At the beginning of the first century, the two chief Pharisaic schools of Hillel and Shammai believed in the bodily resurrection (Genesis Rabbah XIV and Leviticus Rabbah XIV) and interpreted the most diverse scripture references in this sense. Just to give three examples:
Our masters taught, “I kill and I make alive” (Deut. 32: 39). One might think that one person would experience the killing and the other the making alive as it is customary in the world; but the text says “I wound and I heal” (Deut. 32:39). As wounding and healing applied to one and the same person, so also killing and making alive applied to one and the same person. This provides an answer for those who say that the resurrection of the dead cannot be proved from Torah (Sanhedrin 91b)
A few lines further down we hear of another example: Rabbi Jehoshua, the son of Levi, said, “How can the resurrection of the dead be proved from Torah?” Indeed, it says, “Blessed are those who dwell in thy house, they will ever praise thee, Selah” (Ps. 84:4). It does not say: They praised thee, but: They will praise thee. The revivification of the dead can thus be proved from the Torah (Sanhedrin 91b).
The head of the school of the Pharisees adduced also a proof from reason: “The emperor said to Rabban Gamaliel: You say that the departed will be revived. But they turn to dust; and can dust be made alive? His daughter said to him, let him be, I will reply to him: There are two potters in our city. One makes pots from water, and one makes pots from clay. Which of them is more praiseworthy? The emperor said to her, the one who makes pots from water. She said to him: If he is about to make pots from water, should he not be even more able to make them from clay?” (If God can create people out of the drop of semen which is similar to water, how much more can he do it from the dust of the dead?) (Sanhedrin 90b/9 la).
Faith in the resurrection was treasured so highly that its deniers were considered as without salvation: “And these arc they that have no share in the world to come: he that says that no resurrection of the dead is taught in the Law, and he that says that the Law is not from Heaven, and he that is a despiser of religion” (Sanhedrin X, 1).
Although later writings contain different views about the trespasses which deprive people of the hope of life beyond, the only passage that has canonical status is this anonymous passage in the Mishnah. It alone has become the subject of legal discussion and has led to heresy trials, to banning, and to excommunication.
Among the three groups which are denied eternal blessedness, the last refers to atheists, the second to sectarians, and the first—and most important—mainly to the Sadducees. This conservative elite group of priests, whose influence was restricted almost completely to Jerusalem, was theocentric in its doctrine, aristocratic in its world view, and pedantically literalistic in its understanding of the Scriptures: Whatever went beyond the literal meaning of the Bible was for them against the Scripture. And since the resurrection of the dead is mentioned nowhere in the Hebrew Bible explicitly, it was rejected by the Sadducees.
Notes:
Lapide, Pinchas, “The Resurrection of Jesus: A Jewish Perspective” (Minneapolis, Augsburg Publishing House, 1983, pp.57-59.
Pinchas Lapide (1922 – 1997) was a Jewish theologian and Israeli historian who wrote more than 35 books.