The Post Oddity of the Week: Iconoclasts in Sheol
Created | Updated Aug 27, 2012
For all of you who DON'T think, 'oh, that's so five minutes ago', here's a trip into history with. . .
The Post Oddity of the Week: Iconoclasts in Sheol
The caption to this 1885 cartoon from the satirical magazine Puck reads:
According to the new version of the Old Testament, many respectable people who have been writhing in the old fashioned Hell will have to be transferred to the pleasant watering-place known as "Sheol." This is Puck's notion of the evolution of Hell to Sheol.
The Library of Congress description of the item reads:
Illustration shows a number of historical figures enjoying the pleasant atmosphere of "Sheol" after suffering the flames of Hell; at left is a dejected Devil sitting beneath a sign that states "This Business is Removed to Sheol, Opposite". Among those ferried across the river by "Charon" are "Hypatia, Fanny Elssler, Voltaire, Frederick [the] Great, Socrates, J. Offenbach, Darwin, J.S. Mill, Rousseau, George Sand, Galileo, Jefferson, Th. Paine, Goethe, [and] H. Heine".
What the. . . ?
Well, it might help to know that in 1885, the Revised Standard Version of the Old Testament was published. This was a Big Deal, because there hadn't really been a major Biblical publishing event since the Authorised Version came out in 1611. Rather a dry spell between exciting translations.
At the time, there was a lot of flap about it. Predictably, lots of people opined that you would prise their copy of the 'King James', with its 'thees' and 'thous', out of their dead, cold hands1. Some congregations continued into the 20th Century to refer to the RSV as the 'Reversed Vision', even though there wasn't too much different about it, other than getting rid of some of that early 17th-century English.
One thing that bugged Bible readers, though, was the use of the word 'sheol' instead of the old word 'hell'. The theologians probably thought that 'sheol' represented the idea better – a place of the dead rather than necessarily a place of torment – but old-fashioned monolingualists no doubt considered this Hebraicism needlessly hoity-toity.
Consider these two versions of Isaiah 14:9:
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. – Isaiah 14:9, KJV.
Sheol beneath is stirred up to meet you when you come, it rouses the shades to greet you, all who were leaders of the earth; it raises from their thrones all who were kings of the nations. – Isaiah 14:9, RSV.
Obviously, the Puck artist found this concept intriguing. Sheol sounded like a nicer place than hell. So he moved all the atheists in there. Like Voltaire. And the Deists, like Jefferson. And iffy characters like Heine and Darwin.
What the artist had against Frederick the Great is between him and his Maker, I guess. One way or another, this cartoon gives us a glimpse into what the public of 1885 might have been thinking about the intellectual issues of the day.
The chromolithograph – that's what it is – appeared in the 27 May 1885, issue of Puck. The artist was Joseph Ferdinand Keppler, 1838-1894.
Now, aren't you glad you asked?
