Sheol

The real shocker for me was when I realized that, even back when God was in the habit of speaking directly to his children, he did not, according to the Genesis account, warn Adam and Eve that hell was the result of their sin!

To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you." And to the man he said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return." (Genesis 3:16-19)

While these are certainly strict punishments, they pale in comparison to eternity in hell. Why did God not include Adam and Eve's most severe punishment in his reprimand? If God was going to mention hell just one time in the Old Testament, would it not have been here?

That's the key to the "missing" portion of that passage. God does not mention hell even one time in the Old Testament. That's why the Jews did not - and do not - believe in hell. (The Old Testament books - Genesis through Malachi - are what Jews are referring to when they speak of "the Bible".)

The King James Version translators arbitrarily substituted hell in place of Sheol throughout the Old Testament, but even Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, the classic reference based on the KJV, defines all Old Testament occurrences of hell as:

Original word: lwaX
Strong's Number: 7585
Definition: sheol, underworld, grave, hell, pit
     a. the underworld
     b. Sheol - the OT designation for the abode of the dead
          1. place of no return
          2. without praise of God
          3. wicked sent there for punishment
          4. righteous not abandoned to it
          5. of the place of exile (fig)
          6. of extreme degradation in sin

Using the Strong's link (or any Bible version's concordance), search for all occurrences of hell or Sheol in the Old Testament. The contexts of the passages do not begin to suggest a lake of eternal fire, reserved specifically for the sinner who neglects to ask the future Messiah into his heart to be his personal savior.

Here are three Old Testament passages which show that Sheol was understood to be "the grave" or "death":

He recognized it, and said, "It is my son's robe! A wild animal has devoured him; Joseph is without doubt torn to pieces." Then Jacob tore his garments, and put sackcloth on his loins, and mourned for his son many days. All his sons and all his daughters sought to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted, and said, "No, I shall go down to Sheol to my son, mourning." Thus his father bewailed him. (Genesis 37:33-35)

Was Jacob afraid that Joseph was in hell, or merely dead?

Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. (Psalm 139:7,8)

Did the psalmist mean to state that God's omnipresence extends to hell, or merely to the grave?

Whatever your hand finds to do, do with your might; for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going. (Ecclesiastes 9:10)

Was Solomon writing to the hell-bound? If so, he, like the other Old Testament writers, might have done a better job of explaining to the reader the plan of salvation.

From Arthur Hertzberg's Judaism:

In the Bible itself [the Old Testament] the arena of man's life is this world. There is no doctrine of heaven and hell, only a growing concept of an ultimate resurrection of the dead at the end of days. The doctrine of the resurrection was debated in post-Biblical times and the normative view became that held by the Pharisees, that there would be a resurrection of the dead.

The original children of the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob do not, and never did, believe in eternal punishment.