Well, obviously Christians don’t believe that either and atheist don’t believe any of it. But I am curious since you brought it up – exactly when was Heaven opened to the Jews? I was under the distinct impression that, at the time of Christ, and after, I understand it, your canon was closed, Jews were going to be waiting in Limbo in what’s-his-name’s busom until the messiah came. But as I learned over in GQ, Jews in fact belief that everyone goes to heaven, eventually. Ignorant I am of the OT but if you could clue me in?
None. But I spoke of Adam and Eve and the fall. It is rather apparent to me we evolved from lower animals. I don’t care to argue the point, although I could run you through Genesis one step by step and argue that it describes almost perfectly (one or two glosses) how an evolving life form would have percieved the universe as it slowly came to be exactly as science has descibed (unlike any other ancient creation myth I know of).
The messiah and the afterlife have nothing to do with one another.
After a person’s death, he or she is judged for their deeds. Any sins a person committed and did not repent of are punished. Once the punishment is complete, the person enters heaven.
Judaism does not believe in a Limbo.
The canon being closed has nothing to do with anyone getting into heaven or otherwise. The closing of the canon simply meant that any later works (such as the book of Maccabees, for example) would not be included in Scripture.
Zev Steinhardt
But, is any of this described in the OT? I’m still curious when, because as best I can tell Judiasm circa 1 BC did not have this portrait of the after life, Judiasm started believing this.
There is very little about the afterlife that is explicitly mentioned in the Tanakh (what Christians call the Old Testament). The fact that an afterlife exists at all is stated explicitly in I Samuel 28, as Samuel’s spirit is summoned to Earth after his death. Issues such as reward and punishment, heaven and hell, and the details thereof are addressed in a less explicit manner.
But you have to realize that the Talmud was not created in a vacuum. It is the transciption of a long chain of Oral Tradition that explains the ambiguities and subtle nuances of the Tanakh. Just about everything in there is referenced to verses in the Tanakh, and is learned from them through derivation. If you want, I can try to look up some of those Talmudic statements, with the verses they’re derived from.
Not so fast. “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned…” Romans 5:12
Of course Paul also says that the “wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.” This is one of the main tenets, if not the center tenet of the Christian Faith. Sin came through Adam…sin leads to death… us being dead in sin leads to the need for God’s Son Jesus and the gift of salvation…since we are dead in sin, we are said to be “born again” when we accept Jesus…death cannot enter heaven, therefore those without Jesus, i.e. those with sin, cannot enter heaven.
I realize this has nothing to do with the OP, but I had to correct that mistake.
That’s OK, Chaim. That Oral Tradition seems like a fickle mistress – and I don’t understand why, if something was important, such as the afterlife, really, why nobody found it important enough to write down for how ever long such a belief was floating around. But my ignorance isn’t going to be a bit less profound from whatever the Talmud says on this account.
Zion – Christians don’t believe everyone goes to hell because of the fall of man, because they, well, Catholics and Free Spirits and, as far as I know, Orthodox too, anyway, they mostly believe those who die in the friendship of God go to heaven. (Protestants… well, they are all over the map.)
Paragraph 401 of the Catechism:
So Man has a tendacy to distrust God in his heart as the result of living in a fallen world. I really think that is true. Maybe Abel never distrusted God, but when his brother came at him with that chainsaw, perhaps distrust crossed his mind.
Er… well, if we might have the full paragraph, I’d agree with you.
Some sects of xtianity have a habit of taking that last bit out of context.
No, see – you’ve gotten it wrong. Being dead in sin requires one to “become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed” – that being, plainly, the teaching of Jesus. Keeping his teachings is freedom from the bondage of sin of the fallen world.
You mean, of course, accept Jesus and Jesus’s teachings.
Again, I presume when you say “with Jesus” this is still shorthand for “with the commitment to his teachings.”
Well, here’s the deal on the Oral Tradition in Judaism (as Orthodox Jews understand its history): It’s the explanation of what’s in the Tanakh, not an addition to it. The earliest generations would read what was actually written and understand that that’s what it meant. The further the generations progressed, the more of these details needed to be stated explicitly and the less was understood from the simple text. Still, oral transmission was an effective method of teaching, so the Rabbis did not bother committing it to writing. That wasn’t done until the increasing Roman persecution in the 2nd century made it clear to Rabbi Judah the Prince, at the time the undisputed leader of world Jewry, that the Oral Traditions would have to be committed to writing lest a sudden dearth of teachers (due to the dangers of learning under Roman rule) render the information lost.
Hence, it wasn’t an issue of thinking it “not important enough” to write down. Until the mid-second century, the allusions to it that we see as non-explicit were knowledge that was taken for granted rather than written as extra reference material.
Zeeshan: <<hey is it permissible for a person to marry his sister/brother in any religion today?>>
Zev: <<Not in Judaism. Unless, of course, the brother/sister were the last people alive. Keeping the species alive would override the commandment against incest (proof from Cain and siblings, who, according to Jewish thought, were commanded not to commit incest, yet were permitted to in this case…). A highly unlikely scenario, in any event… >>
Agreeing with Zev, as we usually do, but adding the footnote that this is made explicit in Genesis. After the destruction of Sodom, Lot’s daughters sleep with him. One explanation: they had just seen the destruction of their entire city and the surrounding area, and the daughters thought that the whole world was destroyed, and they were the only ones left. Thus, it was incumbent on them to beget children by their father. Unfortunately for them (and fortunately for the rest of us), they were mistaken in their assumption that the whole world was destroyed, and their incest is therefore sinful and a punishable offense.
Sorry if i am curious but i am a Muslim and we believe that no crime is punishable if not intended.You could do anything but unless you really intended it that way and knew what you were doing is wrong then you won’t be punished.I don’t know if it is different in your religion e.g If i am mentally retarded and am not in control of my mind and actions then if i swear at God,curse him and lets say commit more sins but i had no control over my thoughts.In judaism,will i be punishable,If no then why would Lot’s daughter’s be punished for something that wasn’t really wrong since they had no idea,or did they just want an excuse to (you know) their dad.
Just something i don’t get.I mean God is merciful,not someone who punished innocents.Unless sin is intended it is not punished.I am not too familiar with your religion so please explain this.
Bye
Zeeshan
Where did you get the idea that the daughters of Lot were held culpable for their act even though it was done with the best of intentions? I certainly never got that impression.
Actually, CKDextHavn, there really isn’t any moral judgement given to Lot’s daughters in the text itself.
As to their acts, if they were reasonably certain that the entire world was destroyed and that they were the only ones left, then their guilt or innocence can’t really be changed based on later findings.
For example, a man pulls out a gun at a police officer. He tells the police officer he’s going to shoot a hostage. Police officer shoots and fires. Later on, it is found that the gun was not loaded. I don’t think you can now say that the cop’s actions are wrong simply because it was later found that the gun was unloaded. The same applies here, I would think. They didn’t know that the world wasn’t destroyed.
Maybe it was a city for it’s time. Major cities in the ancient world didn’t have millions of people as they do today. What would now be a town of 20,000 could have been a major city 3000 years ago.
If you check out Genesis, you’ll find that people lived extremely long lives, on the order of 800-900 years. Women, I suppose (especially without birth control), probably gave birth every 2-3 years (sound reasonable?). Since there is no date given for Enoch’s birth, and there is no date for the establishment of the city, it could have occured very late in Cain’s life, after there were already several hundred or thousand people around.
I think that the Bible implies that there was incest after the flood, but I don’t believe it does in Genesis. Does Genesis ever say that Adam and Eve were the only people ever created? I just thought they were the first people ever created. To wit:
Sure, I’m adding a lot to the Bible here, but I still don’t see the problem. The Bible doesn’t say that God created anybody other than Adam and Eve, but it also doesn’t say that God created slime molds or dinosaurs or aardvarks. Do these omissions created theological questions?
I just think that Nod is glossed over since it’s not really the setting of the early Bible stories, not because God ran fresh out of people ingredients and couldn’t populate it.
All I’m saying is, if you read the Bible as the complete early history of the universe, you’re in for a lot more trouble than some kinky marriages. Where did the atmosphere come from? If God created the earth and sun without putting vectors on them, why didn’t the earth fall into the sun, or at least develop a very eccentric orbit?
Chaim: << Where did you get the idea that the daughters of Lot were held culpable for their act even though it was done with the best of intentions? >>
Um, er, ah… from memory. I don’t have a Tanakh at the office. I could easily have misremembered, and (as Zev and Zeeshan have pointed out) punishment for unintentional sins is somewhat inconsistent with the majority of Bible text.
Wow, so you found inaccuracies and contradictions in the Bible? Jeez, I would have thought that the mistranslated myths of some desert nomads would have held the test of time and scrutiny, wouldn’t you? Its almost as if the whole story was a ‘teaching parable’ trying to show how jealousy is a bad thing.
[end sarcasm]
Yeah, through 12 years of Catholic education, most of my teachers (including the most recent) have told me that there are two types of Old Testament stories: The myths, and the (quote unquote) histories. Obviously, Genesis is just some creation myth that isn’t expected to hold up under any close examination. The histories, while most likely inaccurate due to shoddy record keeping and a flair for poetic license, are rooted in fact, but jazzed up so they sound cool or intimidating.
I always am surprised when someone asks ‘well if there were just Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel, how’d the whole world develop?’ because I still find it hard to believe anyone puts any real creedence into these stories.
These stories aren’t bad though, they teach a lesson. Jealousy is bad (Cain + Abel), Listen and Obey God’s rules (Noah, Adam + Eve, Sodom and Gommorah). I don’t think you have to take everything at face value; you can still believe in God. Millions of non-Christians do it every day :).
