Monday Review: Resurrection in the Testaments

I have started off the year reading James Charlesworth's (editor), Resurrection: The Origin and Future of a Biblical Doctrine.  I'm playing with the idea of designating Mondays for a post on something I'm reading, and I'll try to move between categories.

The first chapter is by Charlesworth himself, of Princeton Seminary.  I almost said formerly because he is perhaps the last vestige of a past, historically oriented biblical studies program there.  From what I hear, don't go there any more if you're interested in this sort of stuff.  It's all theological interpretation now with a rapidly diminishing number of doctoral students in biblical studies.

Charlesworth's chapter gives a helpful catalog of how resurrection language in Jewish literature can mean a lot of things, ranging from national restoration to recovery from embarrassment. The second chapter is by C. D. Elledge (who also has a book analyzing Josephus on the subject). I found it the most concise and clear overview of the topic I've ever seen.

But my intention today is not to be helpful ;-)  I wanted to jot down some notes for my own research.  In chapter 4, Elledge overviews passages in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs that show belief in resurrection.  Here are some strings for my fingers:

• Because the book has obvious Christian interpolations and yet a soundly Jewish base, it surely represents Christian Judaism of the late first or early second century.  The documents likely started as pre-Christian Jewish documents, perhaps Essene in provenance, but they were preserved and expanded by Christian Jews even after the destruction of Jerusalem.
• This plays into my hunch that a good deal of early Christian Judaism flowed directly from an Essene background, including John the Baptist.  I'd love one day before I die to write up a hypothesis.
• The fact that Testament of Benjamin is one of the most clearly edited by Christians and yet looks to a restored temple (Benj 9.2) corroborates my theory elsewhere that Christians did not see a contradiction between the temple system and belief that Christ's death had decisive atoning significance for Israel.  Similarly, it shows that the political restoration of Israel was important in some early Christian belief after Jerusalem's destruction.
• As far as the afterlife, the Testament of Judah 25.4 has no resurrection for the wicked (who suffer in Gehenna in Zebulon 10.1-4).  While it does not preclude a total resurrection of the righteous, it focuses on resurrection for those who died in sorrow, poverty, hungry, and for the Lord.
• Judah 25.1 is very interesting because it mentions the resurrection of the patriarchs, as in the gospels (e.g., Matt. 8:11; Luke 13:28 ). The resurrected sons of Jacob rule over the twelve tribes of Israel, which is interestingly what the twelve disciples do in Matt. 19:28.