The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls: The ... - josephprestonkirk

ÉMILE PUECH 259
has tallied their works and will not allow the impious to go unpunished.
This is simply a variant expression of the idea of being inscribed (or not
inscribed) in the Book of Life.
Since “the souls of the just are in the hand of God” (3:1), “in peace”
(3:3) and the time of the Day of the Lord—judgment—is expected, it is
necessary to allow for the well-known idea of an “individual” judgment
and of an intermediary state distinguishing between the just and the
unjust, those inscribed and those not inscribed in the Book of Life.
However, it cannot be a question of the disappearance of the soul and of
the body of the impious, since the punishment of the impious will be
made at the same time as the reward and exaltation of the just (4:19–5:16
and 3:7) upon the day of judgment. The author does not adopt a theory
of preexistence of the soul or of death as liberation from the bodyprison.
13 He does not explicitly speak of an “awakening,” although the
belief in resurrection of the dead would be implicit within the schema of
a linear eschatology. In fact, it makes itself a faith in the absolute power
of God over life and death, who restores the breath of life and brings the
dead back from Hades (16:13–14). Manna, the incorruptible nourishment
of the angels (16:20, 22–23), must, under the designation of
“ambrosia” (a0 mbrosi/av trofh=v), feed flesh incorruptible. Although the
author does not insist upon the personal identity of the mortal and the
spiritual body, implicitly posited in the deliverance of the souls from
Sheol-Hades, he obviously does not ignore it. He envisages the victory
of man over death in the manner of a spiritualization or a transformation
into glory when he describes the just within the company of the saints at
the side of God in a cosmos which is itself transformed as a reward for
a life of justice. Though immortality is a gift of God lost through original
sin, the soul of the just shall at the time of judgment recover a glorious
body, incorruptible.
Pseudepigraphic Texts
To this survey of biblical passages, it will be necessary to add a brief
overview of the contribution of pseudepigraphic texts from the end of the
13. Without doubt, Wis 9:15 refers to Plato, nevertheless, the image is also biblical (see
Job 4:19 and Isa 38:12). For a more detailed presentation and bibliography, see Émile
Puech, “La conception de la vie future dans le livre de la Sagesse et les manuscrits de la mer
Morte: un aperçu,” RevQ 82 (2003): 209–32;or “Il Libro della Sapienza ei manoscritti del
Mar Morto: un primo approcio,” in Il Libro della Sapienza: Tradizione, Redazione, Teologia (ed.
G. Bellia and A. Passaro; StudBib 1; Rome: Città Nuova, 2004), 131–55.