Texts in Conversation
1 Corinthians 15 and Wisdom of Solomon 3 describe immortality as the physical resurrection of the righteous, not their release from physical form. In each, what appears as punishment or loss is reframed as a point of testing before vindication.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Wisdom of Solomon 3:4
Deuterocanon
1 But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will touch them. 2 In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died. Their departure was considered a disaster, 3 and their travel away from us ruin, but they are in peace. 4 For even if in the sight of men they are punished, their hope is full of immortality. 5 Having borne a little chastening, they will receive great good; because God tested them, and found them worthy of himself.
Date: 50 BCE – 50 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
1 Corinthians 15:53
New Testament
52 in a moment, in the blinking of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 Now when this perishable puts on the imperishable, and this mortal puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will happen, “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” 55 “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”
Date: 55–57 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... What we have here is the restoration of the faithful to their rightful human status, with echoes of Psalm 8 (crowned with glory and honor). The eschaton will bring to fruition God’s original intent at creation. This interpretation is congruent with the emphasis in the Wisdom of Solomon on the goodness of creation ... It becomes clear, then, that “immortality” (athanasia) in Wisdom 3:4 refers to a this-worldly reality, resurrection from the dead, just as it does in 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul uses the very same word to propound an embodied immortality ..."
J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014), 144.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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