The Soul’s Holding Pattern

Among the mysteries revealed to Enoch was the fate of souls after death. In older Israelite traditions, whether a person was good or bad in life, their soul existed after death as a wraith or ghost in a shadowy underworld known as Sheol—the equivalent of the Greek Hades. In the postbiblical book of 1 Enoch, the souls of the good and bad are separated: the wicked suffer punishment while the righteous experience joy, anticipating their fate on the day of judgment. This inaugurates a long tradition of describing “tours of heaven and hell,” which reaches its climax in Dante’s Inferno and Paradiso.