i. The teaching that there is a blessed life after death, or that the dead will be revived from their graves to a better life, or that there is hope for the soul behind those invisible clouds dividing the past and the future, is a significant finger-post set up on the road of theological speculation to mark the development of religious thinking. The man to whom the idea was first revealed, the one who conceived it fully and proclaimed it, must be regarded as one of the greatest thinkers of religious belief of all times. There can be no doubt that the doctrine is the climax of belief and the highest development possible in theological thought and speculation. It is quite natural that we do not find the belief in this doctrine until after many centuries of human progress. We may ask such questions as: Whence did it originate ? Who taught it first ? and How did it develop ?-but we find no answer. What we know for certain is that the teaching and belief lived among the Israelites when they settled on Jewish soil. Isaiah speaks of "the dead who shall arise and the inhabitants of the dust who shall awake and shout for joy" (Isa. 26: I9). Isaiah also teaches that there will be a resurrection, but only for the righteous; the wicked ones, however, will never leave their homes in the dust (chaps. 24-27). It is generally thought that this passage cannot be older than the third century B.c. But Ezekiel cannot be understood unless we assume that there