Jewish Thinking On The Afterlife

 Another food for thought after a close call with rapture on yesterday's total solar eclipse. Or so some of us thought will happen as we are reminded of the afterlife. 😉

Most Christian denominations do not subscribe to rapture theology as it was not part of traditional Christianity historically. Only mostly evangelical Christians. The idea of rapture did not even exist until the 1830s in America.

Rapture is not even an end-of-the-world event. It is supposedly a prelude before the second coming of Jesus Christ, before the so-called "tribulation."

Why Paul talked about it and other things in his many epistles in the New Testament is one of the reasons many viewed Paul as the main architect of the theology of Christianity.

Whatever Paul's reasons, whether he was talking about these things to come ("futurism") literally or figuratively, evangelical Christianity took their imaginations to the next level. And it is relatively new. Only in the 1830s.

Personally, I don't really pay too much attention to Christianity's eschatology. Rather, as Christians, we should focus on the here and now, how we live our lives.

Even the Jews themselves don't really deal too much attention with the afterlife. Compared to Christianity and Islam, Judaism is not too focused on the details of heaven or hell. I think we are missing the point that Jesus tried to emphasize.

Many will be surprised to learn that eschatology in Judaism only developed gradually at about the same time that the new Christian religion developed its own during the 3rd and 4th century. Both were influenced by Greek philosophies prevalent in the region at the time including Plato's.

Even one Jewish rabbi and professor lamented: "Why are Jewish notions of the afterlife so indistinct when both Christian and Muslim views of the afterlife, which come originally from Judaism, have attained remarkable specificity?" 🤔

As one Jewish writer put it:

"Ask Jews what happens after death, and many will respond that the Jewish tradition doesn’t say or doesn’t care, that Jews believe life is for the living and that Judaism focuses on what people can and should do in this world.

But not so fast. If anything is less Jewish than belief in heaven and hell, it’s Jews agreeing on an official theological party line. And after 4,000 years of discussion, you’d expect considerable variation. Sure enough...disagreements. As they say: two Jews, three afterlives. "😊 Jewish Thinking On The Afterlife