Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 17:68 (Oct 1860)
Article: Did The Ancient Hebrews Believe In The Doctrine Of Immortality?
Author: S. Tuska

BSac 17:68 (Oct 1860) p. 787

Did The Ancient Hebrews Believe In The Doctrine Of Immortality?

Rev. S. Tuska

The question whether the Hebrew scriptures contain the doctrine of immortality, has been repeatedly asked and variously answered. While some have roundly asserted that they teach this doctrine as clearly as they do the unity of God others (of whom bishop Warburton may be considered the exponent) have run to the other extreme, boldly maintaining that the Old Testament does not contain the least trace of a future state. Others, again, while assuming that the ancient Hebrews had no idea of a future existence of the soul, admit that this idea is indeed alluded to in Hebrew scripture, but that these allusions are so obscure that they must have been purposely contrived to conceal the knowledge of the doctrine from the Jewish people. (Comp. Whately, Future State, passim.) Still others there are, particularly among the rationalists of Germany, who declare that the idea of immortality is, indeed, clearly expressed in some portions of the Hebrew scriptures, but that these portions are, for that very reason, the production of a very late period in the history of the Jews — at a period when these had already learned the doctrine from a foreign source.

All these opinions, it will be seen, proceed on the supposition that the ancient Hebrews had not the doctrine in question independent of their Bible. While, therefore, the one party, in endeavoring to prove that the religion of the ancient Hebrews contained this fundamental principle of all religion, and was thus, in opposition to the view of Kant, a religion indeed, are anxious to prove that this principle was expressly taught them by their lawgiver and prophets; the other is very zealous in explaining away all such texts as do most clearly allude to the idea of immortality, in order to prove, by the very absence of this idea, the “divine legation” of the

BSac 17:68 (Oct 1860) p. 788

Hebrew legislator. If, however, it can be proved that the ancient Israelites, even if the Bible does not expressly inculcate it, actually entertained the idea of a future state, neither of the above views need or even can be adopted. For, why teach a doctrine to a people among whom it is already confidently believed? Or why, on the other hand, rigidly exclude it from passages which plainly allude to it, when nothing would be more natural than that such passages should at once suggest the idea of immortality to the mind that has a knowledge of it independently of them.

But how shall this be proved? How can we, without making ourselves liable to the charge of exegetical wrenching and twisting, show that the ancient Hebrews actu...