Canaan, Corinth, and the Death of Death - Part IV

In the last post, I argued that resurrection in the OT was not anything anyone hoped for for themselves. It was sort of a pipe dream. For Isaiah and Daniel, for Job, for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, death was the end. Death was still an enemy yet to be defeated.

The Death of Death
So, when will death be defeated, or has it already been defeated? The verb katargeitai in 1 Corinthians 15:26, translated as “defeated” is a present active indicative verb. As a present tense verb, one thing we can say is that Death’s defeat has not already happened, which is why your modern translations render this verb something like “to be defeated” or “will be defeated.” But, as a present tense verb, it also means it pertains to contemporary time, hence NOT the future, in which case we could translate 1 Corinthians 15:26 as “death is being defeated.” Both translations, though, imply the same thing. Death is not yet defeated at the time of Paul’s letter. Roman 6:9 affirms that Jesus has conquered death: “death no longer has dominion over him.” Throughout the remainder of 1 Corinthians 15, though, Paul seems pretty clear that the dead in Christ have yet to be raised. While Death suffered a crippling blow with the resurrection of Christ, Death remains the last enemy to be defeated.

Paul confirms this a few paragraphs later, as he concludes his excursus on the resurrection.

What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Cor. 15:50–55 NRSV)

While there is much to unpack here, let me just draw your attention to three points. First, Paul clearly thought he was living in the last days and expected the Second Coming of Christ to happen during his lifetime. Second, when the trumpet sounds, Paul’s expectation was not that he would be taken up or raptured away to the heavens, but that his body would be changed from mortal to immortal. Finally, and to the thrust of this blog series, the resurrection of the dead at the Second Coming of Christ will conclusively and completely signal the death of Death.

The Resurrection of the Redeemed is not just a wishful hope to get us through days of uncertainty and insecurity. It is at the very core of the Christian faith. “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” In the Christian world two things said be said for certain: death and the death of Death.

Canaan, Corinth, and the Death of Death - Part III

Resurrection in the Old Testament

The notion of a resurrection is not foreign to the Old Testament, but it is rarely attested, appearing just four times: Isaiah 26, Ezekiel 37, Daniel 12, and Hosea 6. Another passage that is often assumed to contain a reference to the resurrection is Job 19:25–26.The NIV renders these verses as follows:

“I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God”

There is much to investigate here, and it would be worth an entire [blog post] to commit to these verses alone. But, let’s cut to the chase by putting these verses in the context of the book of Job. Throughout the book, Job has had one primary objective: to maintain his innocence before God and his friends. Both he and his friends believed that people got what they deserved. If they sinned against God or humans, they should suffer. If they have been upright (as the narrator tells us Job has been), they should prosper and be healthy. Since Job was suffering, the only conclusion Job’s friends could draw was that Job had sinned. Job declared his innocence before his friends and wanted the opportunity to declare his innocence before God himself. Job’s declaration in Job 19 is not for some future after-life experience, but the recognition that the only one who can vindicate him before his friends is God himself. Nearly every modern translation of these verses misses this point, and too quickly assumes a New Testament perspective to understand them. My own translation of these verses is this:

“As for me, I know that my vindicator is alive. At last, he will rise above the dust. After my skin had been destroyed like this, from my flesh I will see God.”

Job had faith that God had not abandoned him. Job’s flesh was falling off; it was scabbed and peeling, but even in his deteriorated flesh he had hope that he would see his Vindicator.

Ezekiel 37 and Hosea 6:2 both speak of resurrection, but only figuratively, in the sense that the nation would be restored after its figurative death of the exile.

[Ezekiel's Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones, 

Dore's English Bible, (c) WikiCommons]

The only examples of bodily resurrection in the Old Testament, then, are found in Isaiah 26:19 and Daniel 12:2. However, it’s important to recognize that even in these verses resurrection or the after-life is not seen as being imminent, but only will take place “in that day,” a prophetic reference to the Day of the Lord, the day when God finally and ultimately accomplishes his purposes.

On that day, Isaiah says, God will defeat “Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent,” “the dragon that is in the sea” (Isa 27:1). Isaiah employs language that is strikingly similar to the Baal Epic, representing Yahweh’s adversary as the sea serpent who wreaks havoc on Yahweh’s plans. In THAT day, Isaiah says, God “will swallow up death forever” (Isa 25:8). For Isaiah and for the ancient Israelites, death’s defeat was a future hope, not a present reality.

They clung to the hope that the horrors of imperialistic oppression would one day end, but they lived in a world where oppression was part of daily existence. But in THAT day, Leviathan would be struck down by God’s great and strong sword. In THAT day, death would die forever. In THAT day, the dead shall live, corpses shall rise, and those who sleep in the dust will wake up and sing for joy (Isa 26:19).

But that day had not yet come. For Isaiah and Daniel, for Job, for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, death was the end. Death was still an enemy yet to be defeated.

Canaan, Corinth, and the Death of Death - Part II

Death and After-death in the Old Testament

The Old Testament has a great deal to say about life, but little, if anything about the afterlife. It does, however, speak of two important aspects of death: burial practices, and the location of the deceased.

While there is some disagreement regarding the precise nature of burial practices in ancient Israel, the Bible does provide us with enough information to lay out a general outline of the customs and practices. We see this most explicitly in the phrase, “slept with his ancestors,” pointing to the ancient Israelite belief that a proper burial was necessary so the deceased could be reunited with their families in the grave, despite the manner in which they died. Ecclesiastes 6:3 reflects this concern, stating that it is better to be born dead than to not receive a burial. Deuteronomy 21:22–23 commands that even executed criminals deserve a proper burial, so as not to invoke God’s wrath.

The concern for a rightful burial is evident with both Ahab and Jezebel who both died inglorious and dishonorable deaths, yet Ahab “slept with his ancestors,” (1 Kings 22:40) and an attempt was made to provide Jezebel a proper burial even though she was thrown from a wall and trampled by horses (2 Kings 9:34). Even Saul, who died in battle and whose corpse was decapitated and cremated, was given a proper burial beneath the tamarisk tree in Jabesh (1 Sam 31:8–13). A proper burial was essential to the ancient Israelite view that if one did not receive a proper burial their ghosts would haunt their surviving family members.

["Death of Jezebel" by Gustave Dore; (c) Wikicommons]

This is why it was essential for Abraham to buy a plot of land to bury Sarah (Gen 23), and why the bones of Joseph were carried back from Egypt and buried in Shechem, the site of the family grave. It is also why it was such a huge commitment on Ruth’s part to not only leave Moab, but to pledge to be buried where Naomi was buried (Ruth 1:17).

The other area where the Old Testament speaks at length about the dead is the location of the deceased. The destiny of the deceased goes by several names in the Old Testament: Sheol, the Pit, the Grave, Shades, Deep Shadow, Abaddon, earth, and the land of no return.  But they all refer to the same place. When the Bible speaks of Sheol, it speaks of it as the polar opposite of the cosmos’s upper extremity, as in the heights of heaven and the depths of Sheol (Job 11:7–8; Ps 95:3–5). For the biblical authors, Sheol was a land of deep darkness located in the depths of the earth, it was guarded by gates, and those who descended there could not escape.

The nature of Sheol in the Old Testament corresponds quite closely with the Mesopotamian view of the KUR.NU.GI.A, “the land of no return.” The idea that Sheol was the eternal abode of the dead permeates the book of Job, but is most clearly articulated in Job’s first response to Eliphaz.

Remember that my life is a breath;
my eye will never again see good.
The eye that beholds me will see me no more;
while your eyes are upon me, I shall be gone.
As the cloud fades and vanishes,
so those who go down to Sheol do not come up;
they return no more to their houses,
nor do their places know them anymore. (Job 7:7–10) 

For Job, and the rest of ancient Israel, the grave was literally the final resting place for all humanity. There was no anticipation of an afterlife, and there was no expectation of an ascent to heaven. In fact, the only person to have ascended to heaven in the Old Testament was Elijah, and this happened while he was living.

In the next post I'll take a quick look at the notion of the resurrection in the Old Testament.

Canaan, Corinth, and the Death of Death - Part I

In his 1726 classic, The Political History of the Devil, Daniel Defoe observed, “Things as certain as death and taxes, can be more firmly believed.” Ben Franklin, of course, popularized the saying, spinning it into a modern proverb: “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” I am a Bible scholar, not a Political Scientist, so while taxes do affect me (both positively and negatively), my concern here is the certainty of death. [1] 

First Corinthians 15:26 says that “the last enemy to be destroyed is death.” The word used for enemy here is the same word used throughout the New Testament in reference to both human and cosmic adversaries. So, how can death be an enemy? Isn’t death just the absence of life, the natural end to one’s earthly existence? 

Furthermore, katargeitai, the word translated “to be destroyed” is used elsewhere in the New Testament to mean “ineffective, powerless, nullified, abolished, ceasing to exist, passing away.” How can one of life’s certainties no longer exist? How can a non-entity be destroyed?

To answer these questions, let's turn to an unlikely source, the religious writings of ancient Canaan. In 1928 a Syrian farmer accidentally opened a tomb that would later be identified as belonging to the ancient and forgotten city of Ugarit. Since excavations first began in 1929, thousands of texts have been unearthed, chief among them are religious texts with close affinities to the language, culture and religious practices of ancient Israel. The longest and most impressive of these texts is the Baal Epic, whose primary protagonist is one and the same with biblical Baal, the divine antagonist of the prophets of Yahweh in the Old Testament. 

(Baal Epic, Louvre; (c) WikiCommons)

The epic consists of six clay tablets and over 900 lines of Ugaritic text. The Baal Epic tells the tale of how the young storm god Baal overthrew the older god El, the father and creator god, as king of the Ugaritic pantheon by defeating his rival Yamm (deified Sea), sometimes called Judge River and personified by the seven-headed serpent Litan, known in the Bible as Leviathan. As the newly enthroned king, the craftsman god Kothar-wa-Hasis built a palace-temple for Baal and sent messengers to the god called Mot, whose name means “Death,” to brag about his palace and inform Death that Baal was refusing to pay Death his dues. Death responded first with a threat, then with action. Putting one lip to the earth and one lip to the heavens, Death swallowed Baal. Taking revenge on the death of her brother, the goddess Anat brings back Baal from the netherworld, the realm of the dead, and conquered death (in a rather gory fashion). This would appear to be the demise of Death, but seven years later, Death returns, saying

Baal, because of you I experienced shame:

because of you I experienced splitting with a sword;

because of you I experienced burning with fire;

because of you I experienced grinding with millstones;

because of you I experienced winnowing with a sieve;

because of you I experienced scattering in the fields;

because of you I experienced sowing in the sea.

Give me one of your brothers that I may eat, 

and my anger will turn away

If you do not give up one of your brothers…

then I will swallow humans, 

I will swallow the multitudes of the earth.”

In the Baal Epic, Death has an insatiable appetite and a ravenous hunger. Death swallowed Baal and Death seeks to devour all humanity. Death was defeated, but only temporarily. His appetite was too rapacious to control, and too voracious to starve.

Death is an all-too-familiar acquaintance with humanity, which is why Death is not only a villain in the Baal Epic, but also a common character in the biblical drama. In Jeremiah 9:21 Death is depicted as a thief in the night who enters through windows to take life prematurely.

Death has come up into our windows,

he has entered our palaces,

to cut off the children from the streets

and the young men from the squares.

It is no coincidence that in the Baal Epic when the craftsman god laid out the blueprint for Baal’s palace-temple, Baal only allowed windows in the structure after some persuading, not wishing to give Death access to his abode. As it turns out, Baal’s concerns were justified. Death did enter Baal’s house and steal young Baal’s life.

[to be continued...]

[1] This blog series was first delivered as a chapel address at Colorado Christian University, March 3, 2016.