Theodoret and others. The celebrated passage in Job xix.[1] has indeed been strongly insisted upon in proof of the early belief of this doctrine; but the most learned commentators are agreed, and scarcely any one at the present day disputes, that such a view of the text arises either from mistranslation or misapprehension, and that Job means no more than to express a confident conviction that his then diseased and dreadfully corrupted body should be restored to its former soundness; that he should rise from the depressed state in which he lay, to his former prosperity, and that God would manifestly appear (as was the case) to vindicate his uprightness." Again, the same authority remarks, "Isaiah may be regarded as the first Scripture writer in whom such an allusion can be traced. He compares the restoration of the Jewish people and state to a resurrection from the dead (chap. xxvi 19),[2] and in this he is followed
- ↑ "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God," 25, 26. The terms worms and body are not in the original: and that Job never meant to teach the doctrine of a physical resurrection is plain, for he distinctly says, "He that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more," vii. 9.
- ↑ "Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise." This is not an accurate translation. Bishop Louth has shown that the terms which are rendered "together with my dead body,"' simply mean deceased: and that the whole passage ought to read thus, "Thy dead shall live: my deceased they shall arise." And this view of the passage at once removes its supposed teaching. But at the fourteenth verse of the same chapter it is written, "They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise." If, therefore, the former passage is to be understood as teaching the resurrection of the natural body, the latter is equally strong in declaring that no such resurrection shall take place. The passages, if taken in their literal sense, stand in opposition to each other, and it is for those who so interpret them to reconcile their seeming disagreement. To us they present no such
