judgmentemotion) is weighted against a feather, which symbolically represents
Ma’at (harmony and justice). If the heart weighs less than the feather, the
deceased proceeds to the field of rushes.
Post-Exilic Judaism witnesses the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel,
who assert that individuals are judged only for their own deeds. Ezekiel
sees a vision of a valley of dry bones (37.1–14) and a revival of these
lifeless skeletons by God. In another Hebrew text, individuals survive
the grave to participate in God’s final judgment and their own judgment
(2 Macc. 12.43–45). The book of Daniel (11.2), moreover, affirms resur-
rection of the dead, which is combined with the affirmation of reward
and punishment.
Ancient Greek culture presents at least two different accounts of the
final judgment. According to the poet Homer, Minos, a son of Zeus and
lord of the dead, does not determine one’s fate, but rather settles disputes
among the dead. In the Gorgias of Plato, Socrates relates a myth that
describes the soul’s judgment and its recompense for its deeds on earth.
In this scenario, the soul is freed from the body and is judged by three
sons of Zeus in a meadow from which two roads lead to either the Isles
of the Blessed or Tartarus, a place of punishment.
Within the Christian Synoptic Gospels (Matt. 24.1–24; Mark 13.10–37;
Luke 21.5–38), it is possible to find what is called the “Little Apocalypse,”
which is shaped by the book of Daniel in the Hebrew texts. These pas-
sages refer to a series of false prophets before the second coming (parou-
sia) with the Son of Man riding on the clouds of heaven and angles
gathering the elect. With the Son of Man seated on a throne of his own
glory and the members of all nations gathered in front of him, the Final
Judgment is rendered with the saved separated from the damned. Besides
the Final Judgment, there is a particular judgment rendered immediately
after death. The Gospel of Luke (16.19–23), for instance, refers to an
immediate judgment when a poor man is said to be in a parable in the
bosom of Abraham and a rich man in hell. Further evidence for an indi-
vidual judgment is suggested again in Luke (23.43) when Jesus turns to
one of the men being crucified with him and assures him of paradise.
The Day of Judgment in Islam is conceived to be a time of chaos and
confusion when the sinners will be sent to a fiery Gehenna, whereas those
magnanimous and subservient people to God’s will are rewarded with a
garden of paradise. This general judgment is combined with a judgment
that begins at the grave when the deceased is visited by two angles and
questioned about their faith. This theme of general and particular judg-
ment is a feature of later Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Further reading: Griffiths (1991); Peters (2003)