The widespread assumption that belief in a God who gives life back to the dead only emerges in the latest Scriptures of the Old Testament contradicts statements in the New Testament, and presents a theological and hermeneutical challenge. On the basis of selected texts, the author shows that in the early post-exile period at the latest, theologies emerged in which the reawakening of the dead is attributed to the God of Israel, although they are not placed in any eschatological context. Beyond the historical aspect of this religious issue, the author also examines texts that were not, in their original contexts, intended to make statements on resurrection, to establish how they could be understood in the emerging canon. In this volume, reception processes in the direction of hope of resurrection are traced and historically positioned for the first time. The texts in question, which include Psalm 88 and Ezekiel 37, but also other psalms and passages from the Book of Job, the Book of Kings and Sirach, form a tableau of theological building blocks that have great relevance to biblical discourse on the resurrection of the dead. German text.