cartoon of 1885 parodying the changing interpretation of Sheol'' in the
Hebrew Bible (
Old Testament): a number of historical sinners and atheists are seen enjoying the relatively pleasant atmosphere of "Sheol" after suffering the flames of the traditional
Hell; at left is a dejected
Satan sitting beneath a sign that states "This Business is Removed to Sheol, Opposite." Even within early
Jewish thought, the understanding of Sheol was often inconsistent. This would partly manifest in the ideological rift between the
Sadducees and
Pharisees, who disagreed on whether relevance should focus more on the world of the living or on the afterlife. The lack of a clear belief structure surrounding Sheol provides leeway for interpretational pluralism—namely, one that imagines Sheol as a concrete state of the afterlife or one that envisions Sheol as a metaphor for death as a whole. To the latter's end, certain editions of the Bible translate the term
Sheol as generic terms such as "grave" or "pit" (e.g., the Christian
KJV and
NIV and Jewish
JPS Tanakh), while others (e.g., the Christian
NAB and
NASB and Jewish
Koren Jerusalem Bible) preserve it as a proper noun. Distinguishing Sheol between a realm and a metaphor is the crux of several unanswered questions surrounding its nature. Perhaps owing to the evolution of its interpretation, some aspects of Sheol as described in the Hebrew Bible appear contradictory. Those in Sheol remember nothing, not even
Yahweh, yet elsewhere its inhabitants possess an otherwise impossible perception of earthly events, even those which occur after their demise. Pleas to Yahweh cannot escape Sheol, and yet, Yahweh remains its unequivocal master. Those who descend into Sheol cannot escape it, yet Yahweh raises souls from it. Furthermore, despite the evidently abstract nature of Sheol, there is some physicality to it: it was clearly understood to be subterranean, contains "gates", is apparently compartmentalized, and there are numerous mentions of its "deepest depths" and "farthest corners". The idea that both the righteous and unrighteous eventually descend to Sheol appears to be an unspoken assumption in the Hebrew Bible; thus,
Jacob and
David have no reservation in acknowledging their eventual residency, even as the later
prophets spoke of Sheol lying in wait for the wicked. The origins of the concept of Sheol are debated. The general characteristics of an afterlife such as Sheol were not unique to the ancient
Israelites; the
Babylonians had a similar underworld called
Aralu, and the
Greeks had one known as
Hades. As such, it is assumed that the early Israelites believed that the grave of family, or tribe, all united into one, collectively unified "grave", and that this is what the
Biblical Hebrew term Sheol refers to: the common grave of humans. Therefore, the family tomb is the central concept in understanding biblical views of the afterlife. It is "not mere sentimental respect for the physical remains that is...the motivation for the practice, but rather an assumed connection between proper
sepulture and the condition of happiness of the deceased in the afterlife". Wojciech Kosior has argued that "Sheol" in the Hebrew Bible refers to an
underworld deity. Some additional support for this hypothesis comes from the ancient Near Eastern literary materials. It has been proposed that Sheol is the Hebrew derivative of
Shuwala (,
šu-wa-la), an underworld goddess of
Hurrian origin, attested in
Hattusa in Anatolia,
Emar and
Ugarit in Syria, and
Ur in Mesopotamia, often alongside other underworld deities such as
Allani or
Ugur. According to
Assyriologist Lluis Feliu, a connection between Sheol and Shuwala is "possible, but not certain."
Edward Lipiński regards this connection as proven. Some scholars argue that Sheol understood anthropomorphically fits the semantic complex of the other ancient Near Eastern
death deities such as
Nergal,
Ereshkigal or
Mot. The
Second Temple Period wrought several radical theological changes within the Israelite population and marked the transition from
Israelite religion to modern
Judaism. The idea of Sheol underwent extensive modification and became widely diversified, with a newfound plethora of interpretations. With the codification of
Rabbinical Judaism and the
Talmud,
Jewish theology concerning the afterlife had largely abandoned the concept of a single destination for all humankind after death. It adopted the more recognizable model, which espoused a place of reward for the righteous and punishment for the wicked called
Gehinnom. Subsequently,
Sheol and the related terms
Abaddon,
Bor,
Shakhat, and others were reduced to synonyms for this realm of punishment. ==Mandaeism==