The “Place” Called Sheol in the Hebrew Scriptures, and Called Hades in the Greek Scriptures

Is Sheol a place of immateriality, a place for departed souls where soul is, contrary to the Bible, thought by many religionists to be defined as the immaterial essence of personhood that allegedly survives the death of a person’s body? No, it is not a spiritual realm. It is actually mankind’s common, earthen grave; it is gravedom, or we may write it as “the Grave.” It has no particular geography or literal boundaries, though it may be distinguished from the sea that has received beneath its waves countless dead persons. So, when we read Revelation 20:13, we are no more to think of the dead in Hades (Sheol) as being alive than would we as respects those dead in the sea; the condition of the dead in Hades is no different than it is for the dead in the sea. We must not allow ourselves to be duped by certain religionists whose arguments they unwittingly let devolve to the point where we can only say that they would make the Bible to contradict itself. They do, in fact, themselves contradict the Bible’s statement in Ecclesiastes 9:10 that ‘the dead are unconscious; the dead do not think.’ Moreover, even though those religionists do not appreciate their error, it amounts to the doctrine that planet Earth has two immaterial realms, one somewhere below the surface of the ground, and another one somewhere beneath the waves of the sea. They should agree that such a doctrine is part and parcel of their errors, or they should admit that they are using two different definitions for the two uses of the phrase “the dead” at Revelation 20:13.

What things are in Sheol (Hades)? Dead bodies are, generally speaking, though there was an occasion (see Numbers 16:26-35) where living persons – not dead persons – went down into Sheol; yes, they went down alive into Sheol, they and all their possessions when the ground opened up beneath them and their tents. Men, women, children and all that was theirs went down into Sheol; they had not become dead persons before going down into Sheol, but they soon enough became the kind of persons we normally associate with Sheol; they became dead persons in Sheol when the earth closed back over the top of them. How far down need they to have fallen in order that we may say that they were in Sheol? Did they have to fall miles and miles deep below the surface of the ground? No! They needed to have fallen no more deeply than what should allow the fissure to become shut back over the top of them, so that they should not be seen by others, and that they should be either crushed or suffocated to death. When it happened, then that shut fissure had become a grave for the rebels, and had become part of that wider collection of graves that we normally, by abstraction, present to our mind’s eye when we say “Sheol,” or "the land down below" (Ezekiel 31:14, 18, 32:18, 24). We have here no picture of an immaterial realm under the label “Sheol.” Nor do we have it anywhere else in the Bible as respects actual persons who have died.

True, Sheol was, in the book of Ezekiel, spoken about in a context involving a figurative reference to slain, uncircumcised warriors whose corpses had, unsurprisingly, come to be buried in the earth; hence, we may also say that they had come to share a “place” in Sheol with their weapons of war alongside them, with swords under the heads of the many slain ones who were buried in the earth with their weaponry. We read nothing unusual in just those words that discuss Sheol; Sheol is not presented as the abode of departed, immaterial souls. (See Ezekiel 32:27.) What is unusual, however, is that Sheol is figuratively presented as the scene where the slain, uncircumcised corpses of warriors ‘are speaking from the depths of Sheol’ (see Ezekiel 32:21). It is macabre theater; it is not description of any event that has ever literally (actually) taken place in a grave, no, nor between two graves, nor among any number of the graves that we see collectively referenced in the Bible as Sheol. Accordingly, then, we see Ezekiel's convenient employment of a figurative (fictitious, non-literal) geography for Sheol such that it was pictured as having also a certain collection or arrangement of the graves of the nations' slain, uncircumcised warrior-rulers, where such graves were conveniently pictured as being in such close proximity to one another that the corpses of the slain, warrior-rulers could, from their graves, figuratively "speak to [Pharaoh] and his helpers"; see Ezekiel 32:21ff.). Hades is, in the New Testament, the Greek language word that is equivalent to Sheol; both words refer to mankind's common earthen grave. We may translate Sheol and Hades into English with the phrase “the Grave.”

Does God Approve the Homosexual Lifestyle?

Leviticus 18:22 and Leviticus 20:13 let us know that Jehovah God views any act of sexual intercourse between two men as something detestable and unnatural. Leviticus 18:22 New World Translation (NW) states, “And you must not lie down with a male the same as you would lie down with a woman”; Leviticus 20:13 NW states, “And when a man lies down with a male the same as one lies down with a woman, both of them have done a detestable thing. They should be put to death without fail. They have committed a violation of what is natural. Their own blood is upon them.”  The texts here speak only to the act of sexual intercourse itself; therefore, effort to place the prohibition as something that applies only to certain kinds of exploitative homosexual activity (e.g., the lustful, greedy behavior of male temple prostitutes; homosexual rape; and pederasty) is effort that ignores the fact that the texts focus on the unnaturalness of the intercourse itself, it being sexual intercourse not between a man and a woman, but between two men.  If any person feels inclined towards homosexual intercourse, then he should know that the God of the Bible, Jehovah, has not left Himself without witness that He sees any and all homosexual intercourse to be both unnatural and detestable. One will search the Bible in vain for any indication that the Father of all persons does not categorically condemn sexual intercourse between two men. The Bible is without any ambiguity as respects any of its texts that deal with the subject.

 

The Bible also shows us that it is not only that sexual intercourse between two men which is unnatural and detestable, but it also shows us that sexual intercourse between two women is unnatural.  The Law of Moses does not address lesbianism, although it, too, is unnatural.  Lesbianism evidently was a very rare phenomenon in ancient Israelite culture, a culture in which women were kept safe through child bearing (cf. 1 Timothy 2:15); therefore, there was no more urgency to prohibit lesbianism explicitly than there was for the Lawgiver, Jehovah, to feel urgent need to explicitly prohibit elective abortions among Israelite women, or explicitly to prohibit necrophilia.  Any women ever discovered in an act of sexual intercourse between them were guilty of an unnatural sex act; it surely made them liable to execution. The God of the Bible does not change His moral standards; therefore, if He reveals to us Christians that He views sexual intercourse between two females to be unnatural behavior that provokes His wrath, then the same thing was true of Him when He was in covenant relationship with fleshly Israel.  So, has Jehovah revealed explicitly to us Christians how He feels about sexual intercourse between two females?  Romans 1:26, 27 NW answers; there we read as follows: “That is why God gave them up to disgraceful sexual appetites, for both their females changed the natural use of themselves into one contrary to nature; and likewise even the males left the natural use of the female and became violently inflamed in their lust toward one another, males with males, working what is obscene and receiving in themselves the full recompense, which was due for their error.” God ordained a proper use of one’s genitals, that such take place only in a marital union; therefore, that which is contrary to what God has ordained is idolatry. Homosexual intercourse, then, is idolatrous because it spurns God’s clear witness that He has given both in nature and in the Bible as respects what shall be lawful sexual intercourse.  Really, those who offend against prohibition of fornication in any manifestation fornication takes (e.g., erotic use of one’s genitals with a person of the opposite gender where the man and the woman are not married to each other, nor is either one married to some other person, and which constitutes illicit heterosexual intercourse between them; adultery; bestiality; and erotic use of one’s genitals with a person of the same gender, which constitutes the abominable/detestable act of homosexual intercourse between them) have allowed greed and lust to motivate them to care more for their own feelings rather than for the feelings of their Creator whom they have spurned. Such greed is idolatry, just as Ephesians 5:3-5, 12 NW states, where we read as follows: “Let fornication and uncleanness of every sort not even be mentioned among you, just as it befits holy people; neither shameful conduct nor foolish talking nor obscene jesting, things which are unbecoming, but rather the giving of thanks.  For you know this, recognizing it for yourselves, that no fornicator or unclean person or greedy person – which means being an idolater – has any inheritance in the kingdom of the Christ and of God…. For the things that take place in secret by them it is shameful even to relate.”

As Christians, we do not ridicule or revile anybody. We Jehovah’s Witnesses welcome into our community of faith those who have repented and turned around from practicing “works of the flesh”; therefore, the way is open for men and women who have desisted the homosexual lifestyle to become our brothers and sisters in the Lord. Does this mean that those Jehovah’s Witnesses who were, formerly, practicing the homosexual lifestyle must be free of same-sex attraction? No, but it means that, if they have same-sex attraction, they must keep on depending on help by holy spirit to keep on resisting temptation to return to homosexual behavior. Resisting temptation to engage in any kind of porneia (the Greek term for "fornication," any kind of illicit sexual activity) is something all of us must do: whether we experience heterosexual attraction, or whether we experience homosexual attraction, we can, by God's undeserved kindness, be holy in all our conduct/behavior.

Is it really established scientific fact that homosexuality is genetically determined? No. Consider an excerpt from an article titled Are People Really 'born gay'? Can someone really be "born gay"? Is there a "gay gene"? Does biology equal destiny? by Caleb H. Price (formerly a research analyst for Focus on the Family). He writes:

“Even more recently in 2007, a landmark study was published by Drs. Stanton Jones and Mark Yarhouse which concluded that it is possible for homosexuals to change their physical attractions and that such efforts to bring about change do not appear to be psychologically harmful. Entitled Ex-Gays? A Longitudinal Study of Religiously Mediated Change in Sexual Orientation, this groundbreaking research has been hailed by experts from both sides of the debate as being the most methodologically rigorous to date.” [See Endnote 11.]

Endnote note 11: “Stanton L. Jones and Mark A. Yarhouse, Ex-Gays? A Longitudinal Study of Religiously Mediated Change in Sexual Orientation, InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, 2007.”