Dr. Bob Gonzales
Puritan Board Junior
For centuries, dying Christians have drawn comfort and hope from Old Testament passages like David’s Twenty-third Psalm. Many scholars today, however, are charging earlier generations with reading the teaching of the New Testament back into the Old. They concede the New Testament has much to say about a resurrection, a final judgment, and eternal life. But modern scholars argue that a correct reading of the Old Testament provides little if any hope for a blissful life beyond the grave. According to them, the Old Testament believer simply lived for this world. For example, E. F. Sutcliffe, has claimed,
I believe these modern Bible scholars seriously mistaken. In a post entitled "Fullness of Joy," I highlight three pillars of the OT believer's hope. What are some arguments or passages of Scripture that you would advance to support the OT saint's belief in life after death?
There has been a tendency to take it for granted that, like ourselves, Abraham, Moses, and David, and the other great men of God of the Old Testament looked forward to a judgment of their lives by God after death with a consequent apportionment of reward or punishment. But an attentive reading of the Old Testament shows that this is a mistaken notion and that for many centuries the religious life of the patriarchs and the people of Israel was based exclusively on God’s government of the world during the course of men’s pilgrimage on the earth.
Similarly, Millar Burrows has dogmatically asserted, “Early Hebrew religion had no conception of judgment or salvation after death.” He then accounts for belief in the resurrection among the Jews of Jesus’ day by arguing that “contact with Zoroastrianism, the religion of the Persian empire … supplied the pattern for the Jewish hope of resurrection and judgment after death.”
I believe these modern Bible scholars seriously mistaken. In a post entitled "Fullness of Joy," I highlight three pillars of the OT believer's hope. What are some arguments or passages of Scripture that you would advance to support the OT saint's belief in life after death?