User:Sfdan/sandbox/DanNearEast
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sheol article
Sheol (שאול) is the Hebrew language word denoting the "abode of the dead", the "underworld", "the common grave of mankind" or "pit", and appearing in the Hebrew Bible. The word is transliterated Sheh-ole, in Strong's Hebrew and Greek Dictionaries and Strong's Concordances.
Sheol is originally from the ancient Sumerians view of the Afterlife that is said to be that once one dies, no matter how benevolent or malevolent they are in life, in Sheol they are destined to eat dirt to survive.[citation needed].
The Hebrew concept is paralleled in the Sumerian netherworld, Irkalla, to which Inanna descended, and can be compared to the Greek concept of Hades.
The prominent Biblical scholar William Foxwell Albright suggests that the Hebrew root for SHE'OL is SHA'AL, which means "to ask, to interrogate, to question." Sheol therefore should mean "asking, interrogation, questioning." 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.
Contents |
[edit] Sheol in the Bible
According to the Jewish Encyclopedia Sheol connotes the place where those that had died were believed to be congregated.
Sheol is underneath the earth[1][2] [3]; hence it is designated as netherworld [4][5], as "nether-most pit, in dark places, in the deeps"[6], "the lowest dungeon"[7], and "the pit"[8][9]. It is very deep[10][11], and it marks the point at the greatest possible distance from heaven[12][13][14].
The dead descend or are made to go down into it; the revived ascend or are brought and lifted up from it[15][16][17][18][19]. Sometimes the living are hurled into Sheol before they would naturally have been claimed by it[20][21][22][23], in which cases the earth is described as "opening her mouth"[24].
- Psalms 86:13: "Your love for me is great; you have rescued me from the depths of Sheol."
Sheol is spoken of as a land[25][26], but ordinarily it is a place with gates[27][28], and seems to have been viewed as divided into compartments[29], with "farthest corners"[30] and described with "uttermost parts of the pit")[31], one beneath the other.
- Book of Isaiah 14:15 "Yet thou shalt be brought down to the nether-world, to the uttermost parts of the pit."
Here the dead meet without distinction of rank or condition—the rich and the poor, the pious and the wicked, the old and the young, the master and the slave. The dead continue after a fashion their earthly life[32][33]. Jacob, refusing to be comforted at the supposed death of Joseph, would mourn there[34][35], David abides there in peace[36], the warriors have their weapons with them[37], yet they are mere shadows[38][39][40].
- Psalm 88:5 "I am counted with them that go down into the pit; I am become as a man that hath no help"
The dead merely exist without knowledge or feeling[42][43]. Silence reigns supreme; and oblivion is the lot of them that enter therein[44][45][46]. Hence it is known also as "Dumah", the abode of silence[47][48][49][50], and there God is not praised[51].
- 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.
- Jonah 2:2: "...Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, And You heard my voice."
-
-
- return here ***
-
<Text from Jewish Encyclopedia to be merged upwards>
Still, on certain extraordinary occasions the dwellers in Sheol are credited with the gift of making knowntheir feelings of rejoicing at the downfall of the enemy (Isa. xiv. 9, 10). Sleep is their usual lot (Jer. li. 39; Isa. xxvi. 14; Job xiv. 12). Sheol is a horrible, dreary, dark, disorderly land (Job x. 21, 22); yet it is the appointed house for all the living (ib. xxx. 23). Return from Sheol is not expected (II Sam. xii. 23; Job vii. 9, 10; x. 21; xiv. 7 et seq.; xvi. 22; Ecclus. [Sirach] xxxviii. 21); it is described as man's eternal house (Eccl. xii. 5). It is "dust" (Ps. xxx. 10; hence in the Shemoneh 'Esreh, in benediction No. ii., the dead are described as "sleepers in the dust").
God Its Ruler.
God's rulership over it is recognized (Amos ix. 2; Hos. xiii. 14; Deut. xxxii. 22; I Sam. ii. 6 [Isa. vii. 11?]; Prov. xv. 11). Hence He has the power to save the pious therefrom (Ps. xvi. 10, xlix. 16, the text of which latter passage, however, is recognized as corrupt). Yet Sheol is never satiated (Prov. xxx. 20); she "makes wide her soul," i.e., increases her desire (Isa. v. 14) and capacity. In these passages Sheol is personified; it is described also as a pasture for sheep with death as the shepherd (Ps. xlix. 15). From Sheol Samuel is cited by the witch of En-dor (I Sam. xxviii. 3 et seq.). As a rule Sheol will not give up its own. They are held captive with ropes. This seems to be the original idea underlying the phrase (II Sam. xxii. 6; Ps. xviii. 6; R. V., verse 5, "the cords of Sheol") and of the other expression, (Ps. cxvi. 3; R. V. "and the pains of Sheol"); for they certainly imply restraint or capture. Sheol is used as a simile for "jealousy" (Cant. viii. 7). For the post-Biblical development of the ideas involved see Eschatology.
<Text from Wikipedia to be merged upwards again into Jewish Encyclopedia text> Sheol is shown to be literally under the ground when the ground opens up under the household of Korah and the people go down living into sheol (Numbers 16:31-33).
Sheol may be personified: Sheol is never satiated (Proverbs 30:20); she "makes wide her soul," (Isaiah 5:14). ***
In the Hebrew Bible it is portrayed as a comfortless place beneath the earth, beyond gates, where both the bad and the good, slave and king, pious and wicked must go after death to sleep in silence and oblivion in the dust.
In some sources, for example in Deuteronomy 32:22, Sheol seems to be synonymous with the "depths of the earth". Sheol is sometimes compared to the gloomy, twilight afterlife of Hades or Tartarus from Greek mythology. Sheol is the common destination of both the righteous and the unrighteous dead; the righteous Job sees it as his destination (Job 3). In the Book of Job, while Satan is portrayed as tormenting and testing the living, he does not appear to have any particular presidency over Sheol, or to dwell in Sheol.
[edit] Sheol and Gehenna
- Main article: Gehenna
In contrast to Sheol is the Biblical word Gehinnom or Gehenna, which refers to a fiery place, a place of condemnation, where the wicked are punished after they die or on Judgment Day. The word is a reference to Gei Hinnom, the Valley of Hinnom (Joshua 15:8, 18:16; II Kings 23:10; Jeremiah 7:31; Nehemiah 11:30), outside the ancient city of Jerusalem, a place associated with child sacrifices to the Canaanite god Moloch and once used for burning refuse (basically a landfill).
The New Testament seems to draw a distinction between Sheol and Gehinnom, where Gehinnom becomes the commonly understood Judeo-Christian concept of hell (an English word coming from Germanic mythology).
In Islam, this same word became Jahannam.
[edit] Book of Enoch
The Book of Enoch 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.
[edit] Academic outlook
According to Professors Stephen L. Harris and James Tabor, Sheol is a place of "nothingness". Professor Tabor, Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, states in his What the Bible says about Death, Afterlife, and the Future:
- "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)." [1]
Professor 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." [2]
[edit] In popular culture
In the Robert A. Heinlein science fiction novel Starship Troopers, Sheol is also the name of an Arachnid colony planet, decimated by a Terran military attack. Likewise in the Walter Jon Williams novel "Voice of the Whirlwind" Sheol is the name of a planet on which a terrible war is waged. Sheol is also the name of a San Francisco bay area rock band.
Cordwainer Smith used the variant spelling 'Shayol' for the Instrumentality of Mankind's prison planet, a world in which humans exposed to the native microbial life would begin growing additional limbs and organs, all the while experiencing horrific pain. These organs would then be harvested for transplantion, which was seen as a restitution for their crimes. Eventually, after a pair of children were wrongfully sent there to be imprisoned, the underpeople serving as jailors rebelled, and the prisoners were released from their punishment.
Sheol also may be the inspiration behind Shelob and the earlier Ungoliant, which are the names of ancient evil spiders in the J.R.R. Tolkien novels The Lord Of The Rings and The Silmarillion.
At Regent's Park College, the Baptist Permanent Private Hall at the University of Oxford, the subterranean complex comprising a laundry and bathrooms is amusingly known as Sheol.
Sheol is the name of one of the Ravers in the series of books, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen Donaldson.
[edit] Sanskrit links
The word "Shiv" is assosiated with the word "hidden" or "unseen". The lord "Shiva" is considered as the master of destruction or end. Every thing is ending in to "Shivam" or realm of the unseen. The word "Gahanam" means deep. In sreemath Bhagavatham every thing in the known world is said to endup in a state of "Gahana Tamas" or Deep darkness and only the enlightened people shall reach the light of the creator.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ What the Bible says about Death, Afterlife, and the Future, James D. Tabor
- ^ Understanding the Bible: the 6th Edition, Stephen L Harris. (McGraw Hill 2002) p 436.
[edit] External links
Caesar's Messiah is a book written by American author Joseph Atwill and released in 2005 by Ulysses Press that examines religious and historical texts that have been used as a basis for mainstream Christian understanding of the historical Jesus.
Caesar's Messiah primary thesis is that Christianity was the creation of a circle of individuals associated with Roman Emperors Vespasian and Titus, and whose purpose was to aid in subduing the Jewish people by providing an alternative to the warlike philosophy that spawned the first Jewish Revolt. Included in this effort were the writings of Jewish historian Josephus, which Atwill believes were written to complement New Testament documents.
According to Atwill the two sets of documents form an elaborate and satirical joke in which Jesus' movement across the province of Iudaea during his missionary years reflect the events in Titus' campaign during the First Jewish-Roman War, using a literary technique commonly used in the Bible known as typology. Atwill points out that unless the reader has detailed knowledge of Titus' campaign, he will miss the dark humour present in the religious texts.
Atwill supports his comparison of the New Testament texts with Josephus' writings by pointing out shared chronological sequences between the events, and the use of shared symbolism.
Caesar's Messiah is Atwill's first book.
[edit] Editions
- ISBN 1-56-975457-8, April 15, 2005, Ulysses Press
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Joseph Atwill's homepage
- Joseph Atwill interview
- Gospel of Titus
- Criticism of Caesar's Messiah by Richard Carrier
- Review of Caesar's Messiah by Robert M. Price
