Page:Judaism and Islam, a prize essay - Geiger - 1898.pdf/77

 THEfEESUBBECTlON OP THE BODY. 59

the doctrine of the day of judgment, the view of the resurrection and of the quickening of the dead was also formed ; and this the more readily, "because it found support in expressions in the Scripture, as e.g. those in Ezekiel, xxxvii. l : " I have opened your graves, and caused

you to come up out of your graves, ye shall

live," etc. ; and those in other passages referring partly to the metaphorical quickening of the dead land of Israel. Of this doctrine it is said that it is such a fundamental teaching of the Jewish faith that the declaration that it did not belong to the law entailed the exclusion of him who thus spoke from eternal life. 2 The Quran is, so to speak, founded upon this doctrine along with that of the unity of Grod, and there is scarcely a page in it where this doctrine is not mentioned. To adduce proofs here would be as easy as it would be useless; and indeed it is not required by our purpose, since Christianity also has inherited this view from Judaism, as is shown in the argument of Jesus in refutation of the Sadducees. Only one point deserves particular mention, because on the one hand it contains a detail adopted from Judaism, and on the other it shows the low level of thought at that time.

As soon as it becomes a question not merely of the immortality of the soul, but also of the resurrection of the body, then the soul without its body is no longer regarded as the same person, and the question naturally presents itself to the ordinary understanding : " How can this body which we have seen decay rise again, so that the same personality shall reappear ?" Neither the soul alone nor. the body alone is the person, but the union of the two. / Now one part of this union is dissolved ; another body can indeed be given to this soul, but by this means he who died

1 Ezekiel, xxxvii. 13. p^flVpjTVlp ^fl??

Sfrra C, 9. j^aV^jiU^i*} 8 Mishna Sanhedrin X, 1