Psalm 16, the third day resurrection, and the empty tomb

[rakovsky]

Guiseppe and I had an interesting discussion:

Judaism taught that the body decays on the fourth day, as per the Lazarus story.
Psalm 16 says that the body would not decay. This is where the third day resurrection comes in. The resurrection was on the third day so that the body wouldnt decay in accordance with Psalm 16. That's what Paul is saying in 1 Cor. 15: Bodily death, bodily burial, then on Day 3 before the decay sets in, he "arose", which in Judaism and in the gospels means a bodily resurrection like Elijah and Lazarus, respectively.

Very suggestive, thanks for this, but this is not independent evidence of a tomb for Jesus. This is only to instantiate a Mediterranean tropos in a Jewish culture by using Jewish ways to represent it. If you believe that Jesus is risen, then you add later a tomb, a resurrection ''after 3 days'', fulfillment prophecies more or less fit, etc.

FROM THREAD:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2015&start=40#p44993

I agree, it's interesting.

Psalm 16 says:

(1917 JPS)
ט לָכֵן, שָׂמַח לִבִּי--וַיָּגֶל כְּבוֹדִי; אַף-בְּשָׂרִי, יִשְׁכֹּן לָבֶטַח. 9
Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth; my flesh also dwelleth in safety;

י כִּי, לֹא-תַעֲזֹב נַפְשִׁי לִשְׁאוֹל; לֹא-תִתֵּן חֲסִידְךָ, לִרְאוֹת שָׁחַת. 10
For Thou wilt not abandon my soul to the nether-world; neither wilt Thou suffer Thy godly one to see the pit.

(KJV)
9. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope.

10. For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.

Psalm 16 says "(A)my heart is glad... and (B) my flesh rests in hope", and (A) "For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell", but doesn't specify (B) "neither wilt thou suffer me to see corruption.". When it gets to B, it seems David is not talking about himself, maybe, but some "holy one".

And also, in Jewish tradition it was clear that David's body did decay and stayed in the grave rotting. So it looks like Psalm 16 might not have been talking about David, but about some "holy person" sharing David's flesh who would make this miraculous feat of not being abandoned to the grave or experiencing corruption.



Also interesting it does not say that the soul will never enter Hades, but just that he won't be "left" there. It suggests something curious, the concept of a Messiah dying but not staying dead and rotting.



Another interesting question is why in the eyes of the Psalmist the Messiah wouldn't stay in the grave and rot.


And here's where the Christian claims about the Jesus come in. He becomes a Messianic candidate then because the pharisees can't find his body, and the apostles CLAIM that it left the tomb. Back in 35-45 AD when the apostles were making these claims, the pharisees should have had a sense of what happened to Jesus' body. They would know if guards got posted there and ran away like Matthew's gospel claims.

[iskander]

No judgement of the dead, no punishment, no reward, no return. no hell. There is eternal sleep only in the Torah .Eternal sleep and peace for everybody, whoever they may be and whatever it is that they did in their brief and difficult lives. The dead in Sheol exist only in the memory of the living.

The living and the dead
The realm of the dead, the rites connected with death and burial, as well as the destiny of the soul in the other world, play no part in the religion of YHWH. This is one of the most astonishing features of Israelite religion. That the spirit of the deceased lives on apart from the body is the belief of the people, but biblical faith draws no religious or moral inferences from this notion.

The spirit of the deceased descends beneath the earth to Sheol, “the pit” (Isa 14:15 ff; Ezek 32:18 ff), the world of the shades (Job 26:5), where it joins the departed ancestors and kin (Gen 25:8; II Sam 12:23). Although sit there on their thrones (Isa 14:9 ff, there is equality in Sheol; small and great, kings and captive, master and slave sleep together (Job. 3:11 ff). It is a land of deep darkness (Job 10:21 f), a land of no return (Prov. 2:19; Job 7:9; 10:21).................................................................
...................................................................................................................
What distinguishes the faith of later Judaism from that of the Bible is not, then, the idea of immortality. It is rather that the Biblical age had not yet succeeded in forming a conception of a judgment of the soul and its deliverance from death that would not be vitiated by the images of an infernal god, a dying god, or the apotheosis of the dead. Having surrounded death with impurity, it was unable to find a way to introduce holiness into the realm. And because the holy, the divine, has no place among the dwellers in Sheol, there is no judgement, no reward and no punishment there. It was not the belief in immortality that came later, but the breakthrough of the soul to God from the realm of death. This transformation occurred only after many centuries.

The Religion of Israel
Yehazkel Kaufmann translated and abridged by Moshe Greenberg.pg.311-312.
Sefer Ve Sefel Publishing, Jerusalem, 2003
ISBN 9657287022

[iskander]

It is about the joy of living in the presence of God , who dwells in the Temple. Note 5-6 : the psalmist may be a priest(Num 18:20; Josh 18:7)

Psalm 16
A Miktam of David.
1 Protect me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
2 I say to the LORD, ‘You are my Lord;
I have no good apart from you.’*

3 As for the holy ones in the land, they are the noble,
in whom is all my delight.

4 Those who choose another god multiply their sorrows;*
their drink-offerings of blood I will not pour out
or take their names upon my lips.

5 The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
6 The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
I have a goodly heritage.

7 I bless the LORD who gives me counsel;
in the night also my heart instructs me.
8 I keep the LORD always before me;
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.

9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices;
my body also rests secure.
10 For you do not give me up to Sheol,
or let your faithful one see the Pit.

11 You show me the path of life.
In your presence there is fullness of joy;
in your right hand are pleasures for evermore.
notes
A prayer for admission to the Temple A psalm of trust
The psalmist's faith is contrasted with idolaters who put their trust in false gods.
...
10-11: Sheol, the abode of the dead, also called the pit, is contrasted with the Temple, the path of life. where the psalmist can experience the divine presence (Ps, 11:7)

[rakovsky]

Thanks for writing, Iskander.

May I ask if you are Muslim?

No judgement of the dead, no punishment, no reward, no return. no hell. There is eternal sleep only in the Torah .Eternal sleep and peace for everybody, whoever they may be and whatever it is that they did in their brief and difficult lives. The dead in Sheol exist only in the memory of the living.

The Torah is only the first five books of the Bible, not the Psalms.
Daniel 12:2 is commonly considered to refer to the judgment and resurrection of the dead: "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt."

Isaiah 26 is another passage in the Tanakh commonly described as talking about this.

In Torah it's not nearly as clear, but I think the idea exists, like when it says Abraham and others were gathered to their ancestors after their death, or like the story of the witch of Endor channeling Samuel to Saul. I can understand though why these examples might not be clear to people though.

The living and the dead
The realm of the dead, the rites connected with death and burial, as well as the destiny of the soul in the other world, play no part in the religion of YHWH. This is one of the most astonishing features of Israelite religion. That the spirit of the deceased lives on apart from the body is the belief of the people, but biblical faith draws no religious or moral inferences from this notion.

The spirit of the deceased descends beneath the earth to Sheol, “the pit” (Isa 14:15 ff; Ezek 32:18 ff), the world of the shades (Job 26:5), where it joins the departed ancestors and kin (Gen 25:8; II Sam 12:23). Although sit there on their thrones (Isa 14:9 ff, there is equality in Sheol; small and great, kings and captive, master and slave sleep together (Job. 3:11 ff). It is a land of deep darkness (Job 10:21 f), a land of no return (Prov. 2:19; Job 7:9; 10:21).................................................................
...................................................................................................................

I think that to even talk about the dead having a "spirit" and that the spirit goes to a place suggests an afterlife. And if there is afterlife, then there is the possibility for events in the afterlife.

It was not the belief in immortality that came later, but the breakthrough of the soul to God from the realm of death. This transformation occurred only after many centuries.
The Religion of Israel
Yehazkel Kaufmann translated and abridged by Moshe Greenberg.pg.311-312.
Sefer Ve Sefel Publishing, Jerusalem, 2003
ISBN 9657287022

It would be helpful to see when he thought that occurred.

Peace.

[rakovsky]

It is about the joy of living in the presence of God , who dwells in the Temple. Note 5-6 : the psalmist may be a priest(Num 18:20; Josh 18:7)

Num 18:20 says:
20 And the Lord spake unto Aaron, Thou shalt have no inheritance in their land, neither shalt thou have any part among them: I am thy part and thine inheritance among the children of Israel.

I don't know how that shows that it was a priest who wrote Psalm 16, as opposed to David. It's attributed to David, whom the Bible calls a Psalmist elsewhere, so it seems to me that the default assumption would be that David was the author or main singer of it.

Psalm 16
A Miktam of David.
1 Protect me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
2 I say to the LORD, ‘You are my Lord;
I have no good apart from you.’*

3 As for the holy ones in the land, they are the noble,
in whom is all my delight.

4 Those who choose another god multiply their sorrows;*
their drink-offerings of blood I will not pour out
or take their names upon my lips.

5 The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
6 The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
I have a goodly heritage.

7 I bless the LORD who gives me counsel;
in the night also my heart instructs me.
8 I keep the LORD always before me;
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.

9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices;
my body also rests secure.
10 For you do not give me up to Sheol,
or let your faithful one see the Pit.

11 You show me the path of life.
In your presence there is fullness of joy;
in your right hand are pleasures for evermore.
notes
A prayer for admission to the Temple A psalm of trust
The psalmist's faith is contrasted with idolaters who put their trust in false gods.
...
10-11: Sheol, the abode of the dead, also called the pit, is contrasted with the Temple, the path of life. where the psalmist can experience the divine presence (Ps, 11:7)

Another issue is that normal Temple priests do have a sadness for their flesh, in that their flesh does see corruption.
But in this Psalm it says that the singer's flesh has joy because "the holy one" doesn't "see corruption". It looks like there is some "holy one" whose flesh doesn't undergo corruption, and that this flesh is somehow shared with the singer, presumably David.

Peace.

[iskander]

Thanks for writing, Iskander.

May I ask if you are Muslim?

No judgement of the dead, no punishment, no reward, no return. no hell. There is eternal sleep only in the Torah .Eternal sleep and peace for everybody, whoever they may be and whatever it is that they did in their brief and difficult lives. The dead in Sheol exist only in the memory of the living.

The Torah is only the first five books of the Bible, not the Psalms.
Daniel 12:2 is commonly considered to refer to the judgment and resurrection of the dead: "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt."

Isaiah 26 is another passage in the Tanakh commonly described as talking about this.

In Torah it's not nearly as clear, but I think the idea exists, like when it says Abraham and others were gathered to their ancestors after their death, or like the story of the witch of Endor channeling Samuel to Saul. I can understand though why these examples might not be clear to people though.

The living and the dead
The realm of the dead, the rites connected with death and burial, as well as the destiny of the soul in the other world, play no part in the religion of YHWH. This is one of the most astonishing features of Israelite religion. That the spirit of the deceased lives on apart from the body is the belief of the people, but biblical faith draws no religious or moral inferences from this notion.

The spirit of the deceased descends beneath the earth to Sheol, “the pit” (Isa 14:15 ff; Ezek 32:18 ff), the world of the shades (Job 26:5), where it joins the departed ancestors and kin (Gen 25:8; II Sam 12:23). Although sit there on their thrones (Isa 14:9 ff, there is equality in Sheol; small and great, kings and captive, master and slave sleep together (Job. 3:11 ff). It is a land of deep darkness (Job 10:21 f), a land of no return (Prov. 2:19; Job 7:9; 10:21).................................................................
...................................................................................................................

I think that to even talk about the dead having a "spirit" and that the spirit goes to a place suggests an afterlife. And if there is afterlife, then there is the possibility for events in the afterlife.

It was not the belief in immortality that came later, but the breakthrough of the soul to God from the realm of death. This transformation occurred only after many centuries.
The Religion of Israel
Yehazkel Kaufmann translated and abridged by Moshe Greenberg.pg.311-312.
Sefer Ve Sefel Publishing, Jerusalem, 2003
ISBN 9657287022

It would be helpful to see when he thought that occurred.

Peace.

I do not belong to any religion . Islam is an alien religion. This post will tell you more about my religious background:
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2310
Different interpretations of religious themes are fine as an statement of one's beliefs. When did biblical Judaism incorporate the future of the dead in the divine plan?.Apparently, the changes during the second temple period were 'cosmic-like'.
see attached file
How did Christianity change ( evolve) from the words of Jesus?

I think that Num 18:20 was used as a reference to explain that the psalmist, probably, makes his living from the activity of the temple, . Paul also expects preachers to draw an income from work in their temple.

[rakovsky]

Different interpretations of religious themes are fine as an statement of one's beliefs. When did biblical Judaism incorporate the future of the dead in the divine plan?

Iskander,
It's nice writing to you because you are polite. I think that the concept of life after death exists in the pre-Psalm era because it talks about ancient people like Abraham being gathered to their ancestors and Saul calling up Samuel the dead prophet. But the first clear prophecy I found of a Messianic reenlivening or of the general resurrection of the dead is here in Psalm 16, which was still in the pre-Temple period.

I understand that the scholar you cited thinks the dead just went to a dreary Sheol and just stayed there, maybe asleep. This seems to be his own interpretation relying on the same texts you and I have. We don't AFAIK have hardly any Hebrew texts from before 800 BC outside the Bible.

When one puts aside their own expectations and biases, this idea of eternal life for the holy one who is connected to David appears in the text.

Example:
The Bible repeatedly calls David the sweet singer of the Psalms and titles Psalm 16 as "a Psalm of David".
When one puts aside any biases and looks at this information above , does it look like the Tanakh leads the reader to think that this King David wrote or sang Psalm 16 as particularly his own?

Apparently, the changes during the second temple period were 'cosmic-like'.
see attached file

I think the chapter you cited is a fine example of how scholars could get confused, if he is saying that concepts of angels and demons as intermediaries and negative forces showed up first in the second temple period.
There are a cornucopia of references to angels, good and bad, in the books attributed to the era before the second temple. Job is considered a book written before the Psalms and has references to spirits, and even his testing is attributed to Satan. Joshua is greeted by a divine being who is the "commander of the Lord's armies". Yahweh is called "Lord of Hosts", as if he had a supernatural army of spirits. I wrote an essay in Russian about the different demons ascribed to the period of David's time and earlier, in case you are interested. There is also the sending of the goat to Azazel in the Temple Torah ritual, and the evil spirits that enter King Saul and also one of the Biblical figures who preceded Saul (in the Book of Judges IIRC).

[rakovsky]

You already picked up on how "the pit" refers to death. Let me say a few things I mentioned on my webpage too on this:

Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary says “see the pit” is figure of speech for “experience decay”. And Strong’s Dictionary and the JPS translate verse 9 into the present tense.

The words "soul is glad" in verse 9 structurally correspond with the words "You will not abandon my soul to the grave/Sheol" in verse 10. The word “For” in verse 10 shows that his soul is glad because it was not abandoned to Sheol.

The words "flesh shall dwell in safety" in verse 9 structurally correspond with the words "godly one to see the pit" in verse 10. It makes more sense that his flesh would be safe because it didn’t “experience decay,” rather than simply avoiding a “pit”, as a pit would preserve it better than lying in the open. So this passage means that David's soul would not be abandoned to the nether-world and his flesh would not "experience bodily decay." Further, verses 8 and 11 together mean that David is in God's presence and would have "bliss for evermore," suggesting eternal life. Yet 2 Samuel 23 records that David did die. This contradiction must mean that David is prophesying his own resurrection in Psalm 16.

The other thing I would note is the question of whether this is referring to David as he lived in 1000 BC or else to the Messiah who was predicted by Nathan to David to be of David's flesh. It looks to me a reasonable possibility that this "holy one" is a cryptic reference to the "Messiah Son of David", since David's flesh did undergo decay or otherwise see the pit.

[spin]

This seems to be a confessional reverie that involves neither criticism nor history. Those are the things we are supposed to be bringing to the biblical, hence the name of this forum: Biblical Criticism and History. As such the thread seems to be a cuckoo in the nest. It seems an ideal candidate for ~~Nowhere in Particular~~.

[rakovsky]

This seems to be a confessional reverie that involves neither criticism nor history.

Why don't you think that this involves critical consideration of the Psalm's meaning?

I wrote in the OP:

Psalm 16 says "(A)my heart is glad... and (B) my flesh rests in hope", and (A) "For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell", but doesn't specify (B) "neither wilt thou suffer me to see corruption.".
When it gets to B, it seems David is not talking about himself, maybe, but some "holy one".

Would you say it is a matter of critical consideration of the text's meaning to evaluate whether David is talking about himself or about another person, a "holy one"?

Are Iskander and I making critical academic evaluations of the meaning of this chapter, like whether it is teaching resurrection (IMO) or not (Iskander's claim)?
Is it a question of history to judge when such beliefs in resurrection, afterlife, etc. arose - already in David's time (IMO) or the second temple period (what Iskander said)?