Francesca Stavrakopoulou, in her work on the role of ancestor veneration in biblical land claims, noted the following, showing that the biblical authors did not believe in soul sleep/soul death:
. . . biblical
polemics against the dead are themselves suggestive of the dead being perceive
(in certain circles at least) to perform powerful roles within the living
community. Given the quality and quantity of studies devoted to this particular
theme, there is no need here for a detailed rehearsal of this material;
collectively, however, these studies have made a persuasive case for the
continued and active social interrelation of the dead and the living, expressed
in ritual form: interaction with the dead extended beyond funerary practices to
include the invocation and perpetuation of their name (1 Sam. 28:15; 2 Sam.
18:18; cf. Prov. 10:7; Ps. 49:12; Ruth 4:10), the feeding of the dead (Deut.
26:14; Isa. 57:6; 65:1-4; Ps. 16:3-4; 106:28; Tob. 4:17; Sir. 30:18; cf. Gen.
15:2) and consulting the dead (1 Sam. 28:3-25; Isa. 8:19-20; 19:3; 29:4). As
the designation אלהים in certain texts
suggests (1 Sam. 28:13; Isa. 8:19; cf. 2 Sam. 14:16; Num. 25:2; Ps. 106:28),
the dead were likely considered deified or divine, in the sense that they were
active members of the divine worlds with which ancient Israelites and Judahites
engaged, though in the seemingly tiered hierarchies of these worlds, they were unlikely
to have been aligned with ‘high gods’ such as El, Baal and Yhwh. (Francesca
Stavrakopoulou, Land of Our Fathers: The Roles of Ancestor Veneration in
Biblical Land Claims [Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 473; London:
T&T Clark, 2010], 18-19)
Further Reading
Response to Douglas V. Pond on Biblical and LDS Anthropology and Eschatology
