What Did the Jews Believe?
The idea seems to prevail to some considerable extent that it is important to understand what the Jews believed, in order to understand what the New Testament teaches, especially concerning the nature and destiny of man. In accordance with this idea, the two following questions have been handed in for S. D. Adventists to explain:— 1. “Does not the Jew believe in an intermediate state that is entered upon immediately after death; and do they not call it paradise? If so, would not the words of Christ addressed to the thief on the cross leave the impression on the minds of those that heard him that that was the paradise to which he referred.” 2. “Is it true that the Jews believed in the conscious state of the dead? If so, did not Christ give assent to this doctrine by his silence on the subject in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus?” On this point Bro. J. H. Waggoner has furnished the following excellent thoughts and conclusive answer:— The question is almost always put thus: “Do the Jews believe,” etc. But the answer to this question is of no interest whatever, so far as the subject is concerned. The truth is, the Jews now believe almost everything. The reformed Jews, as they call themselves, are infidels. They have no belief in the Bible. The orthodox Jews of the present day are Restorationists, believing in the ultimate salvation of all. But they believe in a hell or purgatory, where the righteous are confined four weeks, and the wicked eleven months, before their restoration. They also believe in the transmigration of souls, with many other vagaries. These beliefs are the outgrowth of their traditions, which are gathered from various sources. There are few people more superstitious than the Jews of the present day. We are convinced that it is not possible to ascertain at this time what traditional views the Jews held in the time of the Saviour. The best informed Jews don’t pretend to know. They don’t think it can be known. They had but one reliable source of information on such subjects; namely, the sacred Scriptures. Outside of this they may have imbibed their views from the nations with which they held intercourse. But of that we cannot be certain, and they must have been as vague as we know the fancies of the heathen nations were. The searcher for truth on this subject is shut up to the writings of the prophets, or writers of the Hebrew Scriptures. These were models of the Jewish faith, so far as they had any tangible faith. And we have the confession of the most eminent men, both Jews and Christians, that the writings of the Old Testament give no countenance to the Platonic idea of the soul, or the heathen notions of hades. It is true the confession is not greatly needed; for every reader must be struck with the fact that both Jesus and his apostles always appealed to the Scriptures as the source and ground of belief, and it is sufficient to conclude that what the Scriptures did not contain, they did not enforce or sanction. The Hebrew sheol and Greek hades represented a state of death, of darkness and silence from which the resurrection alone was expected to deliver man. When Christ, the Son of God, died, we learn that his soul was not left in sheol, Ps. 16:10; hades, Acts 2:3; hell, English version. Now if the soul of the Saviour went to paradise, we are forced to conclude that the paradise is no other than sheol of the Old Testament, the hades of the New, the hell of our English rendering; and if so, the paradise is a place of darkness and silence, and no knowledge; for in this our Saviour’s soul was not left nor did his body see corruption, the resurrection rescuing him therefrom. What say the Scriptures? How readest thou? Here is the only source of light and truth. Now, if the Saviour’s words can be explained in harmony with the teachings of the Scriptures, we need look no farther. We confidently say they can be, and therefore rest without conjecturing what somebody else may have believed.