Christianity and Islam believe in afterlife, but not Judaism, why?

[MJavedIqbal]

In answer to my question, a believer of Judaism replied that they only have to
think about present life and need not worry about the hereinafter.

Don't Jews really believe in the life after death ? Has G-d made this huge
universe only to enable His chosen nation to do business, earn lot of money
and lend it at attractive rates. But then why He prohibited lending on interest?
Could somebody kindly clarify this contradiction ?
The Angels have white nights!

Nothing could be farther from truth ! As a student of Divine Religions, I
am on a fact finding mission and needed concrete opinion based o n Torah. To me
Torah was a True Book and still remains true except for the subsequent changes,
I wanted a true believer of Judaism contradict the theory that man should only worry
for present life and leave hereafter to G-d.

 

[SpireofSulfuron]

The believer you spoke too answered appropriately.

 

[Fire]

Jews, never realized the interests of God. God wanted truth and justice, while they gave importance to worldly life by sticking to worthless laws.

It was Jesus who taught of life after death first, then Mohammad also carried on to say the same. Since Islam has taken its faith from Judaism and Christianity, it is a mixture of both. Jesus taught that his kingdom is not of this world and whoever believes in him shall live forever. This teaching is a great hope for mankind and if we live in goodness as God wants, we will see his kingdom for sure, through Jesus.

 

[Sharkbitet]

Very nice question.

Why would anyone follow a god who says that lying is good, and education/thinking is bad??? A "god" who commands his followers to chop off little children's fingers if they try to go to school? A "god" who commands that acid be thrown in the faces of young girls... A "god" who commands poison-gas attacks against helpless schoolchildren...

Hope this helps, my friend.

 

[SmRmmsRlglmlrmtlmVI°]

The idea that Judaism rejects "after life" is based on Christianity and Islam's lack of understanding the difference between the body, soul and spirit. Nowhere in the Hebrew Bible does it ever claim that the spirit goes back to God (i.e. heaven). Adam was formed. `dam means blood. The life is in the body not the soul which is the living spirit. So if one is to go to heaven what part goes?

None of these Orthodox Jewish will give a literal interpretation of why heaven does not exist. They will only give opinion from Rabbis or secularist which as a whole contradicts the literal account of Torah. Karaites hold that one must read the Genesis account in it's literal understanding to get the full message. Orthodoxy is full of redundant opinion. God in Torah does not teach a concept of afterlife. It was a Egyptian pagan custom taught in the Gospels. Mankind lost immortality at the Garden of Eden. A Rabbinic believing in a afterlife is breaking the Torah yet again.

 

[Salvaged]

Depends on the sect of Judaism. The Pharisees believed, but the Sadduccees didn't in Jesus' time. The Pharisees believed in the resurrection of the dead.

 

[humanistheart]

When the earth is restored to paradise, like the garden of eden, the jewish faith will have fulfilled gods plan, in their beliefs, and people will rise again from shoel. So they do have an after life, it's just not like their off shoot religions.

 

[Greg]

From what I've gathered from the Jews here, Jews can believe whatever they want about whatever, as long as they don't believe in Jesus or other gods.

Sometimes I get the feeling that Judaism's apologetics are more about trying to make themselves uniquely distinct from Christians, Muslims, and pagans, rather than having any real unified belief system of their own to defend.

Judaism seems to be summed up by these words: "We're not Christians, Muslims, or pagans. But we're a group of people that can and do believe anything and everything else aside from these folks that you can possibly think of. Literally, anything and everything you can think of."

And given that, people still wonder why it's so hard to define what's a Jew.
A Jew, in my experience, is defined by what's not, than what is.

 

[InternetforGod]

You're asking two completely unrelated questions.

On the first question, not all Jews deny life after death. If you read the New Testament, you'll see that the Pharisees acknowledged all the spiritual elements (i.e. angels and the resurrection), while the Sadducee's did not.

Many of the scriptures that deal with usury dictate that God's chosen people should not charge interest in certain situations, one being when the person borrowing is poor and some relate to money lent to other Jews. And really, c'mon...."do business, earn lot of money and lend it at attractive rates". Could you possibly be any more racist and stereotypical?

 

[RicoJPA]

Most Jews believe in some sort of life after death, but a) they think ALL the righteous share in this world to come, not just Jews, and b) just exactly what this "world to come" is left pretty vague in scripture, so that it's better to concentrate on ethical behavior in the here and now than to worry about the "correctness" of one's metaphysical speculations.

 

[barbaraann]

I am a Jew and I agree with The Angels... I cannot contradict the idea that Jews do not worry about the afterlife. It is true...whether it makes sense to you or not.