The Scripture Doctrine of a Future Life

To the foregoing Scriptural facts it is objected that Josephus says that the Pharisees did believe the immortality of the soul. To this we answer, 1. What Josephus does say about it is evidently intended by himself to be very vague, and capable of two meanings. —one to harmonize with the real doctrine of the Jews, the other to look like what the heathen philosopher taught. We will notice the reason for this.

2. If we interpret him to mean that the Jews did really hold to the proper immortality of the soul, it rests alone upon his assertion. No other ancient author can be brought to support him. Perhaps a passage in Tacitus may be construed as agreeing with Josephus; yet even this is quite susceptible of another meaning. It is supposed by some learned men that Tacitus drew his history of the Jews from Josephus; if so, of course he would follow him. Hence it stands alone upon Josephus' authority. 3. We have seen by the Old and New Testaments and the Apocrypha that the Jews did not believe the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. Hence, Josephus would directly contradict them. Which would be the more reliable? 4. Josephus wrote his books after the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish nation. He wrote them among the Romans, and for the Romans to read; hence there was a temptation for him to bend and color Jewish doctrines to suit his heathen conquerors. There is but too much proof that he did this in many points.

Here are a few testimonies from eminent men upon this point. Says the "New American Cyclopedia": "Pride in the ancient glories of his nation, awe of the greatness and power of Rome, personal vanity, and a tendency to unbounded flattery of the Flavian family, appear with equal prominence in his writings." Art. Josephus. This criticism is none too severe on him. The learned Dr. Knapp, in his "Christian Theology," says: "The doctrine of the resurrection of the body was therefore common among the Jews at the time of Christ and the apostles. Vide Matt. 22; Luke 20; Acts 23:6-8. So, in John 11:24, the Jewess Martha speaks of the resurrection of the dead as a thing well known and common. Josephus indeed (Antiq. 18:2,) expresses himself doubtfully with regard to the Pharisees: 'They believe that the soul is immortal, and can easily return to life (anabiosai);' and again (Bell Jud. II, 7), They maintain that the souls of the pious pass into other bodies (metabaineni eis eteronsoma).' Here Josephus, in his usual manner, so designedly represents the Jewish doctrine, that the Greeks and Romans, to whom the resurrection of the body appeared absurd, should suppose the transmigration of souls to be intended, while at the same time, the Jews should understand that the resurrection of the dead was spoken of." Again: "Josephus carefully avoids the words anastasis and anistemi when he describes the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees, and expresses himself ambiguously, in order not to displease the Greeks and Romans, for whom he principally wrote, and to whom the doctrine of the resurrection of the body would appear, not only new, but, according to the principles of the philosophy prevailing among them, offensive and absurd." Pp. 530, 531.

By this we see that there was a strong temptation for Josephus to dissemble and prevaricate on the subject before us. That he did this, is proved clearly. How much confidence can we place in the testimony of such a man? Mosheim says that Josephus "is very inconsistent with himself in the account which he gives of them [the Pharisees], as may easily be perceived by any one who will compare together the different passages relating to them in his works. It would also prove a task of some difficulty to reconcile everything which he says concerning the opinions of the Pharisees, with what is recorded of them in the writings of the New Testament." Commentaries, Vol: I, Chap. ii, Sec. 11, Note 2, p. 64. He tries to reconcile it by supposing that the Pharisees were not fixed and settled in their opinions. But evidently the real facts are, Josephus was trying to cover up the truth.

Dr. Jorton also remarks: "In his antiquities, Josephus takes too great liberties with sacred history, and accommodates it too much to the taste of the Gentiles, which yet probably he did to recommend his oppressed and unhappy nation to the favor of the Greeks and Romans." "May it not have been the time-serving policy which suggested the flattery which he addressed to Vespasian, as before related, and even induced him in spite of his accurate knowledge of the Scriptures, to represent his patron, though a heathen and a stranger, as the promised Messiah! " Rem. on Eccl. Hist., Vol. 1, p. 21, and Note.

A man who will so grossly pervert God's word, is not to be relied upon. Dr. A. Clarke, in giving Josephus' account of the Pharisees' doctrine of the soul, says: "But it is very likely that Josephus has not told the whole truth here!" Com. on John 9:2. The great Bochart, referring to Josephus' "Wars of the Jews," Book 6, Chap, x, Sec. 1, says: "There are in this clause of Josephus as many mistakes as words." Whiston's Josephus, p. 761. Dean Prideaux thus observes: "Sacred writ, as being dictated by the Holy Spirit of God, must ever be of infallible truth, which cannot be said of the writings of Josephus. For they have in them many great and manifest mistakes. . . For therein he frequently varies from Scripture, history, and common sense." Con. of O. and N. T., Vol. 1, Part 1, b. 5, 302. Another writer observes: "It must be owned that in his account of the Scripture times, he has taken a bold liberty to vary from the Bible, to add, alter, retrench, and even sometimes contradict it." Quoted by Hudson's Future Life. p. 335. Pococke remarks: "If we have not cited Josephus, it is no wonder; since, in giving the views of the sects he names respecting the other world, he seems to have used words better suited to the fashions and the ears of the Greeks and Romans, than such as a scholar of the Jewish law would understand, or deem expressive of his meaning." 2d. p. 335.

His character is thus set forth in McClintock's and Strong's Cyclopedia. "Holding in the main the abstract doctrine of a Pharisee, but with the principle and temper of a Herodian, he strove to accommodate his religion to heathen tastes and prejudices; and this by actual commission, no less than by a rationalistic system of modification. . . . 'In spite of his constant assertions,' says Fawar, 'he can have had no real respect for the writings which he so largely illustrates. If he had felt, as a Jew, any deep or religious appreciation of the Old Testament history, which he professes to follow, he would not have tampered with it as he does, mixing it with pseudo-philosophical fancies. . . . The worst charge, however against him is his constant attempt, by alterations and suppressions (and especially by a rationalistic method of dealing with miracles, which contrasts strangely with his credulous fancies) to make Jewish history palatable to Greeks and Romans.'" Art. Josephus.

Numerous testimonies to the same effect might be given. Every careful reader of Josephus must see that these testimonies are true. Hence, little or no confidence can be placed in him on such a subject as the one before us. It was the very subject above all others upon which Josephus would be anxious to represent the ideas of his brethren as in harmony with the doctrines of those Romans who believe in a future life. These philosophers mocked at the idea of a resurrection of the dead, but held that there would be a future life through the immortality of the soul. Hence, as Dr. Knapp says, Josephus "so designedly represents the Jewish doctrine, that the Greeks and Romans, to whom the resurrection of the body appears absurd, should suppose the transmigration of souls to be intended, while at the same time, the Jews should understand that the resurrection of the dead was spoken of."

Now hear what Josephus does say of the Pharisees: "They also believe that souls have an immortal vigor in them, and that under the earth there will be rewards or punishments, according as they have lived virtuously or viciously in this life; and the latter are to be detained in an everlasting prison, but that the former shall have power to revive and live again." Antiquities, B. 18. Ch. 2, Sec. 3. And, "They say that all souls are incorruptible, but that the souls of good men are only removed into other bodies,—but that the souls of bad men are subject to eternal punishment." Wars of the Jews. B. 2, Ch. 8, Sec. 14.

The reader will notice the following points: 1. These souls are "under the earth," not in Heaven. 2. What he means by the "immortal vigor" which souls have in them he explains to mean that they "have power to revive and live again." This is the resurrection. Carefully examined, this is all the immortality he attributes to the soul, viz., that it shall revive and live again. We believe in this kind of immortality. But the Sadducees denied all this. They said that there was no future life of any kind. The whole man utterly perished in death. There would be no re-living of the soul, spirit, or body—no resurrection. But the Pharisees said that death was only a sleep. The soul would revive and live again. This is just what Josephus says, only he colors it some with philosophical, instead of scriptural language. 3. The phrase "immortality of the soul" among ancient authors frequently means only a future life, without any reference to what we now mean by the technical term, "the immortality of the soul." As we have seen, all the philosophers who taught a future life, taught it through the immortality of the soul. So it came to pass among the heathens that to deny the immortality of the soul was to deny a future life. Hence to accommodate themselves to the understanding of the heathens, some of the early fathers used the term "immortality of the soul" to represent the future life which Christians hoped for through the resurrection. Josephus plainly uses it in that accommodated sense.

The "Discourse Concerning Hades," found in his works, it should be remarked, is unquestionably spurious. Kitto, in his "Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature," says:—"Josephus himself, in the discourse ascribed to him on hades, speaks of a subterraneous region, a lake of unquenchable fire, everlasting punishment, and of a worm never dying (Secs. 2, 6); but that homily, as Whiston calls it, abounds with other evidence that its author was a Christian." Alger says:—"The fragment entitled, 'Concerning Hades,' formerly attributed to Josephus, is now acknowledged on all sides to be a gross forgery." Future Life, part 1, ch. 8, p. 103.

It is a well-settled fact, then, that the writings of Josephus are not to be implicitly relied upon as giving a correct account of Jewish belief, especially when it was for his interest to dissemble to please the Romans, as it very manifestly was on the question of the nature of the soul. We must therefore go to the sure word of God, to find what was the faith of God's people at that time.