When you read in the Torah of the Hebrew Bible, you will encounter the word "Sheol" as a place that people refer to. The question is what exactly is Sheol? What does this blog concerning the book of Isaiah make Sheol look like? Allow me to explain what this place's purpose is and why Isaiah brings ground shaking prophecy for the Jewish people during the time it was written.
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1. What exactly is Sheol?
Evangelical scholars like
Don Stewart and secular scholars like
Matthew Suriano seem to come to an agreement on Sheol having multiple appearances in the Old Testament with various takes on an actual definition. They agree that Sheol was rather a mysterious place that can only be summarized as where the dead go when they die among all the Hebrew texts. Many scholars dispute today on if Sheol was a place for life after death or a part of death in itself. Throughout a
collection of texts, one can see that there is a negative connotation to Sheol. The idea of Hebrew literature shows a concept of the difference in body and spirit.
Emil G. Hirsch has an excellent article on jewishencyclopedia,com referring to Sheol as "
It connotes the place where those that had died were believed to be congregated." The main concept of Sheol is that this is the destination of life after death in the ancient Jewish times. Righteous, wicked, or anybody is headed hear according to many biblical authors (Ecclesiastes 9:10 is a great example).
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2. What does Isaiah say about death & Sheol?
Isaiah paints an paints a picture for his readers in 28:15-18. The rulers of Jerusalem had no distinct fear of the Jews during this time as they continued to enslave them in exile. Isaiah seems to give the typical picture that eventually YHWH will send them into the pit of Sheol through passing judgement. This doesn't seem to offer anything special in regards to the typical biblical pattern, but (with the remaining context in previous passages) one can see the groundbreaking revelation. Isaiah 26 is song of holy joy and praise, in which the great things God had engaged, in the foregoing chapter, to do for his people against his enemies and their enemies are celebrated. The one key concept that I want to focus on is the concept of a resurrection-like prophecy found in Isaiah 26:19. This text brings a concrete "heaven and hell" like concept into the Hebrew religion that has been missing. While the book does talk mostly about the physical future of the Israelite people, it also talks about future hope even for the people of Israel that have fallen. Herbert Chanan Brichto makes a really good argument that during the time that the Old Testament was compiled during the post-exile times where the belief in an afterlife was more perceived in Hebrew literature than the typical "all souls go to Sheol" literature of early Hebrew patriarchs literature. This would seem to make sense on why Isaiah is so ground breaking with its many messianic and resurrection prophecies that Judeo-Christians point to in response to criticism of Jesus of Nazareth. Simcha Paull Raphael has an excellent look at how it is "not that Judaism lacks a belief in the afterlife. Rather, the contents of these many earlier teachings have been lost, due in part, to the changing nature of modern Jewish society." This would make sense as well because throughout the cannon of the Hebrew bible (pre-prophets), there is not a clear depiction of the afterlife except for Sheol as a reference to where the dead go. To see how Isaiah's prophecies would come together to bring an accurate picture of future events would definitely cause Jewish readers to look at the resurrection prophecies a legitimate as well. This is where Isaiah becomes ground breaking to Judean views and creates the division among early A.D. Jewish scholars such as the Pharisees (who believed in the major and minor prophets' talk of an afterlife) and the Saducees (who were strictly believers in the Torah and Deuteronomistic History books with little concrete statements on an afterlife).
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3. The Impact of Isaiah Today
The book of Isaiah is still one of the most famous books of the major prophets. This mainly would have to do with the fact that is a book of major (or larger composed) prophecy. Many Jewish scholars still debate through the Jewish belief on an afterlife or not looking at this text along with other canonized texts in the Hebrew bible. Judeo-Christians use this not only to debate the same topic Jews do, but also as a text used in apologetic defenses of the legitimacy of the Evangelical bible and the legitimacy of Jesus of Nazareth's messianic title. Despite all of this, it is apparent that this book had ground breaking information involving the final destination of mankind and the characteristics of Sheol when the Hebrew cannon was gathered and made official. This book does however paint an interesting picture that a certain protagonist talks about and features in part 2 of the Christian bible.
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