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Originally Posted by asaris
Lebell is right; the concept of the afterlife among ancient Hebrews seems to have been comparable to the Greek conception of Hades -- a sort of half-life of shadows. By the time of Christ, there seems to have been some argument regarding the resurrection of the dead, but I don't know when this concept enters the Jewish mythos.
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you guys have been wonderful. it's great to have some good starting off points and hopefully i'll take them on wonderful tangents.
in regards to the jewish after-life though, i do not believe resurrection has ever been a part of the jewish mythos (well, i think lazarus may be from the torah, but i'm not sure). but one thing i do remember from hebrew school is that the belief was there was a heaven (not sure what it was supposed to be like) and then there was a 'waiting place.' not quite purgatory, more like a limbo where your soul would wait until entering heaven. kind of like a 'time out.' (remember though, this is filtered by about 12 years of not doing anything religous since then).
another thing my teacher brought up (he was an orthodox rabbi... i'm not sure what differences in interpretation there are between them and the conservatives and reforms), was that jewish belief held that the number of jewish souls was equal to the number that left eqypt with moses and there have been no new ones since. and while there are obviously more jews now than then, the idea is that those souls now occupy multiple bodies, or maybe saying they've 'shattered' into fragments that inhabit those bodies would be most accurate.
but remember, this is just my memory (which is usually pretty good) and just one rabbi's explanation. it could be an ancient belief or a current one, i'm not sure.