Dear Phil (duck dynasty) Robertson, Thank you for educating people regarding God's Law

[Douglas Carpenter]

24. the witch of Endor is about the only reference I can think of in the Old Testament - in regards to

life after death. And even their - Samuel is in neither heaven or hell and he is upset with Saul that his rest is being disturbed. The concept of Messiah grew in ancient Palestine during the period of Roman domination. The belief that someone would lead the Hebrews into a successful rebellion against Rome was the universally held belief among the Hebrews of that era of what a Messiah would be. Obviously no one imagined prior to the rise of Greco-Roman thinking that the Messiah meant the "Word becoming Flesh and dwelled amongst us" - or a Savior whose death would vicariously atone for the sins of the world. These concepts would have been utterly foreign concepts to ancient Hebrew thinking and would probably have represented the meshing of Greco-Roman thought with certain elements of (probably Pharisaic and Essene) thinking.