section_path: Abrahamic religions/Judaism/Sheol
section_name: Sheol
paragraph_text: Sheol
  
  Sheol, in the Hebrew Bible, is a place of darkness (Job x. 21, 22) to which all the dead go, both the righteous and the unrighteous, regardless of the moral choices made in life (Gen. xxxvii. 35; Ezek. xxxii.; Isa. xiv.; Job xxx. 23), a place of stillness (Ps. lxxxviii. 13, xciv. 17; Eccl. ix. 10), at the longest possible distance from heaven (Job xi. 8; Amos ix. 2; Ps. cxxxix. 8).
  
  The inhabitants of Sheol were the "shades" (rephaim), entities without personality or strength. Under some circumstances they were thought to be able to be contacted by the living, as the Witch of Endor contacts the shade of Samuel for Saul, but such practices were forbidden (Deuteronomy 18:10).
  
  While the Hebrew Bible appears to describe Sheol as the permanent place of the dead, in the Second Temple period (roughly 500 BC – 70 AD) a more diverse set of ideas developed. In some texts, Sheol is considered to be the home of both the righteous and the wicked, separated into respective compartments; in others, it was considered a place of punishment, meant for the wicked dead alone. When the Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek in ancient Alexandria around 200 BC, the word " Hades " (the Greek underworld) was substituted for Sheol. This is reflected in the New Testament where Hades is both the underworld of the dead and the personification of the evil it represents.