Post-mortem Divine Retribution: A Study in the Hebrew Bible and Select Second Temple Jewish Literature Compared with Aspects of Divine Retribution in Deuteronomy

While a Christian understanding of divine judgement tends to focus on the afterlife, the Hebrew Bible is far more concerned with divine retribution as something experienced in this life. Yet if the same God enacts both, should there not be significant continuity between biblical accounts of divine retribution, whether experienced in this world or the hereafter?

In this study, Dr. Angukali Rotokha provides an overview of Old Testament and Second Temple sources that express conceptions of post-mortem judgement. Alongside these passages, she examines the perspective on judgement presented in Deuteronomy, with its orientation towards divine retribution as experienced on this side of death. She explores Deuteronomy's varying emphases on the impersonal, anthropocentric, theocentric, and limited aspects of divine retribution, as well as the relevance of these conceptions to the descriptions of post-mortem judgement found in Isaiah, Daniel, 1 Enoch, and 2 Maccabees. In clarifying points of continuity and discontinuity between earthly and post-mortem divine retribution, she provides a foundation for deeper insight into the Judeo-Christian understanding of both God's judgement and God's grace.

ANGUKALI ROTOKHA has a PhD in Old Testament from the South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies, Bangalore, India. She has taught at Oriental Theological Seminary, Nagaland, India and South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies, Bangalore. She is a member of the pastoral team of her local church in Bangalore, where she also serves with the teaching/preaching ministry, and she has been involved in Christian ministry for nearly twenty years.