Death and Resurrection in the Old Testament

Wendell W. Frerichs

Article Type: Article

Publication Date: 1/1/1991

Issue: Death and Resurrection (Vol. 11, No 1, Winter, 1991)

If Morton Kelsey is right, many theologians today are like the writers who gave us the Old Testament: They have little interest in and have less to say about hopes for an afterlife. We may wish it were not the case, but we will have to accept what appear to have been the views of the majority in ancient Israel. Death is a lively concern of many writers now, but it may not be too late to remedy the dearth of interest in resurrection. Yet the differences between writers within the Old Testament are generally not as great as the contrasts of the Old Testament with the New. Belief in resurrection from the dead had become central and virtually unanimous for the first Christians, and the majority of Jews by that time held to it as well. Something significant must have happened in the intertestamental period which brought about this major change in the way death was viewed.

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