General conception of the after life... tohiny 3

dadasy | 16 Oktobra, 2006 19:26

Somary lavalava moa ilay article nalefako farany ka izay no naha elaela indray ny fandefasana ny tohiny. Indro ary alefa indray ny manaraka. Ny fahazoana ny fiainana aorina'ny fahafatesana voalaza ao @ tesatamenta talohaindrya ary no arosoko eto.

Ialana tsiny fa ireo naoty rehetra sy ny loharano nanampy t@ fikarohana, fa mbola hapetrako daholo kosa rehefa vita ny famoahako ny lahatsoratra rehetra.

THE AFTER-LIFE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

The belief in the Old Testament is that life comes from God, and when we die, it goes back to God. Our life comes from the breath of God as it is said in Genesis 2:7: "then Lord God formed man of the dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life." It is also said in Job 33:4: "the Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life." This breath leaves us and goes back to God at the hour of our death (Ecclesiastes 12:7).

When man dies there is nothing which continues about him, his thinking ends and he cannot plan anything anymore (Ps 145:4). Dead persons know nothing and even the memory of them are lost (Ecclesiastes 9:5-6). Following all these passages, a broad conclusion can be drawn: the after-life is not believed or does not exist in the Old Testament.

However, some passages talk about the Sheol, a place which is depicted as in the depth of the earth. There where go all dead people. In this place the dead person is half alive, because they can see God as it is said in Job 19: 25-27; "for I know that my Redeemer lives, and at last he will stand upon the earth, and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then from my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side and my eyes shall behold, and not another." Only a living person is able to see. A complete died one cannot do anything, especially the act of seeing. But those who are in Sheol cannot praise God and thank him. Only the living people can do that as Isaiah says in Is38:18-19: "For Sheol cannot thank thee, death cannot praise thee…, the living, the living, he thanks thee as I do this day." What is important for the people is to praise and to thank God, as a living person, not to see him only. And "those who believed in Sheol thought that the half alive were worse off than the living."

As all dead people go to the Sheol, God can deliver the righteous from there: "But God will ransom my soul from the power of the Sheol, for he will receive me." (Ps 49:15). Also, another passage shows that Samuel appears to Saul, the king, when the medium at Endor brings him up. He is coming up out of the earth and he speaks to Saul. But he is not happy because Saul disturbs him. So he predicts the death of the king Saul in the following day (cf. 1Sam 28:8-19). These conceptions of the Sheol and this story of the king Saul and Samuel show that even those who were died are not completely died. They still live somewhere but their life is not a full life, it is a half-life. And we can draw that at least the Old Testament believes in the after-life even if it is not better than the earthly life.

Some scholars try to deepen the investigation when they see these righteous men who were killed or suffering. Paul Badham quotes Professor Bright and says:

The ancestors of the latter Pharisees, where driven to embrace belief in the future life, because only so could the justice of God, which they refuse to question, be harmonized with facts of experience. The persecution of Antiochus cast the deciding vote. As righteous men were brutally done to death, of lost their lives fighting for the faith, belief that God would vindicate his justice beyond the grave became an absolute necessity for the majority of Jews. In the second century and after, as we see from I Enoch, the testament of the twelve patriarchs, and other writings, belief in general resurrection and a final judgment gained the upper hand. It was a new doctrine, but it was one that was needed to fill out the structure of Israel’s faith, if that faith was to remain tenable. Though the Sadducees never acquiesced in it, it became an accepted belief among Jews and was triumphantly reaffirmed in the Christian gospels.

The after-life is the continuation of one’s personally relationship with God in his or her earthly life. The analysis of the life of Job shows that. Job’s prayer tries to recall that his relationship with God is always there and he was not missed by God. These following passages show that: Job 10:8, 10-13; 35:18; 29:2-3; 23:11-12; and also some passages in Ecclesiastes (3:19; 9:1; 2:11; 2:17). The belief tries to present that:

If man is purposefully created by an all powerful God, and if man can enjoy a personal relationship with God which God values, and if each man as unique individual really matters to the all powerful and all loving God, then God simply will not allow that individual and that relationship to be destroyed finally by death.

The relationship cannot be destroyed by death. Even death is supposed to be the one which is most powerful enemy of human being, it cannot harm our relationship with God. God does not allow death to destroy what he cherishes. Ps 73: 23-28

So when the Old Testament looks at man, it concludes "he cannot live beyond the grave but when it looks towards God and ponders over the relationship between God and man, it moves in a direction which must, and which did, lead men towards a future hope." But in the Old Testament, it is not really said where the souls of the dead go after death. It is only said that they will go back to God.