Life After Death_ A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion - Alan Segal [83]
In addition, there are not any notions of hell and heaven that we can identify in the Hebrew Bible, no obvious judgment and punishment for sinners nor beatific reward for the virtuous. Indeed, the most famous term for the abode of the dead in the Bible, Gē’ Hinnōm (Josh 15:8; 18:16) or Ge Ben-hinnōm (Gehenna, as it was known in Greek), is not associated with hell or afterlife in the Hebrew Bible. It refers to a geographical locale on earth—literally, the Valley of Hinnom—a large ravine which can be seen today on the southwestern corner of the old city of Jerusalem. Ge Ben Hinnom remains this site’s common name in modern Israel to this very day. In ancient times, it was apparently both a city garbage dump and the scene of an idolatrous cult where children were passed through fire (2 Kgs 23:10; 2 Chr 28:3; 33:6; Jer 7:31; 32:35).20 In the Hellenistic period, and particularly in the New Testament, the location came to be used metaphorically for hell, full of fiery torment, which is probably why it is so familiar to us. But it does not yet have those connotations during the First Temple period.
To characterize the Biblical view of life after death, we must first investigate the use of the Biblical term “Sheol” (Hebrew: še’ōl). This is the term that is most often used in the Bible for the ultimate disposition of the dead (approximately 66 times and never to my knowledge in any other Semitic language) with its meaning clarified throughout the early period of Biblical history, although the terms “Abaddon” (perhaps forgetfulness or perdition), “pit,” and “ditch,” are used as well. It is likely that all these terms gather their implications from qeḇer, the more common term for “grave,” with which they are often linked in apposition. In the story of Korah in Numbers 16:30-33, the earth opens to swallow some rebels whole, who then “go down alive into Sheol.”21
No one completely understands the root meaning of the term “Sheol” but the best guess is that it comes from the widespread root š-’-l, meaning “to ask or inquire”-thus linking it with the story of the witch of Endor and the personal name “Saul” (Hebrew: Sha’ul), with which it shares the identical consonantal root. This immediately suggests a reason for Saul’s name: He has attempted to “inquire” about his fate from the dead. There are some oblique parallel usages in other ancient Near Eastern roots. Arabic records these roots in many senses; the Akkadian term “sa’ilu” denotes “one who consults spirits”; and the Old South Arabic word “m-s-’-l” connotes an oracle.22
The other terminology seems less problematic. The abode of the dead is, as the various names imply, a region somewhere near the primal waters, under the earth (Num 16:30; Job 26:7), just as it was in Mesopotamia, as Hades was for the Greeks. Indeed, the Septuagint (hereafter LXX) routinely translates the Hebrew “Sheol” with the Greek, “Hades.” And, like the Greek Hades, it was neither a place of reward nor of punishment inherently, merely the final destination where the dead go. It is dark and disordered (Job 10:20-21), a land of silence (Pss 94:17; 115:17), sometimes a grim city with gates (Job 38:17; Isa 38:10) and far from the presence of God, exactly as in Mesopotamian and Canaanite myth.
The abode of the dead is sometimes personified as an insatiable demon with wide open, gaping jaws (Prov 1:12; Isa 5:14; Hab 2:5). This is, no doubt, due to borrowing from the Canaanites, where the picture is far more common.23 In Canaanite mythology, the pit (ḥ-r), Arabic Ḥaur, and Akkadian Ḥurru all appear. In Ugarit the god Hauran appears, which no doubt contributes to the occasional Biblical personification. But nowhere in Hebrew society is the abode of the dead regarded as a place of special punishment. The notion of a fiery hell or place of punishment is a much later concept, likely due to Persian influence.
The Psalms and Hebrew Poetry about