What is the comparison between the Christian perspective on life after death with that of Judaism?

Answer 1

Both religions believe in a place where good souls go after death. Judaism states that a few souls will immediately enter, while most souls must wait beforehand. In this waiting time, they feel guilt for their sins. After this, they enter into the eternal life. Virtuous gentiles can also have this process. Judaism also states that very, very evil leaders only will suffer eternally, while non-virtuous Gentiles will simply die.

Christianity's belief in life after death differs among Christian groups and individuals. It does not have a common belief. Catholics' beliefs are similar to Judaism. They believe in a waiting-place too, called purgatory, and a direct entrance into heaven by a small amount (e g Mary and Jesus). They also believe in salvation for some non-Catholics. The Catholic Church also believes in a place of eternal punishment, though it has no comment on whether anyone goes there or not. Protestants typically reject purgatory, and believe that those who accept Jesus as the Savior go to heaven while those that do not go to hell. John Calvin believed that some people were simply predestined to go to heaven while the rest were predestined to go to hell. Within both Christianity and Judaism, there is a large and rapidly growing number of people who believe that all people go to heaven, regardless of what they have done in life. This belief is called universalism.

• More on Judaism

One of the central beliefs of Judaism, as stated in the Talmud (Mishna, Sanhedrin 11:1) and codified by Maimonides (1135-1204), is that the soul continues to exist and is treated in accordance with the person's actions while he or she was alive. This applies to all people, whatever their religion.
The Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) doesn't dwell at length on the afterlife; and nor does Judaism spend a lot of time speculating on its details. However, that is not meant to diminish its importance. Rather, the Torah implies that we are to use the bulk of our energies in keeping God's ways in this world, with our feet firmly planted on Earth, while nonetheless not losing awareness of our beliefs.
Our ancient sages stated the importance of being aware of the next world: "This world is a mere entrance-hall before the afterlife" (Mishna, Avot ch.4).
All outstanding accounts are settled after this life. Some cases illustrate this point, since this entire world wouldn't be enough to reward a Moses or punish a Hitler. And while we're alive, knowledge of the future world serves as one of the motivations to keeping God's will.
The Tanakh does not delve into detail of the rewards of the righteous because religions could compete with more and more poetic promises. Also because belief in the afterlife was shared by all ancient societies and needed little reiteration. Besides, it would be like describing the colors of a sunrise to someone who was blind from birth.
It is, however, referred to briefly in Torah verses such as Genesis 15:15, which states that "You (Abraham) will come to your fathers in peace and will be buried in good old age." Coming to his fathers does not mean simply to be buried with them, since Abraham was not buried with his ancestors. Such verses are stated many times.
The prophets are more explicit with such references (see Isaiah 26:19 and 66:24, Daniel 12:13, Zechariah 3:7, 1 Kings 8:30, 2 Kings ch.2, Ecclesiastes 12:7). The afterlife is spoken of at length in the Talmud. More than 20 pages of Talmud (Sanhedrin 90-110, Rosh Hashanah 16-18, and other passages) are given to this subject.

Answer 2

Jewish Answer

We don't believe in the existence of either heaven or hell. Judaism barely spends any time discussing what may or may not happen when we die, in fact, there's barely any mention of this subject in the Tanach (Jewish Bible) at all.

There are some loose theories of what might happen though:

* When we die, our souls are cleansed of any wrongdoings. This is done by our accounting of every action done in life. It's believed that this process takes no longer than 12 months but most people don't do enough bad in life to warrant it taking a full 12 months.

* Our souls return to HaShem to wait for the world to come.

* Our souls may be reincarnated into different people so that we have additional chances to work to become closer to HaShem.

* Those souls that choose to be truly evil in life, cannot survive the process of cleansing and cease to exist.