{Immortality of the Soul}[4th April 1991]

[Redbook9:39][19910404:2022]{Immortality of the Soul}[4th April 1991]

19910404:2022

‘The Book [of Wisdom]* was probably written in the second half of the first century BC[E]** and is the most recent of the books of the Old Testament.’***

****

(The author lived in Alexandria: the entire book was written in Greek)

‘The problem of retribution, for so long the study of the sages... finds its solution in this book. The author makes use of the Platonic distinction of body from soul, see 9:15, and of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, to proclaim that God has made the Human race for immortality, 2:23, and that incorruption is the reward of Wisdom and the way to God, 6:18-19. This life is only a preparation for another in which the upright live with God and the wicked are punished, 3:9-10. The author makes no allusion to a bodily resurrection. He does, however, seem to admit the possibility of a resurrection of bodies in a spiritualised form, in an attempt hereby to reconcile the Greek notion of immortality with biblical doctrines which were tending towards a bodily resurrection. (Daniel).’

****

*[Square brackets per ms, indicating insertion in ms]

**

			C
→	/
R~		/
	r~

***[Hebrew Bible]

**** – N[ew] J[erusalem] B[ible]: 1043

[PostedBlogger12042024]