When and from where did the ancient Jews get the idea of life after death with rewards and punishments?

Question

It's definitely not in the early part of the Bible. Hezekiah in Isaiah 38, 18-19 says the dead just 'go down into the pit'.
But by the time of Daniel 12, the idea had appeared.
When and why did the change take place?

Answer 1

Zoroastrianism was a major influence.

Answer 2

The dead going down into the pit refers to Sheol. Originally in Judaism (and thus Christianity), the afterlife consisted of going to an underworld a lot like the one from Greek mythology (Hades).

Everyone went to Sheol, regardless of what they had done in their lifetime. There they were to wait until judgement day.

However, Sheol changed around the time that the ancient Jewish people arrived in Jerusalem. Close to the city, there is an area known as the Valley of Hinnom. Prior to the Jews living there, the Canaanites sacrificed children to one of their gods in that valley (Moloch). Moloch had the appearance of a man with a bull's head.

When the Jews settled at Jerusalem, they turned that valley into basically a garbage dump. The bodies of criminals, or those who didn't receive a proper burial, were placed in the valley. The garbage and waste from the city was thrown there as well. They constantly lit fires throughout this valley to help control the stench, and possible disease problems.

Overtime, this inspired the split of Sheol. One half being Abraham's Bosom, and the other being Gehenna... also called Gehinnom.

Abraham's Bosom was a place of comfort where the righteous Jews would await judgement day. Gehenna was a fiery place of torment where the wicked would be sent until judgement day.

There is no Biblical basis for the shift, and there's no explaination why it happened. Christianity evolved the concept further into Heaven and Hell, though it's quite a departure from the early beliefs of the religion.

There is one theory that any religion will reflect the surroundings of the people from whom the religion started. For example, the Nordic people's version of "hell" (called Hel, oddly enough) was a freezing place where those who died an unheroic death were sent. Because of where they were from, the worst possible thing that could happen to them was that they freeze, so it inspired their religious beliefs. It's likely the same deal here. Being thrown into the Valley of Hinnom was a highly undesirable fate for those living in Jerusalem.

Answer 3

The belief in life after death goes back to the ancient Greeks and even further to the ancient Tutoni peoples. They believed in a life in an after world. This after world is referred to in the ancient Norse sagas and the ancient Greek myths and legends. Like so many other things in the bible ,they are just updated versions of very ancient stories.

Answer 4

Yes it is Most of ancient theology is lost under the sands of time. However, archaeological expeditions in ancient Mesopotamia have uncovered the fascinating culture of the Sumerians, which flourished over 4,000 years ago. Though Sumeria was overthrown first by Assyria, and then by Babylon, its gods lived on in the cultures of those who conquered. The historian S. H. Hooke tells in detail of the ancient Sumerian trinity: Anu was the primary god of heaven, the ‘Father’, and the ‘King of the Gods’; Enlil, the ‘wind-god’ was the god of the earth, and a creator god; and Enki was the god of waters and the ‘lord of wisdom’ . The historian, H. W. F. Saggs, explains that the Babylonian triad consisted of ‘three gods of roughly equal rank... whose inter-relationship is of the essence of their natures’

Answer 5

Hi....

The ancient Egyptians!

The ancient Egyptians believed that after death, you went to the kingdom of Osiris, this was 'Heaven', there you could 'live' an eternity of bliss, with the 'good' god Osiris!

Firstly however, your heart would be weighed on the scales of 'justice'.
On the other side of the scales, was the 'feather' of 'truth'.

If your heart weighed 'more' than the feather of truth, you could not enter into the kingdom of Osiris, because this meant you had sinned heavily or had committed very bad acts in life.

If you had been turned away from 'Heaven', you were sent to the kingdom of Set or Seth.
The 'underworld' or 'place of lost souls' which was ruled by the wicked brother of the good god Osiris, Set/Seth.....
The devil or 'Satan'.

Here you would spend an eternity of being a lost soul and have much suffering....... Hell!


Many ancient civilisations had such ideas about a heaven and hell style afterlife.

The fact that the people who later became the nation of Israel, had existed and lived for 'four hundred years' in Egypt, means that it is near on 'impossible' for these people 'not' to have been influenced by its rich history, culture and belief system!
Alexandria in Egypt, a melting pot of belief and cultures, 'was' the place where most of the texts, that later became the old testament, were written!!

To argue against this, you would have to say, 'No, they didnt get influenced, they ignored it 'completely', then 'when' they made their own state of Israel, 'Yahweh' then 'told them' to write one, of their own.
'Although yes, i have to agree, it is nearly identical to the Egyptian, but it belongs to our 'god', not Egyptian gods'.

Sounds a very weak argument to me!!



If 'anyone' states that these people, having lived so long in Egypt, had not been influenced by its belief system, i would laugh out loud!!

There are many, many more parts of the Judeo-christian belief system, that was taken, used and changed slightly, that originated in ancient Egypt.

Egypt at the time was the 'superpower' of the planet and had believed these Heaven/Hell style beliefs, for 'thousands' of years!
To ignore its importance in history, is an insult to them and more importantly, to mankind!!

Answer 6

Just because it was not specificlly laid out as rewards and punishment doesnt mean it wasnt there the whole time. I would suggest that it was there. An example would be Enoch
a direct descendant of Adam and ancestor of Noah. It is believed that he was taken away by God. To where the pit?

Answer 7

I don't know, but the 72 virgins of Islam sound like a good deal too! Only snag is that they won't be virgins for eternity. Mohammed should have negotiated for 72 virgins at any one time for all time. Now that would be something!

Answer 8

It seems to have a great deal in common with Egyptian beliefs. I haven't really looked into it though.

Answer 9

The idea of rewards in heaven was gleaned from the Egyptians, hell however came later, and was inspired during the Babylonian exile, when they first encountered the idea of the Devil.

Originally the term "heaven" referred to the sky or the area above the earth where the "heavenly bodies" are placed. This is the main meaning of the word in the Bible. It was considered the dwelling place of God and his angels right from the earliest conceptions.

However, with time, the term came to be used also in the sense of the abode of the righteous at some point after death. This is supported by a few verses in the Bible, but the Bible tends to use other terms, such as Paradise, for this.

In Hebrew, ²² Sheol (שאול) is the "abode of the dead", the "underworld", "the common grave of humankind" or "pit". In the Hebrew Bible, it is a place beneath the earth - the common destination of both the righteous and the unrighteous dead, as recounted in Ecclesiastes and Job.

By the second century BC, Jews had come to believe that those in sheol awaited the resurrection either in comfort (in the bosom of Abraham) or in torment. This belief is reflected in Jesus' story of Lazarus and Dives.

Protestants, who do not share a concept of "hades" with the Eastern Orthodox, have traditionally translated "sheol" (and "hades") as "hell" (King James Version). Modern English versions of the Bible tend either to transliterate the word sheol or to use an alternative term such as the "grave" (eg. NIV). Roman Catholics generally translate "sheol" simply as "death."

In some early religions (such as the Ancient Egyptian faith), Heaven was a physical place far above the Earth in a "dark area" of space where there were no stars, basically beyond the Universe. Departed souls would undergo a literal journey to reach Heaven, along the way to which there could exist hazards and other entities attempting to deny the reaching of Heaven.

Hell is a bit more interesting (well Brughel thought so lol), in that it was first described in Judaism as Gehenna. Gehenna is not Hell, but rather a sort of Purgatory where one is judged based on his or her life's deeds. The Kabbalah describes it as a "waiting room" (commonly translated as an "entry way") for all souls (not just the wicked).

The name derived from the burning garbage dump near Jerusalem (the Hinnom gulch), metaphorically identified with the entrance to the underworld of punishment in the afterlife.

Gehenna also appears in the New Testament and in early Christian writing to represent the place where evil will be destroyed. It lends its name to Islam's hell, Jahannam.

The idea of the devil comes from Babylon. The Babylonian canon is largely derived from Sumerian mythology. This was written in Akkadian, a Semitic language, using cuneiform script on clay tablets. Most texts known today are copies made in scribal schools by student scribes, likely at a time when Akkadian was no longer the spoken language in Babylonia and serious belief in the myths had faded amongst educated people.

Some Babylonian texts were even translations into Akkadian from the Sumerian language of earlier texts, though the names of some deities were changed in Babylonian texts. Some Babylonian deities and myths are unique to that culture, however, such as the god Marduk and the Enûma Elish, a creation epic copied in Genisis.

In the book of Job (Iyov), ha-satan is the title, not the proper name, of an angel submitted to God; he is the divine court's chief prosecutor. In Judaism ha-satan does not make evil, rather points out to God the evil inclinations and actions of humankind. In essence ha-satan has no power unless humans do evil things. After God points out Job's piety, ha-satan asks for permission to test the faith of Job. The righteous man is afflicted with loss of family, property, and later, health, but he still stays faithful to God. At the conclusion of this book God appears as a whirlwind, explaining to all that divine justice is inscrutable with human intellect. In the epilogue Job's possessions are restored and he has a second family to "replace" the one that died.

When the Bible was translated into Latin (the Vulgate), the name Lucifer appeared as a translation of "Morning Star", or the planet Venus, in Isaiah 14:12. Isaiah 14:1-23 is a passage largely concerned with the plight of Babylon, and its king is referred to as "morning star, son of the dawn". This is because the Babylonian king was considered to be of godly status and of symbolic divine parentage (Bel and Ishtar, associated with the planet Venus).

While this information is available to scholars today via translated Babylonian cuneiform text taken from clay tablets, it was not as readily available at the time of the Latin translation of the Bible. Thus, early Christian tradition interpreted the passage as a reference to the moment Satan was thrown from Heaven. Lucifer became another name for Satan and has remained so due to Christian dogma and popular tradition.



Of couse my own view is that it is simply opiate for the masses - a tool employed by authorities to bribe their subjects into a certain way of life by promising a reward after death.

Answer 10

I don't know from where jews took this idea, but if u really want to know about the LIFE AFTER DEATH u can consult to any ISLAMIC book or the translation of HOLY QURAN, because jews and cristians had been making changes into there Holy book time by time, whereas Quran is the only complete and pure roadmap of life without any changes made by anyone