Heavenly Judgment in Early Jewish Texts

Many apocalyptic works of the late Second Temple period depict a heavenly figure judging people after death or at the end of days. These courtroom scenes present a wide variety of images. Most famously, the book of Daniel predicts that the archangel Michael will inscribe into a book the names of people who receive eternal life. In the Testament of Abraham, the angel Michael serves not as judge but as tour guide. He gives Abraham a glimpse of a more elaborate judgment scene that includes three separate tribunals overseen first by Abel (the murdered son of Adam), then by the twelve sons of Jacob, and finally by God. In 1 Enoch, God chooses a righteous “elect one” called the “son of man” to judge humanity. Whereas this book, in a subsequent chapter, identifies the eschatological “son of man”—first mentioned in Daniel 7—as Enoch himself (the great-grandfather of Noah), New Testament writers identify him as Jesus of Nazareth.

In the Greek 3 Baruch (also known as the Apocalypse of Baruch), Jeremiah’s scribe is taken on a tour of the heavens. In the fifth heaven, he meets the angel Michael, who carries the keys to its gate. In this unique judgment scene, flowers represent a person’s good deeds in life, and Michael presents offerings of these flowers, made by angels on behalf of the righteous (whose baskets are fuller than those of others). By contrast, in the second Sibylline Oracle, those resurrected at the end of days undergo a judicial “trial by ordeal” as they walk through fire.

According to the Talmud, a person’s deeds are weighed in order to determine the soul’s ultimate fate. Should their merits and transgressions be evenly balanced, God tilts the scale toward mercy. Elsewhere, the Talmud describes testimony for or against the deceased, given by their own personified deeds, by their body or soul, or by two designated angels.