Sheol

Description of Sheol in the Hebraic Bible

In some sources, for example Deutéronome 32:22, Sheol seems to be synonymous with " depths of Terre". One compares sometimes Sheol with the dark and dark underground world of the Hadès or the Tartar of the Greek Mythologie. The Sheol is the common destination of right and the irreligious people; the piles and right Job indeed sees Sheol like its destination (Job 3).

However, in many occurrences, the Sheol does not seem to be a destination or even a place, but simplememt " the tombe". In the Ecclésiaste, for example, " … deaths do not know anything; they do not have any more a reward, and until their memory is oublié." In the same way, " No matter what your hands find to make, do it fully because in Sheol, where you go, there is neither work, neither plan, neither knowledge, nor sagesse." (Ecc. 9:5 - 10)

Jacob, éploré with the advertisement of the supposed death of Joseph, exclaims: " I want to go down to make my son, endeuillé in Sheol" (Genesis 37:35). The Sheol can be personified: Sheol is never satisfied (Proverbes 30:20); it " increased its desire and opened its mouth without measurement, " (Isaïe 5:14), but they are probably allegories.

Lastly, the Psaume evokes two rather exceptional facts: in PS. 18:5 - 7, the voice of David arriving at the Eternal: " The bonds of dead had surrounded me, and the torrents of the destruction had terrified me; bonds of Sheol ( translated " Sepulchre " in the version LSG 1910 had surrounded me, the nets of dead me had surprised. In my distress, I called upon the Eternal, I shouted with my God; of its palate, He heard my voice, and my cry arrived in front of Him to Its ears; " and in PS. 86:13: " Your love for me is large; You saved me depths of Sheol."

The Hebraic concept of beyond is found in darkness of the culture sumérienne in which Inanna goes down. See also Ereshkigal.

Distinction enters Sheol and a " tombe" in the Hebraic Bible

Notwithstanding the metaphorical use (Jonas 2:2), and made usual of Sheol by " the tombe" , Sheol is clearly differentiated from a simple Hebrew tomb in . The " term; qever" or " q' vourah" a tomb is universally used to indicate, while " Sheol" is " falls to it , " the " place of the morts." Sheol is never used to describe a tomb in particular (e.g. the " Tomb of Rachel " Qever Ra' hel and not " is said; Sheol Ra' hel"). In the Hebraic Bible, Sheol is always very deep (Job 11:8, Amos 9:2), a place of gathering for deaths (Genesis 37:35, Ezéchiel 31:17), aggrandit even for " to accommodate new arrivants" (Isaïe 5:14); one occasionally penetrates there with his body, even still alive (Nombres 16:30 - 33, PS. 55:15); it acts for some of a place of rest (Job 14:13), for others of a place of sufferings, to see a furnace (Deut. 32:22, PS. 116:3). Metaphorical allusions to Sheol to indicate the " mort" , ultimate purpose of the life, appearing in Ecclésiaste and certain Psalms not-written by David, do not modify the concept of a gathering place for the late ones, on standby of a judgment.

Distinction enters Sheol and the hell

The Enfer is not a concept Hebrew but resulting from Germanic mythology, used to return the concept of Guehinnom (Jahannam in Arabic, Géhenne in French) which, far from being an underground place of perdition inaccessible and unknown with alive, was the valley of Hinnom or Ben Hinnom (Ford Hinnom) of the neighborhoods of Jerusalem (Josué 15:8, 18:16; 2 Kings 23:10; Jérémie 7:31; Néhémie 11:30). Of garbage dump to be incinerated, it became the place of a worship idolâtre where the children had passed by fire to the god cananéen Moloch. It is by this skew that it will become a place of judgment.

In addition, in the Book of Job, although the Satan either depicts like tormenting and trying living it, it is not mentioned any of a presidency or even a stay in the Sheol .

The eminent biblist William Foxwell Albright points out that SHE' OL seems to divide the root of SHA' Al , which means " normally; to ask, question, questionner." Sheol could in this case have a similar direction. One could thus bring it back to a kind of purgatory.

John Tvedtnes, another biblist, prolongs the assumption by binding this to the topic common to the experiments of imminent death, the heart questioning himself after having crossed the Tunnel.
In addition, repentance saying Hebrew Teshouva in , and teshouva also being able to mean " réponse" (i.e. opposite of the question), this can be one of the readings of the Mishna 2:15 of the Traité Fathers: " Rabbi Eliézer known as 'would not be prompt to put to you in anger, and made '' teshouva '' one day before your death. But how can you know the day of your death? Make teshouva each day of your vie"

Academic opinion

According to the Professors Stephen L. Harris and James Tabor, Sheol is a place of " rien" , the roots plunge in the Hebraic Bible.

Pr Tabor, holder of the pulpit of Department of Religious Studies of the University of North Carolina, written in its What the Bible says butt Death, Afterlife, and the Future :

" Old the Hebrew by no means imagined the idea of an immortal heart, living a full life after death, not more than one resurrection or unspecified ressucitation. The men like the animals came from dust and turned over to dust (Gen. 2:7; 3:19). The word nefesh , traditionalement translated " heart vivante" but rather included/understood like " living being, " is the same word used for all the creatures and does not imply any idea of immortality… All deaths from go away in Sheol, and they rest there together, bad, rich or poor, free goods or or slaves (Job 3:11 - 19). One describes it like an area " dark and deep, " " the Pit, " " country of the lapse of memory, " half-compartment of God and any human life higher (PS. 6:5; 88:3 - 12). Although in certain texts, the capacity of YHWH reaches Sheol (PS. 139:8), the dominant idea is that deaths remain, forever abandoned. This concept of Sheol can appear negative in contrast with the life which occurs " là-haut" at the alive ones, but there is no either concept of judgment nor of remuneration. When one carries out a life of extreme sufferings and misery, as it was the case of Job, Sheol can even seem a welcome relief with the pain - to see Job chap. 3.
Néanmoins, it acts at the base of a kind of " nothing, " an existence which is hardly existence, in which a " ombre" or " nuance" old self (PS survives. 88:10). "

Pr Harris announces similar remark in its Understanding the Bible :

" The concept of punishment eternal does not appear in the Hebraic Bible, which uses the term Sheol to indicate an underground area where deaths, goods like bad, remain only as impotent shades. When hellenized the Juifs scribes translated the Bible into Greek, they used the word Hadès to return Sheol, creating a completely new mythological association with the posthumous idea of existence. In the old Greek myths, Hadès, named according to the glaucous deity which reigned on it, was originally similar to Sheol, a dark underground world where all deaths, without reference to individual merit, étaint placed sasn least the discrimination."

Sheol in the books intertestamentaires

The Book of Enoch , generally allotted to hellenized Jews of Alexandria, brings back the cosmological vision of Enoch. The author describes Sheol as divided into four sections: in the first, called in the Gospel according to Luc " Center of Abraham " , the right ones and the saints joyeusement await the Jour of the judgment; in the second, moderately good people await their reward; the third where the malicious ones are punished and await their judgment with resurrection; finally the fourth where the malicious ones which does not even deserve to be ressucities are eternally tormented.
Cette cosmology is one of only to bring closer or include the hell in Sheol. According to the Gospel according to Luc, Jesus went in Sheol when he died, in order to be made known the right ones of the Hebraic Bible.

Sheol in the popular culture

In the novel of Science fiction of Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers, Sheol are the name of a Planet colonized by Arachnide S and decimated by a land military attack.

In the Regent' S Park College, the Permanent Private Hall of the Université of Oxford shelters an underground, in particular including a detergent and bathrooms, and popularly known complex like Sheol.

Sheol is the name of the organization under which Mysterio is presented to Matt Murdock in Daredevil: Under the Wing of the Devil.

Sheol is also the title of an Post-apocalyptic science-fiction novel of Jean-Pierre Fontana; Denoël editions, collection " Presence of Futur".

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