The Babylonians pictured a region in Hades for the reception of righteous souls. Into this region those who after judgment appeared to merit recompense gained admission. Under a peaceful silver sky ancient prophets, crowned in triumph, sat amid pleasant fields. A clear stream rippled past and quenched the thirst of the seers from year's end to year's end. This was the water of life, belonging to Ishtar, and endowing her with the power to return to earth. From this region spirits passed into a firmament above, consisting of the earthly sphere in addition to the heavenly. It had windows from which the rain descended, and a flight of steps leading from the zenith to the earth.
THE HEBREW HELL
The Jewish place of punishment was Gehenna, where corporal as well as spiritual torment was meted out to the wicked. In later Jewish eschatology, it was the place of eternal punishment for the Gentile races, apostate Jews being retained there in a description of purgatory until, their sin atoned for, they could pass to Paradise. Sheol, on the other hand, was perhaps a more purely Hebrew conception than Gehenna, which probably had its origin in the old Accadian Gi-umuna. Sheol is the common abode of just and unjust alike after death, and life there was shadowy and unsubstantial as in the Greek Hades, It is well described in Isaiah xiv, 9-11:
"Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.
"All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us?
"Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee."[3]
After the captivity, and consequently under Babylonian influences, Sheol became a region principally devoted to punishment, with Gehenna as the place of especial torment and abasement. The Talmud describes this place of woe as follows: "Ordinary transgressors of Israel, whose merits preponderate, though they descend into Hell, do not feel the effects of the flames, and rise at once. Some who sin with their bodies, such as those who put their neighbours to shame publicly and who neglect the phylacteries, etc., are annihilated after twelve months' endurance of hell-fire. Adulterers, though they sin with their bodies, ascend to happiness at the end of the same period. Christians, informers, and those who systematically despise the words of the Rabbis are consigned to eternal punishment. Of course, all may escape punishment altogether by repentance in this life."
No departmental god rules in this dreary realm, Sheol being directly under the eye of Yahweh; for, according to Job xxvi, 6, Sheol and destruction are naked before Him, and being omnipresent He is also in Sheol. Sheol was silent as the grave, its inhabitants raising not a murmur; neither in their grief could they work to praise God. It had gates and bars, alluded to in the Song of Solomon as "jealous" and "cruel as the grave."
The Talmud obviously borrows from Persian doctrine; or it might be more correct to say that both conceptions spring from a common source. In Psalms xxxvi, 8, and xlvi, 4, a river of life is alluded to which makes glad the abode of the Elohim or gods. Says the anonymous author of Bible Folklore: In the discourse of Josephus to the Greeks on Hades we find the opinions of the more liberal Pharisees clearly set forth about the Christian era. He believes in a Hades of temporary punishment, and an Elysium of light called Abraham's bosom. The Messiah Logos (as at Alexandria) is, according to the Jewish historian, to be the judge who will condemn the wicked to a lake of fire already prepared, but as yet not used for torture, and will reward the righteous in the heavenly kingdom. The wicked are to resume their old bodies unchanged, but the righteous will obtain pure and immortal forms fashioned from their old bodies which have been sowed in the ground. The simile of the corn sown as seed, and springing up with a glorified body, is used by Josephus as by St Paul, and it was evidently a widely known parable, which occurs also in the Talmud, for Rabbi Meir is said to have told Cleopatra that as a grain of wheat buried naked springs forth with many clothes so will the righteous also....