Mitchell Dahood on Immortality in Late Judaism

The prevailing consensus that late Judaism in general entertained no hopes for a continued existence beyond the grave is now being questioned. C. M.F. Thelen, “Jewish Symbols and ‘Normative’ Judaism,” in JBL 83 (1964), 361-63, who concludes from the symbolism on the tombs and in the synagogues that the Jews shared the pervasive longing for immortal life after death or for mystical experience (as with Philo), while having faith that these desires were to be realized through the religion of the Torah. W. Wirgin, “The Menorah as Symbol of After-Life,” in IEJ 14 (1964), 102-4, maintains that “it would be inaccurate to think that Judaism places little stress on a future life, as has been sometimes asserted with regard to the Jews buried in the catacombs. Interest in a future life is particularly evident in those representations in which the Menorah was intended to symbolize the continuation of life after death.” (Mitchell Dahood, Psalms III, 101-150: Introduction, Translation, and Notes with an Appendix The Grammar of the Psalter [AB 17a; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1970], xlii n. 32)