I have been told by many, whom I consider to be above average intelligence, that they have received on more than one occasion what they believed to be nonverbal signs from deceased loved ones. Of course, if the messages were nonverbal, they must, by necessity, to have taken the form of an event of some sort that would be sign-receivers understand as being directed specifically at them—some sign-event that others would see as rather benign or commonplace, and not highly charged with any special significance. In other words, the sign-event requires interpretation by a particular sign-receiver to turn the sign into a personal “message,” which others are not able to see in the event. The fact that the “sign” requires interpretation by the sign-receiver to turn it into a “message” also renders the “message” suspect, since the message is dependent on the interpretation of the sign-receiver. How can one know that the “message” is not just wishful thinking on the part of the sign-receiver?
Since I have never knowingly received such a sign from deceased loved ones or close friends (in fairness, perhaps I was just too dense and could not recognize the sign to be a sign), that set me to thinking: can the dead really send signs with nonverbal messages? For the Greek poet Homer (if there actually was a Homer) that may not be the case. In The Odyssey (Book XI) The Nymph, Circe, told Odysseus to seek the counsel of the dead, blind, Theban seer, Teiresias, so as to find his way back home to Ithaki following the ten-year Trojan War. To learn the wisdom of the seer, Odysseus had to travel to Hades, where dead souls are “housed” as little more than oblivious shadows. By drinking the blood, which Odysseus provided, Teiresias recovered his memory and visionary powers temporarily, and was able to advise Odysseus on the perils of his homeward journey. In other words, there was no possibility of signs being sent from the beyond. Nevertheless, there was a possibility of a message, but it was not sent to Odysseus as commonplace event. He had to go to Hades to get it from Teiresias himself.
On the other hand, in the Roman tradition “Nearly everyone was affected by the desire for signs about the future: ‘Heaven consorts directly but with few [as in prophetic inspiration], and rarely, but to the great majority gives signs from which arises the art called divination’” (Plutarch, On the Sign of Socrates 24 [Moralia 593D].”1 And the Latin writer, Cicero, notes the following: “Now I am aware of no people, however refined and learned or however savage and ignorant, which does not think that signs are given of future events, and that certain persons can recognize those signs and foretell events before they occur.” (Cicero, Divination 1.1.2. W. A. Falconer, trans. [LCL. Harvard, 222-223]). But these are messages sent by the Gods, not by deceased loved ones.
In the Old Testament (1 Samuel 28), there is a situation similar to that in The Odyssey. The Israelite King Saul was facing an imminent military attack by the Philistines. His prayers to God in the crisis went unanswered. His “Hail Mary” solution was to consult a medium at Endor (although Saul himself had earlier deported all mediums and wizards out of the land); he asked her to “divine by a spirit and bring up [from Sheol]” whomever he requested (1 Sam 28:8 RSV). He asked that she bring up from Sheol (the place of the dead) the Lord’s Prophet Samuel who delivered to Saul a verbal message he did not want to hear (1 Sam 28:15–20). So, it appears, that in the Old Testament, there are no arcane commonplace nonverbal events serving as signs to be converted into “messages” from the dead to particular living persons, who must interpret the signs—and there is always the risk that they will interpret the sign (if indeed it was a sign) incorrectly.
Two other comments from Job (7:9–10) and Ecclesiastes (9:5) suggest the unlikelihood that there could be signs from the dead to the living.
In the New Testament the situation is similar. I only know two narratives that involve messages from beyond the grave and neither narrative features commonplace events serving as signs whose nonverbal message must be teased out of the event by the receiver’s interpretation. In the early Christian gospels, the narrative of the Transfiguration of Jesus (Mark 9:2–10; Matt 17:1–9; Luke 9:28–36) features the deceased figures, Moses and Elijah, who appeared before Jesus (and also James and John) and were talking with him.2 There is in the narrative a message from beyond the grave but it is verbal, specific, and narrated by two great figures of Israelite tradition, who personally appear before Jesus. No personal interpretation of a commonplace event is necessary.
The second story is found only in a Lucan narrative about a rich man and a poor beggar named Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31). The situation of the beggar was tragic, while the rich man lived in luxury. Lazarus died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s Bosom and the rich man died and was buried. Through the flames of Hades he still could see Lazarus and requested Father Abram to permit Lazarus to come to his aid and briefly relieve his sufferings but was told that there was a great chasm fixed between them that permitted no passage between each location, nor apparently did the fixed chasm permit Lazarus to deliver a message to the rich man’s five brothers (Luke 16:26–31). This narrative appears to contradict the Transfiguration narrative in that Moses and Elijah apparently found a way to bridge the chasm between Abraham’s Bosom and the Land of the Living.
Paul does describe a trip into the third Heaven and then to Paradise by “a man, in Christ,” “where this man heard things that cannot be told, which a man may not utter” (2 Cor 12:2–4). While not directly on the point of the deceased sending coded signs to be interpreted as messages by the living, it does suggest that what goes on in heaven, must stay in heaven.
If the dead in Hades have been consigned to oblivion in the land of forgetfulness,3 how will they devise and send signs containing nonverbal messages to be interpreted by the living and thus bridge the chasm that was thought to separate Abraham’s Bosom from Hades?
Well, at least, it is something to ponder when you next think you see a sign!
Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University
1Everett Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity (3rd ed.; Eerdmans, 2003), 220.
2In Matthew and Mark, the subject of the conversation is unstated but Luke notes that it was about the departure Jesus was to accomplish at Jerusalem (that is his death and ascension, Luke 9:31).
3 See the Wry Guy Blog: Hedrick, “The Land of Forgetfulness.” http://blog.charleshedrick.com/search?q=The+Land+of+Forgetfulness
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