This was a posting I made to nz.soc.religion regarding what the Bible has to say about Hell. It is in response to some questions by another person, those questions are prefixed by ">"
On Fri, 8 May 1998 17:23:11 +1200, "Brian Tozer" scribed thusly:
>Yes I think we have been here before but I think that I was slightly
>confused by some of your wording and before I got around to querying it,
>Satan removed it from my reader.
I found it in my outbox:
(Since writing this I have found out that tartaroo (incarcerate) in 2 Peter 2:4 is translated "hell" in the AV. Not many other translations do that however, so I think we can ignore it.)
So what is Hell like?
Our english word hell is derived from the Saxon helan, to cover; hence the covered or the invisible place. In Scripture there are three words so rendered:
1. Sheol, occurs in the OT 65 times. The AV renders it "grave" 31 times and "hell" 31 times. The inhabitants of sheol are "the congregation of the dead". It is the abode of the wicked and of the good.
2. The Greek word Hades of the NT has the same scope as sheol. It is a prison with gates and bars and locks. The righteous and the wicked are both there, but separated. The blessed dead are in that part of hades called paradise.
3. Gehenna, in most of its occurrences in the Greek New Testament, designates the place of the lost. It refers to Hinnom, a deep, narrow ravine separating Mount Zion from the so-called "Hill of Evil Counsel." It had been the place where the idolatrous Jews burned their children alive to Moloch and Baal. After the Exile, in order to show their abhorrence of the locality, the Jews made this valley the receptacle of the offal of the city The Jews associated with this valley these two ideas; A) the sufferings of the victims that had been sacrificed there; and B) that of filth and corruption.
So the OT seems to say that after death all souls go to a holding place. The NT expands on that, there is a holding place of concious existence and it is divided into 2 sections. Then there is the final destruction; Gehenna. The language describing it is poetic. It is referred to both as a lake of fire and as outer darkness. Dante envisaged it as a frozen lake. What this corresponds to in reality I have no idea. Some say the dead will still be concious. Some say they will have been annihilated, that only the righteous receive eternal life. I don't know. What I do know is that it is God's stated desire that no one ends up there.
>Is heaven a third place, or the good bit?
Which heaven? ;->
The Rabbi's apparently believed in 7 heavens, Jesus is said to have passed through the heavens, and in 2 Corinthians 12:2 Paul refers to the "third heaven."
the first heaven is apparently the stratosphere, where the birds (hos 2:18) and clouds (dan 7:13) are.
The second heaven may be the stellar spaces. (gen 1:14-18)
The third heaven is the abode of the Triune God. Its location is unrevealed. It is a place (John 14:1-3), it is called "glory" (heb 2:10) and those who enter it will be perfected for ever (10:14) and made partakers of Christ's fullness (John1:16). Heaven is a place of beauty, life, service, worship, and glory. (rev 21, 1tim 4:8, rev22:3,1tim4:8,rev22:3,19:11-3, 2cor4:17-18)
There is also the heavenly city referred to in Revelation 21, the "New Jerusalem". However Revelation is hard to interpret being apocalyptic.
So Heaven is not the good bit of sheol/hades (paradise), but something else.
>Is the good bit Heaven's waiting room?
Thats a good way of putting it, yes.
>Are the two bits actual places implying that the inhabitants are alive and
>experiencing sensations?
>Or are the potential inhabitants actually DEAD, not sentient?
Inhabitants of the holding place (sheol/hades) do seem to be conscious in the NT.
>>Gehenna = figuratively: the place of destruction, literally:
>>Jerusalems garbage dump and incinerator.
>
>Agreed if you mean representing destruction, nonsentient, rather than
>experiencing torment.
These are all the passages that refer to gehenna: I'm replacing the English "hell" with the Greek gehenna for the sake of clarity.
MATHEW
5:22 but whoever shall say, Fool! shall be liable to be thrown into the fire of gehenna.
29 And if your right eye offends you, pluck it out and throw it from you. For it is profitable for you that one of your members should perish, and not that your whole body should be thrown into gehenna.
30 And if your right hand offends you, cut it off and throw it from you. For it is profitable for you that one of your members should perish, and not that your whole body should be thrown into gehenna.
10:28 And do not fear those who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul. But rather fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in gehenna.
18:9 And if your eye offends you, pluck it out and throw it from you. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into the gehenna of fire.
23:15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you compass sea and the dry land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, you make him twofold more the child of gehenna than yourselves.
23:33 Serpents! Offspring of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of gehenna?
MARK
43 And if your hand offends you, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than to have two hands to go into gehenna, into the fire that never shall be quenched where their worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched.
45 And if your foot offends you, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life lame than to have two feet to be cast into gehenna, into the fire that never shall be quenched where their worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched.
47 And if your eye offends you, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes to be cast into gehenna fire where their worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched.
LUKE
12:5 But I will warn you of whom you shall fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has authority to cast into gehenna. Yea, I say to you, fear Him.
REVELATION
Revelation also refers to a "lake of fire" which can be equated with Gehenna
19: 20 And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet doing signs before it, (by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast), and those who had worshiped his image. The two were thrown alive into the Lake of Fire burning with brimstone.
20:10 And the Devil who deceived them was cast into the Lake of Fire and Brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet were. And he will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
20:14 And death and hell were cast into the Lake of Fire. This is the second death.
20:15 And if anyone was not found having been written in the Book of Life, he was cast into the Lake of Fire.
the trouble is that Revelation is Apocalyptic, and that is a very difficult literature style to intepret.
MATTHEW 10:28
The interpretation of Mathew 10:28 is pivotal.
It says that Gehenna "destroys" both Body and Soul.
the word destroy translates apollumi, #622 in strong's system.
the tense is Aorist, the voice is active, the mood is Infinitive
The aorist tense is characterized by its emphasis on punctiliar action; that is, the concept of the verb is considered without regard for past, present, or future time. There is no direct or clear English equivalent for this tense
The events described by the aorist tense are classified into a number of categories by grammarians. The most common of these include a view of the action as having begun from a certain point ("inceptive aorist"), or having ended at a certain point ("cumulative aorist"), or merely existing at a certain point ("punctiliar aorist").
The active voice represents the subject as the doer or performer of the action. e.g., in the sentence, "The boy hit the ball," the boy performs the action.
The Greek infinitive mood in most cases corresponds to the English infinitive, which is basically the verb with "to" prefixed, as "to believe."
GEHENNA= ETERNAL TORMENT
assumptions:
1) Lake of Fire = Gehenna
2) Revelation is to be taken as literal and applying to the end times.
3) Because the Beast and False Prophet survived 1000 years in there it means ordinary people can as well.
4) The "worm that does not die" refers to people's souls.
5) in Matthew 10:28 "destroy" is inceptive aorist, begun from a certain point.
GEHENNA=ANIHALATION
assumptions
1) Revelation is poetry to inspire first century christians being horribly persecuted by the Romans. It is not to be taken literally. It applies mostly to the first century.
2) the "worm that does not die" refers to worms that feed on dead bodies.
3) in Matthew 10:28 "destroy" is cumlative aorist, ending at a certain point.
SUMMARY
life's a bitch and then you die.
After death you go to a holding place (sheol/hades)
This holding place has two compartments, paradise and a place of torment. The inhabitants seem to be conscious.
After the final judgement those in paradise go to heaven and eternal life. Those in the place of torment are destroyed in Gehenna.
Mt 25:46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into everlasting life.
Gehenna is an eternal punishment. This could mean either that they are conscious and the punishment does not end, or that they are annihilated and the punishment is eternal in that they remain annihilated for all eternity.
I personally favour the second interpretation. It seems to fit better with the imagery of rubbish being burnt on an incinerator, which is the literal meaning. However it would be fair to say that this seems to be a minority position.
>To summarise to ensure that I have understood your current pov correctly:-
>You do not believe that God torments for eternity anyone after their
>death???
I do not, but I respect the reasoning of those who do. As I have tried to show, it really is not clear.
>Not even by their anguish of being separated from God???
That is my personal point of view, yes. It's certainly the interpretation I would like to be true. It also seems to fit better with my interpretation of the general tone of the scriptures and its descriptions of God's nature. Although its possible that what the inhabitants of heaven would regard as torment the inhabitants of gehenna actually prefer, and that heaven would be unbearable for them. However I would admit to a great deal of uncertainty on this. Or in plain English:
I Don't Know.
>The only life after death is for those who go to heaven???
The scriptures are crystal clear on that. Whatever Gehenna represents, its not "life".
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