The Death of Death: Resurrection and Immortality in Jewish Thought (Hardcover)

by Neil Gillman (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist
Gillman, a professor of Jewish philosophy at the Jewish Theological Seminary, takes on death, at least as an intellectual exercise, and offers an interesting survey of the topic in the context of Jewish religious thought. Starting in the Garden of Eden, Gillman examines the various ways Judaism, a religion often thought to be concerned exclusively with living, has dealt with the matter of dying. Throughout, Gillman compares and contrasts the doctrines of bodily resurrection and spiritual immortality, whose competition for preeminence has caused tension in the ring of Jewish eschatology. Gillman's writing style is workmanlike, but his organization and knowledge of history are excellent, making this a good starting point for anyone interested in the topic. His own personal conclusion--a belief in bodily resurrection--makes for an intriguing summation. Ilene Cooper

Review
Judaism doesn't provide an afterlife belief familiar to Christians and others. When I was prepared for Bar Mitzvah, and the question came up, I was told that in the next life my reward would be to sit with Moses and study the law. Like all 13-year-olds, I was convinced of my immortality. At this point in my life, Moses beckons me joyously. Gillman establishes that there is no basis, in Jewish sacred canon, for an afterlife mythology, but he does argue that the suggestion is implied, and he repeats himself, fashioning suggestions on almost every page. None of the rewards and torments appearing in secular literature, like Milton's Paradise Lost or the Inferno of Dante, appears in Judaism. In the catalogue of Jewish secular writing I could only discover one short story by the Polish-born I.L. Peretz, who wrote in Hebrew and in Yiddish, which has any mention of a heaven, and his paradise is a diminished miracle. An excellent contemporary collection, The Penguin Book of Modern Yiddish Verse, which I suspected had some evidence of acculturation, has not one verse contributing to a heaven. For this we may chide Gillman, a distinguished scholar, teacher, and Conservative rabbi who teaches at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York (a major training school for Conservative clerics), for having arrived at a spiritual argument that tends to accentuate Christian myths and values as he examines Jewish canon. However, the book promotes the force of scholarship and theological insight that students of modern theology, from all quarters, would find valuable. I think the writing rambles courageously in an attempt to telescope millennia of thought and tradition, even selecting from modern sources and disciplines that frequently are not viewed. Death is one event within the framework of human life, but not the final event. The author says, "...that Jewish tradition broadens the time-frame of human destiny." He offers us a thorough examination of Jewish eschatology (this word refers to the reasoning about the last). He admits that the fathers of Jewish postmodernism, Buber, Rosenzweig and Abraham Heschel, were not preoccupied with afterlife. This is an understatement of sorts. Heschel, a theologian universally acknowledged wrote in his book Man Is Not Alone, "...man is but a short critical stage between the animal and the spiritual. The emancipated man is yet to emerge." And finally, he wrote, "For the pious man it is a privilege to die." The complexity of Jewish theology has many pitfalls for the uninitiated (and here I include Jews and gentiles alike). Jewish Lights Publishing, the house responsible for issuing this tome appears to have an ambitious list in print including Gillman, Heschel, and others. -- From Independent Publisher

The Death Of Death explores the original and compelling argument that Judaism (a religion often thought to pay littler attention to the afterlife) not only offers rich ideas on this subject, but actually delivers a deathblow to death itself. By exploring Jewish thought about death and the afterlife, The Death Of Death presents the reader with fascinating and challenging new ideas about life. Author Neil Gillman combines astute scholarship with keen historical, theological and liturgical insights as he outlines the evolution of Jewish thought about bodily resurrection and spiritual immortality. Beginning with the near-silence of the Bible on the afterlife, Gillman traces the development of these two doctrines through Jewish history. The Death Of Death is an innovative and personal synthesis creating a strikingly modern statement on resurrection and immortality, the meaning of life and the meaning of death, from the perspective of Judaism. -- Midwest Book Review

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 318 pages
• Publisher: Jewish Lights Publishing; 1ST edition (May 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1879045613
• ISBN-13: 978-1879045613
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #713,578 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enlightening history of resurrection/immortal soul doctrine, June 4, 2002

By	T. Nelson (Warren, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Death of Death: Resurrection and Immortality in Jewish Thought (Paperback)

Professor Gillman gives us an excellent history of the origin and development of two doctrines relating to the afterlife, bodily resurrection and the concept of the immortal soul. In the use of Hebrew biblical reference, (before reading his book I never realized there were so few), he reviews the seeming contradictions between the more numerous texts which describe immediate human fate after death versus bodily resurrection. He also reviews the Platonic/Hellenist origin of the immortal soul doctrine which has high influence on current Jewish thought in reformed and conservative circles to this day. He reveals however that there is recent development among Jewish scholars challenging this concept and reviews these arguments as well. There are various interesting side topics touched on such as the Noahide commandments and the suffering servant of Isaiah 53. As a non-Jew, I found it refreshing that in Prof. Gillman's conclusions he finds the doctrine to be universally applicable to all peoples; not a salvation exclusive only to one who is born Jewish. This book is certainly worth reading to anyone interested in the subject. The only area I found somewhat scanty was the time period from Daniel to Josephus as far as the doctrinal position of the developing pharisaic movement (perhaps because there is not much available writing on the doctrine from that time).

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating Survey of Jewish Development of Afterlife, July 2, 2000

By	David E. Levine (Peekskill , NY USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Death of Death: Resurrection and Immortality in Jewish Thought (Paperback)

Rabbi Gilman starts out with the proposition that an afterlifeis a Jewish concept but that the development of this concept is postbiblical. In other words, for the most part, the Jewish Bible implies that the soul does not live on after death with the possible exceptions of references made in the books of Daniel and Ezikiel. However, in post Biblical tradition, the concept of after life takes two forms, first, the body and soul die but are later resurrected. The second concept is that of the soul living on in an afterlife. Rabbi Gilamn concludes his fascinating study by giving a view of each of the branches' of Judaism stands on the issue. Each branch, even the Reform, acknowledge some form of afterlife. This book is fascinating and I highly recommend it to those interested in the subject.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Objective Consideration of Immortality, April 24, 2005

By	A. J. Valasek (Clemmons, NC United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Death of Death: Resurrection and Immortality in Jewish Thought (Paperback)

I liked this book because it presented a fairly objective historicist approach of the subject of immortality and the afterlife throughout the age of literature.

The author discusses the impact that Platonian and Socratic thought had on the subject of the immortality of the soul and how this notion in conjuction with the Hebraic notion of resurrection gave rise to a whole new theology.

The beginning few chapters dealing with the "original sin" and the purpose of death were intriguing and would be a great subject of debate in any arena of thought.

Medieval thought through the influence of Maimonides is disussed in fairly comprehensive terms and the adoption of logical thought and the age of reason becomes obvious as its influence is spread throughout the centuries.

Overall, a decent argument is presented on how the transformation of religious thought to answer questions introduced through critical thinking of the afterlife.