Burial and Afterlife in Yahwism, Part 3

(For the preceding post in this series, click here.)

In biblical faith, as in ancient Near Eastern culture, Death was a horror and a serpentine monster--an unclean, irrational, and intruding enemy of life and holiness. Contrary to almost every scholarly discussion you read about Death's city, "Sheol," biblical faith is not resigned that every soul must end up captive there.

To resist Death's snares, one huddled with one's people, was gathered to one's ancestors in death. One's relatives kept one's name alive, buttressed the ties of kinship that bound together the communion of saints.

One small evidence of the attempt to keep the snares of Sheol at bay are the clay lamps found in great numbers in Israelite burials. Here is yet one more spiritual attempt to fend off Sheol's dark shroud (see Psalm 88:6; 143:3; Lamentations 3:6).

From time to time, you will see scholars suggest that, in biblical faith, Death does not necessarily represent an antithesis to God's will (James Barr), that it was simply part of an ordered, harmonious creation (Lloyd Bailey). Horse pucky! Just compare the anguished cries about Death in the psalms and the parallel expressions in traditional African cultures. In Africa, Death is always and everywhere unnatural and preventable. When someone dies, the people always suspect some evil force to be at play: most likely, magic, sorcery, or witchcraft. There is a strong desire to extirpate Death. The Acholi sing, "If I could reach the homestead of Death's mother, I would make a long grass torch... I would utterly destroy everything!" "If," only if... (series to be continued).