the-bible-and-the-dead-sea-scrolls

258 RESURRECTION: THE BIBLE AND QUMRAN
Wisdom
Emanating from Alexandrine Judaism in the latter part of the first century
before Christ, the book of Wisdom contains, according to certain
authors, a notion of life after death according to a scheme of individual
and transcendent eschatology and not any more a collective and linear
eschatology, starting, not from a Semitic anthropology, but from a
Hellenistic one, strongly colored by Platonic thought. But this remains to
be demonstrated. 12
The wisdom author exhorts the believer to walk in justice for justice
is immortal (1:15). The one who lives according to justice, casting his lot
with God, will receive the compensation of the just (2:16, 22), for God
created humankind incorruptible (2:23). He has not created death, but it
is through the envy of the Devil that death (2:1–3) has entered the world
(2:24). The impious, whose life is cut off by death and Sheol, will have
the experience of death (2:24b). These passages follow the traditional
thought of Dan 12:2, the evil will rot (Nw)rdl—diafqora/) while the just
live incorruptible (a0 fqarsi/a). So although the terms are new, the idea is
ancient. The immortality of the souls of the just is not bound to their
nature or preexistence, as for Plato, but is graciously given from God as
reward for good conduct (2:22–24; 4:1, 10, 13–14, 17; 5:15–16).
Humankind is the creation of God, death is not an end for the just but a
passage (an exodus—e1codov), a continuation of life with God under
another form (3:1–9) in the company of the saints (5:5), likewise for the
impious, death has begun its work in this life, and will continue through
to the end of life by chastisement (3:1–12; 4:19–5:16 and 3:7). The death
of the impious corresponds to the immortality of the just, and their pain
to their peace and repose.
Despite the Hellenic appearance, immortality (a0 qanasi/a) is linked to
conceptions both Semitic and biblical. The punishment and reward are
contingent upon the time of judgment (e0n kairw| = e0piskoph=v 3:7, 13;
4:20–5:5). The just will be resplendent (3:7), they will judge the peoples
(3:8), receive a crown of glory, a diadem of beauty (5:16) participating in
the court of the saints (5:5). But for the sinners there will be the darkness
and suffering of Hades. Wisdom, which does not enter the heart of the
perverse (1:4), carries out the sorting between the just and the wicked,
12. See ibid., 92–98, and also Eberhard Bons, “ELPIS comme l’espérance de la vie
dans l’au-delà dans la littérature juive hellénistique,” in Ce Dieu qui vient: Études sur
l’Ancien et le Nouveau Testament offertes au Professeur Bernard Renaud à l’occassion de son soixante-cinquième
anniversaire (ed. R. Kuntzmann; LD 159, Paris: Cerf, 1984), 345–70, esp.
348–56.