The story-- the fairy tale-- of the garden of Eden is key to understanding the Old Testament. In that story the reason God expelled Adam and Eve from the garden is stated in Genesis 3:22:
The consequence is that Adam and Eve blew the
one chance humanity had for eternal life by disobeying God’s commandment not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge and getting themselves kicked out of the garden of Eden-- and thereby denying to themselves and their descendants the ability to eat the fruit of the tree of life.
And that is the perspective from which the
entire Old Testament is written-- EXCEPT for the Book of Daniel. That is the only book in the Old Testament that explicitly says anything about the resurrection of the dead and rewards to be granted in the afterlife.
The New Testament authors claimed that the Old Testament authors “predicted” the coming of Jesus. In John 17:27 Martha, the sister of Lazarus, explicitly says that Jesus is the Messiah.
But the Old Testament authors could not possibly have predicted the coming of Jesus. Excepting the author of the book of Daniel, they didn’t believe in
anything Jesus taught! They didn’t believe in the resurrection of the dead, or the last judgment, or rewards in the afterlife. They didn’t believe in anything Jesus had to say about the forgiveness of sins. As I mentioned in this posting:
Old Testament Morality
the Old Testament authors had their own method for forgiving sins-- the “sin offerings” described in great detail in Leviticus 4. They didn’t believe in Jesus’s idea of loving your enemies and forgiving those who sin against you. The Old Testament authors were focused on punishing anyone who violates Hebrew law. Jesus actually let a known adulteress go free!
And most importantly, the Old Testament authors expected that at the end of time everyone on earth would be converted to Judaism. Chapter 2 of the book of Isaiah describes the events at the end of time. That passage is notable for what it does
not describe. There is no mention of the resurrection of the dead, or of a last judgment, or of rewards to be bestowed in the afterlife. Instead the passage says that the peoples of the world will abandon their warring ways and will return to growing crops. It’s an idyllic scene of pastoral tranquility, but one that happens in
this life, not in the afterlife.
Chapter 14 of the book of Zechariah describes the Day of God. Prior to that day the enemies of Jerusalem will surround the city and will attack and plunder it. Then God will appear and will afflict those who attacked Jerusalem with a terrible plague. And afterwards everyone who survives will be required to observe Jewish festivals:
The Festival of Booths is a Jewish religious observance. There are no Christian churches that observe the Festival of Booths. Zechariah clearly expected that at the end of time everyone on planet earth would be converted to
Judaism. They would be worshiping the Jewish God Yahweh, they would follow Jewish law, and they would observe all Jewish religious rites and festivals. And again, as in Isaiah, there is no mention of the resurrection of the dead, or of a last judgment, or of a reward in the afterlife. That is decidedly
not the Christian vision of the end of time.
The evidence for the divergence between the Old Testament and the New Testament views of the world can be seen all throughout the Old Testament. Here’s an important example:
According to the Psalm, God has forgotten about those who are in the grave; therefore God can’t possibly forgive their sins. And those in the grave are cut off from the hand of God; therefore God can’t resurrect them. There in this one Psalm we have a clear and explicit declaration that God is not omniscient, because he doesn’t remember the dead, and that he’s not omnipotent, because he can’t resurrect the dead.
The book of Job provides another important example of Old Testament thinking. That book has the longest and most sustained debate over the reward-and-punishment system advocated in the Old Testament. It never once mentions the afterlife, and once Job finally relents and agrees to set aside his sense of injustice, he receives his
material reward in
this life, not in the afterlife.
That is the profound difference between Old Testament and New Testament thinking. Throughout the Old Testament (with the exception of the book of Daniel), those who love and worship God are rewarded in
this life, whereas in the New Testament rewards are only to be obtained in the afterlife:
The Old Testament idea that those who love God and obey his commandments will be rewarded in
this life was decisively disproved when Rome destroyed the Jewish temple and used monies taken from its treasury to build the Coliseum in Rome. But the Gospel authors spoke of even greater spiritual rewards to be had in the afterlife. It was an idea born of the times, and one which found many receptive ears in an era of autocratic oppression.
