GENESIS 44, or "What the Sheol?"

Last we left Joseph and his brothers, they were together in Egypt with the bros still unaware of Joe's true identity. Now it's time for the brothers to leave again. Before they do, Joe tells one of his servants to plant a small piece of treasure into Benjamin's bag.

The brother's leave, but before they can get too far, Joseph sends some soldiers to catch up with them. The soldiers search their bags, and sure enough, they find the treasure.

The brother's are hauled back to Egypt where they are brought before Joseph, who accuses them of stealing. Judah pleads with Joseph, saying that he will bear Benjamin's punishment for him.

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One thing that I've been on the lookout for while working my way through Genesis is any mention of Hell. It's such a fundamental Christian concept that you'd think it would be written about somewhere towards the beginning of the Bible.

This hasn't been the case. So far there's been NO mention of Hell.

There have, however, been a few mentions of "Sheol," which up until now hasn't caught my eye - mostly because the NIV translates it as "grave" and only gives footnotes identifying the word more accurately as "Sheol." Here in Gen 44, Judah tells Joseph, "And so, should I come to your servant, my father, and the lad be not with us, since his life is bound to the lad's, when he saw the lad was not with us, he would die, and your servants would bring down the gray head of your servant, our father, in sorrow to Sheol"

So what is Sheol? From what I gather, Sheol doesn't exactly mean grave, nor does it mean hell, nor heaven. It seems to be a conception of the afterlife though, with most sources I found describing it as a place where the dead congregate. The website jewishencyclopedia.com offers that Sheol might come from the Assyro-Babylonian word "Shu'alu," which was also used to describe a place for the dead.

I find it interesting that the Bible has a word for the afterlife that isn't Heaven or Hell. Was Sheol meant to simply be a generalized term that encompasses both Heaven and Hell? Or does it open up the possibility that there is some third kind of afterlife that could await us? Or was Heaven and Hell created sometime after the events in Genesis?

I can only keep reading and hope to find out.