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From: leeway@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Lee Gold)
Newsgroups: net.religion,net.flame
Subject: Re: "Hell" in the Old Testament
Message-ID: <948@sdcrdcf.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 3-Apr-84 00:02:16 EST
Article-I.D.: sdcrdcf.948
Posted: Tue Apr  3 00:02:16 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 31-Mar-84 09:41:54 EST
References: <15@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Reply-To: leeway@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Lee Gold)
Organization: System Development Corporation, Santa Monica
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Xref: 300 421


SHEOL is NOT the Hebrew word for "Hell."  It is the Hebrew word for
"the grave/the abode of the dead."  It's questionable whether it means
"afterlife," "the tomb," or "the underworld."  In fact, it seems that
in the days the Bible was written as now, the Jewish religion did not attempt
ANY definitive teaching as to what happened to the soul after death,
believing that obeying God's commandments merely for the sake of gaining
a pleasurable afterlife was an ignoble motive.  ("Be not like servants who
serve for the sake of a reward.")

If you check a good dictionary, you will find that Sheol's meaning of
"hell" is a secondary and later denotation, acquired long after the Jewish
Bible was written.

--Lee Gold