What Are We Missing in Our Bibles?

In a Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR) article,¹ Ben Witherington III says,

“First, we know that Pharisees — including Paul, as a former Pharisee — did indeed believe in a bodily resurrection as the form of future afterlife. This was based in part on a certain understanding of Daniel 12.1-3 and the development of thought that ensued from reflection on that text in subsequent centuries. It should be noted, however, that Daniel 12 is about a collective resurrection of the righteous (and, separately, the unrighteous) and not about the resurrection of an individual, much less the resurrection of the messiah, which early Jews were not anticipating. They did not read the prophets as foreseeing that particular event.” [emphasis added]²

This brief article prompted some additional thinking for me. I recalled Jesus saying to the disciples on the road to Emmaus.

… “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! (Lk 24.25)

Jesus expected his disciples, of all the Jews, to understand and believe what the prophets had said concerning his resurrection. Look at Luke 24.25 in a bit more context:

^{Lk 24.19} And He said to them, “What things?” And they said to Him, “The things about Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word in the sight of God and all the people, ²⁰ and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to the sentence of death, and crucified Him. ²¹ “But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, it is the third day since these things happened. ²² “But also some women among us amazed us. When they were at the tomb early in the morning, ²³ and did not find His body, they came, saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said that He was alive. ²⁴ “Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just exactly as the women also had said; but Him they did not see.”

²⁵ And He said to them, “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!

²⁶ “Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?”

The two on the road to Emmaus heard reports of the resurrection but gave it up as “group madness” and decided to abandon the body as a lost cause. Jesus went out to bring the wanderers back. He rebuked them because:

1. They didn’t believe the reports about the resurrection
2. They didn’t understand the resurrection of the Christ was necessary

Their viewpoint was common among the first-century Jews. The Lord expected more of them, since they were his followers, even though not members of the twelve. They spent many hours with the Lord, hearing his teaching and observing his mighty power. They ought to have known.

In fairness to them, the rest of the disciples were incredulous also. They didn’t abandon the group, as these two did, but they had a hard time putting their heads around the resurrection of the Messiah.

Now then, what did they miss in the prophets? What did Judaism miss?

The OT doctrine of resurrection

The Jewish doctrine of resurrection flows mainly from a surprisingly few passages in the Old Testament.

The clearest reference is Daniel 12.1-2.

^{Dan 12.1-2} ¶ “Now at that time Michael, the great prince who stands guard over the sons of your people, will arise. And there will be a time of distress such as never occurred since there was a nation until that time; and at that time your people, everyone who is found written in the book, will be rescued. ² “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt.

Earlier prophets also have more or less clear references.

^{Isa 26.19} Your dead will live; Their corpses will rise. You who lie in the dust, awake and shout for joy, For your dew is as the dew of the dawn, And the earth will give birth to the departed spirits.

^{Isa 27.12-13} ¶ In that day the LORD will start His threshing from the flowing stream of the Euphrates to the brook of Egypt, and you will be gathered up one by one, O sons of Israel. ¹³ It will come about also in that day that a great trumpet will be blown, and those who were perishing in the land of Assyria and who were scattered in the land of Egypt will come and worship the LORD in the holy mountain at Jerusalem.

(Some interpreters limit this to a restoration of living Israelites, rescued by God and brought into his Kingdom.)

^{Isa 25.7-8} And on this mountain He will swallow up the covering which is over all peoples, Even the veil which is stretched over all nations. ⁸ He will swallow up death for all time, And the Lord GOD will wipe tears away from all faces, And He will remove the reproach of His people from all the earth; For the LORD has spoken.

Also consider Ezekiel’s “dry bones” prophecy in Ezek 37.1-14 (too long to quote here). These are the most explicit passages I can find in the Prophets.

The poetical books provide a few more references, some in the Psalms, some, famously, in Job, and one in Ecclesiastes.

^{Job 19.23-27} “Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! ²⁴ “That with an iron stylus and lead They were engraved in the rock forever! ²⁵ “As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, And at the last He will take His stand on the earth. ²⁶ “Even after my skin is destroyed, Yet from my flesh I shall see God; ²⁷ Whom I myself shall behold, And whom my eyes will see and not another. My heart faints within me!

Walter Kaiser comments on this passage, “did he believe it would include a resurrection of his body? Job 19.26 is difficult: Does ‘from my flesh’ mean apart from his body or from inside his body he hoped to see God? Let verse 27 decide: ‘My eyes shall behold [him] and not another.’”³

An interesting reference comes earlier in Job:

^{Job 14.7} “For there is hope for a tree, When it is cut down, that it will sprout again, And its shoots will not fail.

^{Job 14.14} “If a man dies, will he live again? All the days of my struggle I will wait Until my change comes.

Again, Kaiser: “For often around the base of a felled tree, one shoot after another will spring up as a continuation of the otherwise dead tree. So it is with man in Job 14.14 … Job 14.14 stated in terms analogous to what happened to felled trees!”⁴ [The same Hebrew root is translated “sprout” in v. 7 and “change” in v. 14 (nasb)]

The two references in the Psalms are in 16.10 and 49.14-15

^{Ps 16.10} For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol; Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay.

^{Ps 49.14-15} As sheep they are appointed for Sheol; Death shall be their shepherd; And the upright shall rule over them in the morning, And their form shall be for Sheol to consume So that they have no habitation. ¹⁵ But God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol, For He will receive me. Selah.

Of course Ps 16.10 is one applied by the apostles to the resurrection of the Lord himself, but at its very basic meaning, it stands as evidence for teaching the resurrection in the OT.

^{Eccl 3.17} I said to myself, “God will judge both the righteous man and the wicked man,” for a time for every matter and for every deed is there.

^{Eccl 3.21-22} Who knows that the breath of man ascends upward and the breath of the beast descends downward to the earth? ²² I have seen that nothing is better than that man should be happy in his activities, for that is his lot. For who will bring him to see what will occur after him?

Clearly, for God to judge the righteous and the wicked for every deed, there must be a resurrection.

There may be some references I’ve missed, but from my reading, it is this set of passages that come up again and again. The Torah contains no explicit reference to the resurrection that I can find, and indeed this fact forms the basis of the divide between the Sadducees and Pharisees in 1^st century Israel. As I understand it, the Pharisaic view was the majority Israelite view in the first century. Paul himself stoutly affirms this in his hearing before King Agrippa II.

^{Ac 26.4-8} ¶ “So then, all Jews know my manner of life from my youth up, which from the beginning was spent among my own nation and at Jerusalem; ⁵ since they have known about me for a long time, if they are willing to testify, that I lived as a Pharisee according to the strictest sect of our religion. ⁶ “And now I am standing trial for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers; ⁷ the promise to which our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly serve God night and day. And for this hope, O King, I am being accused by Jews. ⁸ “Why is it considered incredible among you people if God does raise the dead?

We’ve established the doctrine of the resurrection in the OT. I think we must admit that it rests on relatively thin support, considering the lack of explicit statements and the scarcity of any statements referencing the “hope of the twelve tribes.” Nevertheless, I would also affirm the references are clear enough and we must affirm (with the Pharisees, ironically), the doctrine of resurrection from the Old Testament.

The OT doctrine of Messiah’s resurrection

If the OT doctrine of resurrection rests on a thin foundation of explicit and semi-explicit passages, the doctrine of Messiah’s resurrection rests on an even thinner foundation.

I already noted Psalm 16.10, which both Peter and Paul use to affirm the resurrection of Jesus, the Messiah:

^{Ps 16.10} For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol; Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay.

Peter says, speaking of David who wrote these words,

^{Ac 2.31-32} he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that HE WAS NEITHER ABANDONED TO HADES, NOR DID His flesh SUFFER DECAY. ³² “This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses.

Paul says, making the same point,

^{Ac 13.35-37} “Therefore He also says in another Psalm, ‘YOU WILL NOT ALLOW YOUR HOLY ONE TO UNDERGO DECAY.’ ³⁶ “For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep, and was laid among his fathers and underwent decay; ³⁷ but He whom God raised did not undergo decay.

The other passage I find referencing Messiah’s resurrection is Isa 53. Once you identify the Servant as the Messiah, it is quite clear that Messiah will die.

^{Isa 53.4} Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted.

^{Isa 53.7-9} He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth. ⁸ By oppression and judgment He was taken away; And as for His generation, who considered That He was cut off out of the land of the living For the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due? ⁹ His grave was assigned with wicked men, Yet He was with a rich man in His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was there any deceit in His mouth.

Nevertheless, Isaiah doesn’t leave the Servant in the grave, for our Messiah lives!

^{Isa 53.10-12} But the LORD was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, And the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand. ¹¹ As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, As He will bear their iniquities. ¹² Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, And He will divide the booty with the strong; Because He poured out Himself to death, And was numbered with the transgressors; Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, And interceded for the transgressors.

Yes, the Lord crushed him, but he, himself, would see his offspring. His days would be prolonged. The Messiah will divide the booty with the strong. This is no dead Messiah.

These are the most explicit passages I have found referencing the resurrection of Messiah in the OT. There is, however, one more point on this.

Many references to the Messiah’s kingdom refer to an everlasting kingdom, one that can never be taken from him. For example,

^{2 Sa 7.12-16} “When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom. ¹³ “He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. ¹⁴ “I will be a father to him and he will be a son to Me; when he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men, ¹⁵ but My lovingkindness shall not depart from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. ¹⁶ “Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever.”‘”

David took this to mean that God would establish his descendant and his kingdom forever.

^{2 Sa 7.25} “Now therefore, O LORD God, the word that You have spoken concerning Your servant and his house, confirm it forever, and do as You have spoken,

Now if we accept that the OT teaches Messiah must die (and it does), then the only way this promise could come to pass is that Messiah must also rise.

This is the OT doctrine of Messiah’s resurrection. We build it on a very few passages.

However, back to our opening point:

Jesus expected his disciples, of all the Jews, to understand and believe what the prophets had said concerning his resurrection.

… “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! (Lk 24.25)

Our own potential to miss obvious truths

There are a couple of points of application we can make here.

First, when it comes to the doctrines we believe, God expects us to accept all things he says in the Scriptures, no matter how explicitly or comprehensively he reveals them in the Bible. Some challenge various doctrines by saying, “that’s only one verse.” One verse is enough, if God said it.

Second, how much do we miss that we ought to know? We are now two thousand years on from the resurrection of the Messiah. Countless studies inform us of our theological views. Can we say we have it all figured out? Are we missing anything?

We need to be Bereans, searching the Scriptures, comparing spiritual things with spiritual, to constantly instruct ourselves of those things we surely must believe.

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Don Johnson is the pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.

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Photo by Fa Barboza on Unsplash

1. Note: behind a paywall. [↩]
2. Ben Witherington, III, “Paul on the Resurrection,” Biblical Archaeology Review, Spring 2022, 62–63. [↩]
3. Walter C. Kaiser, Toward an Old Testament Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978), 181. [↩]
4. Kaiser, 181. [↩]