The Old Testament and a Future Life

Extract

Barth, in his Dogmatik (III/2), enters upon a close and detailed scrutiny of certain passages in the Old Testament generally considered to have some sort of reference to a future life. After quoting from Ps. 118 (p. 752), he goes on to say that we come here upon a definite borderline, beyond which the Old Testament does not venture. God is and remains the Israelite's hope in death and in deliverance from death. Of any renewal or continuance of life beyond the grave, however, the Old Testament has nothing precise to say. Even the few passages cited as proof to the contrary do not, in fact, speak of any such future existence. Barth examines these passages: Pss. 16.10, 17.15, 27.13, 49.15, 73.23 f; Job 19.25 f; Isa. 26.19; Ezek. 37; Dan. 12.2. He comes to the conclusion that, even in the last-quoted passage, the most explicit of all, we can only perceive the exception which, as such, confirms the general rule. Thereafter he reviews the ends of the lives of Enoch, Moses and Elijah, and describes them also as exceptional. In every case the text speaks of an extraordinary interposition of God which nevertheless leaves its precise nature wholly obscured. So, too, in every other instance where a man is recorded as having died gladly or full of days, we are to understand this as the direct result of divine intervention.