etween the Sadducees, who adhered to the letter of the law, and the
Pharisees, who embodied the progressive spirit of the people. On the one
hand, Jesus ben Sira, who at the close of his book speaks with great
admiration of the high-priest Simon the Just as his contemporary, knew as
yet nothing of a future life, and like Koheleth saw the end of all human
existence in the dismal realm of the nether world. Yet at the same time,
the Hasidim or pious ones and their successors, the Pharisees, were
developing after the Persian pattern the thought of a divine judgment day
after death, when the just were to awaken to eternal life, and the
evil-doers to shame and everlasting contempt.(902) This advanced moral
view, frequently overlooked, transformed the ancient Semitic Sheol from
the realm of shades to a place of punishment for sinners, and thus
invested it with an ethical purpose.(903) After this the various Biblical
names for the nether world became the various divisions of hell.(904)
Indeed, the Psalmists and the Proverbs had announced to the wicked their
destruction in Sheol, and on the other hand held out for the godly the
hope of deliverance from Sheol and a beatific sight of God in the land of
the living. Thus the transition was prepared for the new world-conception.
All the promises and threats of the law and the prophets, when they did
not receive fulfillment in this world, appeared now to point forward to
the world to come. Moreover, the Pharisees in their disputes with the
Sadducees made use of every reference, however slight, to the future
life,--even of such passages as those which speak of the Patriarchs as
receiving the promise of possessing the Holy Land, as if they were still
alive,--as proofs of the continued life of the dead, or of their
resurrection.(905) Thus it came about that the leading authorities of
rabbinic Judaism were in the position to declare in the Mishnah: "He who
says that the belief in the resurrection of the dead is not founded on the
Torah (and therefore does not accept it) shall have no share in the world
to come."(906)

7. The founders of the liturgy of the Synagogue, in opposition to the
Sadducees, formulated therefore the belief in resurrection in the second
of the "Eighteen (or Seven) Benedictions" of the daily prayer in the
following words: "Thou, O Lord, art mighty forever. Thou revivest the
dead. Thou art mighty to save. Thou sustainest the living with
loving-kindness, revivest the dea