Which is preferred?

Was wondering from someone who has experience with the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary and the IVP Bible Dictionaries. Which is preferred? I know AYB has historically been respected. How does the IVP stack? Comparisons, Contrasts, strengths, weaknesses?

Thanks!

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Joseph Sollenberger

I have both products and find them useful. In an academic setting, the AYB will often be referenced across a wide spectrum of traditions. The IVP dictionaries will be well respected in a conservative, evangelical setting, but not always. Then again, choose the product that does not fit your tradition and learn how other traditions view things. Google Books should show you sample pages of these products and give you an idea of the layout and writing style.

Shalom,

Joseph

Dan Francis

IVP Black Dictionaries:

Slightly more up to date, evangelical, slightly more indepth look at a few topics....

Anchor:

Much wider coverage of articles, highly accepted, regarded by many as the best Bible Dictionary out there.

This has been discussed before not sure if here or elsewhere... I have both, I use Anchor more and often find myself disappointed with the depth I find in IVP. Anchor remains a full buffet where as IVP covers some parts well and others not at all.

It is hard to compare because in order to compare fairly one might need to read each of the IVP dictionaries on a topic.... below I tried my best to compare Apples to Apples....

[IVP: Prophets]

AFTERLIFE

Like the rest of the OT, the Prophetic Books are concerned primarily with this life rather than anything beyond it, and the prophets themselves with repentance and reform in the present life rather than judgment or recompense in an afterlife. However, the judgment that they proclaim often includes death, while they occasionally address those with an unhealthy interest in the dead. Further, a few texts portray national demise and restoration as *death and resurrection, and this paradigm is eventually extended to individual fate. Nevertheless, the relevant texts are often difficult, and their exact meaning is unclear (for detailed discussion of all texts mentioned, see Johnston 2002).

1. Death

2. The Dead

3. Surviving Death

1. Death.

The Prophetic Books contain little narrative, and what there is entirely lacks the intergenerational time span of Genesis or Kings. Thus, death is seldom recorded as simply the natural end of life, as is common elsewhere in the OT (see Johnston, DOTHB 215–18). However, the general fragility of life and the certainty of death are noted—for example, in contrast to the permanence of God’s word (Is 40:7).

At the same time, the prophetic focus on issues of life and death leads to the occasional portrayal of death as an enemy. Women will lament that “death has come up into our windows . . . to cut off our children,” while the grim reaper leaves a trail of ungathered sheaves (Jer 9:21–22). Elsewhere Sheol is thought to open its mouth wide but never to be satisfied (Is 5:14; Hab 2:5). There are some parallels here to Ugaritic Mot (e.g., KTU 1.5.ii.3–4), though in the OT death is barely personified and never deified.

In one text Yahweh apostrophizes Sheol as destructive, toying with the idea of ransoming its victims but then declining (Hos 13:14). This tension is only resolved in the NT when the outcome is reversed through Christ’s resurrection (1 Cor 15:54–55). That resolution is nevertheless foreseen in the Isaiah Apocalypse, where Yahweh will destroy the shroud and “swallow up death forever” (Is 25:7–8).

2. The Dead.

The Prophetic Books contain the only two underworld descriptions in the OT, and both are brief (these complement evocative imagery elsewhere, notably Ps 88). Isaiah 14:9–11 describes the former great king of Babylon descending to Sheol, now as weak as those whom he had conquered. Ezekiel 32:17–32 predicts the Egyptians joining the many other slain armies lying in their ethnic groups, prostrate and immobile in a vast cavern. These texts fit the typical OT portrayal of the underworld as the general human fate, devoid of meaningful existence and remote from Yahweh.

Various legal texts prohibit Israelites from contacting or venerating the dead. However, several prophetic texts indicate that such practices indeed existed, though it is impossible to establish their extent at any one period or through time. Isaiah instructs his disciples to oppose necromancers, whose future is bleak (Is 8:19–22). He also indicts drunken priests and rulers who “made a covenant with death” (Is 28:15); their practices possibly include necrotic activity, but the proposed allusions are tenuous. Another Isaianic passage condemns [p. 2] fertility cults, child sacrifice and *idolatry in general (Is 57:3–13), which quite plausibly included consulting or honoring the dead (Is 57:6, 9). A final text castigates those who “sit inside tombs, and . . . eat swine’s flesh” (Is 65:3–4), a similar illicit combination though tantalizingly without further detail. Ezekiel’s lengthy vision contrasts the pure temple of the future with the tainted previous one, defiled by royal corpses and possibly their veneration (Ezek 43:7, 9).

One possible context for honoring the dead was the marzēăḥ. The West Semitic root mrzḥ is attested in several contexts (Ebla, Ugarit, Moab, Elephantine, Phoenicia, Nabatea, Palmyra, Talmud) to indicate a social group, or its gatherings, or their location. These gatherings often involved eating and drinking and were sometimes explicitly funerary or commemorative. The Hebrew marzēăḥ occurs twice in the OT, once implying revelry and with no obvious link to the dead (Amos 6:7, in a variant construct form, mirzaḥ), and once in a funerary context, where bēt-marzēăḥ is usually translated “house of mourning” and contrasted with “house of [wedding] feasting” (Jer 16:5, 9). The phrase “house of mourning” without further explanation implies that this was an established custom in late preexilic times. Some scholars argue that the marzēăḥ necessarily involved ancestor cults, which were generally prevalent, and that other biblical references to this were later removed by orthodox redactors. However, evidence from other cultural contexts does not prove that the mrzḥ was primarily related to the dead. And if the Israelite version had been so related, then the posited zealous redactors would surely also have expunged the references just noted.

Two further phenomena have sometimes been associated with ancestor cults. First, tĕrāpı̂m, often translated “household gods,” feature in several narratives (Gen 34; Judg 18; 1 Sam 19) and as divinatory objects in a few prophetic texts (Ezek 21:21; Hos 3:4; Zech 10:2). The tĕrāpı̂m may well have represented revered ancestors, but arguments that this necessarily indicates an active ancestor cult are tenuous. Second, religiously significant pillars (maṣṣĕbôt) occur in several narratives, including that of sacrifice at Sinai (Ex 24:4), and again coupled with sacrifice in a prophetic text (Hos 3:4 [alongside tĕrāpı̂m]). These pillars have also been associated with ancestor veneration, since Absalom set up a self-commemorative pillar, and the dutiful son in the Aqhat epic set up “a pillar of his ancestor” (skn ilib [KTU 1.17.i.27]). However, these arguments are equally tenuous, since Absalom lacked offspring to venerate him, and the Ugaritic text uses different terms and reflects a different socioreligious context.

3. Surviving Death.

Apart from the aspects discussed below, the Prophetic Books share the general OT perspective of Sheol as the only specified human destiny (for recent summary, see Routledge). The identity of individuals can persist in family line and name (as is emphasized by Levenson), but this is quite different from individual afterlife.

3.1. Heavenly Books. There are a few intriguing references to heavenly books in the prophets (as elsewhere). These occur with different wording in a variety of contexts and may well imply different underlying ideas. Some scholars trace the Israelite concept back to the Babylonian “tablets of destiny” or to Persian civilian registers, but these may have no relevance and at most they show religious and administrative parallels.

In an Isaianic vision, the restored community “will be holy, everyone who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem” (Is 4:3). As an alternative to the prevalent religious cynicism, Malachi offers “a book of remembrance . . . of those who revered Yahweh” (Mal 3:16). Daniel’s final apocalyptic vision climaxes with the deliverance of “everyone who is found written in the book” (Dan 12:1). His earlier terrifying vision of the Ancient of Days included heavenly assizes: “The court sat in judgment and the books were opened” (Dan 7:10). And the events detailed in his lengthy final vision are recorded in a “book of truth” (Dan 10:21).

Intertestamental and NT writers understood “the book of life” as referring to postmortem fate (e.g., 1 En. 47:3; 90:20; 108:3; Jub. 30:20, 22; 36:10; Lk 10:20; Phil 4:3; Heb 12:23; Rev 21:27), and this interpretation has often been read back into the OT. This approach takes the few OT references as glimpses of future hope. However, this need not be the meaning in their initial context. The record for life (Is 4:3) applies to the current life on earth, not a later one. The divine comment on those in Malachi’s heavenly book, “on the day when I act [p. 3] . . . I will spare them” (Mal 3:17), suggests preservation during judgment rather than life after death. Even the book of names in Daniel’s final vision (Dan 12:1), though mentioned just before resurrection, concerns “your people [who] shall be delivered”—that is, who will survive the unprecedented “anguish” and presumably remain alive on earth. Similarly, the books mentioned in several psalms need imply no more than Yahweh’s careful concern and provision for his people.

In Daniel’s earlier vision, the opening of books in the heavenly court (Dan. 7:10) leads to the destruction of the fourth beast and the subjugation of the other three, divine judgment on current ungodly oppression as a prerequisite to the “heavenly human” and his earthly people receiving God’s kingdom. The opening of the heavenly books leads here to judgment on the four beasts, not on all humans. This is a function different from that ascribed to it in later eschatology, though the development is natural. The NT recasts the various elements of Daniel’s visions to describe the parousia of Christ, and the resurrection and final judgment of all humanity. The books opened in Daniel’s heavenly court are one significant element in this, and thus they are the strongest OT link between heavenly books and the afterlife.

3.2. National Restoration. Two prophetic texts use the concept of renewal of human life as a metaphor for national restoration. Hosea 6:2 invites a return to Yahweh, the very one who had brought destruction on the nation: “After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.” The context and language suggest healing from physical wounds and sickness; for example, “three days” occurs in Hezekiah’s healing (2 Kings 20:8, though not Is 38) and in Mesopotamian medical texts.

Some scholars see a death-and-resurrection motif in Hosea 6:2. However, the text does not specify that the wounding is fatal, and both the verbs “revive” (ḥyh, Piel) and “raise up” (qwm, Hiphil) occur frequently and in varied contexts. J. Day (1996; 1997) notes references to death in the immediate context (Hos 5:14; 6:5), and parallels between Hosea 5–6 and Hosea 13–14. He sees death-and-resurrection motifs in Hosea 13–14, so argues that they occur also in Hosea 5–6, notably resurrection in Hosea 6:2. But Hosea’s profuse images appear throughout his book, giving several themes within each chapter and numerous parallels across different chapters. Death is certainly a theme in Hosea 5–6; 13–14, but this does not determine the meaning of Hosea 6:2.

Nevertheless, there is perhaps a more profound link between wounding and death, healing and resurrection. Hosea grapples in anguish with the message of God’s punishment and destruction of the nation, while still clinging to the hope of healing and restoration. Inevitably the images that he uses may fuse together, so that healing from grievous wounds and resurrection from the dead are alternate images for the renewal of a moribund nation. Hosea and his audience may have been aware of death-and-resurrection motifs, from whatever source, but they are not necessarily evident here.

In a stupendous vision Ezekiel prophesies to a valley littered with bones, which first regroup as skeletons and, on further word, return to life. The vision is immediately explained: the exiled Israelites have lost hope, but Yahweh will open their graves and repatriate them, and they will live (Ezek 37:1–14). The vision of revivified bodies clearly indicates a restored people, but it says nothing about personal resurrection, even if it was later interpreted in that way. The references to graves in Ezekiel 37:12–13 may seem to imply the latter, but they must be taken in context. Israelites normally buried their dead in rock-cut tombs or, for the poor, in shallow pits, so the equivalent for them of unburied bones coming to life would be bodies emerging from graves. In applying this vision to Israel, Ezekiel 37 first translates the imagery into a culturally relevant equivalent before giving its meaning.

Whether Ezekiel or his contemporaries had a concept of personal resurrection is irrelevant, though the prophet’s cautious reply to Yahweh’s opening question makes this unlikely. Resurrection could have been part of the religious backdrop, but the vision makes as much sense without it. Ezekiel proclaimed God’s message of restoration after destruction, of resettlement after banishment, of national life after death. So the imagery of physical bodies being reconstituted would be a perfect illustration. Its use does not imply a prior belief in resurrection, any more than our understanding of science fiction implies a belief in any of its imaginative worlds. Ezekiel’s vision uses physical [p. 4] reconstitution as an image of national restoration, but it says nothing determinative about individual resurrection.

3.3. Individual Resurrection. There are a few possible allusions to individual return to life outside the Prophetic Books. God’s power to kill and make alive is twice asserted (Deut 32:39; 1 Sam 2:6), though neither text refers to specific individuals. The prophets Elijah (1 Kings 17:22) and Elisha (2 Kings 4:34) caused life to return, as did the latter’s bones (2 Kings 13:20–21), but all these were cases of resuscitation within a few hours of death. These events, though certainly miraculous, were significantly different from resurrection of the long dead.

A clear allusion to individual return to life occurs in the famous fourth Servant Song. After being “cut off from the land of the living” and buried, the enigmatic servant will “see offspring and prolong days . . . see and be satisfied” (Is 53:10–11). There is no mention of resurrection. But the few descriptions of his new life are strongly evocative of earthly existence: offspring, days, seeing, allotted portion. So the servant apparently returns to life in some unspecified form (see Servant of Yahweh).

Two texts are more explicit. The Isaiah Apocalypse offers several glimpses of Yahweh’s general triumph over death, most notably when he “will swallow up death forever” (Is 25:8). It then notes that the wicked dead do not rise (Is 26:14) but boldly asserts, “Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise” (Is 26:19). The context is one of national revival and restoration, but there is more here. Both verses refer specifically to “the shades” and “the dead” (i.e., to deceased individuals), while in the latter verse the dust-dwellers will awake and sing, Yahweh’s life-giving dew will fall, and the earth will disclose the shades. The imagery clearly envisages the personal resurrection from death of at least some Israelites. The application may be national, but the imagery presupposes a concept of individual resurrection.

Finally, Daniel 12:2 speaks unmistakably of personal resurrection at the climax of Daniel’s final vision (Dan 10–12): “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” This clearly is individual resurrection of both righteous and wicked. However, it may still be limited. The context focuses on Daniel’s people, not all humanity, and the phrase “many of” probably means “many, but not all” (cf. rabbı̂m min elsewhere; e.g., Esther 8:17), rather than “the many” (cf. NIV: “multitudes”). In context, they are probably those who die in the final persecution, some rising to be rewarded for their resistance, others to be shamed for their collaboration. So this resurrection envisages the Jewish people, and possibly only one specific generation.

The two last texts are dated by nearly all scholars to much later than the times of their putative authors, Isaiah 24–27 as late postexilic and Daniel as second century. The theme of overcoming death forms part of the argument, since it is considered a very late development. In particular, resurrection in Daniel (as in 2 Maccabees) is interpreted as a theological response to the Antiochene persecution and Jewish martyrdom (e.g., Burkes). Thus, resurrection belief only emerged at the very end of the OT period, too late to influence other writers.

In contrast, some critical scholars propose an earlier, preexilic date for Isaiah 24–27, while conservative scholars continue to argue for the unity of Isaiah and Daniel, as respectively eighth- and sixth-century books. However, it must then be accepted that the potentially revolutionary belief in personal resurrection remained theologically unassimilated into Israelite faith. If glimpsed by Isaiah of Jerusalem and developed by Daniel in exile, the theme remained unexplored by these writers elsewhere and was ignored by successive prophets of the seventh to fifth centuries, as well as psalmists, sages and historians. To them, the concept of resurrection was unknown or incomprehensible, and their works maintain the traditional Israelite view of the unwelcome underworld. Thus, resurrection and life after death remained marginal to OT belief, whether chronologically or theologically, and awaited exploration in intertestamental literature and resolution in the NT.

See also DEATH.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. S. L. Burkes, God, Self, and Death: The Shape of Religious Transformation in the Second Temple Period (JSJSup 79; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2003) 87–158; J. Day, “The Development of Belief in Life after Death in Ancient Israel,” in After the Exile: Essays in Honour of Rex Mason, ed. J. Barton and D. J. Reimer (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1996) 231–58; idem, [p. 5] “Resurrection Imagery form Baal to the Book of Daniel,” in Congress Volume: Cambridge, 1995, ed. J. A. Emerton (VTSup 66; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997) 125–33; P. S. Johnston, “Death and Afterlife,” DOTHB 215–18; idem, Shades of Sheol: Death and Afterlife in the Old Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press; Leicester: Apollos, 2002); J. D. Levenson, Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006); R. L. Routledge, “Death and Afterlife in the Old Testament,” Journal of European Baptist Studies 9.1 (2008) 22–39.

P.S. Johnston

Prophets Dictionary of the Old Testament: Prophets, Editors: Mark J. Boda and J. Gordon McConville ©2012 by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA Published by InterVarsity Press P.O. Box 1400 Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426 All rights reserved.

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[Anchor] *Only the OT section is pasted below to try to compare more fully with the Prophets volume above

RESURRECTION This entry consists of two articles. The first surveys the development and articulation of ideas concerning the resurrection of the dead as these are reflected in the OT. The second surveys the development and articulation of these ideas in early Judaism and in the NT.

OLD TESTAMENT [V, 680–84]

There is little mention of “resurrection” in the OT; this notion does not appear except in texts that are rare, obscure with regard to their precise meaning, and late. On the whole, resurrection—which could simply express Israel’s restoration—concerns the dead in only one or two passages, and only Dan 12:2–3, within the apocalyptic context of the 2d century B.C., clearly proclaims that the dead will be snatched from death to experience either “eternal life” or “eternal damnation.” Later on the gospel was articulated in a Jewish milieu in which the reality of the resurrection was still debated, notably between the more traditionalist Sadducees, who argued against it, and the Pharisees, the ardent propagators of newer views (cf. Mark 12:18–27 = Matt 22:23–33; Luke 20:27–38; Acts 23:6–9) who would end up imposing their viewpoint after the Jewish Wars against Rome. According to the Mishnah (Sanh. 10.1a), denial of the resurrection excludes one from the world to come (see further DBSup 10: 481–84, with bibliography).

^__________

A. Life and Death According to the OT

B. Some Exceptions to the Common Lot

C. Resurrection-Healings

D. Resurrection-Restorations of the People of God

1. Restoration of Israel

2. Restoration of Judah

3. A Special Case

E. Resurrection of the Dead

1. Isa 26:19

2. Dan 12:1–3

F. Conclusion

^__________

A. Life and Death According to the OT

When one reads the OT, one fact is striking: that Israel is attached to life—to this life—and in no way dreams of a marvelous life hereafter. Israel considers the world into which she has been placed as the handiwork of her God, and human existence is a divine gift. The Israelite wishes to see his days prolonged in the manner of the patriarchs (Gen 15:15; 35:29), at the heart of the country entrusted to his people (Deut 30:20). Life, the greatest of gifts (Job 2:4; Qoh 9:4), implies piety, success, fecundity, happiness, and peace, under the protection of Israel’s God, as Psalm 128, for example, indicates.

Death is associated with everything that comes to disturb this harmony: a setback, injustice, sterility, war, sickness, misery; it can be introduced prematurely into the destiny of individuals who, as the psalms show, then call upon YHWH, ask his intervention, plead their cause which—in their eyes—is identical with that of their God, cry out and lament, or, once their cry has been heard, make their exclamations of joy and their thanksgivings heard (Psalms 6; 13; 22; 30; 32; 38; 88; 130; etc.). Israel’s Psalter simultaneously speaks of the importance and the beauty of a life lived in communion with God and his people and of the threatening and hateful character of death, which signifies a rupture of those bonds which united the believer to YHWH, even calling that rupture “excommunication” (Pss 6:6; 86:6, 8, 11–13, 19), and of the contagious joy of someone who is rescued from death’s power (Pss 22:22b–24; 30:2–4; 116:1–4).

In general, the human person of the OT thought about death in less dramatic fashion and with a balanced realism: it was self-evident that a creature died, for it was of the “flesh,” that is, it was fragile, mortal; the creature possessed within itself no spark of anything divine and destined for immortality (Qoh 12:7: at death the divine breath returned to God, who had loaned it; Ps 104:29–30). However, for death not to be an occasion of scandal and for it not to appear as an unacceptable occurrence, three conditions had to be fulfilled, as far as the Israelite was concerned. First, death had to come at the end of a long and rich existence (Gen 15:15; Job 42:17) and not precociously, “in the middle of one’s days” (Ps 102:25; Isa 38:10). Then, the deceased had to leave behind descendants or at least a son (cf. the promises made to the patriarchs: Genesis 15; 17; 18); from this conviction, we can understand the problem posed by a wife’s sterility (Genesis 29–30; 1 Sam 1), the special mourning occasioned by the death of an only son (Amos 8:10; Jer 6:26; etc.) and the necessity of mitigating the absence of a descendant by the establishment of the levirate law (Genesis 38; Deut 25:5–10). Finally, funeral rites, especially the burial of the corpse, had to be scrupulously observed (2 Sam 1:11–27; 3:31; Jer 16:1–9; Ezek 24:15–17); woe to the one who was deprived of sepulture (2 Kgs 9:16; Jer 8:1–3; Isa 14:19)! Divine punishment against a guilty person was manifested precisely through a shortened life, the lack of progeny, and a corpse abandoned to wild beasts.

Israel shared with other human groups a representation of the world of the dead, which it generally called Sheol (attested 66 times in the OT, especially in the Psalms [16x] and the book of Isaiah [10x]); Sheol consisted of a vast underground region, dark and dusty (“to return to the dust” means to die [Gen 3:19; Pss 90:3; 104:29] and the “dwellers of the dust” are none other than the dead [Dan 12:2; Job 20:11]). What characterized Sheol was that it was peopled by shades (Heb rĕpāʾı̂m) whose existence—which shares nothing in common with the life that had been led formerly—unfolds without purpose and without communication. The dead are the “forgotten ones” (Ps 88:13; Qoh 3:19–21; 9:5–10); they have no contact with the world [Vol. 5, p. 681] of the living and still less with the living God (Pss 6:6; 30:10; 88:6–12).

The world of the dead was a “country of no return” (Job 7:9–10; 16:22), a prison with its own portals and guards (Isa 38:10; Qoh 9:10; etc.); normally one never left it, and although some texts (generally of a sapiential type) affirm YHWH’s hold over Sheol (Job 12:2; 26:6; Prov 15:11; Amos 9:2–3), the God of Israel, in general, did not intervene—even on behalf of his own—in this gloomy and pitiful territory, which nonetheless had not yet become a place of judgment and punishment, as hell would become in Christian texts, but rather was the place which awaited the living (Job 30:23).

B. Some Exceptions to the Common Lot

Here and there the OT mentioned the particular lot of individuals who had escaped death not by a resurrection but as the consequence of “translation.” First of all, there was the case of the patriarch Enoch (Gen 5:24), whose piety (“he walked with God”) brought in its wake an exceptional destiny (a late text, attributed to the Priestly Writer). Another is the prophet Elijah, whose ministry was brought to completion in the same way (2 Kgs 2:1–15). The theme of the transfer of a human creature into the heavenly realms was well known in antiquity; the technical term used in this regard was the Heb verb lāqaḥ, which is found in Isa 53:8 where it can have this meaning only with difficulty, as well as in Pss 49:16 and 73:24 where one cannot rule out that it refers to the “transfer/ascension” of a faithful person (see further, DBSup 10: 466–68). This theme may perhaps be found also in Hellenistic Judaism, as well as in the book of Wisdom (Wis 2:22–24; 3:1–9; 4:7–11).

C. Resurrection-Healings

Three texts in the books of Kings (1 Kgs 17:17–24; 2 Kgs 4:31–37; 13:20–21) narrate salvific interventions performed by Elijah and Elisha. These were as much instances of resurrections as they were miraculous healings; they served to authenticate the prophetic ministry and to make evident YHWH’s power over death: in this way, they confirmed the declarations that one can read in Deut 32:39 and 1 Sam 2:6 about the uncontested sovereignty of the God of Israel (and not of Baal) over the fate of human beings. In the texts from Kings, nowhere is there any mention of a definitive victory over death; the resurrection effected by the prophet consisted in the restoration to health of a patient, and this was characterized by the reintegration of the breath of life into a child’s body (1 Kgs 17:21–22; 2 Kgs 4:34–35; cf. also Ps 23:3).

D. Resurrection-Restorations of the People of God

Some other passages in the OT, through the image of a resurrection, evoke the restoration, hoped for or foretold, of the people of God, following a difficult period or even a national disaster. These well-known and easily datable texts are found in Hos 6:1–3 and Ezek 37:1–14. Some exegetes add to these texts those of Isa 53:10–12 and Isa 26:16, but the bearing of these latter units is still debated.

1. Restoration of Israel. Hosea 6:1–3 is a text contemporaneous with the Syro-Ephraimitic War, about 735 B.C.E., in which Northern Israel imprudently became engaged after being pushed to do so by Damascus. The declaration made by the prophet presupposed that his compatriots had endured certain setbacks. The subject matter of these verses constituted a kind of song of repentance in which they expressed their desire to return to YHWH, since they were certain of his help (v 1); they were already envisaging their removal and restoration to normalcy, through the support of their God (v 2). Verse 3 takes up the same schema: it is an exhortation based on the conviction that YHWH would not delay acting in their favor.

The continuation of the chapter shows that Hosea rejected this prayer, however nice it might appear to be (vv 4–6). The prophet denounced a superficial and presumptuous attitude; he condemned the levity of the Israelites, the inconsistency of their piety, and the lack of deference in their outlook toward their God. They treated YHWH as if his pardon would be automatically granted after a few sacrifices which ought to have satisfied him. Hosea said “No” to such hypocritical worship (v 4); he recalled the divine demands (v 6) and invited Israel to be more serious (v 5).

A careful examination of Hos 6:1–3 reveals that the Ephraimites were impregnated with a Canaanite religiosity that was foreign to the Yahwistic tradition; they were making of YHWH a god in the likeness of Baal, which texts from Ugarit allow us to understand better. Several more or less explicit allusions to the theme of the death and resurrection of the deity, whose destiny regularly followed the course of the seasons, are recoverable in the statement reported by Hosea: the formula “in two days, on the third day” could pick up on a naturalistic kind of mythology, unless it meant nothing more than simply “in a little time, after a short delay” (1 Cor 5:4 perhaps implicitly refers to this text; Tertullian was the first to make good use of it [Ad Marcionem 4.42.1–2]; a Targum gave it an eschatological meaning); as if by chance, the dawn (šaḥar) and the dew (ṭal), accompanied by rain, played a not unimportant role at Ugarit. It seems as if Hosea’s interlocutors expressed themselves as if they were worshippers of the forces of nature, thereby giving the prophet one more reason to condemn, along with their prayers and their offerings, their hope.

We should note that the idea of resurrection was already attested in Israel in the 8th century, but that then it was scarcely distinguishable either from healing or from salvation of a political kind. It had to do with the fate of N Israel within its history and not at all to do with the final condition of human beings. Its origin, most likely Canaanite, and its ties to agrarian fertility cults rendered this idea suspect to the faithful adorers of YHWH (DBSup 10: 444–45).

2. Restoration of Judah. Ezek 37:1–14 is equally concerned with the restoration of the people of YHWH shortly after the tragic events which had preceded, accompanied, and followed the taking of Jerusalem and which marked the downfall of the kingdom of Judah in 587 B.C. To a nation bruised and quasi-moribund, the prophet foretold a resurrection which consisted concretely in the reconstitution of the “house of Israel.” Ezekiel’s message is composed of a vision (vv 1–10), which acts as a symbolic prophecy and is similar to those which we come across [Vol. 5, p. 682] elsewhere (Ezek 12:1; 21:23–27); his vision is followed by an explanation or, better, by a proclamation (vv 11–14; vv 12–13 form a complementary oracle announcing to the deportees the end of the Exile).

Here Ezekiel promises his brothers, rendered hopeless by the misfortunes of Judah (v 11), a renewal as extraordinary as it was unexpected (vv 1, 10, 11, 14): out of bones from which all life has disappeared, God’s spirit creates an immense army! This is not an instance of a resurrection, as later Jewish (Pharisaic) and Christian traditions would envision it, but rather a case of Ezekiel, unlike Hosea’s contemporaries, describing an event which he had witnessed in his vision, grounded not in a naturalistic kind of mysticism but in the traditional Yahwistic teaching as this stands out in bold relief from Gen 2:7 on (Isa 42:5; Ps 104:29–30; Job 33:4). As was the case with man’s creation, so the resurrection would take place in two stages: the scattered bones are first brought back together and then flesh and skin are added to the skeletons to form bodies, which lack only the breath of life (vv 7–8; cf. Gen 2:7a); then, at the summons of the “spirit” or of “the breath,” the dead rise up, like an acted-out parable, to testify to the renovation of Israel (vv 9, 10, and 14).

To give his answer to the dread events of 587, Ezekiel in this fashion appropriated the notion of resurrection, but did so within a perspective which fully conformed to the YHWH cult (cf. DBSup 10: 445–47).

3. A Special Case. Isa 53:10–12 poses difficult problems and there is no clear evidence that this text can be numbered among those which testify in favor of faith in the resurrection (DBSup 10: 447–48).

The servant mentioned in Isa 52:13–53:12 is not with any certitude a human individual, whether of the past, the future, or the present; he might represent Israel in its totality, and the Fourth Servant Song in this case would recount the paradoxical destiny of the people of YHWH, condemned to experience the worst humiliations, restraint, and a condition equivalent to death, only to be, in the end, glorified by its God and hailed by the whole of humanity as the one which bore the faults of the multitudes (the pagans) and secured their salvation. In this communitarian perspective, then, the issue is one neither of death nor of resurrection.

If, however, the referent in this text is an individual, some member of the people of Israel who suffers for others and notably for his brothers, the expressions employed in Isaiah 53 do not automatically imply that the servant is to be put to death, and his final victory (evoked in vv 10–12) does not demand that he be snatched from death. The essence of the message in this chapter consists not in the special lot that awaits the servant after his suffering, but in the fact that God’s plan is realized through him and that this is recognized as such.

The author of Isaiah 53 thus does not explicitly proclaim the resurrection of the witness of YHWH; instead, he declares that through the destiny of this individual, and contrary to every expectation, the divine design comes to a successful completion. One finds allusions to the Fourth Servant Song in Jewish texts as diverse as Dan 12:2–4 and Wis 2:12–20.

E. Resurrection of the Dead

Two passages deserve to be mentioned in this paragraph, because they envisage a resurrection of the dead that really is a liberation from death. This is clearly the case with Dan 12:1–3, though the meaning of Isa 26:19 remains a debated instance. One should note that these texts belong to the latest levels of the OT tradition (the end of the Persian period, according to some commentators [Isa 26:19]; the 2d century B.C. [Dan 12:2–3]) and reflect milieus influenced to a greater or lesser degree by apocalypticism.

1. Isa 26:19 is part of a larger unit (Isaiah 24–27) that is complex, postexilic, and characterized as the “Great Apocalypse,” the interpretation of which is very difficult. Various exegetes even think that this verse is a late gloss without relationship to its immediate context (Kaiser and Lohse 1977) or else an independent proclamation replying to Isa 26:14 (J. Vermeylen). H. Wildberger (Jesaiah BKAT), on the other hand, locates this “Apocalypse” in the 5th century B.C. and sees in Isa 26:19 an oracle of salvation that follows up on the lament of the people articulated in vv 7–18 (discussion and bibliography in DBSup 10: 448–52).

Isa 26:19 raises many difficulties; as it is, the Hebrew text possesses little clarity and the versions are divergent. Its author expressed either a vow or a promise (if this verse can be understood as a reply to v 14); thus he either desired or foretold the return to life of the “dead-of-YHWH,” an occasion for joy and praise.

Some would call attention to allusions in this brief passage to the “dew,” already evoked in Hos 6:1–3, which was a Canaanite motif; with the thunder and the rain it was a pledge of renewal, and so we should not be surprised to find it linked in the rabbinic tradition with the theme of the resurrection of the dead (Hagiga 12b). For some specialists, the issue under question, here again, is that of a national restoration after a painful period for the Jewish community during the time of the decline of the Persian period, whereas the majority of critics consider that Isa 26:19 announced a real resurrection of the dead. However, this was not a universal resurrection, but one accorded only to the “dead of YHWH” (cf. v 19, “your dead ones” and “my corpse” understood as “my corpses”; “their corpses” in the Syriac version and in the Targum). Resurrection is promised to those who had died (the martyrs) for the sake of the name of the God of Israel and whom YHWH reclaimed as his own. The resurrection evoked in this passage, when situated in the “Great Apocalypse,” was promised not to humanity in general but to those believers who, in an era of troubles and persecutions, had been faithful even to the point of giving their lives for YHWH’s cause. This perspective is close to the points of view found in Jewish apocalyptic.

2. Dan 12:1–3 is the one text that precisely points to apocalyptic milieus which came to be expressed at the time of the crisis provoked by the attitude of Antiochus Epiphanes toward Jews opposed to the Hellenization of Jerusalem and of the customs heretofore in effect. Religious persecution was unleashed against the ḥăsı̂dı̂m (or “Faithful Ones”)—from whom the Pharisaic party evolved—in 167 B.C. Dan 12:1–3 can be dated with some precision as part of a complex, a type of historical retrospective (Dan 11:1–45) which antedated by a short time the death of the Seleucid sovereign (in 164 B.C.).

After having evoked the past, the author of the conclusion to the book of Daniel, beginning with 12:1, envisaged [Vol. 5, p. 683] the future. In v 1, he foretold a time of anguish that would surpass in horror anything one could have imagined, but simultaneously he promised divine protection to the faithful Yahwists. Then he treated, in vv 2–3, the fate of the dead and in particular that of those who had fallen in the course of the persecutions. No more than was the case in Isa 26:19 do we have here an event that concerns the whole of humanity; the resurrection, as Daniel foresaw it, was a limited one (v 2a, with its use of the partitive min, suggests the interpretation “many of …” rather than “all of …”); it addressed the concrete situation wherein two parties were set against each other within the Jewish community, the partisans of Antiochus and their opponents. The first group was bound for “eternal shame” and the second group was to receive “eternal life” (v 2b); divine justice was thereby vindicated, since retribution, though long delayed, would have become possible “at that time” (v 1), through the resurrection. Several questions remain unanswered: the identity of the ones “punished” (v 2b) remains unclear, if one can believe the exegetes whose opinion on this point remains divergent: are we dealing with great sinners or with renegade Jews or perhaps with pagans hostile to Israel? Questions are also asked whether the condemned will come back to life (v 2a), then to experience an unending opprobrium (v 2b), or whether, in the end, the resurrection concerns only the “just ones.”

Verse 3 brings in a new element, for it looks to a certain category of Jews, namely the “wise,” whose attitude—that is, their martyrdom—led their brothers to follow the right path and who are called to glory. Here the author alludes to Isaiah 53, to which he gives a communitarian interpretation (cf. also Dan 11:33–34), making use, moreover, of astral symbolism; it is difficult to say whether this should be taken literally or not (see Cavallin 1974; for an opposing viewpoint, Grelot 1971). It seems clear, though, that the resurrection, as it is envisaged here, does not consist simply in a return to the earthly conditions of the past (DBSup 10: 452–58).

We draw attention to the fact that the theme of the resurrection asserted itself in the Jewish milieus at the very moment when apocalyptic views were developing in answer to the distress being undergone by faithful Jews. By the victory over death, as this was understood in the 2d century B.C., justice was rendered to the Yahwistic faithful, and those who gave their lives in YHWH’s name could thereafter participate in that new age which the God of Israel was preparing for his own. As E. Renan wrote long ago, “the blood of the martyrs was the veritable creator of belief in a second life” (DBSup 10: 457). What counted in the eyes of the biblical authors, in the last days of OT times, was not at all the immortality of the soul or even the salvation of the individual, but the possibility that the “dead of YHWH” (Isa 26:19) or the rabbı̂m, that is, “the many,” once they had been instructed in justice by their teachers (Dan 12:2–3), would experience, along with those who had been saved in the hour of torment, the triumph of their God and the glory of the age to come.

F. Conclusion

Texts relating to resurrection in the OT are rare and dissimilar; they come from different horizons and we cannot simply examine them in chronological order to retrace the history of this theme in the mind of Israel. Known before the Exile, since it was attested in Hosea’s time in the 8th century—and there within a Canaanite context—the return to life of the dead did not really come to the fore until the 2d century B.C.E., in the days of the Maccabean crisis, and from within those quarters deeply attached to the Yahwistic tradition among the hard-pressed ḥăsı̂dı̂m, who awaited their salvation in their God’s final intervention “on the last day.”

Between Hosea and Daniel, the resurrection idea cropped up here and there, but chiefly to point toward the political renewal of the people of Israel (Ezekiel).

As was the case with the OT texts themselves, precise vocabulary in the OT which pointed to the resurrection was limited; such terminology was shaped by the ideas that Israel had fashioned about the condition of those who had died. At a person’s death, the breath or spirit of life departed; it had to return later on if there was to be any renewal of life (1 Kgs 17:21–22). The dead lie sleeping in their tombs; at the moment of resurrection, they will rise up again (Heb qûm: 2 Kgs 13:21; Isa 26:14, 19; Job 14:12 [Ezek 37:10 uses a different verb]). The dead are sleeping now; they will be awakened (2 Kgs 4:31; Isa 26:19; Job 14:12; Dan 12:2) and, finally, they will come back to life (1 Kgs 17:22; 2 Kgs 13:21; Isa 26:14, 19; Ezek 37:3, 5–6, 9–10, 14; Job 14:14 [cf. also Dan 12:2 and, in the Talmud, the rabbinical expression teḥiyyat hammētı̂m, “the resurrection of the dead,” which is attested 41 times]).

If the problem of the Israelite’s survival beyond his or her earthly existence was scarcely asked about in Israel over the centuries, this was due in the first instance to the traditional anthropological conceptions by the people of YHWH: the human being was composed of body and soul (or breath [Gen 2:7–8]), that formed the organic unity indispensable for life; the person was not constituted of a perishable element (the flesh) and of an immaterial reality endowed with immortality (the soul). Life ceased at that very moment when the breath loaned by God was taken back (Ps 104:29–30; Qoh 12:7) and the body, henceforth inanimate, was destined to return to the earth (Gen 3:19; Ps 90:3). The existence of the shades in Sheol, mentioned many times, noticeably in the psalms, was the total opposite of life—a kind of “nonlife”—out of which no positive element could arise. For Israel there could be no victory over death except that of a state of existence which called for a complete renewal of the human being. The resurrection of the dead, that is, of the body, is etched within the logic of OT concepts.

Secondly, and this might be the chief issue, death which at times signified the total rupture between the dead and the world of the living and, above all, YHWH (cf. the psalms referred to above) had its sting attenuated when the deceased left behind a son or when his body was buried in the tomb of his ancestors. For the Israelite survived in his or her descendants, and they were kept in contact with their own through burial rites which were celebrated in the midst of YHWH’s land; the individual Israelite without question died, but Israel was perpetuated and at the same time a certain continuity with the missing ones was assured.

Little by little, under the pressure of the tragic events that the people of YHWH experienced (the disappearance [Vol. 5, p. 684] of the northern kingdom in the 8th century; the fall of Jerusalem and the end of the Judean state in the 6th century; the Exile and the difficult and precarious reconstitution of a Jewish community around Jerusalem under the Persians), the condition of the individual in the midst of a national and religious community came to assume the preponderant place and, from this time forward, questions were asked about the fate of the faithful one and in particular of the ultimate future state reserved for him or her. The problem became especially acute during the crises that the Jewish people lived through under the declining Persian Empire and during the time of Antiochus Epiphanes; factions among the people of God were set against each other with passion, with the object of seizing power in Jerusalem, and persecutions raged against those who wished to remain faithful to the law of their God. The Yahwistic cause seemed a lost one, and the martyrs to have died in vain; the prophecy of the resurrection of the dead then allowed people to address the challenge brought on by the circumstances they endured. With the resurrection doctrine, the last word remained with the God of Israel and, with him, on the lips of the faithful. Resurrection, which constitutes the determining backdrop of the NT’s gospel, was the fruit of Jewish resistance to the Hellenistic world.

We have mentioned that the notion of resurrection is a foreign body within the OT; it was the result of external influences that came into play in various ways over the course of the history of the people of YHWH. Upon examination, the extent of the contribution from outside Israel, without being denied, needs to be qualified, and one could say that, when some Jews declared that the dead (of their God) would revive, they did so by basing their arguments on Yahwistic principles. The Canaanite or Near Eastern world could have furnished Israel, in this sphere as in others, with themes and a language; but a return to life, conceived in a quasi-automatic fashion and lived out within the framework of an agrarian ritual, was rejected by Yahwism (Hosea) and could not be given free play until it had been subjected to a rigorous purification process (Ezekiel). Much later on, Persian teachings may have served as stimulants to the Jewish visions of the afterlife, but the Persians reckoned the resurrection as but one element in the re-creation of the universe, while the OT texts (Isaiah 26; Daniel 12) envisaged it as an event that concerned all faithful Jews; the universalism of some of these texts contrasts with the particularism, or rather, the pietism of other texts.

It is in the Yahwistic tradition itself that are to be found the roots of faith in the resurrection: the OT proclaimed YHWH’s power, one which no force could hold in check; God masters death as God masters life (1 Sam 2:6; Deut 32:39; cf. also a late annotation in Isa 25:8a). God has created and thus can re-create (2 Maccabees 7).

God’s justice, affirmed everywhere in the OT, sooner or later had to become manifest, and the resurrection allowed this very thing to happen, as we have seen. Finally, the victory over death, that in the first instance concerned the faithful Yahwists, gave Israel’s God an occasion to demonstrate his ḥesed, “faithfulness, loyalty, solidarity,” toward his own and, in this way, to answer the question already raised by the psalmists about the definitive future of those bonds which actually united YHWH to his ḥāsı̂d (Psalms 6; 16; 22; etc.). Thus, belief in the resurrection of the dead is based on YHWH’s power, on his justice, and on his love, as these have been revealed in the course of the history of Israel; in the 2d century B.C.E., at the high point of the Maccabean crisis, the ḥăsı̂dı̂m drew out the ultimate consequences from the experiences that Israel had lived through over centuries.

Bibliography

Barth, C. 1974. Die Errettung vom Tode in den individuellen Klage-und Dankliedern des Alten Testaments. Zollikon.

Cavallin, H. C. C. 1974. Life after Death. ConBNT 7/1. Lund.

Cazelles, H. 1961. Le Jugement des morts. Sources Orientales 4. Paris.

Collins, J. J. 1974. Apocalyptic Eschatology as the Transcendence of Death. CBQ 36: 21–43.

———. 1978. The Root of Immortality: Death in the Context of Jewish Wisdom. HTR 71: 177–92.

Grelot, P. 1971. De la mort à la vie éternelle. LD 67. Paris.

Greshake, G., and Kremer, J. 1986. Resurrectio Mortuorum: Zum theologischen Verständnis der leiblichen Auferstehung. Darmstadt.

Hasel, G. F. 1980. Resurrection in the Theology of the Old Testament Apocalyptic. ZAW 92: 267–84.

Hengel, M. 1974. Judaism and Hellenism. 2 vols. Trans. J. Bowden. Philadelphia.

Kaiser, O., and Lohse, E. 1977. Tod und Leben: Biblische Konfrontationen. Stuttgart.

Maag, V. 1980. Tod und Jenseits nach dem AT. Pp. 181–202 in Kultur, Kulturkontakt und Religion. Göttingen.

Martin-Achard, R. 1960. From Death to Life: A Study of the Development of the Doctrine of the Resurrection in the Old Testament. Trans. J. P. Smith. Edinburgh.

Nickelsburg, G. W. E., Jr. 1972. Resurrection, Immortality, and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism. HTS 26. Cambridge, MA.

Nikolainen, A. T. 1944–46. Der Auferstehungsglauben in der Bibel und ihrer Umwelt. 2 vols. AASF B 49/3, 59/3. Helsinki.

Nötscher, F. 1946. Altorientalischer und alttestamentlicher Auferstehungsglauben. Würzburg. Repr. Darmstadt, 1970.

Stemberger, G. 1972. Der Leib der Auferstehung. AnBib 56. Rome.

ROBERT MARTIN-ACHARD

Trans. Terrence Prendergast

-Dan

Sean

Was wondering from someone who has experience with the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary and the IVP Bible Dictionaries. Which is preferred? I know AYB has historically been respected. How does the IVP stack? Comparisons, Contrasts, strengths, weaknesses?

Thanks!

Both are terrific. For both academic and preaching work, I tend to use the AYB most often for straight biblical studies. The IVP works (I don't have all of them) I use more for bridiging the gap between biblical and systematic theology (the latter is my field). In other words, if I wanted to explore the background of a specific book or biblical custom, I'd use AYB; if I wanted to know more about how a title of Christ was used in the Gospels, I'd go with IVP.

They're pricey but worth it. The IVP volumes frequently go on sale, and I've been picking them off when I get a credit or coupon. I got AYB when I bought a Logos 7 library. (After I put the library in my cart, I then had the option to add the ABY for like $60 or $70 off.)

Bruce Dunning

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/890522#Comment_890522

I think both are excellent but tend to use the AYBD first and then go to the IVP Dictionaries if I want to explore things further.

Mattillo

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/890534#Comment_890534

Please correct me if I'm wrong but the AYBD tends to be more academic/critical whereas the IVP is more conservative. I would agree with the IVP going on sale except the first edition of Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (1st ed) which doesn't go on sale very often.

Mattillo

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/890615#Comment_890615

http://community.logos.com/forums/p/126177/821546.aspx

DAL

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/890534#Comment_890534

Get both if you can!

Sean

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/890615#Comment_890615

Please correct me if I'm wrong but the AYBD tends to be more academic/critical whereas the IVP is more conservative.

That's correct, but the AYBD is still extraordinarily useful even if one does not take a critical view--and especially to help in understanding said critical views.

Mattillo

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/890627#Comment_890627

Please correct me if I'm wrong but the AYBD tends to be more academic/critical whereas the IVP is more conservative.

That's correct, but the AYBD is still extraordinarily useful even if one does not take a critical view--and especially to help in understanding said critical views.

Thank you Sean! I would agree with you it is important to understand both sides whether you agree with them or not