Jon Levenson, Resurrection: The Power of God for Christians and Jews
“Nothing distorts the proper understanding of Sheol in the Hebrew Bible more than the traditional Jewish and Christian understanding of the afterlife as a locus for reward or punishment... Sheol, though an unhappy place, is no hell. (The terminology is confusing here, because in rabbinic Judaism, the word ‘Sheol’ becomes a synonym of Gehinnom, the Jewish counterpart to the Christian ‘Hell’). Rather, it is best conceived as a kind of continuation of the end of the deceased's life... The binary opposite of Sheol in the Hebrew Bible is thus not some Israelite version of the Garden of Eden or Heaven; it is, rather, a life that is enveloped in the blessing of Gd and gives persuasive testimony to that blessing.
In other words, Sheol can be thought of as the prolongation of the unfulfilled life. There is no equivalent prolongation of the fulfilled life precisely because it is fulfilled.” (pp. 75-77)
"For the most part, the postmortem fulfillment of those who die in a state of blessing is realized in the form of the happy continuation of the family of which they were, and forever remain, a generational link.
This leaves us, then, with an asymmetrical structure that the analogies with Heaven and Hell, or with the Garden of Eden and Gehinnom, can only obscure." (81)
(2) O LORD, God of my deliverance, when I cry out in the night before You, (3) let my prayer reach You; incline Your ear to my cry. (4) For I am sated with misfortune; I am at the brink of Sheol. (5) I am numbered with those who go down to the Pit; I am a helpless man (6) abandoned among the dead, like bodies lying in the grave of whom You are mindful no more, and who are cut off from Your care. (7) You have put me at the bottom of the Pit, in the darkest places, in the depths. (8) Your fury lies heavy upon me; You afflict me with all Your breakers.Selah. (9) You make my companions shun me; You make me abhorrent to them; I am shut in and do not go out. (10) My eyes pine away from affliction; I call to You, O LORD, each day; I stretch out my hands to You.
(7) Consider that my life is but wind; I shall never see happiness again. (8) The eye that gazes on me will not see me; Your eye will seek me, but I shall be gone. (9) As a cloud fades away, So whoever goes down to Sheol does not come up; (10) He returns no more to his home; His place does not know him.
(3) He said: In my trouble I called to the LORD, And He answered me; From the belly of Sheol I cried out, And You heard my voice. (4) You cast me into the depths, Into the heart of the sea, The floods engulfed me; All Your breakers and billows Swept over me. (5) I thought I was driven away Out of Your sight: Would I ever gaze again Upon Your holy Temple? (6) The waters closed in over me, The deep engulfed me. Weeds twined around my head. (7) I sank to the base of the mountains; The bars of the earth closed upon me forever. Yet You brought my life up from the pit, O LORD my God! (8) When my life was ebbing away, I called the LORD to mind; And my prayer came before You, Into Your holy Temple.
(5) For the breakers of Death encompassed me, The torrents of Belial terrified me; (6) The snares of Sheol encircled me, The coils of Death engulfed me.
(8) Then the earth rocked and quaked, The foundations of heaven shook— Rocked by His indignation. (9) Smoke went up from His nostrils, From His mouth came devouring fire; Live coals blazed forth from Him. (10) He bent the sky and came down, Thick cloud beneath His feet. (11) He mounted a cherub and flew; He was seen on the wings of the wind. (12) He made pavilions of darkness about Him, Dripping clouds, huge thunderheads; (13) In the brilliance before Him Blazed fiery coals. (14) The LORD thundered forth from heaven, The Most High sent forth His voice; (15) He let loose bolts, and scattered them; Lightning, and put them to rout. (16) The bed of the sea was exposed, The foundations of the world were laid bare By the mighty roaring of the LORD, At the blast of the breath of His nostrils. (17) He reached down from on high, He took me, Drew me out of the mighty waters; (18) He rescued me from my enemy so strong, From foes too mighty for me. (19) They attacked me on my day of calamity, But the LORD was my stay.
"We have already seen the second striking irony about Sheol. For all that modern scholars and some biblical authors describe it as the land of no return, it is often mentioned in the context of praising Gd precisely for bringing people back from there or asking that he do so. Consider the Song of Hannah..." (Resurrection: The Power of God for Christians and Jews, p. 67)
(2) Many of those that sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to eternal life, others to reproaches, to everlasting abhorrence.
(21) And your people, all of them righteous, Shall possess the land for all time; They are the shoot that I planted, My handiwork in which I glory.
(א) כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל יֵשׁ לָהֶם חֵלֶק לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (ישעיה ס) וְעַמֵּךְ כֻּלָּם צַדִּיקִים לְעוֹלָם יִירְשׁוּ אָרֶץ נֵצֶר מַטָּעַי מַעֲשֵׂה יָדַי לְהִתְפָּאֵר. וְאֵלּוּ שֶׁאֵין לָהֶם חֵלֶק לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא, הָאוֹמֵר אֵין תְּחִיַּת הַמֵּתִים מִן הַתּוֹרָה, וְאֵין תּוֹרָה מִן הַשָּׁמָיִם, וְאֶפִּיקוֹרֶס. רַבִּי עֲקִיבָא אוֹמֵר, אַף הַקּוֹרֵא בַסְּפָרִים הַחִיצוֹנִים, וְהַלּוֹחֵשׁ עַל הַמַּכָּה וְאוֹמֵר (שמות טו) כָּל הַמַּחֲלָה אֲשֶׁר שַׂמְתִּי בְמִצְרַיִם לֹא אָשִׂים עָלֶיךָ כִּי אֲנִי ה' רֹפְאֶךָ. אַבָּא שָׁאוּל אוֹמֵר, אַף הַהוֹגֶה אֶת הַשֵּׁם בְּאוֹתִיּוֹתָיו:
(1) All Jews have a share in the World to Come, as it says, (Isaiah 60:21), “Thy people are all righteous; they shall inherit the land for ever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified.” These have no share in the World to Come: One who says that [the belief of] resurrection of the dead is not from the Torah, [one who says that] that the Torah is not from Heaven, and one who denigrates the Torah. Rabbi Akiva says: also one who reads outside books, and one who whispers [an incantation] over a wound, saying, (Exodus 15:26) “I will bring none of these diseases upon thee that I brought upon the Egyptians for I am the Lord that healeth thee.” Abba Shaul says, also one who utters the Divine Name as it is spelled.