for example, is described by the medium and Saul recognizes him from the description. What survives is not an immaterial soul but a shade or ghost that lacks the vitality and solidity of the fleshly person but retains personal identity.9 For this reason, the hope of afterlife expressed in the early Hebrew Scriptures was not one of individual survival in the underworld but of the continuance of the people Israel, the land, and one’s descendants.10 Abraham, for example, was blessed by God in his descendants,