Sheol

Sheol (pronounced "Sheh-ole")^[1], in Hebrew שאול (Sh'ol), is the "abode of the dead", the "underworld", or "pit".^[2] Sheol is the common destination of both the righteous and the unrighteous dead, as recounted in Ecclesiastes and Job.

Sheol is sometimes compared to Hades, the gloomy, twilight afterlife of Greek mythology. The word "hades" was in fact substituted for "sheol" when the Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek (see Septuagint). The New Testament (written in Greek) also uses "hades" to refer to the abode of the dead.

By the second century BC, Jews who accepted the Oral Torah had come to believe that those in sheol awaited the resurrection either in comfort (in the bosom of Abraham) or in torment. This belief is reflected in Jesus' story of Lazarus and Dives. At that time Jews who rejected the Oral Torah believed that Sheol meant simply the grave.

Christian translations of the Hebrew scriptures have variously rendered the word sheol as "hell"^[3] or "the grave".^[4]

Etymology

The origin of the term sheol is obscure.

One theory is that Sheol is connected ša'al, the root of which means "to burrow" and is thus related to šu'al "fox" or "burrower".^[5]

Biblical scholar William Foxwell Albright suggests that the Hebrew root for SHE'OL is SHA'AL, which means "to ask, to interrogate, to question." John Tvedtnes, also a Biblical scholar, connects this with the common theme in near-death experiences of the interrogation of the soul after crossing the Tunnel.

As regards the origin not of the term but of the concept, the Jewish Encyclopedia considers more probable the view that it originated in animistic conceits: "With the body in the grave remains connected the soul (as in dreams): the dead buried in family graves continue to have communion (comp. Jer. xxxi. 15). Sheol is practically a family grave on a large scale. Graves were protected by gates and bolts; therefore Sheol was likewise similarly guarded. The separate compartments are devised for the separate clans, septs, and families, national and blood distinctions continuing in effect after death. That Sheol is described as subterranean is but an application of the custom of hewing out of the rocks passages, leading downward, for burial purposes."^[6]

Sheol in the Hebrew Bible

In the Tanakh, which is the Hebrew Bible (the books that Christians call the Old Testament), the word "sheol" occurs more than 60 times. It is used most frequently in the Psalms, wisdom literature and prophetic books.

Jacob, not comforted at the reported death of Joseph, exclaims: "I shall go down to my son a mourner unto Sheol" (Genesis 37:35). Sheol may be personified: Sheol is never satiated (Proverbs 30:16); she "makes wide her throat" (Isaiah 5:14).

Other examples of its usage:

• Job 7:9 "Just as a cloud dissipates and vanishes, those who go down to Sheol will not come back."
• Psalm 18:5-7 "The breakers of death surged round about me; the menacing floods terrified me. The cords of Sheol tightened; the snares of death lay in wait for me. In my distress I called out: LORD! I cried out to my God. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry to him reached his ears.
• Psalm 86:13: "Your love for me is great; you have rescued me from the depths of Sheol."
• Psalm 139:8: "If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there."
• Jonah 2:2: "...Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, And You heard my voice."

The Hebrew concept is paralleled in the Sumerian Netherworld to which Inanna descends. See Irkalla.

Book of Enoch

The Book of Enoch (ca. 160 BCE) purportedly records Enoch's vision of the cosmos. The author describes Sheol as divided into four sections: one where the faithful saints blissfully await Judgment Day (see Bosom of Abraham), one where the moderately good await their reward, one where the wicked are punished and await their Judgment at the resurrection (see Gehenna), and the last where the wicked who don't even warrant resurrection are tormented.

Sheol in the New Testament

The New Testament follows the Septuagint in translating sheol as hades (compare Acts 2:27, 31 and Psalm 16:10). The New Testament thus seems to draw a distinction between Sheol and "Gehinnom" or Gehenna (Jahannam in Islam). The former is regarded as a place where the dead go temporarily to await resurrection (according to some traditions, including Jesus himself), while the latter is the place of eternal punishment for the damned (i.e. perdition). Accordingly, in the book of Saint John's Revelation, hades is associated with death (Revelation 1:18, 6:8), and in the final judgment the wicked dead are brought out of hades and cast into the lake of fire, which represents the fire of Gehenna; hades itself is also finally thrown into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:11-15).

In Luke 16:19-31 (the story of Lazarus and Dives), Jesus portrays hades as a place of torment, at least for the wicked. Jesus also announces to St. Peter that "the gates of hades" will not overpower the church (Matthew 16:18), and uses hades to pronounce judgment upon the city of Capernaum (Matthew 11:23).

The English word "hell" comes from Germanic mythology, and is now used in the Judeo-Christian sense to translate the Greek word Gehenna — a term which originally referred to a valley outside Jerusalem used for burning refuse, but came to designate the place of punishment for sinners. Although older translations (such as the King James Version) also translated Hades as "hell", modern English translations tend to preserve the distinction between the two concepts by transliterating the word hades and reserving "hell fire" for gehenna fire.

In the Esperanto translation of the New Testament, wherever the word "Hades" might appear, it is merely transliterated; but in places where the New Testament quotes from the Old Testament it uses Sheol, rendered into Esperanto spelling, corresponding with Zamenhof's translation in the original. (Cf. Acts 2:31, Psalm 16:10.)

Historical outlook

According to Professors Stephen L. Harris and James Tabor, sheol is a place of "nothingness" that has its roots in the Hebrew Bible (or Talmud).

"The ancient Hebrews had no idea of an immortal soul living a full and vital life beyond death, nor of any resurrection or return from death. Human beings, like the beasts of the field, are made of "dust of the earth," and at death they return to that dust (Gen. 2:7; 3:19). The Hebrew word nephesh, traditionally translated "living soul" but more properly understood as "living creature," is the same word used for all breathing creatures and refers to nothing immortal...All the dead go down to Sheol, and there they lie in sleep together — whether good or evil, rich or poor, slave or free (Job 3:11-19). It is described as a region "dark and deep," "the Pit," and "the land of forgetfulness," cut off from both God and human life above (Pss. 6:5; 88:3-12). Though in some texts Yahweh's power can reach down to Sheol (Ps. 139:8), the dominant idea is that the dead are abandoned forever. This idea of Sheol is negative in contrast to the world of life and light above, but there is no idea of judgment or of reward and punishment. If one faces extreme circumstances of suffering in the realm of the living above, as did Job, it can even be seen as a welcome relief from pain–see the third chapter of Job. But basically it is a kind of "nothingness," an existence that is barely existence at all, in which a "shadow" or "shade" of the former self survives (Ps. 88:10)."^[7]

Harris shares similar remarks in his Understanding the Bible: "The concept of eternal punishment does not occur in the Hebrew Bible, which uses the term Sheol to designate a bleak subterranean region where the dead, good and bad alike, subsist only as impotent shadows. When Hellenistic Jewish scribes rendered the Bible into Greek, they used the word Hades to translate Sheol, bringing a whole new mythological association to the idea of posthumous existence. In ancient Greek myth, Hades, named after the gloomy deity who ruled over it, was originally similar to the Hebrew Sheol, a dark underground realm in which all the dead, regardless of individual merit, were indiscriminately housed."^[8] While some believers in the Bible think that it contains one doctrine of Hell (regardless of what they think about the nature of Hell), Harris and nontheists may view the doctrine as changing throughout the Bible.

See also

• Bosom of Abraham
• Gehenna
• Hades
• Hell
• Resurrection
• Spirit world (Latter Day Saints)
• Tartarus

Notes

1. ^ Strong's Hebrew and Greek Dictionaries and Strong's Concordance
2. ^ Metzger & Coogan (1993) Oxford Companion to the Bible, p 277.
3. ^ e.g. King James Version
4. ^ e.g. New International Version.
5. ^ Brief Communications. "The Original Meaning of Sheol." Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 36, No. 3/4, (1917): 258.
6. ^ Sheol
7. ^ What the Bible says about Death, Afterlife, and the Future, James Tabor
8. ^ Understanding the Bible: the 6th Edition, Stephen L Harris. (McGraw Hill 2002) p 436.

References

• Metzeger, Bruce M. (ed); , Michael D. Coogan (ed) (1993). The Oxford Companion to the Bible. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-504645-5. 

External links

• Sheol entry in Jewish Encyclopedia

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