death, that would be irrelevant, since there would be no continuity between the earlier person and the new one. Unless Democritus’ lost treatise Concerning Those in Hades turns up, the matter may well remain unresolved. I am grateful to Christopher Kirwan and Jane Day for advice on this fascinating corner of the subject.
19 Plato Apol. 40c–41c. See too Callim. Epigr. 11, preferring to speak of ‘sleep’ rather than ‘death’ in the case of good people.
20 Porter 1999a.
21 Porter 1999a, 69.
22 Porter 1999a, 77.
23 Clear, brief, recent treatments of the whole subject include Klauck 2000 [1995/6], 68–80; Baslez 2001; also (from one particular angle) Zeller 2002. The older classic works on the subject include Rohde 1925 [1897]; Cumont 1923, 1949.
24 On the non-polemical, merely descriptive, use of ‘pagan’ here and elsewhere, cf. Preface, xvii. For Paul’s self-understanding as the apostle to the ethne, i.e. the pagan or non-Jewish nations, cf. e.g. Rom. 1:5; 11:13.
25 Riley 1995, 67, and his ch. 1 passim, followed by e.g. Crossan 1998, xiv; see below.
26 e.g. Crossan 2000, 103; and esp. Lüdemann 1994, 1995.
27 Davies 1999; see below.
29 A. Y. Collins 1993, followed by e.g. Patterson 1998; see below.
31 It hardly needs to be said that, though like all good historians I write sine ira et studio (Tac. Ann. 1.1; I intend the same irony), the present arguments fall within the wider hermeneutical spiral of which this book is but one part. I am no more a neutral fly-on-the-wall observer than those with whom I disagree; but this does not in principle affect the status or value of historical arguments (cf. NTPG Part II, and above, ch. 1).
32 cf. NTPG 122–6.
33 cf. e.g. Burkert 1985, 190–94; Toynbee 1971 ch. 2; Ferguson 1987, 191–7, with bibliog.
34 Price 1999, 100.
35 See esp. Toynbee 1971 ch. 3; Garland 1985, xi, 30f., 36; and, among primary sources, e.g. Il. 23.43–54, 114–53, 161–225 (making a barrow, shaving one’s head, lighting the pyre, sundry drink-offerings and animal sacrifices); 23.236–61 (quenching the pyre with wine, removing the bones, placing them in an urn, and burying them in the barrow); and the close parallels to all the above in 24.777–804; Soph. Antig. 429–31 (triple offering to the dead), 876–82 (funeral hymn), 900–02 (libations on graves); Virgil Aen. 3.62–8; 6.212–35.
36 e.g. Polybius Hist. 6.53f.; Dio Cassius 75.4.2–5.5 (texts in Beard, North and Price 1998, 226–8).
37 See e.g. Burkert 1985, 190–4; Toynbee 1971, 43–61; Garland 1985, ch. 3. For Charon’s fare, see (among dozens of examples) Juv. Sat. 3.265–7; 8.97.
38 The two great Homeric scenes are the appearance of Patroclus to Achilles (Il. 23.62–107) and Odysseus’ visit to the underworld (Od. 10.487–11.332). For Plato’s Myth of Er, cf. Rep. 10.614b–621d (the close of the work; see below, 78f.). On the hellenistic novels, see section 3 (v) below.
39 On this whole section, see the recent and helpful summary of Bolt 1998.
40 For a brief and helpful survey of ancient oriental beliefs and practices, see Yamauchi 1998. A fairly full account, with some tendentious features, is Davies 1999, Part I. Davies addresses the question of the relevance of these worlds to that of first-century Judaism and Christianity in his ch. 4, which I shall discuss below.
41 On this whole topic, and for more detail, see e.g. Garland 1985, ch. 3.
42 Il. 16.805–63; 17 passim; cf. 18.231–8.
43 Il. 23.65–76 (tr. Murray).
44 Il. 23.99–107 (tr. Rieu).
45 Virgil Aen. 6.756–885, where Aeneas’ visit to his father Anchises in the underworld includes a similar scene of attempted embraces. Achilles’ nocturnal trial has become proverbial by this period: Juvenal (Sat. 3.278–80) can use it as a simile for a drunkard’s sleepless night, even though, in the original, Achilles is indeed sleeping.
46 ‘The wide-gated house of Hades’ is the area owned by the god Hades, not ‘Hades’ as a place (Patroclus is not yet there). On Hades see the material in Bremmer 2002, 136 n. 33.
47 Il. 24.777–804.
48 See Burkert 1985, 195f. for the background.
49 Od. 10.487–95.
50 Od. 10.496 574.
51 Od. 11.51–83; Elpenor’s funeral takes place in 12.8–15.
52 Od. 11.93f.
53 To suggest, on the basis of this scene, coupled with the pouring of libations to the dead and so forth (see below), that the ancient world in general believed that ghosts ‘could eat’ (Riley 1995, 47f.; cf. 67) strains credulity. Riley says this point is ‘missed by some New Testament scholars’; I think it is Riley who has missed the point.
54 Od. 11.206–08.
55 Od. 11.210–14.
56 Od. 11.219–22; cf. Virgil Aen. 6.697–702 (Aeneas’ failed attempt to embrace the ‘form’ (imago) of his father Anchises). It is typical of the extraordinary claims of Riley 1995 that he suggests that passages like these stand behind the post-Easter scenes in Luke and John in which the risen Jesus offers himself to be touched by the disciples (53).
57 Od. 11.225–332.
58 Od. 11.385–567.
59 Od. 11.475f.
60 Od. 11.488–91.
61 cf. too Hesiod Works 152–5.
62 Riley, with scenes like this in text after text, can still find it possible to say that ‘the dead were in the main conceived of as were the living: resting and waking, conversing with both the living and other dead, eating and drinking, and carrying on post-mortem much as they had in life.’ The fact that examples of each of the above activities can be supplied from Homer and so on is irrelevant; the whole which Riley has created is considerably greater than the sum of the parts he has collected.
63 Od. 11.568–75. On the role of Minos in the underworld, see below.
64 Od. 11.576–600. The question of whether this passage is a later interpolation, as some have thought, need not concern us. On this, and on the punishment of only some in the underworld, cf. Burkert 1985, 197, with other refs.; Garland 1985, 60–66, tracing the theme of judgment of the wicked through the Homeric hymns, through the Mysteries (see below) and the mocking of Aristophanes (Frogs 139–64, where Hercules advises Dionysus how to get to Hades and what he will find there), to the great judgment scene at the end of Plato’s Gorgias (523a–527a). See further below.
65 Od. 11.601–27. On the translation of Hercules to the upper world see below.
66 Od. 11.632–5. Odysseus is perhaps afraid he will be trapped and unable to escape.
67 In Aen. 6.290–94 Aeneas, in his visit to the underworld, is only prevented from attacking the monstrous forms he meets by his companion Achates reminding him that ‘these were but faint, bodiless lives, flitting under a hollow semblance of form’. When he meets the Greek heroes, they see ‘the arms and the man’ (an echo, of course, of 1.1) and try to raise a shout in fear—but all they can manage is a faint noise, which mocks their open mouths (6.489–93). This is important to remember in view of Virgil’s occasional use of corpora, normally translated ‘bodies’, for the shadowy residents of the lower world (against e.g. Riley 1995, 55f.), and his indication that the shades can still bear the marks of the wounds they received (e.g. Dido: 6.450f; cf. too Aesch. Eumen. 103; Ovid Met. 10.48–9, and (again in Virgil) Hector, Sychaeus, Eriphyle and Deiphobus (Aen. 1.355; 2.270–86; 6.445f., 494–7)). See Riley 1995, 50f.
68 e.g. Aen. 4.427; Juv. Sat. 2.154.
69 See Price 1999, 101.
70 For the latter, see Polyb. Hist. 6.56.6–15, praising the Romans for reminding people of the terrors of Hades and so encouraging good behaviour in the present life. This conflicts with Plato’s moral stance: see below.
71 For the tradition of speaking words of respect and hope at funerals, see MacMullen 1984, 11, with notes; for the general point, Garland 1985, 8–10. The unknowability of the world beyond emerges in e.g. Eurip. Hippol. 186–92.
72 Il. 1.3–5.
73 The fact that Juvenal can grumble about women comparing Homer and Virgil at dinner parties is indicative of the continuing prominence of the epic tradition (Sat. 6.437; cf. 7.36–9). The description of souls beyond the grave given by Plutarch in De Ser. Num. Vindic. 563f–567f, though influenced by later philosophical beliefs, clearly owes a good deal to the Homeric background.
74 See e.g. Burkert 1985, 192; Garland 1985, 25–8.
75 Antiquaries Journal 28 (1948), 173–4, pl. 25a. Curiously, the day I drafted this section (7 June 2000), the London Times printed a letter from the current Vicar of Malton recounting how two couples who spent all their time playing bridge had asked to reserve grave spaces in a foursome. If ancient children can go on playing with toys in the Yorkshire underworld, why should not modern adults go on playing bridge?
76 Davies 1999, 30–33. Cf. Riley 1995, 53f. But would the ancients have been surprised to discover that the toys, dice and other playthings had not in fact been touched?
77 e.g. Antiphanes (C4 BC) Aphrodisias (frag. in Kock (ed.), Stobaeus, 124–7).
78 See Garland 1985, 69–72.
79 Socrates: Plato Apol. 40c–41c; Rep. 2.363c–e; 6.498d. Marriage and sex: Garland 1985, 159, with several refs.; Riley 1995, 54.
80 Cato: Dio 43.12.1; Scipio (‘Imperator se bene habet’—‘the general is doing just fine, thank you’): Sen. Ep. 24.9f.; cf. Val. Max. 3.2.13. See the shrewd discussion in Plass 1995, 89–91. The whole book provides much food for thought on our topic.
81 Davies 1999, ch. 1. Subsequent page refs. are to this work. For the proposal (which gets revived every few decades) that the Osiris cult is the true background for Paul’s view of the resurrection, cf. Bostock 2001. For the decline in the Osiris cult in the early C1, see Fraser 1972, 1.272f.
82 Davies 28. For Augustine on Egypt (though without a specific statement of belief in resurrection), see City of God 8.26f.
83 Whom Davies 31 confusingly describes as ‘goddess of resurrection, of fertility, of the moon’. See below. On Isis, Osiris etc. cf. Koester 1982a, 183–91, rightly denying (190) that Osiris was held to have risen from the dead; and see the forthcoming article on Osiris and 1 Cor. 15 by Dr Nicholas Perrin.
84 Davies 34f.
85 See Yamauchi 1998, 25–8. The fact that Egyptian beliefs include some kind of apparent physicality for the departed does not mean that the mummies themselves were expected to come to life in a new way thereafter.
86 Davies 39.
87 Homer is generally reckoned to have lived in the C8 BC; Plato certainly lived in the late C5 and early C4.
88 Rep. 3.386–7.
89 Classic statements: e.g. Phaedo 80–85; Phaedrus 250c (the soul is imprisoned like the oyster in its shell); Cratylus 400c (the famous soma/sema pun, ‘body/tomb’, cf. too Gorgias 493a); 403e–f. Substantially the same view is found in later Roman thought, e.g. M. Aurelius To Himself 3.7.
90 cf. M. Halm-Tisserant, Ktema, 1992 (1988), 233–44.
91 Pindar Ol. 2.56–80; Frag. Dirg. 131 (96). See Burkert 1985, 298f. and notes.
92 cf. Bremmer 2002, ch. 2.
93 Laws 12.959b—c: the word for ‘ghost’ here, denoting the corpse rather than the disembodied soul, is eidolon, which in Homer and elsewhere usually means much what ‘ghost’ means in modern English. The most famous statement is in Phaedo 115c–d: ‘you can bury me,’ says Socrates to his friends, ‘if I don’t slip through your fingers!’ Clearly ‘I’ for Socrates meant the soul, not the body.
94 On all of this, see e.g. Phaedo 80–82; Phaedrus 245c–247c; Meno 81a–e.
95 cf. e.g. Apol. 41c; Cratyl. 403f. In Phaedo 68a-b Socrates speaks of lovers of wisdom gladly following their beloved into the next world where wisdom will be possessed fully and truly.
96 e.g. Crito 48c. At 68d, Plato’s Socrates admits that everyone other than philosophers sees death as a great evil.
97 e.g. Phaedo 64c; 67d; 106e; 107d—e; Gorg. 524b. Cf. Ferguson 1987, 195. Celsus (in Or., C. Cels., 5.14) quotes Heraclitus as disparaging physical bodies, which ‘ought to be thrown away as worse than dung’.
98 Cratyl. 403d.
99 ‘Unseen’: Phaedo 80d, Gorg. 493b; ‘knowledge’, rather than ‘unseen’: Cratyl. 404b, though cf. 403a, where fear of Hades is given as the reason why people refer instead to Pluto as god of the underworld.
100 Classic statements: Phaedo 63b; 69d–e; 113d–114c; Gorg. 522d–526d. (The Isles of the Blessed are first mentioned in Hesiod Works 166–73.) Cf too Laws 10.904d–905d; Rep. 2.363c–e. According to Symp. 179d–e, Achilles is sent directly to the Isles of the Blessed, because he was ready to die, whereas Orpheus was refused Eurydice because he tried to cheat death and was not ready to put love ahead of continuing bodily life. Homer, of course, knows of the Isles of the Blessed, but virtually nobody goes there (Menelaus alone, it seems, in Od. 4.561–9; rather more in Hesiod Works 168–73). The earliest statement of real post-mortem punishment seems to be the Hymn to Demeter 480f., on which see discussion in Garland 1985, 61, 156. On post-mortem judgment in Pindar and Euripides, cf. Garland 157, with refs. Minos continues his role in Virgil Aen. 6.432; Aeneas in the underworld comes to the place where roads part, one to Elysium and the other to Tartarus (6.540–43, launching a fearsome description of the latter and then a blissful account of the former). The Isles of the Blessed feature in Lucian’s fanciful tale A True Story (the title is heavily ironic, as Lucian himself points out at the beginning, 1.4). Despite claims to the contrary, even in Lucian’s description the dead are intangible, without flesh; their only attributes are shape and form—though he does then go on to describe their very ‘human’ lifestyle in some detail. They are naked souls moving about, like shadows though upright and not dark (2.12). Riley 1995, 56–8, tries implausibly to suggest that the impalpability of these souls is a survival from an earlier theory, and that Lucian really believes that they have a more substantial bodily life; it seems to me that he misses the point, that Lucian is making a joke about the ‘True Story’ being so thoroughly unreliable and inconsistent.
101 e.g. De Rep. 6.13–16. See the survey of Latin views in Perkins 1984, 56–63; and see below, 110–12, for a discussion of ‘astral immortality’.
102 For Socrates’ readiness to plead a defence before the judges of the next world, cf. Crito 54b.
103 Annihilation would let the wicked off the hook: Phaedo 107c–d.
104 The basic work remains Burkert 1987; cf. too Burkert 1985, ch. 6; Koester 1982a, 176–83; Meyer 1999 [1987]; Bolt 1998, 75–7.
105 Socrates: Phaedo 69b–c; Aristoph.: Frogs 353–71; Rome: e.g. Juv. Sat. 6.524–41.
106 See the brief account in NTPG 155f.; and below, 534–51. Dating the origins of this movement is part of the controversy; it is certainly in existence by the middle of the second century AD, and some would argue considerably earlier.
107 On the soul’s forgetfulness of its origin, cf. e.g. Meno 81a–d; Phaedo 76c–d.
108 Phaedo 116d; 117c—e.
109 For the Epicurean position, cf. e.g. Epicur. Ep. ad Men. 124b–127a; Plut. Non Posse Suav. 1103d; 1105a (the whole discussion in Plutarch is an interesting survey of different views); Diog. Laert. 10.139; and above, 34f. On Stoic debates see Diog. Laert. 7.156f: the Stoics, he says, regard the soul as the breath of life, and hence that it is physical (a soma); Cleanthes holds that all souls continue to exist until the general conflagration, whereas Chrysippus says that only the souls of the wise do so.
110 C. J. Rowe in OCD 1428 s.v. ‘soul’.
111 Arist. De An.; cf. e.g. Nussbaum and Rorty 1992; Brunschwig and Nussbaum 1993. On the importance of the cure of souls, cf. e.g. Epictetus Disc. 2.12.20–25; Frag. 32.
112 Epict. Disc. 1.11.31; 4.10.31, 36. The refs. that follow are to this work.
113 4.1.169; cf. 4.1.123, 159–69. Cf. too 2.1.26. For Socrates during his last days writing a hymn of praise to Apollo and Artemis, cf. Diog. Laert. 2.42.
114 e.g. 1.1.21–32; 1.27.7–10; and frequently. Cf. too Marcus Aurelius To Himself 12.35f.
115 2.1.13–20.
116 3.10.13–16; 4.7.15.
117 3.24.92–4; the passage, unfortunately, is obscure.
118 4.7.31f.
119 Frag. 26 (in Marcus Aurelius 4.41); Frag. 23.
120 Seneca, Ep. Mor. 71.16; 79.12; 102.21–3; 120.17–19. Otherwise unattributed refs. in what follows are to the same work.
121 65.24.
122 Pondus ac poena: 65.16–22.
123 102.25–8. Seneca agrees with Epictetus that for the corpse to be unburied is not something to worry about: 92.30.
124 Ep. ad Lucilium 5.7–9.
125 cf. Tusc. Disp. etc. (Riley 1995, 39f.).
126 Menander Dis Exapaton frag. 4; cf. Soph. Oed. Col. 1225–8; Eurip. Hippol. frag. 449; Cic. Tusc. Disp. 1.48; Diog. Laert. 10.126; Plut. Letter to Apollonius 108e–109d; 115b–e, part of a long and interesting discussion about death being not so bad after all. Plutarch cites several other writers and says (115e) he could cite several more, ‘but there is no need to go on at length’. Quite so.
127 Suet. Vesp. 23.
128 On the divinization of emperors, see e.g. Bowersock 1982; Price 1984; Zanker 1988; Klauck 2000, ch. 4.
129 See Burkert 1985, 203–05.
130 So Burkert 207.
131 Alluded to in e.g. Juv. Sat. 11.60–64, along with Aeneas. See Burkert 1985, 198f., 208–11. On Hercules being simultaneously in Hades and with the immortals see above.
132 Burkert 1985, 212–15. The divinization, or near-divinization, of mortals occurs in Homer also: e.g. Ganymede, the beautiful son of Tros (Il. 20.230–35); his relative Tithonius seems to have been regarded similarly as having been elevated to be the spouse of the goddess Dawn (Il. 11.1; cf. 19.1f). Cf. too Cleitos in Od. 15.248–52.
133 See Beard, North and Price 1998, 1.31.
134 cf. e.g. Arrian Anabasis 3.3.2; 4.10.6f.; 7.29.3; Aelian, Hist. Misc. 2.19; cf. 5.12. Alexander’s father, Philip of Macedon, had already begun to move in this direction (Diod. Sic. 16.92.5; 19.95.1; cf. Welles’s note in vol. 8, 101 of the Loeb edn.).
135 For the establishment of the cult, cf. e.g. Diod. Sic. 18.60f.; for Athenian worship of Demetrius Poliorcetes (late C4/early C5 BC) cf. e.g. Plut. Demetr. 10.3f; 12.2f.; 13.1. On the influence of the Alexander-myth in Rome see esp. Gruen 1998.
136 Bolt 1998, 71f, with refs. See now esp. Collins 1999, 249–51.
137 Beard, North and Price 1998, 2.224f.
138 See esp. Price 1984. Vell. Pat. 2.107.2 has Tiberius being regarded as divine even before becoming Emperor, after Augustus had made him his heir.
139 For Julius Caesar’s divinity cf. e.g. Val. Max., Memorable Doings and Sayings 1.6.13; 1.8.8, where ‘divus Iulius’ appears to Cassius before the battle of Philippi, saying that the conspirator had not actually killed him, since his divinity could not be extinguished. For the comet see e.g. the altar of the Lares (c. 7 BC), now in the Vatican Museum (Zanker 1988, 222).
140 Seneca, Apoc.
141 Dio Cassius 75.4.2–5.5. On this occasion an eagle flew up from the pyre, affording evidence of Pertinax’s becoming immortal; cp. Titus’ Arch (still in the Forum in Rome).
142 Euseb. Life of Const. 4.73.
144 Apollodorus The Library 2.7.7; cf. Diod. Sic. 4.38.5. This may be the source of the legend reported by Theophilus, Autocl. 1.13. The suggestion that because thereafter Hercules marries Hebe, Hera’s daughter, and has children, therefore he is embodied in the afterlife (Collins 1993, 126; cf. Riley 1995, 54) is a category mistake: he has entered the realm of mythology, where the gods from Zeus and Cronus downwards engage in marrying, begetting and so on, without anyone, particularly after Plato, supposing that they were in any ordinary sense embodied. In Seneca, Herc. Oet. 1940–43, 1963, 1976, 1977–8, Hercules is divine, among the stars.
145 See Burkert 1985, 205f. For the suggestion that the heroes had been taken out of their tombs and carried to heaven, see Collins (discussed above).
146 See e.g. West 1971, 188; for an early Egyptian origin, cf. Kákosy 1969.
147 Aristoph. Peace 832–7. For an earlier survey of the material cf. Cumont 1923, ch. 3.
148 Tim. 29d–38b; 41a—d. Refs. in subsequent notes are to the same work.
149 41d—e. Tr. Jowett in Hamilton and Cairns 1961, 1170f.
150 41e—42a.
151 42b—c.
153 Full details and discussion in Cumont 1949, 142–288; other details in Hengel 1974, 1.197f., 2.131. A typical epitaph reads, ‘I have become an evening star, among the gods’ (tr. in Lattimore 1942, 35).
154 Cic. De Rep. 6.13–16; tr. taken from Beard, North and Price 1998, 2.220f. (where further relevant secondary lit. is cited). Refs. in subsequent notes are to this work.
155 6.13.
156 6.14.
157 6.15f.
158 cf. Martin 1995, 118.
159 Details in Hengel 1974, 2.133 n. 595.
160 Johnston 1999, sadly, came to my attention too late for use in this study.
161 Full details in e.g. Burkert 1985, 191–4; Garland 1985, ch. 7 (summary, 120); Ferguson 1987, 191–2; Klauck 2000, 75–9, with recent bibliog.
162 On the festivals, cf. Beard, North and Price 1998, 1.31, 50; 2.104f., 122.
163 Beard, North and Price 1998, 2.105.
164 Burkert 1985, 191.
165 Burkert 194f., citing Aristophanes Frags. 488.13f., and comparing Rohde 1.243–5; Wiesner 1938, 209f. According to Artemidorus (Dreams 5.82) the party was said to have been ‘given by the deceased because of the honours paid to him by his fellows’; Garland 1985, 39 overinterprets this to say that the dead person ‘was believed to be present in the capacity of host’.
166 See particularly Riley 1995, 44–7, 67; followed by Crossan 1998, xiv. Riley, 53, sees that the Homeric souls are very different from the risen body of Jesus in Luke and John, but does not let this get in the way of the extraordinary theory he tries to propose.
167 So Garland 1985, 39f.
168 Garland 38–41; 110–15; 104–10.
170 e.g. Hercules, called up by his mother Alcmena: Seneca Herc. Oet. 1863–1976; though we should note that Hercules insists in this passage that he is not in Hades, but among the stars.
171 e.g. Ovid Met. 14.829–51; Fasti 3.507–16.
172 Hdt. 6.69.1–4. The word for ‘phantom’ here is phasma.
173 Samuel appearing to Saul: 1 Sam. 28. For details, and also of the OT prohibitions, see below, 93f.
174 On this, cf. Dodds 1990 (1965), 53–5, with ancient refs.
175 Burkert 1985, 207.
176 Aesch. Pers. 759–86 and the sequence that follows; Aristoph. Frags. 58: see Burkert 1985, 207f., 431 n. 55. Cf. too Hdt. 8.36–9 (two gigantic soldiers, heroes of old, defend Delphi from the Persians).
177 Chariton Call. 1.9.3f. Refs. in the next two notes are to this work.
178 2.9.6; 3.6.4; he is, in fact, captured and sold as a slave.
180 A famous account in the classical world is Heliodorus Aethiopica 6.14f.
181 So, rightly, Bowersock 1994, 101f. The story of Astrabacus (63 above) is cited by Riley (1995, 54, 58) as evidence that the dead could be touched; but the story, which even in Herodotus appears as quite literally an old wife’s tale, hardly warrants this conclusion.
182 On this, see Vermeule 1979, 211 n. 1.
183 For the tale, cf. Alcaeus Fr. 38; Pherecydes of Athens Fr. 119.
184 Virgil Georg. 4.453–525; Ovid Met. 10.1–11.84; cf. Eurip. Alcest. 357–62.
185 Il. 2.698–702; Hdt. 9.116–20; Catull. 68.73–130; Ovid Her. 13; cf. Hyg. Fab. 103.
186 See Bowersock 1994, 111–13: the text is at Philostr. Her. 135f. Cf. Anderson 1986, ch. 13.
187 Call. 5.10.1.
188 Orat. 3.365.
189 Petronius Sat. 129.1.
190 Eurip. Madn. Hercl. 606–21. See further below.
191 Hyg. Fab. 251. There is some doubt over which Hyginus this is: the best-known writer of this name (ODCC lists four of them) lived in the late C1 BC, but the Fabellae or Fabulae is probably from the C2 AD. Remarkable healings, bringing people back immediately after death like the resuscitations performed by Elijah and Elisha in the Old Testament and Jesus, Peter and Paul in the new, come in a different category: they mostly concern the heroic Asclepius, the ‘blameless physician’ of the Iliad (4.405; 11.518), son of Apollo and subsequently a much-favoured god of healing.
192 Rep. 10.614d–621d.
193 This is the explanation offered by Pliny the Elder (7.51f.) for such reported experiences (including that of a woman supposedly dead for seven days, 7.52.175). Such tales were known to Celsus, the C2 pagan critic of Christianity; and Theophilus (Autocl. 1.13), perhaps a little too enthusiastically, cites stories of this kind about Hercules and Asclepius. See below, 506–8.
194 Alcest. 1144–6. In another version, Persephone sends Alcestis back: see e.g. Apollodorus Library 1.9.15; Hyg. Fab. 51.
195 Porter 1999a, 80. Most of Porter’s article simply demonstrates, what no one would deny, that there was a large tradition of varied speculation about ‘life after death’. The Alcestis legend (already clearly part of the Hercules legend) is his one example of actual return to bodily life, going against the grain of all other classical literature.
196 Aesch. Eumen. 723f. (hard on the heels of the key denial of resurrection quoted at the start of this chapter): the chorus reminds Apollo of the time when, in the house of Pheres (Admetus’ father), he moved the Fates to make mortals free of death. This reference, though, (pace Porter 79f.) seems to be not to Alcestis’ being freed from death (that was not the work of Apollo persuading the Fates, but of Hercules fighting Death) so much as to Apollo finding a way to let Admetus himself avoid death.
197 Pl. Symp. 179b–d. Phaedrus, the speaker, concludes that Alcestis’ self-sacrificing love was what made the difference between her fate and that of Orpheus and Eurydice (the parallel is not exact, since the failure to bring Eurydice back is due to a lack of love, not on her part, but on that of Orpheus). Alcestis, says Phaedrus, has been granted a privilege given to very few, that of the soul returning from Hades (ex Haidou aneinai palin ten psychen); he names no other instances (179c). Phaedrus goes on (179c–180b) to cite as another parallel Achilles being sent to the Isles of the Blessed because he determined to avenge his lover Patroclus, even though he knew it would cost him his own life. This too, of course, is not a parallel to the Alcestis story. Perhaps by that stage of the symposium the wine was taking its toll on clear thought.
198 One example among many is displayed in Boardman 1993, 318 (plate 316). This is the more interesting in that it is found in the Via Latina Catacomb in Rome, set in parallel with biblical scenes ‘which impart a Christian message of salvation’ (Boardman 319). Was this Hercules scene, perhaps, the model for the subsequent regular iconographic tradition of depicting Jesus leading Adam and Eve out of the underworld? On this, see further Grabar 1968, 15, fig. 35; Weitzmann 1979, 242f. no. 219; other details and refs. in LIMC s.v.
199 Bowersock 1994, 117f., citing Origen C. Cels. 2.55 (see below, 523). In the passage, Celsus cites Zamolxis, whom we have already met, and also Pythagoras (cf. Diog. Laert. 8.41, citing Hermippus), and the Egyptian Rhampsinitus (Hdt. 2.122), who played dice in Hades with Demeter and returned with a golden napkin she had given him. It is important to note that Rhampsinitus, like Theseus (see below), is not said to have died; and it is equally important to note that Celsus does not mention Alcestis, as he should have done had there been a ‘tradition’ about her. For Pliny, see above, 33, 65.
200 cf. e.g. Apollodorus Library 2.5.12. See too Diod. Sic. 4.26.1; Eurip. Madn. Hercl. 619–21. Several other refs. are given in the Loeb edn. of Apollodorus, vol. 1, 235. Theseus (king of Athens; already a legendary figure by the time of Homer) had not, it seems, actually died in the process, so the story, like that of Rhampsinitus, is not a true parallel; further bibliog. in ODCC s.v. For Theseus imitating Hercules, cf. Plut. Thes. 6.6; 8.1; 9.1; recognized as ‘another Hercules’, 29.3. Plutarch’s account of Theseus includes the interesting point (29.5): hat Hercules had initiated the custom of allowing enemies to take back their dead, and thus ‘was the first to give back the dead’. Perhaps this was where the legends began; alternatively, perhaps this is Plutarch’s later demythologization of them, as seems to have been the case in his version of the rescue story (35.1f.:.
201 The only reference to Alcestis in the Virgil corpus is the (probably spurious) Culex 262–4, where Alcestis, now properly dead and in the underworld, is free from all care as a reward for her great deed. Juvenal’s only reference (6.652) is the grumpy comment that the wives of his own day would cheerfully sacrifice their husbands, if only to save a lap-dog.
202 Porter 80 suggests that this ‘tradition’ was ‘to various extents continued in later thinkers’, without suggesting any other than Plato (not much later than Euripides) and Aeschylus (earlier). Plato and Aesch. themselves, as we have seen, are quite clear that bodily resurrection does not in fact occur; and the Aesch. ref. (Eumen. 723f.) refers, not to the rescue of Alcestis as Porter (79f.) suggests, but (as the material he cites makes clear) to Apollo’s action in persuading the Fates to allow Admetus, her husband, to be spared his natural death if someone would die in his place.
203 Primary sources include: Tac. Hist. 2.8f.; Suet. Nero 57; Dio Chrys. Orat. 21.9f; Dio Cass. 64.9; Lucian Adv. Ind. 20. Juvenal refers lo Domitian as ‘Nero’ (Sat. 4.38); this is not intended as a compliment. The popular belief is reflected in Jewish and Christian works: cf. e.g. Sib. Or. 3.63–74; 4.138f.; Asc. Isa. 4.1–14; Rev. 13:3; 17:8, 11; Commod. Instr. 41.7. The best recent summary of the evidence, with full bibliog., is Aune 1997–8, 737–40. Cf. too Bauckham 1998a, 382f.
204 cf. Aune 1997–8, 740.
205 On Nero, see further Warmington 1969.
206 Tr. Goold, LCL. Cf. too Reardon 1989, 17–124, with notes and bibliography.
207 On the Greek novel, see Reardon 1991; Bowersock 1994. Nb. Bowersock 22: ‘The beginning of the massive proliferation of fiction can be assigned pretty clearly to the reign of the emperor Nero’ (i.e. AD 54–68).
208 Ariadne and Semele were mortals who were thus deified; this, according to Reardon 1989, 53 n. 1, is the point of the double allusion, in which the usual stories of Theseus abandoning Ariadne, and of Semele being killed by Zeus’ thunderbolt, have been modified.
209 Call. 3.3.1–6 (tr. Goold). Refs. in what follows are to this work.
210 3.8.9.
211 4.1.3.
212 4.3.5f. This, alongside other mentions of crucifixion in the ancient world (e.g. Juv. Sat. 6.219–23) show how frequent this ghastly death had become, and how casually it was inflicted by those with the power to do so.
213 5.6.10 (anistesi tous nekrous).
214 5.9.4.
215 5.10.1. On Protesilaus, see above.
216 5.10.8f., quoting (and adapting) Il. 22.389 (Achilles on Patroclus).
217 8.6.8. The Greek for the father’s question is zes, teknon, e kai touto peplanemai; and the response is zo, pater, nun alethos, hoti se tetheamai. To be alive truly, alethos, here clearly means to have a solid, this-worldly, embodied existence.
218 On the ‘translation’ option, see below. Bowersock 1994, 106 is wrong by his own reckoning when he says that Chaereas infers ‘a divine resurrection’.
219 Corley 2002, 130 seems to conflate the Scheintod motif with the stories of heroes being ‘translated’, and suggests that this combined context is the best one to understand Mark’s account of the empty tomb, which is, she says, ‘a fictional anti-translation or deification story’.
220 See esp. Bowersock 1994, 119, 121–43.
221 Hdt. 4.93–6. For text and full details, see Stephens and Winkler 1995, 101–57. The Photius ref. is to Bibliotheca cod. 166, referred to by the page numbers of Bekker’s edn., 109a6–112a 12; here at 110al6.
222 For other ancient refs. to Salmoxis, regarding him as a cheat and associating him with Pythagoras, cf. Hellanicus Fr. 73; Strabo 7.3.5. From this it appears that it is misleading to say (Bowersock 1994, 100) that Herodotus has Salmoxis die, be resurrected and then be treated as a god. In the one story, he dies and becomes a god; in the other, he fakes both death and resurrection.
223 Photius 110a41–110b11 (Stephens and Winkler 1995, 125).
224 The frag, is PSI 1177, ll. 6–9: text and discussion in Stephens and Winkler 1995, 148–53.
225 Xen. Eph. An Ephesian Tale 3.5–9 (Reardon 1989, 150–53).
226 Achill. Tat. 3.15–21 (Reardon 1989, 216–19). Refs. in the next three notes are to this work.
227 5.7; 5.19.
228 5.14. The apparent reference is to the sort of ‘funeral’ for the absent dead envisaged in Chariton, Call. 4.1.3 (see above), though the reader might perhaps be expected to hear an allusion to tales of tombs that once were occupied but are now empty.
229 7.1–15.
230 Plutarch De Soll. Anim. 973e—974a (full of admiration for the dog that played the part to perfection, in the presence of the aged Emperor Vespasian); cf. Winkler 1980, 173–5; Bowersock 1994, 113f.
231 See the recent translation and introduction of Kenney 1998.
232 Golden Ass 4.28–6.24.
233 e.g. Golden Ass 2.28–30, where a corpse is briefly allowed back from the underworld to accuse its wife of murder; 10.11–12, where a boy who appears to be dead, but is in fact only drugged, rises from his coffin. On this, see Bowersock 1994, 108f.
234 Apoll. 4.45 (tr. Conybeare in Loeb edn.). The story opens with the statement, not that the girl had actually died (as the tr. implies), but that tethnanai edokei, ‘she seemed to have died’. Bowersock 1994, 101 is wrong to say that before the mid-first century AD there is no parallel for such stories; he had overlooked the raising of children by Elijah (1 Kgs. 17:17–24) and Elisha (2 Kgs. 4:18–37). On Apollonius and similar stories see also Habermas 1989, 172f; the article contains useful brief discussion of other ancient narratives as well.
235 Apoll. 8.30.
236 8.31.
237 On Lucian Pereg. see Bowersock 1994, 115f., and esp. König 2003. See too Plutarch De Ser. Num. Vindic. 563b–e, describing the ‘near-death experience’ of a character called Aridaeus, who recounts his experiences (563e–567f), and is finally snatched back to find himself alive, but about to be buried as though dead (568a).
238 See Barrett 1987 [1956], 14f., with refs. to secondary discussions; and see below, 708f. The Greek is presumed to be translated from a Latin original.
240 Livy 1.16.2f.
241 Hdt. 4.14f.
242 Pausanias 2.9.7; Diod. Sicul. 4.38.5. Hercules, we should note, ascended precisely because his mortal nature had been burned away so that his immortal part could join the gods: so Lucian Hermotimus 7.
243 See Collins 1993, 127, citing Tabor 1989 and an unpublished piece by C. Begg.
244 On the possible parallel to this in Pseudo-Phocylides 97–104 (Collins 1993, 127f.), see below, 141.
245 Plut. Romulus 28.4–8, mentioning other stories of other disappearing, and supposedly divinized, bodies.
246 Contra e.g. L. H. Martin 1987, 121, following J. Z. Smith.
247 Corley 2002, 129–31; Collins 1993, 123–8, 137–8. At crucial points Collins follows the line of Rohde 1923, which seems to me clearly mistaken.
248 On the idea that Jesus’ followers saw him as a hero, resulting in ceremonies at his tomb, and generating stories about his resurrection, see below, 701f. Cf. Perkins 1984, 93f., 109f. (with literature), 119. For Asclepius cf. e.g. Luc. Salt. 45; Paus. 2.26.5.
249 Or. C. Cels 7.32. On metempsychosis, cf. e.g. Diod. Sic. 10.6.1–3 (including the story of Pythagoras recognizing the shield he had carried in a former life). What seems to be a vivid though macabre example is provided in Aen. 3.19–68: Polydorus, Priam’s youngest son, has been killed and buried, and turned into a clump of trees, which ooze black blood when Aeneas tries to uproot them. A happier example is when Pythagoras, seeing someone beating a puppy, told him to stop; he recognized by its voice that the soul was that of a friend of his (Price 1999, 122, quoting Xenophanes frag. 7a). Metempsychosis (‘transmigration’) is of course to be distinguished from metamorphosis, which simply means ‘transformation’. See Bremmer 2002, 11–15.
250 See e.g. Burkert 1985, 199, 298–301; Price 1999, 122f. For Pythagoras himself see Diog. Laert. 8.31; cf. Plut. De Ser. Num. Vindic. 564a–c. For the effect of this on ordinary grieving etc., see e.g. Plut. Consolatio ad Uxorem 611e–f. For restriction of belief in transmigration to philosophical circles cf. Garland 1985, 62f.
251 Rep. 10.614b–62Id; Phaedr. 245b–249d; cf. Phaedo 80c–82c, 84a–b; Gorg. 523a–526d; Meno 81b–d (quoting a fragment of Pindar (133) to good effect).
252 Rep. 10.620a–b.
253 Rep. 10.620c–d.
254 e.g. Phaedr. 249a–d: if the soul chooses the philosophical life three times, it regains its wings and can speed away. Such a person ‘will be rebuked by the ignorant multitude as being out of his wits, for they know not that he is possessed by a deity’ (pros to theio gignomenos) (tr. Hackforth in Hamilton and Cairns 1961, 496).
255 On karma, cf. O’Flaherty 1980; Neufeldt 1986.
256 e.g. Meno 81c–d.
257 Caes. Gall. War 6.14.5; though cf. Diod. Sic. 5.28.6, where such a link is postulated.
258 Burkert 1985, 299; Price 1999, 123.
259 For the C2 BC Roman burning of Pythagorean texts cf. Pliny NH 13.84–6.
260 Though cf. Servius, commenting (as part of an interesting wider discussion) on Virg. Aen. 3.68: for Pythagoras what mattered was palingenesia rather than metempsychosis. The roots of this misunderstanding are too deep for us to dig for them further at this point.
261 On Josephus’ ambiguous language see 175–81 below. On possible exceptions among some C2 Christians, cf. 534–51 below.
262 The classic account is Frazer 1911–15 (abridged version, 1956 [1922]).
263 Porter 1999a, 74–7, having begun by suggesting that the mystery religions included the notion of resurrection, rightly concludes (77) that ‘bodily resurrection is not a part’ of such cults and their beliefs. The best-known recent attempt to locate early Christianity within the world of ‘dying and rising gods’ is that of Smith 1990; see the shrewd criticisms of Bremmer 2002, 52–5 (a fresh version of Bremmer 1996, 104–07), suggesting that the cults of e.g. Attis and Mithras show evidence of influence from Christianity itself.
264 Ezek. 8:14. On Tammuz (a Mesopotamian deity known in many sources and traditions) see e.g. Handy 1992.
265 It used to be suggested, following the impact of Frazer’s work, that Christian belief in Jesus’ resurrection, and some facets of early Christian practice, were an offshoot from, or at least heavily influenced by, the oriental cults; but this view is not usually advanced in scholarship today. For a basic-level refutation, cf. McKenzie 1997.
267 The belief in the uniqueness of Jesus’ resurrection is not, then, a modern fundamentalist invention, as is suggested by Crossan 1998, xviii. The whole introductory section of Crossan’s book (xiii–xx), and the first chapter of Riley 1995 upon which Crossan leans, is challenged at its root by the present chapter. Evans 1970, 27, seems to me 180 degrees wide of the mark when he says that the doctrine of resurrection was, among Jewish ideas, ‘the most eminently exportable’ to the greco-roman world. See e.g. Zeller 2002, 19.
Chapter Three: Time to Wake Up (1): Death and Beyond in the Old Testament
1 1 Cor 15:4; see below, 319–22.
2 On other possible locations (e.g. Zoroastrianism) see below. There is no serious suggestion that the first disciples were influenced, in their talk of resurrection, by anything other than Jewish beliefs.
3 See e.g. the treatment in von Rad 1962–5, 1.407f., 2.350; Brueggemann 1997, 483f. (‘only at the edge of the Old Testament’).
4 The literature is immense. See e.g. Tromp 1969; Greenspoon 1981; Spronk 1986; Krieg 1988; Barr 1992; Ollenburger 1993; J. J. Collins 1993, 394–8; Segal 1997; Grappe 2001; Mettinger 2001; Johnston 2002. Older studies that still have considerable value include Martin-Achard 1960. The massive work of Puech 1993 is not only about the Essenes, as its title might imply; its substantial first volume covers the OT, second-Temple Judaism, and the NT and early Fathers as well.
5 On burial customs in the early period the work of Wiesner 1938 is still valuable; and see below, 90f.
11 Isa 38:10f., 18f.
15 On the meaning of the words see e.g. Martin-Achard 1960, 36–46; Tromp 1969; Sawyer 1973; Barr 1992, 28–36; Day 1996, 231f.; Jarick 1999; Johnston 2002, ch. 3.
17 cf. e.g. the repeated warnings against the adulteress in Prov. 2:18; 5:5; 7:27; 9:18 (‘he knows not that the dead [rephaim, ‘the shades’] are there; that her guests are in the depths of Sheol’). So also e.g. Ps. 88:10; Isa. 14:9; 26:14, 19, etc. On the key terms see esp. Johnston 2002, ch. 6.
18 Again, Dan. 12:2. They are ‘flimsy creatures, mere carbon-copies of living beings in the eternal filing systems of the underworld’ (Caird 1966, 253).
21 Gen. 42:38 (cf. 37:35; 44:29, 31).
22 Gen. 49:29–33. For a (controversial) way of combining the two ideas see below on burial customs.
23 Gen. 50:24–6; cf. Ex. 13:19; Josh. 24:32.
24 1 Kgs. 2:10; cf. 1:21; 2 Sam. 7:12. For the repeated formula cf. 1 Kgs. 11:43; 14:20, 31; 15:8; 16:28; 22:40, 50; 2 Kgs. 8:24; 10:35; 12:21; 13:13; 14:16, 20, 29; 15:7, 22, 38; 16:20; 20:21; 21:18; 24:6. The few exceptions (e.g. Josiah in 2 Kgs. 23:30) are probably not significant.
25 On the question of whether Sheol’s inhabitants know things or not, and of whether YHWH has power over Sheol see Day 1996, 233f., and other literature there.
26 Meyers 1970, 15, 26. See too Meyers’s larger study (1971).
27 Details conveniently available, with further bibliog., in e.g. Bloch-Smith 1992.
28 Meyers 1970, 22.
29 e.g. Lewis 1989. See the full discussion in Johnston 2002, ch. 8.
30 Rahmani 1981/2, 172. The whole four-part article is very significant.
31 See e.g. Hachlili 1992, 793; Rahmani 1981/2, 175f. In some later rabbinic thought, the decomposition of the flesh was associated with atoning for sins, leaving the bones ready for resurrection to new life (see e.g. Rahmani 175).
32 For details and refutation see e.g. Rahmani 1981/2, 234.
33 See e.g. Cooley 1983, 52; Johnston 2002, 61f.
35 Barr 1992, ch. 1.
37 Dt. 30:19f. with 28:1–14, 15–68; 29:14–28. See e.g. Lohfink 1990.
39 So e.g. Ex. 22:18; Lev. 19:31; 20:6, 27; Dt. 18:11; 1 Sam. 28 passim; Isa. 8:19. Cf. Lewis 1989, 171–81; Eichrodt 1961–7, 1.216–23; Cavallin 1974, 24 n. 5; Martin-Achard 1960, 24–31; Riley 1995, 13–15, on which see below. Schmidt 1994, however, argues powerfully that necromancy was introduced late into Israel, being kept at bay until the late monarchy at the earliest.
40 cf. Barley 1997, ch. 4. For ancient Israel cf. esp. Schmidt 1994.
43 I owe this point to Dr John Day.
45 Isa. 8:19–22 (cf. too 19:3). The passage is textually and linguistically complex, but the overall meaning seems clear: cf. e.g. Motyer 1993, 96–8; Childs 2001, 69–77.
46 On this cf. Day 1996, 237–40; Johnston 2002, 199f.
48 For helpful surveys of this lively tradition cf. VanderKam 1984, 1995.
49 2 Kgs. 2:1–18. Cf. Martin-Achard 1960, 65–72.
50 2 Kgs. 2:16–18; cf. Mal. 4:5; Sir. 48:9f.
51 e.g. Mk. 9:11–13; cf. JVG 167f. and other refs. there. Greenspoon 1981, 316f. adds to the discussion Elijah’s taunting of Baal in 1 Kgs. 18:27: maybe, he says, Baal is asleep and needs waking up. If this is an allusion to Baal as a dying and rising god, Elijah would be heard to be saying (whether by his audience or that of 1 Kgs. is immaterial for our present purposes) that YHWH is not like that: YHWH is the sort of god who has dominion over the natural world.
53 See e.g. Goldin 1987; Barr 1992, 15f.; Ginzberg 1998, 3.471–81. For the very interesting interpretation of all this by Josephus see Tabor 1989. The ‘tomb of Moses’ at Nabi Musa in the Judaean wilderness is, of course, a late invention (see Murphy-O’Connor 1998 [1980], 369f.): built in 1269 as a shrine from which one could look across the Dead Sea to Mount Nebo, tradition transformed it into his actual tomb.
54 1 Kgs. 17:17–24; 2 Kgs. 4:18–37; 13:21. Cf. Cavallin 1974, 25 n. 17.
56 Hamlet 3.1.79f.
57 So e.g. David on the death of Bathsheba’s first child by him: 2 Sam. 12:23: ‘Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.’
59 Job 7:7–10. I do not see here the note of ‘calm resignation’ which Eichrodt claims to find in v. 9, nor in his other examples of 2 Sam. 12:23 and Ps. 89:49 (Eichrodt 1961–7, 2.500 n. 5).
60 Job 14:1f., 7–14.
61 Job 16:22; Jer. 51:39, 57 (‘they shall sleep a perpetual sleep and never wake’; though this, as a specific judgment on Babylon and its officials, may conceivably imply that without this judgment there might after all have been a time of awakening?). The much-controverted Job 19:25–7 is discussed immediately below. Job 29:18 is almost certainly not a reference to the self-revivifying phoenix; cf. Day 1996, 252.
63 So e.g. Martin-Achard 1960, 166–75; Day 1996, 251f.; Johnston 2002, 209–14. Hartley 1988, 296f. suggests that, though the passage probably does not itself refer explicitly to resurrection, it was ‘built on the same logic’ that eventually led to the early Christian view-point. Those who still maintain that the passage envisages a post-mortem vindication include e.g. Osborne 2000, 932; Fyall 2002, 51, 64 suggests, in a careful and sensitive argument, that Job makes a ‘leap of faith’ to a ‘life beyond physical decay’. For older bibliography see Horst 1960, 277.
65 Eccles. 3:19–21. The meaning of the final rhetorical question seems to be that the same breath of life, God’s breath, is in the nostrils of both humans and beasts, not that there is a specific theory about human spirits going to a place of blessedness—and even if there was such a theory, this verse would be challenging it with straightforward agnosticism.
66 So Eccles. 2:16, on which see e.g. Bream 1974.
67 Eccles. 12:7; cf. Ps. 104:29—though the next verse of the psalm opens a new possibility, on which see below.
68 Zimmerli 1971 [1968].
70 Pss. 128; 129.
72 e.g. Ruth 1:20f.; 2 Kgs. 25:7. Cp. also 1 Sam. 4:17f.; Lk. 1:25.
73 cf. Gen. 38:6–11, 26; Dt. 25:5–10; Ruth 1:11–13; 3:9–13; 4:1–17. On the Levirate law cf. Cavallin 1974, 25; Martin-Achard 1960, 22f.; and below, 420–23.
74 e.g. 1 Chron. 1–9; Ezra 2:1–63 (nb. vv. 62f., where absence of genealogical information calls into question a would-be part of the priestly clan); 8:1–14; Neh. 7:5–65. On the ‘holy seed’ cf. Ezra 9:1f.; Mal. 2:15; cp. Isa. 6:13.
75 e.g. Gen. 12:7, and often thereafter; Ex. 3:8, 17, and frequently throughout the story. Cf. Zimmerli 1971 [1968], 49–53.
77 Ex. 3:8; 13:5; 33:3; cp. e.g. Lev. 20:24; Num. 13:27; Dt. 26:9, 15; cf. Jer. 11:5; 32:22; Ezek. 20:6. For the expansion of the vision cf. e.g. Dt. 6:10f.; 8:7–10; 11:10–15; 26:1–11; and esp. 28:1–14.
78 Isa. 2:2–4; cp. Mic. 4:1–3, adding in v. 4 the promise that all will sit in peace under their vines and fig-trees.
79 Isa. 11:1–9. The promise of a new and non-violent creation is expanded in 65:17–25.
82 Ps. 72:1–4, 8, 12.
84 e.g. NTPG ch. 10; JVG 481–6.
85 Isa. 13:6, 9; Jer. 46:10; Ezek. 30:2, 3; Joel 1:15; 2:1, 11, 31; 3:14; Obad. 15; Zeph. 1:14, 15; Zech. 14:1.
87 See Eichrodt 1961–7, 2.524; von Rad 1962–5, 1.405; Martin-Achard 1960, 149–53; Johnston 2002, 201f. Cp. Ps. 86:13, where ‘you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol’ is clearly not a statement that the writer has already been literally raised from the dead. On the thesis of Dahood 1965/6, postulating a post-mortem hope in several Psalms see e.g. Day 1996, 234f; Lacocque 1979, 236–8.
89 Eichrodt 1961–7, 2.511 is perhaps going too far when he says that this Psalm expresses ‘the idea of the return of the dead to living fellowship with God’. Strictly, the Psalm is about the almost dead. This does not, of course, preclude its being read in subsequent Judaism in connection with hopes for beyond the grave.
92 See Day 1996, 255f.; Johnston 2002, 204–06, with other literature.
94 Ps. 73:23–7. The word for ‘receive’ in v. 24 could be translated ‘take’; it is the same word as is used of God’s ‘taking’ of Enoch in Gen. 5:24 (see Barr 1992, 33).
95 On Ps. 73 see Eichrodt 1961–7, 2.520f.; Martin-Achard 1960, 158–65; Brueggemann 1997, 481. There is nothing at all said here about ‘resurrection’, despite e.g. Osborne 2000, 932, who appears to be using the word simply as a synonym for ‘life after death’. Ps. 17:15 is in some ways close to 73:26. On these points cf. section 4 below.
96 See Day 1996, 253–5, with other literature.
99 On Ps. 49 cf. von Rad 1962–5, 1.406; Martin-Achard 1960, 153–8; Day 1996, 253f. It seems unlikely that the Psalmist has in mind the kind of unusual bypassing of death represented by Enoch and Elijah (above, 94f.), though the idea of God intervening to prevent someone going to Sheol or the grave is of course compatible with such a phenomenon.
100 We should perhaps also add Ps. 116 to the inventory as well in the light of Paul’s use of it in 2 Cor. 4 (below, 363f.). Johnston 2002, 207–09, adds four passages from Prov.: 12:28; 14:32; 15:24; 23:14. Whatever the original meanings, such passages might have been later read as referring to a post-mortem future.
102 So e.g. Brueggemann 1997, 419.
103 Dt. 32:39; 1 Sam. 2:6: ‘YHWH kills and makes alive.’ See too Ps. 104:29f., quoted at 104f. above.
106 Davies 1999, 93.
107 See e.g. Day 1996, 240f.; Cavallin 1974, 26f. says that the sub-text behind Daniel 12, Isa. 26:19, refers to a corpse (Heb: nebelati). Collins 1993, 391f. says there is ‘virtually unanimous agreement among modern scholars that Daniel is referring to the actual resurrection of individuals from the dead’. For the concrete/abstract distinction as opposed to the literal/metaphorical one see above, xvii–xviii, and below, 253f.: in this case, the passage uses the metaphor of sleep and waking to denote the concrete event of resurrection.
108 For ‘sleep’ = ‘death’: 2 Kgs. 4:31; 13:21; Job 3:13; 14:12; Ps. 13:3; Jer. 51:39, 57; Nah. 3:18; ‘dust’ as the destination of the dead: Gen. 3:19; Job 10:9; 34:15; Ps. 104:29; Eccles. 3:20; 12:7; Isa. 26:19. NRSV translates the obscure first clause of Ps. 22:29 as ‘to him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down’, in parallel to the next clause, ‘before him shall bow all who go down to the dust’. See McAlpine 1987, 117–53, showing that the metaphor of sleep for death is very ancient, found in Mesopotamian and Egyptian sources as well.
109 So Eichrodt 1961–7, 2.514. Eichrodt suggests (513) that the present statement is so brief because by the time Daniel 12 was written the idea was well known; this is supported by the usage of the (earlier) Aramaic Enoch. See too Kellermann 1989, 69.
110 Day 1996, 240f.; Collins 1993, 392.
111 So e.g. Hengel 1974, 196f.; Lacoque 1979, 244f.; Cohen 1987, 91; Perkins 1994, 38; Martin 1995, 118. For the subject see 55–60 above. Hengel 1974, 196 even suggests that Isa. 26:19 (the peculiar phrase ‘dew of light’) refers to an ‘astral component’, but it is certainly preferable to take it in the sense either that light will shine on the risen ones (so Seitz 1993, 195) or that there will be a miraculous dew, composed of light, which will be the means whereby the shades in Sheol are restored to bodily life (so Kaiser 1973, 218).
112 So Goldingay 1989, 308; the earlier passage is of course Isa. 52:13 and 53:11.
113 See Collins 1993, 394. Collins traces hellenistic influence at this point, but stresses the distinction: ‘The wise in Daniel are not said to become stars but to shine like them.’
114 4 Macc. 9:22 speaks of the oldest son, during his torture, ‘as though transformed by fire into immortality’; here, it seems, the theology of 2 Macc. has itself been transformed by Plato into Hellenism. See the discussion in the following chapter.
115 e.g. Wis. 3:7, on which see ch. 4 below; Ps.-Phil. 19.4; 51.5; Ps. Sol. 3:12 (not every mention of ‘light’ in relation to the future world can be made to mean that the righteous become light!). In Sib. Or. 4.189 the resurrected ones will see the light of the sun. 4 Ezr. 7:97, 125a are deliberate echoes of Dan. 12:3, and it is clear that what is intended is simile, not identification (‘their face will shine like the light of the sun, and they will be like the light of the stars’—once again, the parallel of the clauses rules out identification of the resurrected with the heavenly bodies themselves); in 2 En. 66.7 the righteous will shine seven times more brightly than the sun, which again explicitly rules out identification.
116 T. Mos. 10.9: ‘God will raise you to the heights; yes, he will fix you firmly in the heaven of the stars, in the place of their habitations’; Priest (in Charlesworth 1983, 933) warns that it remains problematical whether this should be understood literally or metaphorically. 2 Bar. 51.10, in a passage to which we shall return, declares that ‘they will live in the heights of that world and they will be like the angels and be equal to the stars’. We note, though, that they will be like angels, and equal to stars; not identical. There is one Jewish tombstone from the diaspora (from Corycus in Cilicia) which seems to indicate an ‘astral’ belief (CIJ 2.788). The scarcity of such references indicates, if anything, a firm Jewish mindset against the idea.
117 1QS 4.8 (‘a crown of glory and a garment of majesty in unending light’); 1QM 17.7 (‘with everlasting light will he lighten with joy the children of Israel’); but these, clearly, can scarcely be used in the service of a full-blown ‘astral’ theory.
118 cf. 1 En. 39.7; 50.1; 62.15 (this is clearly a glorious bodily resurrection, not a matter of becoming a star); 80.1, 6f.; 86.3f. (the stars used as images in visions); 92.4 (walking in eternal light); 100.10 (sun, moon and stars witnessing against sinners). The frequently cited 104.2 is simply a quote from Dan. 12:3 (‘you shall shine like the lights of heaven’), and like Dan. itself says nothing about the righteous becoming stars.
119 e.g. Num. 24:17; 1 Sam. 29:9; 2 Sam. 14:17, 20; Isa. 9:6 [MT 5]. So Goldingay 1989, 308.
120 Gen. 1:14–18. Cf. too Wis. 3:7f., on which see below, 162–75.
121 On the specific historical referent of Dan. 10–12 cf. e.g. Goldingay 1989, 289, 292–306. See further NTPG 157–9, and other literature there.
122 So e.g. Nickelsburg 1972, 23, 27; Goldingay 1989, 302.
123 for Michael cf. Dan. 10:13, 21; T. Dan. 6.2; Jude 9; Rev. 12:7.
124 Thus: ch. 1 (the king’s rich food); ch. 2 (the king’s dream); ch. 3 (the king’s statue, and the fiery furnace); ch. 4 (the king’s dream and madness); ch. 5 (the king’s banquet and the writing on the wall); ch. 6 (the king’s edict, and the lions’ den); ch. 7 (the beasts and the ‘son of man’); ch. 8 (the ram, the goat and their horns); ch. 9 (Daniel’s prayer, and the warning of the coming abomination).
125 Goldingay 1989, 283f. gives details of the links between Dan. 10–12 and the earlier sections of the book, particularly chs. 7–9.
126 This prophecy, with related passages, was used as the basis of intense chronological speculation about the date of the coming redemption, and the coming Messiah. See NTPG 208, 312–14, and esp. Beckwith 1980, 1981, now reprinted in Beckwith 1996.
127 On the theme of continuing exile, which continues to be misunderstood in some quarters cf. JVG xviif.; and, in further explanation, Wright ‘Dialogue’, 252–61.
130 On this combination cf. further JVG 584–91, with other refs. there. Another allusion to Isa. is the reference to the abhorrence or contempt suffered by the resurrected wicked in Dan. 12:2 (echoing Isa. 66:24).
131 Cavallin 1972/3, 51. The versions in question include three Qumran MSS and the LXX. Other details in Goldingay 284; Day 1996, 242f.
132 cf. e.g. Nickelsburg 1972, 24f.; Day 1996, 242f.
133 Childs summarizes the message of Isa. 49–55 as follows: ‘God intervenes to end the exile and to usher in his eschatological reign’ (2001, 410).
134 See the judicious assessment of Childs 2001, 419. On the possibility of a similar, though cryptic, sequence of thought in Zech. 12–13 cf. Eichrodt 1961–7, 2.508 n. 1. One can trace a similar sequence in e.g. Ps. 22, where the Psalmist is ‘laid in the dust of death’ in v. 15, and then rescued in vv. 22–31.
135 See Sawyer 1973, 233f.
136 The dating of the passage is still controverted. The only thing we can be sure of is that to postulate a developmental scheme in which mention of a bodily resurrection is sufficient to earn a text a late date simply begs the question.
140 See Cavallin 1974, 106; Motyer 1993, 218f. For Isa. 26:19 as an anticipation of 52:1f. (‘Awake, awake … shake yourself from the dust …’) cf. Nickelsburg 1971, 18; cp. Puech 1993, 42–4. On ‘dew’ as part of a larger theme in which God’s rain bringing forth fruit from the ground is parallel to resurrection cf. Hos. 6:1–3, and below on the rabbis. (See too above on Dan. 12:3.)
141 Day 1996 points out that 27:8, with its reference to the exile, nudges the verse in the direction of ‘return from exile’ on the lines of Ezek. 37.
142 For the note of YHWH’s justice underneath the whole passage cf. Nickelsburg 1971, 18; for YHWH’s glory, Eichrodt 1961–7, 2.510.
143 Isa. 25:6–8, 10.
144 cf. Childs 2001, 191f. Thus, though Day is right (1996, 243f.) to see here a strong note of exile and return, this does not preclude a reference also to bodily resurrection.
145 Day 1980; 1996, 244f.
146 In the NT see esp. 1 Cor. 15:54f.
147 Day 1980; 1996; 1997.
148 Hos. 6:1f. Day 1996, 246f. (and 1997, 126f.) shows clearly that this passage does indeed refer to death, not merely to sickness as some have suggested.
149 cf. e.g. Eichrodt 1961–7, 2.504f.; Martin-Achard 1960, 86–93; Zimmerli 1971 [1968], 91f. Martin-Achard 86 takes Hos. 6 as indicative of personal resurrection, as do Andersen and Freedman 1980, 420f., against e.g. Wolff 1974.
151 Ezek. 37:1–14. The Hebrew word for ‘breath’, ‘wind’ and ‘spirit’ throughout is ruach.
152 For discussion of the passage cf. Martin-Achard 1960, 93–102; Eichrodt 1970, 505–11; Stemberger 1972, 283; Koenig 1983.
153 So Martin-Achard 1960, 95.
154 cf. Dt. 30:1–10, which is certainly echoed in Ezek. 34–6; and cp. also Dt. 30:15–20; 32:39–43.
155 Ezek. 37:8–10, 14; cf. Gen. 2:7 (though a different word, nishmath rather than ruach, is used there for ‘breath’, translated by the LXX as pnoe rather than pneuma as in Ezek.).
156 So Martin-Achard 1960, 95.
157 Riesenfeld 1948; Cavallin 1974, 110 n. 28; Martin-Achard 1960, 93 n. 1 with other refs.
158 According to Martin-Achard 1960, 100f., the creation-stories are the basis for the Ezekiel passage.
161 cf. Dt. 30:15–20 in the context of the ch. as a whole.
162 Gen. 2:7; 3:19; Ps. 104:29; see Johnston 2002, 238f. Dust becomes a regular image in connection with death: e.g. Ps. 7:5; 22:15, 29; 30:9; 119:25.
163 Ps. 104:29; cf. Isa. 26:19; Dan. 12:2; also 1 Sam. 2:8; Ps. 113:7.
164 The identity of the ‘servant’ is of course controversial. The portrait begins (42:1–9) with royal features echoing Isa. 11:1–10, with the servant as the strange messenger of YHWH; at this point the servant appears to be the nation itself, rebellious though it is (42:22–5; 44:1f., 21f., 26; 45:4). But the servant also stands over against, and is given a ministry to, the nation (49:1–6; 50:10), and at one point at least (48:20) appears to consist of the exiles in Babylon, who have borne the weight of suffering on behalf of the whole people. 49:5 and 50:4–10 could refer to the prophet himself. But, read in the context of chs. 40–55 as a whole, the key passage (52:13–53:12) towers above all of this from a literary as well as a theological point of view, with its portrait of the servant as one at whom faithful Israel itself looks on in horror, awe and ultimately gratitude. Among recent discussions see e.g. Williamson 1998, ch. 4; Balzer 2001, 124–8.
165 Barr 1992, 22, seems to me to come close to this.
166 As e.g. von Rad (1962–5, 1.390) seems to imply. This is perhaps related to von Rad’s admission that ‘our own theological outlook’ is innately suspicious of the ‘unspiritual and external’ side of Yahwism (1.279).
167 On Zoroastrianism cf. e.g. Boyce 1975–91; 1992; McDannell and Lang 2001 [1988], 12–14; Nigosian 1993, with the comments of Hengel 1974, 1.196; 2.130f.; Griffiths 1999, 1047f.; and the brief account by Davies 1999, ch. 2. The main surviving texts are from the C9 AD (principally Bundahishn 30); knowledge of the early period is largely from writers such as Theopompus (C4 BC), as reported by Plutarch De Isid. 47; Diog. Laert. 1.9 (prologue); Aeneas of Gaza De Animali Immortalite 77. Hengel (as cited earlier in this note), in company with some others, suggests that the line of probable influence runs from Jewish and Christian conceptions to the more developed Iranian ones.
168 See the previous note. For a discussion of older debates etc. cf. Martin-Achard 1960, 186–9; Greenspoon 1981, 259–61; Bremmer 1996, 96–8. Day 1996, 241n. lists proponents of the Zoroastrian hypothesis, from W. Bousset in the early C20 to Cohn 1993. Opponents include Eichrodt 1961–7, 1.516f.; Lacocque 1979 [1976], 243; Barr 1985; Goldingay 1989, 286, 318, with further refs.; J. J. Collins 1993, 396 (‘although Persian influence on the Jewish belief was accepted as obvious by an earlier generation of scholars, the popularity of this view has waned considerably. There is no evidence of Persian motifs in such crucial Jewish passages as Daniel 12 and 1 Enoch 22. At most, the metaphorical use of resurrection for the restoration of the Jewish nation after the Exile (Ezekiel 37; Isaiah 26) may have been prompted indirectly by acquaintance with the Persian belief.’ The echoes of Gen. 2–3 in the latter two passages, however, casts some doubt on even that concession); Day himself (1996, 240–42); Bremmer 1996, 99–101; Johnston 2002, 234–6.
169 Day 1996, 241f. The latter point is, though, an admission that Ezekiel’s vision itself, with the bones scattered in the valley, corresponds to Persian practice.
170 On ‘apocalyptic’ and ‘dualism’ see NTPG ch. 10.
171 See further Eichrodt 1961–7, 2.516f. These remarks apply also to the suggestion that resurrection developed in Judaism as a result of borrowing from the hellenistic language of reincarnation (e.g. Glasson 1961 If., 5f., 30; Mason 1991, 170). This is not to say that the language of reincarnation could not be used by Greek-speaking Jewish writers to describe resurrection belief; this is what we find in at least one passage of Josephus (below, 178).
172 Day 1996, 245–8; 1997. For older debates see Martin-Achard 1960, 195–205; see too Xella 1995; Mettinger 2001.
173 Day 1996, 245–7.
174 I do not find help in Day’s suggestion (1996, 247) that ‘mythological imagery was first demythologized’ (i.e. by referring Baal-cult language to the nation of Israel) ‘and subsequently remythologized’ (i.e. by referring national-restoration language to the resurrection of the individual). Dan. 12:2 is not remythologizing, going back to the world of dying and rising gods and their cult, but proposing a concrete solution to a pressing problem, viz. the deaths of the martyrs. Nor do I think that 1 Cor. 15:36f. and Jn. 12:24 (Day 248) are traces of an earlier, and not quite forgotten, connection of resurrection with nature-cults. Imagery drawn from the world of creation is not the same thing as long-distance borrowing from ancient cults. Day’s suggestion, however, that the post-exilic situation, with its attention to the problem of suffering and theodicy, contributed materially to the development of earlier hints into a full-blown proposal (private correspondence, June 2000), seems to me fair enough.
175 So Martin-Achard 1960, 202; Johnston 2002, 237. Yamauchi 1965, 290 finds that in relation to the mythological embodiments of these gods (Tammuz, Adonis, etc.) clear, pre-Christian evidence for the resurrection of these gods is said to be lacking. There is nothing like bodily resurrection, either. See, more recently, Mettinger 2001, 70.
176 So Martin-Achard 1960, 203, following Baumgartner.
Chapter Four: Time to Wake Up (2): Hope Beyond Death in Post-Biblical Judaism
1 Some older surveys of this material carried an agenda according to which it was important to show all forms of second-Temple Judaism to be either a declining away from biblical standards or a failure to anticipate early Christianity (cf. e.g. Eichrodt 1961–7, 2.526–9). This is methodologically misleading. New post-biblical situations called forth new expressions; and the early Christians were all second-Temple Jews, who certainly did not read the Bible ‘straight’, in the sense of a reading unmediated by their own culture. The short survey of some recent scholarship in Barr 1992, 1–4, itself of course mediated by Barr’s own ideas, indicates the kind of minefield into which these discussions lead.
2 For the present chapter, see, in addition to the works already referred to at the start of ch. 3, Stemberger 1972; Bauckham 1998a, 1998b.
3 On the Sadducees cf. NTPG 209–13; and e.g. Meyer in TDNT 7.35–54; Le Moyne 1972; Schwankl 1987, 332–8; Saldarini 1988, ch. 13; Sanders 1992, ch. 15; Porton 1992, 2000; Puech 1993, 202–12; Stemberger 1999 (with full bibliog.); Juhász 2002, 112–4. We have no documents that we can be sure are written by Sadducees themselves. Porton 1992, 892 points out that when Josephus three times describes the belief of the Sadducees (War 2.162; Ant. 13.293; 18.16f.), no single belief appears in all of the lists.