The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Jewish Eschatology

I’m saving this space to combine information from the various threads concerning the Pharisees and Gehenna, the Pharisees and Reincarnation, Eschatology in Philo, Josephus, the Apocrypha, the Targums etc, into something a bit more coherent. I’ll do this at a leisurely pace so no one reading gets indigestion. I don’t propose to create a work of pristine scholarship – but I would like to sift and check information produced to date on relevant threads a little more thoroughly (and that especially includes the stuff I’ve posted).

I’ll do an introduction post before the end of the week.

Blessings

Dick :slight_smile:

P.S. Thanks to everyone who contributed to the original threads – and especially to Sven who has done a lot of leg work in the past couple of weeks. Please let’s continue the discussion here.

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Oh Jason – :blush: :blush:

I’d not checked this before today. Wow this field is so wide and complex that I’d be foolish to arrogate any authority here. Thanks for your belief in me anyway :laughing: .

Well after a period conversing with Sven by posts I became doubtful about this whole project. The conversations about the ‘history of Gehenna’ – including discussion of the Pseudepigrapha, Targums, Talmud etc - have gone on in some depth since this site began (I now know). I have been wondering what I can add – given that the conversation has been largely about the history of words, and I am neither linguist nor philologist. But on reflection I think I can add a few things to existing conversations as someone with a more general interest in history – rather than pulling the threads together in an authoritative synthesis. I’m especially keen to point out some myths that seem to have arisen on some Universalist sites regarding Jewish eschatology; because I think I can be genuinely helpful here (and reasonably accurate).

For starters I note that conversation on the web about the history of eschatological terms like Gehenna, Tartarus, the Abyss etc is invariably informed by a very few sources – most of which date from the late nineteenth century. These are:

James Windet: De Vita Functorum Statu 1663

Frederic Farrar – Eternal Hope (Five Sermons) 1877
Mercy and Judgment 1881

Edward Bouverie Pusey What is faith as to everlasting punishment?
In reply to Dr. Farrar’s challenge in his Eternal Hope’ 1879

Alfred Edersheim The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah 1886
(Appendix xix ‘On Eternal punishment According to the Rabbis)

John W. Hanson Universalism: the prevailing doctrine … 1899
(see especially Chapter 3)

So I thought I’d kick off with a post about what I’ve been able to find out about James Windet and his friends (coming next)

All the best

Dick :slight_smile: