Death in the Old Testament

Richard Hess reviews Philip Johnston's Shades of Sheol: Death and Afterlife in the Old Testament. This is interesting to me because of Johnston's defense of a few traditional claims that recent scholarship has attempted to undermine, particularly in Hebrew belief in different destinations for the godly and the ungodly, an Old Testament doctrine of resurrection, and belief in biblical authority (and, I presume, inerrancy) but also development of doctrine on issues of the afterlife. He also argues that use in the OT of surrounding cultures' mythologies doesn't amount to endorsing the reality of the imagery anymore than an atheist's comment that life is hell requires believing in hell. I have only a basic familiarity with some of the issues he discusses, but I'm really intrigued by what he's doing with the ones I mentioned, though this review only awakens my interest and doesn't give me any sense of how convincing his arguments will turn out to be.