[Vision2020] Response to Nisbet

[Ralph Nielsen]

I called the Tanakh the Hebrew Bible but Phil Nisbet objected  
passionately. What would he call it in English? I quoted from a  
Jewish source:

"Christianity, since it claims to be a fulfillment of the
Jewish scripture, accepts the sanctity and normative nature of the
books of the Hebrew Bible" (The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish
Religion, article on BIBLE, by Baruch J. Schwartz, Tel Aviv
University, p. 121).

Regarding the absence of the idea of life after death in the Tanakh  
generally and in the Torah specifically, I also quoted from a Jewish  
source:

"There is not a hint of [life after death] in the Torah, or in most
of the [Hebrew] Bible. There, human death is final. ... With the
possible exceptions of Elijah and Enoch, all biblical personalities
die and their death is final." (Etz Hayim; Torah and Commentary.
Jewish Publication Society, 2000. p. 1436).

I also challenged Mr. Nisbet (or anyone else) to show us one single  
person in the Tanakh who died and went to heaven. We are still waiting.

I am fully aware of the fact that in the Second Temple period Jewish  
thinking began to adopt the idea of an afterlife. This is also  
mentioned in the Christian New Testament. The conservatives, who were  
known as Sadducees, many of whom were Temple priests, held to the old  
Hebrew belief that death is the end. But the Pharisees adopted new  
ideas of life after death and spread their beliefs through rabbis and  
synagogues. After the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. we hear no  
more from the Sadducees.

Mr. Nisbet kindly provided this reference: <http://www.jewfaq.org/ 
olamhaba.htm>. Go to it and click on Pharisees, Rabbinical Judaism,  
and Sadducees.