Specifically, let’s talk about whether or not the concept of Hell as a place of eternal, conscious suffering exists in the Bible. This thread is a response to some requests in this thread, which has given rise to a few side discussions of theology and the Bible. The question of whether Hell exists in the Bible was one of them. My thesis is that it does not. Here is my argument. I will address it in two parts, first the instances of words commonly translated as “Hell” in English versions of the Bible, and then to apparent references to eternal punishment which don’t necessarily us a place name.
Part 1: The Word “Hell”
Every word commonly translated as “Hell” in English versions of the Bible has a different meaning in the Hebrew or Greek of the original language. It should also be mentioned that Jewish concepts of death and the afterlife changed over time, and the Bible reflects that.
The words commonly translated as Hell are the Hebrew word, Sheol (used throughout the Old Testament), the Greek rendering of Gehenna in the new Testament, the Greek word Hades, and in one instance, the Greek word Tartarus.
Sheol, the word used in the OT, was a Hebrew word which referred, in ancient Jewish beliefs, to a common abode of the dead, used synonmously wirh “grave” or “pit,” which everybody, good and bad, went to after death.
Jewish beliefs about it evolved over time. At first it appears to basically have a been a place of nothingness, no real experience at all, where the dead existed as shades or shadows, if at all, and which did not originally contain any concepts of judgement or resurrection. Eventually, Persian and Greek influence influenced Jewish theology to evolve its on eschaton (a belief in an end of the world, a resurrection and a day of judgement, which they got from Zorastrianism during the Babylonian exile), and Sheol became thought of as a temporary holding tank before the eventual judgement and resurrection of the dead (after which, people would either be given eternal life or simply annihilated).
By the 2nd Temple period, the idea of punishment and reward within Sheol (but still before the resurrection and final judgement) had begun to appear, where Sheol was conceived as being divided into a good side (sometimes called the “Bosom of Abraham”) for good people and a burny side for bad people. That particular belief is reflected in the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man in Luke 16 (the word translated there as “Hell” is actually Hades in the Greek. Those words were used virtually interchangably, and the Greek Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible routinely translates Sheol as Hades).
While the use of the word Sheol has some nuance in the Bible (sometimes it is used as little more than a synonym for death or the grave, sometimes it’s more like the Greek underworld), it can never be accurately translated as “Hell.” It’s never conceived of as eternal, and everybody goes there.
The next word next most commonly translated as “Hell” is Gehenna, which appears 12 times in the NT (Matt.5:22,29,30; 10:28; 18:9; 23:15,33; Mark 9:43,45,47; Luke 12:5; James 3:6), mostly by Jesus.
Gehenna is an English translitration of the Koine rendering (by way of Aramaic) of the Hebrew Ge Hinnon or “Valley of Hinnom,” which wa a real valley southwest of Jerusalem. In antiquity, this Valley was said to have been a site of child sacrifices to Molech, and was therefore viewed as cursed and literally God forsaken. Some accounts also say it was a garbage dump and a disposal site for animal carcasses, and sometimes criminals (though I understand that some archaeologists have now challenged this). Regardless, it was prophesied by Jeremiah that this valley would be the wite where God would cast the bodies of the wicked (Jer.7:30-32), and this was the popular belief at the time of Jesus, and this is what Jesus references repeatedly in Matthew and Mark (where he also alludes to Isaiah 66 with his “worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” remarks).
In none of the instances where Jesus refers to Gehenna is he talking about eternal hell, but popular cultural beliefs about a real valley, where the OT said bad people would be destroyed in fire. The flames might be eternal, but not the suffering. It was a death, a destruction, not etenal torment.
The other translations are Hades, which, as I’ve said, was pretty much synonmous with Sheol, and one use of the word Tartarus in 1 Peter. Tartarus was a pit, an abyss, within Hades, where the worst people went. That’s an instance where the author was using Tartarus as an analogy to the bad part of Sheol.
That pretty much does it for the translations. I’m going to post this, and go get a Brett Favre update then work on part two. Feel free to comment, rebut, rebuke, debate, mock or praise what I’ve got so far in the meanwhile.