2 In what follows, I categorize the Old Testament’s language about Sheol in three ways, the first two of which are indeed primarily negative. The biblical writers don’t usually go into exorbitant detail about Sheol or its inhabitants, and when they do describe it, it is often pictured as dark, dusty, and gloomy (Psalm 88:6, 12 143:3). The biblical picture of Sheol in much of the Old Testament is rather shady, both in terms of the lack of specificity and in terms of actual descriptions of the place. “Sheol is a place of darkness, but it is also a place where God still remembers his people and where he is still King.” Given all the difficulty, what can we learn about Sheol from the Old Testament? And how should we think about it as Christians? 1 This critical consensus has given supposed biblical warrant to some contemporary Christian philosophers and theologians who do not believe an intermediate state is a tenable position. Further, the current consensus among biblical scholarship is that ancient Israel did not care much about the afterlife, leading many to conclude that they did not affirm an intermediate state. The Old Testament witness to Sheol is a difficult topic, made more difficult by the relative lack of explicit mention or discussion in Israel’s Scriptures of an intermediate state after death. “Sheol” is one of those unusual Old Testament words that easily confuses modern Bible readers. In Jesus, God did just that: he entered the realm of the dead himself, defeating death and the grave, and filling the darkness of Sheol with the light of his resurrection.įor our ongoing series of feature articles for pastors and Christian leaders, we asked Matthew Emerson, associate professor of religion at Oklahoma Baptist University, to explain the meaning of Sheol in Scripture. Yet Sheol is also under God’s authority, and Old Testament saints testified to his power to raise people up from the depths of Sheol. The Old Testament portrays Sheol as the bunker of humanity’s enemy, the devil, and the exilic wilderness away from the Promised Land. ABSTRACT: Several dozen times throughout Scripture, the word “Sheol” appears with reference to the afterlife.
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