Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Fri Nov 20, 2020 7:42 pm
I know that the Pharisees, in general, are held to have believed in the resurrection of the righteous dead, which Josephus explains on their behalf as the installation of the incorruptible soul (ψυχή) into a new body (σῶμα) in
Wars 2.8.14 §163.
I hope this Reply isnt too far off-topic. I recently read and carefully re-read an excellent book on Philo (
Reincarnation in Philo of Alexandria, by Sami Yli-Karjanmaa [2015]; I disagreed entirely with the author's premise for much the same reason this kind of statement grates on me. (
Wars 2.8.14 §163 is mentioned only in passing, p.248, but I would suggest this 2015 title is a must-read and treats the more important Philonic perspective comprehensively.)
Josephus' view is limited, fragmentary, incomplete and conflicted; it must be tested, thoroughly examined*. My pet-peeve (reading scholars muddle this): why assume 'resurrection of the soul' is
identical with 're-incarnation' in a new body'? As I read it, these might be co-incident in a belief system, or not, but several possibilities in Hellenistic philosophy of the First Century AD are obvious.
In Hellenistic Judaism of Paul's lifetime, 'Resurrection' could have meant any or
some combination of the following:
1) a Soul departs to Heaven, and stays there (Positively: Heaven = 'Eternal Life'),
2) a Soul departs, is purified, and returns as an intermediary Spirit force (Positively: Spirit Agency),
3) a Soul departs, is purified, and returns to the same body (Positively: Rebirth),
4) a Soul departs but returns to a different/new human form (Negatively: our 're-incarnation'),
5) a Soul departs but returns in a lower form (Negatively: animal spirit = punishment).
Among most modern scholars, the casual conflation of palingenesis and metempsychosis (often assumed synonyms) bothers me for the same reason. In fact, different cults must have had distinct, varying & competing ideas on this process. And a living man can ALSO (most importantly?) metaphysically experience 'rebirth' without (actual: physical,corporeal) death, decomposition & reincarnation as we moderns would think (i.e. in the 'Hollywood sense'). If the ancients assumed a (medical) comatose state was (or represented) 'death', then an individual's resurrection in the same body was
certainly possible. In period Mystery cults, techniques for effecting such a 'psychic change' in higher-level initiates were definitely practiced: thereby, one could 'die a Jew' and be 'reborn a Chrestos'.
How did Jews in Alexandria and the Egyptian chora accept that development (what E. Goodenough termed 'the Jewish Mystery')? It seems pure apostasy, heresy, to me. Philo (a Sadducee, for some scholars) never endorsed this kind of 'resurrection', 'reincarnation' or what have you, but he does seems to have granted the belief was quite real, in his writings for Jews and proselytes. I further suppose that was acceptable in other areas of the Diaspora, among different Jewish cults expands debate; personally, I'm leery of the narrow, rigid, imagined categories some scholars try to impose on the hot mess of 1st C. AD Hellenistic Judaism.
(His error of conflation aside, I appreciate the ample evidence and exquisite explanation that Yli-Karjanmaa provides in HIS argument for Reincarnation.)
Great topic, thank you.
Edit, 6/7/2021:
ἀναγέννησις = Anagennisis in Philo {c.25 AD}
De Aeternitate Mundi 3§8-9: "(8) But the Stoics {c.200 BC} speak of one world only, and affirm that God is the cause of its creation, but that the cause of its corruption is no longer God, but the power of invincible, unwearied fire, which pervades all existing things, in the long periods of time dissolving everything into itself, while
from it again a regeneration {ἀναγέννησιν} of the world takes place through the providence of the Creator. (9) And according to these men there may be one world spoken of as eternal and another as destructible, destructible in reference to its present arrangement, and eternal as to the conflagration which takes place, since it is rendered immortal by regenerations and periodical revolutions which never cease."
Dey (1937) cites this (p.5) as "renewal of the world after Ekpyrosis (the global conflagration)" - Philo's meaning here.
In Clement of Alexandria, material prior to 175 AD:
Clement of Alexandria, Excerpta ex Theodoto 78: ἔστιν δὲ οὐ τὸ λουτρὸν μόνον τὸ ἐλευθεροῦν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἡ γνῶσις, τίνες ἦμεν, τί γεγόναμεν· ποῦ ἦμεν, [ἢ] ποῦ ἐνεβλήθημεν· ποῦ σπεύδομεν, πόθεν λυτρούμεθα· τί γέννησις, τί ἀναγέννησις.
...it is not only the washing that is liberating, but the knowledge of who we were, and what we have become, where we were or where we were placed, whither we hasten, from what we are redeemed, what is birth and rebirth.
* Edit: have you seen the article by the same author, Sami Yli-Karjanmaa "The New Life of the Good Souls in Josephus: Resurrection or Reincarnation?" in
Journal for the Study of Judaism (11 Oct 2017; Volume 48: Issue 4-5) pp.506-530? Again, though I disagree with a number of points made by the author, his presentation of the full matter in all its complexity is most excellent and essential reading IMO.
https://brill.com/view/journals/jsj/48/ ... anguage=en