Issued by Jordan Smith
"There are only two things certain in this world: death and taxes." However, it appears that the Bible does indeed mention some people who have never passed away. Many Christians will point to Jesus right away, however one of the main tenets of Christianity is that Jesus actually died before rising from the grave. This is based on the gospels.
The names of three people who are generally believed to have never died are, in fact, revealed in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament.
Readers familiar with an empty place setting at a Passover seder will recall Elijah, who, after being separated from his student Elisha by a fire chariot drawn by fiery horses, was carried up to heaven in a cloud of dust (2 Kings 2:11–12). Elijah became a candidate for the person who would eventually return to announce the arrival of the messiah since the Bible claims that he was taken up into the skies while he was still living.
Melchizedek, the ethereal priest-king of Salem, is another biblical person who seems to have never died. In Genesis 14:18, Melchizedek appears to appear as Abram is conversing to the King of Sodom. He praises Abram and then, after exchanging a tithe, appears to vanish. In verse 21, Abram and the King of Sodom continue their talk. This fleeting meeting gave rise to the myth that Melchizedek never died when the author of Hebrews 7:3 wrote of him, saying, "Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life..."
The third and last immortal is far less spectacular and far more obscure—at least not until the rise in popularity of Jewish apocalyptic literature. Since Genesis 5 contains a genealogy, most readers of Genesis skip or glance over it. The exact same format is used for each individual entry in the genealogy: (1) name introduction; (2) life expectancy before son born; (3) life expectancy following son birth; and (4) total years lived before death. The Hebrew term "vayamōt," which means "and he died," concludes every genealogical entry with the exception of Enoch. The final words of Genesis 5:24 read, "Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him" (וְאֵינֶנּוּ כִּי-לָקַח אϹתוϹ אϱלֹהִי).
The departure from the template, in addition to the fact that the text never states explicitly that "and he died" (even though "being no more" because "God took him" is probably a euphemism for death), allowed for the interpretation that Enoch was taken directly up into the heavens while still alive as a reward for his righteousness (literally, "walking with God") and thus never died.
Enoch eventually forfeits favor in Rabbinic literature, most likely as a result of his later prominent associations with apocalyptic philosophy and literature. Nevertheless, he continued to have an impact on early Christian traditions. The New Testament makes reference to him in 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 6, and the Ethiopian Church even incorporated the Book of Enoch into its canon of the Bible.