Life After Death_ A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion - Alan Segal [76]
We are not only faced with a huge silence, we are left without conclusive evidence for a sure explanation. How could the Bible have avoided discussing this issue? Since the reasons for the lack of information are obscure, the Bible presents us with the scholarly predicament of a classic argument from silence. The best we can offer is speculation, based on what clues we can find in the text and in archeological records. We know that the Bible’s dislike of foreign cults and gods other than YHWH demythologized all the gods, turning them into created objects. Presumably, any extended discussion of life after death or the realm of the dead with its pantheon of divinities would open the door for idolatry or veneration of ghosts which the Bible, in its final and present form, has entirely forbidden.
This hypothesis is given some credibility by the fact that most Biblical terms for the dead can be found in the book of Isaiah-predominently positive terms like “souls,” “divine ones,” “healers,” “holy ones,” “knowing ones,” and “those who pass over.” A large number of scholars conclude from this usage that the dead had a powerful role in the lives of the living: They might even heal the sick and revive the dead for ordinary Israelites.2 While some of these scholarly hypotheses may be exaggerated, it seems likely that the First Temple Israelites lived in a cultural continuum with the Canaanites and shared many beliefs with them. For instance, we find a certain amount of archeological evidence that suggests the Hebrew God YHWH was sometimes viewed as having a female consort-as in the graffito to YHWH-ANAT at Kuntillet ’Ajrud and in later inscriptions at Elephantine in Egypt (Jer 44:7-8).3
We find nothing but vituperation against such an idea in the Bible, although we sometimes find figures like Wisdom taking on the conventional epithets of goddesses, as in Proverbs 1:20, as well as chapters 8 and 9. The Bible itself records that the Israelites and Judeans again and again went off to worship the fertility gods of Canaan and condemns this as sinning against the covenant with YHWH, for which natural disasters, invasions, and finally exile were the punishments. The prophets tell us repeatedly of the crimes of Israelite commoners and kings.
The evidence suggests that the fight against ancestor worship was even more obvious and more dangerous, as it was actually a significant part of Israelite popular religion. In short, for all its honesty about the conflict, we shall see that the Bible gives us an idealized portrait of the battle between Yahwism and Canaanite religion, largely as it was remembered after the Babylonian captivity.
The Séance at Endor
THERE ARE SOME passages that hint at a more complicated relationship between the Israelites and their Canaanite environment. For instance, Saul, when he feared God’s disfavor, sought the services of a necromancer, following a practice that he himself had specifically forbidden, according to the narrative. Since exorcism and necromancing constituted a primary ritual supported by the myths of the afterlife in Egypt, Canaan, and Mesopotamia, it is worthwhile to look at this passage in some detail:
When Saul inquired of the LORD, the LORD did not answer him, not by dreams, or by Urim, or by prophets. Then Saul said to his servants, “Seek out for me a woman who is a medium, so that I may go to her and inquire of her.” His servants said to him, “There is a medium at Endor.” So Saul disguised himself and put on other clothes and went there, he and two men with him. They came to the woman by night. And he said, “Consult a spirit for me, and bring up for me the one whom I name to you.” The woman said to him, “Surely you know what Saul has done, how he has cut off the mediums and the wizards from the land. Why then are you laying a snare for my life to bring about my death?” But Saul swore to her by the LORD, “As the LORD lives, no punishment shall come upon you for this thing.” Then the woman said, “Whom shall I bring up for you?” He answered, “Bring up Samuel for me.” When the woman saw Samuel,