spamandham

I am interested in understanding the popularity of resurrection themes in pre-Christian times, and in particular, to the extent it may have influenced Christianity.

I am aware of the resurrection of Osiris by Horus and have seen firsthand the evidence of that myth, so it's well established as far as I'm concerned. But beyond that, I really don't know. I have seen a lot of claims that resurrection was a pre-Christian Jewish idea, but have no idea what those claims are based on, if anything.

DCHindley

The Wicki article is fairly good, although I took exception to "The Sadducees, politically powerful religious leaders, took a literal view of the Torah, rejecting the Pharisees' oral law, afterlife, angels, and demons," which was drawn from Stephen L. Harris, Understanding the Bible (or via: amazon.co.uk) and I think reflects the Christian view about Sadducees more that that drawn from the Jewish sources.

My personal view is that the older Jewish scriptures show little evidence for the belief, except in Job, and the prophets Ezekiel and Isaiah. Most Hebrews seemed to have taken the view that there is just one life here on earth, although some seem to have been influenced by the Greek idea that the dead might have some sort of spectral existence sort of like a ghost.

The book of Daniel, put together in the latter half of the 2nd century BCE, also references the idea resurrection. So does 2 Maccabees, written in the 1st century BCE. I can see the idea experiencing a renaissance after the Maccabean rebellion, which involved a certain amount of Jewish self re-definition.

With so many lives crushed out by the Syrians and the Hellenized Jewish aristocracy on account of attachment to traditional Jewish religious beliefs and customs, folks had to ask "Has our (traditional) God abandoned us? We are never going to realize a fruitful peaceful national existence as promised by God to our ancestor Abraham."

The answer that some factions seemed to have agreed upon was "No, he will deliver the abundant kingdom in good time, and we who die will come to life to take part in it."

Other factions said "Get real, we must carve out our niche among the nations, and show them that our God is the better than all the rest out there." This is the POV that prevailed among the aristocracy, including ironically the Hasmonean family that descended from Judas Maccabeus himself.

DCH