Life and Souls

Can you hope for eternal LIFE without believing in eternal SOULS? Read on.

Much of the Christian teaching about eternal life and about souls is not present in the Tanakh (which Christians call the Old Testament.) There is some vague talk about Sheol (which is not represented as hell but pretty much an all-inclusive gloomy receptacle for the deceased,) and about people being "gathered to their fathers." This latter may be somewhat literal: we are going to put your bodies where the bodies of your ancestors were put before you. "Soul" is a Greek conception and as such would have been totally alien to the ancient Hebrews.

If you want a good idea of what the ancient Jews thought about death, look at Psalm 90, which is supposedly the only Psalm that was written by Moses himself.

Psalm 90
A prayer of Moses the man of God.

Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.

Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

You turn people back to dust, saying, “Return to dust, you mortals.”

A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by,
or like a watch in the night.

Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death— they are like the new grass of the morning:

In the morning it springs up new,
but by evening it is dry and withered.

We are consumed by your anger and terrified by your indignation.

You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.

All our days pass away under your wrath; we finish our years with a moan.

Our days may come to seventy years,
or eighty, if our strength endures;
yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow,
for they quickly pass, and we fly away.

If only we knew the power of your anger!
Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due.

Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Relent, Lord! How long will it be? Have compassion on your servants.

Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.

Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen trouble.

May your deeds be shown to your servants, your splendor to their children.

May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us;
establish the work of our hands for us—
yes, establish the work of our hands.


I find this very credible as an actual writing of Moses, not just because it says so. Anyway, the Psalm talks about death and this world, starting with people getting withered to dust and blown away, and ending with work (in this world.) There is no other world shown in this Psalm: death is a terrible and unavoidable fate. Destruction, because of G-d's wrath.

And yet... and yet... G-d speaks of the beloved dead as if they were still there. He says, for the sake of your father Abraham I bring you out of Egypt. For the sake of David. For the sake of my love for Abraham and my covenant with him. Elisha brings a man back from the dead EVEN THOUGH HE HIMSELF IS DEAD. It doesn't say G-d raised that man. It says ELISHA raised him. The power of his dead bones.

LIFE belongs to G-d. G-d IS LIFE. The power of life IS His and always WAS. He breathed life into every living thing. He gives life to those He wishes.

It is totally under G-d's sovereign will whether anyone will have an afterlife or whether no one will. Eternity is not a birthright. G-d gave you life.

It's up to Him whether He gives it again.

The Tanakh does not speak of an afterlife in clear terms because that is something that is subject to G-d's sovereign will alone. He may will to raise from the dead. He may not. That we will all die and be destroyed is a certainty. Whether we have a future after that, is totally up to G-d. So talk of an afterlife is kind of presumptive of G-d's sovereign will. You have a spirit but not an eternal soul. Bad people don't squirm forever in hell, they are just destroyed, obliterated, boom. The gift G-d gave, Life, He takes back. That solves that problem, and nobody is squirming in hell. Just gone. Hasta la vista, baby.

"Soul" is a Greek idea. Not a Jewish one.

Nevertheless, some parts of the Tanakh are suggestive of a brighter future for the righteous, particularly in Isaiah. I can't quote chapter and verse on it, but somewhere in Isaiah it says that the righteous will receive their reward even if their life on this Earth sucks completely. And of course there are the Branch from Jesse verses which describe a life quite unlike this one:


The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
and a little child will lead them.

The cow will feed with the bear,
their young will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.

The infant will play near the cobra’s den,
and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest.

They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.

Isaiah 11:6-9

Man, that last part is good. The Earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as water covers the sea.

Religious Jews believe in the Kingdom of the Righteous, which is a future Kingdom of God not completely unlike life on Earth. However, it may well be that the Kingdom of the Righteous is a humanly inconceivable form of existence, beyond our comprehension, and so Isaiah uses parallels. All animals at peace. No war. The knowledge of G-d filling everything.



They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.