Wednesday, March 4, 2026

Sheol And The Resurrected People Of The Bible

The resurrection of Jesus (Matthew 28:5-7) foreshadows the general resurrection of Yahweh's and Christ's followers (1 Corinthians 15:20-23), yet it is by no means the first resurrection of the Bible despite being the most central one in its narratives.  There were previous examples like the widow's son, resurrected by Elijah (1 Kings 17:7-24); the woman's son, raised by Elisha (2 Kings 4:8-37); the daughter of Jairus, raised by Jesus (Mark 5:35-43); and Lazarus, also resurrected by Jesus (John 11:1-44).  Hebrews 11:35 might reference the first two of these instances.  Only after such things is Jesus himself raised from the dead by God, further establishing that he is not the same as Yahweh [1].

Vitally, in none of these accounts does anyone who has been resurrected mention anything about an afterlife they were just snatched from, whether one of bliss or pain.  Neither does anyone ask them if they recall experiencing any sort of afterlife, though this issue would be of immense philosophical significance.  There is actually a somewhat unpopular but simple reason why a question like this would not have been Biblically recorded in ancient Israel: the Bible plainly teaches that no one is conscious after death, except for when roused by the likes of sorcery (1 Samuel 28), whoever they were in life and whatever they had done (Job 3:11-19, Ecclesiastes 9:5-10, Psalm 6:5, 88:10-12, Isaiah 38:18-19, and so on).

The dead in a sense literally "sleep" unperceiving until they are resurrected to either face eternal life as a reward for their righteousness/repentance or permanent death of the soul (Daniel 12:2, John 5:24-29, Revelation 20:4-6, 11-15, and many more).  Due to what Ecclesiastes, Job, Psalms, and other parts of the Bible say about the real nature of Sheol, where all go according to Ecclesiastes 9 and Job 3 alone, the language of the dead sleeping consistently used by Daniel (Daniel 12:2), Jesus (Mark 5:35-40, John 11:11-14), and Paul (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, 1 Corinthians 15:6, 16-20) is also literal.

Everyone goes to Sheol upon death before their resurrection, but according to the aforementioned verses, Sheol is not a realm of conscious afterlives.  There is a very clear reason in light of other passages why none of the Bible's accounts of resurrection or their aftermaths feature people mentioning an afterlife of one kind or another.  None of these people have experienced an afterlife yet according to Ecclesiastes, Job, Psalms, and so on, and certainly not the unembodied afterlife of much popular culture and heretical "Christian" theology, and this unconsciousness of death is taught very directly in the Old Testament.  There is no strict need for the resurrection stories of either testament to delve into this, since other parts of the Bible already blatantly touch on how there is no immediate afterlife.


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