A History of Changes of the View of the World-after-Death in Judaic-Christianity

ABSTRACT

This paper is a study of history of changes of the view of the world-after-death or the other world. This study is historical rather than theological or philosophical or psychological, on how the world-after-death came to be thought of in that way, on how its topography had been changed with the centuries, especially in ancient Judaic-Christian classical scriptures i.e. the Bible. Finally it will be compared to the view of world - after- death in Korean Christianity.In conclusion, the various expressions related to the world-after-death have a historicity. For example, ancient Israel believed that the dead could influence the living, the ancestors were worshiped as a kind of gods. In the national crisis, an atmosphere, was fostered, where not ancestors but Yahweh as God must be served all over the nations. The idea of the other world became weak, this worldly-centered-atmosphere was fostered. The idea of physical resurrection took place under the influence of Persian religion, the world- after-death was considered as a extension of this-worldly-life. The private view of the world-after-death which the soul be greeted at the Heaven by God had been continued, the eternity of the soul or the world-after-death was imagined under the Greek thought.Historical Jesus believed the world-after-death, not as an extension of this worldly happiness, but as an event which meets directly with the living God. Jesus had not much of concerns about the world-after-death itself, but early Christians began to consider the belief of the other world as a coe of Christian faiths under the idea of Paul and the Revelation according to John. Especially early Judaic Christians began to win their ancestors and people outside the church over to their world-after-death, the notion of the other world as a temporary purification stage took place to, the temporary stage took strong root as the doctrine of purgatory through the thinkers such as Augustine. In this way the view of the world-after-death has a historicity.Not a few early Korean Christians were even ready to die in the passions and expectations for the Heaven after death. Korean Catholic and Protestant were almost same in the point of that they named the Christian Heaven as Cheondang(Reavenly house). It is not as that Korean Christian conviction of eternity of Cheondang was an extension of the Biblical view of the world-after-death as it looks, in fact, however, we can say that Korean traditional notion of Honbaek(魂魄, soul and body) and the Korean faith in Hanuel(하늘, Heaven) had been developed and expressed into the idea of the dichotomy of soul and body, into Christian view of the world-after-death. And the idea of eternity of Christianity made Koreans be able to imagine the life-after-death so far.