In the ancient Hellenistic Graeco-Roman world of Paul, there was a belief that the afterlife dead had bodies that were not flesh and blood, but which were composed of “a finer, purer substance.”3 Many people during this time referred to this substance as aether, and believed that stars were also composed of it. This explains in part the propensity in extrabiblical writers to assert that the afterlife dead became stars or like stars. Since stars were thought to be divine members of the realm of the gods, the idea makes sense in its own context.
