How It Evolved

Judaism · Question

Where did the idea of resurrection come from?

By Published 6 min read

The short answer

Majority view

From Judaism of the second century BCE. For most of the Hebrew Bible, the dead go down to Sheol, a shadowy underworld where there is no reward, no punishment and no return. Ezekiel's famous vision of dry bones rising, in the sixth century BCE, is about the nation coming back from exile. The first clear promise that individuals will rise from the dead to be judged is Daniel 12:2, written during the persecution of Antiochus IV around 165 BCE, when the faithful were dying for keeping the Torah. From there the belief spread through the Pharisees into rabbinic Judaism and Christianity, together with Gehenna and paradise as places of punishment and reward. The Sadducees rejected it, and Classical Reform Judaism rejected it again in 1885.

From Sheol to the world to come: the stages
StageTextDateWhat happens to the dead
SheolPsalm 115:17 and much of the Hebrew BibleMonarchy to Persian periodAll go down to a shadowy underworld; 'the dead do not praise Yah'[3]
National revivalEzekiel 37 (the dry bones)6th c. BCEThe bones are 'the whole house of Israel': the nation returns, not individuals[4]
A disputed promiseIsaiah 26:19Persian or Hellenistic (debated)'Your dead shall live': national or individual, scholars disagree[5]
Compartments for the deadBook of the Watchers (1 Enoch 22)3rd c. BCESouls wait in separate places for the day of judgment[7]
Resurrection and judgmentDaniel 12:2; 2 Maccabees 7c. 165 BCE; late 2nd–1st c. BCEMany rise, 'some to everlasting life, and some to shame'; martyrs expect their bodies back[1][6]
A party beliefJosephus on Pharisees and Sadducees1st c. CEPharisees affirm reward and punishment after death; Sadducees deny it[13]
Rabbinic doctrinem. Sanhedrin 10:1; m. Eduyot 2:10c. 200 CEDenying resurrection costs one's share in the world to come; Gehinnom purges the wicked for twelve months[16][10]
A principle of faithMaimonides' Thirteen Principlesc. 1168The thirteenth principle: the dead will be resurrected[19]
Rejected againPittsburgh Platform, plank 71885Immortality of the soul kept; bodily resurrection, Gehenna and Eden rejected[25]
Marble portrait head of a Hellenistic king with a diadem, identified as Antiochus IV Epiphanes, in the Altes Museum, Berlin
José Luiz · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

The short version: resurrection is a latecomer to the Bible, and the reason it arrived can be dated almost to the year. Most biblical writers expected nothing after death but Sheol. The book of Daniel, written under persecution around 165 BCE, is the first to say plainly that the dead will rise and be judged, and it says so because people were dying for their faith (§6).[1]​[2] Majority

Before resurrection: Sheol

For most of the Hebrew Bible, everyone who dies goes down to Sheol, a dark, silent underworld under the earth. The good and the wicked go there alike, and there is no judgment and no return. Death cuts a person off from God’s worship: “The dead do not praise Yah, nor any who go down into silence.”[3] Reward and punishment happen in this life, through long life, children and land, or their loss. The Torah mentions Sheol but promises no reward or punishment after death. Consensus

Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones, from the sixth-century exile, is often read as a resurrection text. The bones come together, take on flesh and breathe. But the vision explains itself: “these bones are the whole house of Israel”. It is a promise that the exiled nation will return to its land (§4).[4] Consensus

One earlier verse is genuinely debated. Isaiah 26:19, in the late section of Isaiah called the “Isaiah Apocalypse”, says: “Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise.” Its date is uncertain, somewhere in the Persian or early Hellenistic period, and scholars disagree whether it promises the revival of the nation, as in Ezekiel, or of individuals.[5] Contested

The first clear statement: Daniel 12:2

The visions of Daniel (chapters 7–12) were written during the persecution of Antiochus IV, around 167–164 BCE (§6).[2] The last vision ends:

wərabbîm mîyəšēnê ʾadmat-ʿāpār yāqîṣû, ʾēlleh ləḥayyê ʿôlām wəʾēlleh laḥărāpôt ləḏirʾôn ʿôlām

“And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”[1]

What it proves. That by about 165 BCE at least some Jews expected the dead to rise and be judged. “Many”, not all: the verse seems to have the martyrs and the persecutors in view. The setting explains the idea. The old belief that God rewards the righteous in this life had failed: faithful Jews were dying because they kept the Torah. Resurrection put justice for the martyrs beyond death. 2 Maccabees makes the link explicit in the story of the seven brothers, the third of whom holds out his hands to be cut off, saying he hopes to receive them back from God.[6] Majority

Heaven and hell take shape

Judgment needs places. The Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1–36), probably of the third century BCE, already describes hollow places in a mountain where the spirits of the dead are kept apart, the righteous from the sinners, until the day of judgment.[7]​[8] Two words for those places came from geography and from Persian. Majority

Gehenna. Gē Hinnōm, the valley of Hinnom on the south side of Jerusalem, was where, according to Jeremiah, children were burned at the high place of Topheth.[9] A cursed valley of fire became the name for the place where the wicked are punished: Gehinnom in rabbinic Hebrew, Gehenna in the Greek of the Gospels. The rabbis mostly made it temporary: “The judgment of the wicked in Gehinnom is twelve months,” says the Mishnah.[10] Consensus

Paradise. The Hebrew pardēs, “park”, is a loanword from Old Persian, meaning a walled garden; it appears only in late books of the Bible, such as Nehemiah, where Asaph keeps the Persian king’s park.[11] The Greek translators used its Greek form, paradeisos, for the garden of Eden, and “paradise” became the name of the place of the righteous. The word is Persian; whether the idea is, is another question (see below). Majority

Alongside resurrection came the Greek idea of an immortal soul. The Wisdom of Solomon, written in Greek around the first century BCE, says that “the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God”.[12] Later Judaism held both: a soul that survives death, and a body raised at the end. Majority

A party question

Resurrection did not convince everyone. Josephus, writing in the first century CE, reports that the Pharisees held that souls survive and are rewarded or punished, while the Sadducees, the party of the priestly aristocracy, denied any afterlife.[13] Ecclesiastes, from roughly the same centuries, doubts it altogether: “Who knows if the lifebreath of humans does rise upward?”[14] The dispute appears in the Gospels too, where Sadducees question Jesus about a woman married to seven brothers (§6).[15] Consensus

The rabbis, heirs of the Pharisees, made it a boundary. The Mishnah, compiled around 200 CE, opens its discussion of the world to come by saying that all Israel have a share in it, and then lists those who do not, beginning with “one who says there is no resurrection of the dead”; the standard printed text adds “from the Torah”.[16] The rabbis then found resurrection in the Torah by interpretation, which is how they answered the Sadducees’ objection that the Torah never mentions it.[17] The second blessing of the daily ʿAmidah, already known in the Mishnah as the blessing of “the revival of the dead”, praises God “who revives the dead” (§7).[18] Consensus

In the twelfth century Maimonides made it the last of his Thirteen Principles: every Jew must believe that the dead will be resurrected.[19] His own emphasis on the immortal intellect was attacked as half-hearted, and he wrote a separate treatise to defend his belief in a bodily resurrection (§8).[20] Consensus

Marble portrait head of a Hellenistic king with a diadem, identified as Antiochus IV Epiphanes, in the Altes Museum, Berlin
A marble head identified as Antiochus IV, the Seleucid king whose ban on Jewish practice in 167 BCE produced the persecution in which the book of Daniel was written.José Luiz · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Was it Persian?

Zoroastrianism teaches a final renovation of the world, a bodily resurrection and a judgment, and Judea was ruled by Persia for two centuries, until some 170 years before Daniel. The strongest early evidence is a Greek report: Theopompus, in the fourth century BCE, says the Magi taught that people will come to life again and be immortal.[21]​[22] Against direct borrowing, the Zoroastrian books that describe the resurrection in detail were written down many centuries later, and the Jewish belief appears in Jewish terms, as an answer to a Jewish crisis.[23]​[24] See whether Zoroastrianism influenced Judaism. Contested

The modern split

Modern movements divided over the doctrine again. The Pittsburgh Platform of 1885, the charter of Classical Reform Judaism in America, kept the soul but rejected the rest:

“We reassert the doctrine of Judaism that the soul is immortal, grounding the belief on the divine nature of human spirit, which forever finds bliss in righteousness and misery in wickedness. We reject as ideas not rooted in Judaism, the beliefs both in bodily resurrection and in Gehenna and Eden (Hell and Paradise) as abodes for everlasting punishment and reward.”[25]

What it proves. That the Sadducees’ position, denial of the resurrection, had a modern successor, argued now on grounds of reason rather than of scripture. Orthodox Judaism keeps the resurrection as a principle of faith; other movements hold it with varying literalness (§11, §13). Consensus

Each side at its strongest

The historical view. The sequence is clear in the texts: Sheol for all, then a national revival, then an individual resurrection in a book whose date and setting are known. The belief arrives as an answer to martyrdom. Majority

The traditional view. The rabbis held that resurrection is taught in the Torah, implied in God’s promises to the patriarchs and in verses such as “I kill and I make alive” (Deuteronomy 32:39), and that the Sadducees misread scripture.[17]​[26] On this view Daniel made explicit what was always present. Maimonides placed it among the principles of faith, and Orthodox liturgy affirms it three times a day. Consensus that this is the traditional view.

Common misconceptions

  • “The Old Testament teaches heaven and hell.” Sheol is neither: it is the same underworld for everyone.[3]
  • “Ezekiel’s dry bones are about the end of the world.” The text says they are the nation in exile.[4]
  • “Jewish hell is eternal.” In the Mishnah, Gehinnom lasts twelve months for most of the wicked.[10]
  • “Christianity invented resurrection.” The belief was Jewish, about two centuries before Jesus, and the early Christians argued for Jesus’s resurrection in Pharisaic terms.[1]​[24]

Why it matters

Resurrection is the clearest example in this series of an idea whose birth can be tied to an event. It entered Judaism with the Maccabean martyrs, passed to the Pharisees and the rabbis, and from them to Christianity, where the resurrection of Jesus became the central claim, and in a related form to Islam’s day of resurrection. A belief that billions now hold began as an answer to one persecution in Judea.

For the full story, see Chapter 6: Hellenism, the Maccabees and the Second Temple Sects. For the Mishnah’s world to come, see Chapter 7: Without a Temple: The Rabbis; for Maimonides, §8.

References

  1. ^ a b c Daniel 12:1–3 — Book of Daniel (Hebrew Bible). c. 165 BCE. Hebrew. Michael the great prince arises; 'many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt': the first clear biblical statement of resurrection and judgment. read the text
  2. ^ a b John J. Collins The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature. Eerdmans, 3rd ed., 2016. Daniel, Enoch and the rise of ideas about judgment, resurrection and the end.
  3. ^ a b Psalm 115:17 — Psalms (Hebrew Bible). uncertain; probably Persian period. Hebrew. 'The dead do not praise Yah, nor any who go down into silence': the older biblical view of the dead in Sheol. read the text
  4. ^ a b Ezekiel 37:1–14 — Ezekiel (Hebrew Bible). 6th c. BCE. Hebrew. The valley of dry bones: bones that rise and live are explained as 'the whole house of Israel', the nation restored from exile, not individuals raised from death. read the text
  5. ^ Isaiah 26:19 — Isaiah (Hebrew Bible). debated; Persian or Hellenistic period. Hebrew. 'Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise': in the late 'Isaiah Apocalypse'; whether it means individual resurrection or national revival is debated. read the text
  6. ^ 2 Maccabees 7 — 2 Maccabees. late 2nd–1st c. BCE. Greek. A mother and her seven sons are martyred for refusing pork; the brothers declare their hope that God will raise them up and restore their bodies. read the text
  7. ^ 1 Enoch 1–36 (Book of the Watchers) — 1 Enoch. 3rd c. BCE. Aramaic (surviving complete in Ge'ez). Two hundred Watchers descend to Mount Hermon, father giants and teach forbidden arts; evil comes from fallen angels. Aramaic fragments at Qumran date from the early 2nd c. BCE. about
  8. ^ George W. E. Nickelsburg 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 1–36; 81–108. Fortress Press (Hermeneia), 2001. The standard commentary on the Book of the Watchers.
  9. ^ Jeremiah 7:31 — Jeremiah (Hebrew Bible). late 7th–6th c. BCE. Hebrew. The high place of Topheth in the valley of the son of Hinnom, where children were burned: the place whose name became Gehinnom, Gehenna. read the text
  10. ^ a b m. Eduyot 2:10 — Mishnah. c. 200 CE. Hebrew. 'The judgment of the wicked in Gehinnom is twelve months': rabbinic Gehenna as a limited purgation for most, not eternal torment. read the text
  11. ^ Nehemiah 2:1–8 — Nehemiah (Hebrew Bible). Memoir set in 445 BCE. Hebrew. In the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, Nehemiah the king's cupbearer asks to be sent to rebuild Jerusalem. read the text
  12. ^ Wisdom of Solomon 3:1 — Wisdom of Solomon (Greek). c. 1st c. BCE. Greek. 'The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God': an immortal soul rewarded after death, in Greek idiom, alongside the Hebrew hope of resurrection. about
  13. ^ Josephus, Jewish War 2.119–166 — The Jewish War. c. 75–79 CE. Greek. The three Jewish 'philosophies': a long idealised account of the Essenes, and the Pharisees' belief in the survival of the soul and reward and punishment against the Sadducees' denial. read the text
  14. ^ Ecclesiastes 3:19–21 — Ecclesiastes (Hebrew Bible). c. 3rd c. BCE (debated). Hebrew. Humans and animals share one fate and one breath and return to the same dust: 'Who knows if the lifebreath of humans does rise upward?' A biblical voice doubting any afterlife. read the text
  15. ^ Mark 12:18–27 — Gospel of Mark (New Testament). c. 70 CE. Greek. Sadducees, 'who say there is no resurrection', test Jesus with the case of a woman married in turn to seven brothers; he answers from the Torah's 'God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob'. read the text
  16. ^ m. Sanhedrin 10:1 — Mishnah. c. 200 CE. Hebrew. Abba Saul adds to those with no share in the world to come 'one who pronounces the name according to its letters'. read the text
  17. ^ a b b. Sanhedrin 90b — Babylonian Talmud. redacted c. 5th–7th c. CE. Hebrew and Aramaic. Asked where the Torah teaches resurrection, Rabban Gamliel offers proofs from the Torah, Prophets and Writings, beginning with Deuteronomy 31:16, which his opponents do not accept: the rabbis reading resurrection into the Torah. read the text
  18. ^ m. Berakhot 5:2 — Mishnah. c. 200 CE. Hebrew. The mention of rain is inserted into the 'revival of the dead' (teḥiyyat ha-metim), the second blessing of the Amidah: the earliest attestation of the blessing by that name. read the text
  19. ^ Maimonides, Commentary on Mishnah Sanhedrin 10 (Introduction to Perek Ḥeleq) — Commentary on the Mishnah. c. 1168 CE. Judeo-Arabic. The Thirteen Principles of faith; the eighth holds that the whole Torah now in our hands was given to Moses from heaven. about
  20. ^ Moshe Halbertal Maimonides: Life and Thought. Princeton University Press, 2014. Clear introduction to the life, the Commentary, the Mishneh Torah and the Guide.
  21. ^ Diogenes Laertius, Lives 1.9 (citing Theopompus) — Lives of the Eminent Philosophers. report of the 4th c. BCE, preserved 3rd c. CE. Greek. Theopompus, in book 8 of his Philippica, reports that according to the Magi people will come to life again and be immortal: early Greek evidence for a Persian belief in resurrection.
  22. ^ Mary Boyce Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979. open library Argues for an early date for Zarathustra; most scholars now place him later, and the range is wide.
  23. ^ James Barr The Question of Religious Influence: The Case of Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and Christianity. Journal of the American Academy of Religion 53, 1985. A sceptical assessment of claims that Persian religion shaped Jewish ideas of the afterlife and evil.
  24. ^ a b Alan F. Segal Life After Death: A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion. Doubleday, 2004. From Sheol to resurrection, with the Persian and Greek background.
  25. ^ Pittsburgh Platform — Conference of Reform rabbis, Pittsburgh. 16–19 November 1885. English. Classical Reform's charter: only the moral law binding; dietary and purity laws obsolete; Jews 'no longer a nation, but a religious community' expecting no return to Palestine. about
  26. ^ Deuteronomy 32:39 — Deuteronomy (Hebrew Bible). Song of Moses; date debated. Hebrew. 'I deal death and give life; I wounded and I will heal': a verse the rabbis read as a proof of resurrection from the Torah. read the text

The full story, with every source

Related questions

Cite this page
APA 
Paudel, A. (2026). Where did the idea of resurrection come from?. In How Judaism Evolved. How It Evolved. https://howitevolved.com/judaism/where-did-the-idea-of-resurrection-come-from/
MLA 
Paudel, Amrit. “Where did the idea of resurrection come from?.” How Judaism Evolved, How It Evolved, 7 October 2026, howitevolved.com/judaism/where-did-the-idea-of-resurrection-come-from/.
Chicago 
Paudel, Amrit. “Where did the idea of resurrection come from?.” How Judaism Evolved. How It Evolved. Last modified 7 October 2026. https://howitevolved.com/judaism/where-did-the-idea-of-resurrection-come-from/.
BibTeX 
@misc{howitevolved2026wheredidtheideaofres,
  author = {Paudel, Amrit},
  title = {Where did the idea of resurrection come from?},
  howpublished = {\url{https://howitevolved.com/judaism/where-did-the-idea-of-resurrection-come-from/}},
  year = {2026},
  note = {How Judaism Evolved. Last modified 2026-10-07}
}