Afterlife?

The idea of an afterlife in Abrahamic religions does not go back as far in history as popularly supposed.  The first indication of a belief in the idea occurs in 2 Maccabees, about the revolt against the Seleucid King Antiochus Epiphanes, who conquered Jerusalem in 167 BCE and proceeded to start killing all Jews who wouldn't stop practicing their religion and participate in his Hellenistic, pagan religion.  The revolt against his reign was led by Judas Maccabeus who ousted the Seleucids from Jerusalem and the Temple in 164 BCE, (which is still celebrated by Jews as the Festival of Chanukah).

The pertinent passage, 2 Maccabees 7:9 (written c. 124 BCE), concerns a woman who is forced to watch as her 7 sons are tortured and killed for refusing to eat pork.  Before she is martyred herself, she says, "the King of the universe will rise us up to an everlasting renewal of life, because we have died for his laws".  That idea expressed here comes well after the codification of Judaic canon.

By the time of Jesus, the Pharisees and Essenes generally believed in an afterlife, but the Sadducees, the priestly class and Roman collaborators, did not.  The above Maccabean passage sheds some light on why that was likely the case.  People who believed in a reward in the afterlife would be more likely to risk revolt even to death.  Add to that fact that revolt against Antiochus was still relatively fresh in the minds of Jews in Jesus' time, prompting them to be looking for a Maccabean like leader/messiah to oust the Romans and their lackey priesthood and royalty.  Jesus, as the Son of David with his Kingdom of Heaven drew on those powerful associations.

The attitude prior to the hope and belief expressed by the woman in the passage above, is best put by Job's question, "Can the dead live again?"--Job 14:14  Job was written/compiled probably no later than 200 years before 2 Maccabees.

Certainly the exposure of Judaism to the wide cosmopolitan array of religions and cults that accompanied the Roman conquest, had a growing influence on a belief in an afterlife.  The cults of Isis, Dionysus and Mithras, with their resurrected savior-man-gods, communion like rituals and everlasting life (not to mention the sexual exploitation) were tempting even for Jews, particularly outside of Judea.  Paul almost certainly buckled to the pressure to co-opt the popular aspect of these cults and their associated mystery religions.  It makes one wonder if the possibilities of such modification to the Jesus movement wasn't the actual substance of his epiphany on the road to Damascus.

Is there an answer to the possibility of an afterlife?  From the perspective of this blog, assuming a laissez faire God, no--at least not a divinely revealed one.  But reference my article,  The Ethernatural, for a credible suggestion concerning the possible basis for a theory of an afterlife.