Hell

according to many religious beliefs, is an afterlife of suffering where the wicked or

unrighteous souls are punished, in most beliefs, by Satan and his many minions.

Hell is almost always depicted as underground. Within Islam and Christianity, hell is
traditionally depicted as fiery.[1] Some other traditions, however, portray Hell as cold and
gloomy. In Judaism, Hell is portrayed as a state of neutrality and an eternal existence in
nothingness.

Some theologies of Hell offer graphic and gruesome detail (for example, Hindu Naraka).
Religions with a linear divine history often depict Hell as endless (for example, see Hell
in Christian beliefs). Religions with a cyclic history often depict Hell as an intermediary
period between incarnations (for example, see Chinese Di Yu). Punishment in Hell
typically corresponds to sins committed in life. Sometimes these distinctions are specific,
with damned souls suffering for each wrong committed (see for example Plato's myth of
Er or Dante's The Divine Comedy), and sometimes they are general, with sinners being
relegated to one or more chamber of Hell or level of suffering (for example, Augustine of
Hippo asserting that unbaptized infants, whom he believed to be deprived of Heaven,
suffer less in Hell than unbaptized adults). In Islam and Christianity, however, faith and
repentance play a larger role than actions in determining a soul's afterlife destiny.

Hell is often portrayed populated with demons, who torment the damned. Many are ruled
by a death god, such as Nergal, the Hindu Yama, or the Christian Satan.

In contrast to Hell, other general types of afterlives are abodes of the dead and paradises.
Abodes of the dead are neutral places for all the dead (for example, see sheol), rather than
prisons of punishment for sinners. A paradise is a happy afterlife for some or all the dead
(for example, see heaven).

Modern understandings of Hell often depict it abstractly, as a state of loss

rather than as fiery torture literally under the grounChinese religions

Main article: Di Yu

In Chinese mythology, the name of Hell does not carry a negative connotation. The Hell
they refer to is Di Yu (trad. 地獄, simp. 地 ; lit. "underground hold/court"). Diyu is a
maze of underground levels and chambers where souls are taken to atone for their earthly
sins.

The popular story is that the word Hell was introduced to China by Christian
missionaries, who preached that all non-Christian Chinese people would "go to Hell"
when they died. As such, it was believed that the word "Hell" was the proper English
term for the Chinese afterlife, and hence the word was adopted. The belief in hell can be
traced to Understanding Heaven and Hell.

The Chinese view Hell as similar to a present day passport or immigration control station.
In a Chinese funeral, they burn many Hell Bank Notes for the dead. With this Hell
money, the dead person can bribe the ruler of Hell, and spend the rest of the money either
in Hell or in Heaven. There is a belief that once the dead person runs out of Hell money,
and if he does not receive more, he will be eternally poor.

d.

Christianity

Main article: Hell in Christian beliefs

The Christian doctrine of hell derives from the teaching of the New Testament, where hell
is typically described using the Greek word Gehenna. Hell is the final destiny of the
unsaved, where they will be punished for sin after the general resurrection and last
judgment. Traditionally hell has been viewed as a place of eternal, conscious torment
under the wrath of God. However, in modern times some Christian theologians have
adopted alternative views such as conditional immortality and universalism.

Hades in Christianity
 Main article: Hades in Christianity

Like other first-century Jews literate in Greek, early Christians used the Greek word
Hades to translate the Hebrew word Sheol. Thus, in Acts 2:27, the Hebrew phrase in
Psalm 16:10 appears in the form: "you will not abandon my soul to Hades." Death and
Hades are repeatedly associated in the Book of Revelation.[4] The word "Hades" appears
in Jesus' promise to Peter: "And I also say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this
rock I will build my church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it",[5] and in
the warning to Capernaum: "And thou, Capernaum, shalt thou be exalted unto heaven?
thou shalt go down unto Hades."[6] The word also appears in Luke's story of Lazarus and
the rich man, which shows that Sheol/Hades, which had originally been seen as dark and
gloomy, with little if any relation to afterlife rewards or punishments, had come to be
understood as a place of comfort for the righteous ("in the bosom of Abraham") and of
torment for the wicked ("in anguish in this flame")..[7]

The Greek word "Hades" was translated into Latin as "infernus" (underworld) and passed
into English as "hell", as in the King James Version of the above-cited New Testament
passages. The word continued to be used to refer generically to the abode or situation of
the dead, whether just or unjust, as in the Apostles' Creed, where "he descended into hell"
is said of Christ. But, except in Greek, this generic usage of the word "Hades",
"infernus", "hell" has become archaic and unusual. In Greek, the word κόλασις (literally,
"punishment"; cf. Mathew 25:14, which speaks of "everlasting kolasis") is used to refer
to what nowadays is usually meant by "hell" in English.

Hades has often been pictured as a place within the earth, rather than just a state of the
soul. Tertullian, speaking of those who did not believe in the resurrection of the body,
wrote: "You must suppose Hades to be a subterranean region, and keep at arm's length
those who are too proud to believe that the souls of the faithful deserve a place in the
lower regions".[8]

For souls in the situation of Hades, understood as that of the dead in general, early
Christians believed that it is possible, not only for those who died before the coming of
Christ,[9] but also for those who died later "to be translated to a state of happiness" when
prayed for, even if they were not baptized.[10]

The ancient Christian Churches[11] hold that a final universal judgement will be
pronounced on all human beings when soul and body are reunited in the resurrection of
the dead. They also believe that, even while awaiting resurrection, the fate of souls
differs: "The souls of the righteous are in light and rest, with a foretaste of eternal
happiness; but the souls of the wicked are in a state the reverse of this."[12] Meanwhile, the
saints among the dead can intercede for the living, and the living can help "such souls as
have departed with faith, but without having had time to bring forth fruits worthy of
repentance … towards the attainment of a blessed resurrection by prayers offered in their
behalf, especially such as are offered in union with the oblation of the bloodless sacrifice
of the Body and Blood of Christ, and by works of mercy done in faith for their
memory."[13]
In Protestantism, it is believed that a person's fate is definitively sealed at death, and that
the dead can neither assist the living nor be assisted by them.[citation needed] Some, such as the
Jehovah's Witnesses, hold that, until the resurrection, the dead simply cease to exist or, if
they exist at all, do so in a state of unconsciousness.[14] (See Annihilationism.)

SHEOL
In Hebrew, ²² Sheol (‫שאול‬, Sh'ol) is the "abode of the dead", the "underworld", "the
common grave of humankind" or "pit".[1] In the Hebrew Bible, it is a place where both the
bad and the good, slave and king, pious and wicked must go at the point of death.[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.

Anglicans, who do not share a concept of "hades" with the Eastern Orthodox, have
traditionally translated "sheol" (and "hades") as "hell" (for example in the King James
Version). However, to avoid confusion of what are separate concepts in the Bible, modern
English versions of the Bible tend either to transliterate the word sheol or to use an
alternative term such as the "grave" (e.g. the NIV). Roman Catholics generally translate
"sheol" as "death.

" as "death."
Contents
[hide]

• 1 Etymology
• 2 Sheol in the Hebrew Bible
• 3 Book of Enoch
• 4 Sheol in the New Testament
• 5 Secular outlook
• 6 In popular culture
• 7 See also
• 8 Notes
• 9 References

• 10 External links

[edit] Etymology

The origin of the term sheol is obscure.[3]

Sheol is also transliterated Sheh-ole, in Strong's Hebrew and Greek Dictionaries and
Strong's Concordances.

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.

An alternative 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".[4]

[edit] Sheol in the Hebrew Bible

In the Tanakh, which is the Hebrew Bible (which Christians call the Old Testament), the
word "sheol" occurs more than sixty 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 30:20); she "makes wide her throat" (Isaiah 5:14).

Other examples of its usage:

 • 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."
• 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.)

[edit] Secular 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 Old Testament).

"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)."[5]

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."[6] 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.

By the time of Jesus, many Jews had come to believe in a future resurrection of the dead.
The dead in Sheol were said to await the resurrection either in comfort or in torment, as
in the story of Lazarus and Dives.
[edit] In popular culture

In the The Wheel Of Time book series by Robert Jordan Shayol Ghul is a giant black
mountain in which lies the Pit Of Doom ; an otherworldly place where the Dark One is
closest to touching the world and his presence can be most keenly felt.

Sheol is the name of an album by Swedish blackened-death metal band Naglfar.

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.

In the book Memnoch the Devil by Anne Rice Sheol is a name given to the realm where
the spirits of the dead go, should they not be worthy to go to Heaven. This land is turned
into Hell by Memnoch as a way to show these souls the error of their ways so that they
may pass on into Heaven and so that he can end the suffering of the human race and
return to God himself.

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 transplantation, 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 is the name of an asteroid mining base referred to in the user manual's plot
foreword for the computer game Wing Commander: Privateer.

In the Fury3/Hellbender game universe, "red sheol" is a mineral, the "isomorphic decay"
of which can be used to attract wormholes for faster than light travel. In Fury3, it is found
on the planet Ares, the setting of one of the game's missions.

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.

Sheol is the name of one of the TimeKeeper Demons in the series of books, The Wayfarer
Redemption by Sara Douglas.

In the MMORPG Anarchy Online, there is a massive area called "Scheol" in the
Shadowlands, an alternate universe that is slowly degrading into nothingness.
In the Hellboy comics collection, Strange Places, Hellboy's father is described as a
"Prince of Sheol".

Sheol is also the name of a San Francisco bay area rock band.

On the back cover of the Megadeth album, United Abominations, Vic Rattlehead is
carrying a ring of keys; one reads death, one reads Hades, and one reads Sheol.

In the Christian youth fantasy series Dragons In Our Midst, Sheol contains seven circles,
the last of which is Hades.

In a Season 2 episode of Transformers, Smokescreen bargains for his friends' lives in a

town on a bleak asteroid, and the town is named Sheol.