Tag: hell

This one is a doozy, so before I get started on it, I want everyone to take a deep breath and stay calm. I say that because people are very touchy about their faith, and tend to become reactionary when you talk about it. I’m not out to anger anyone.

However, I am out to talk about hell. The place of damnation in most Judaic and Christian religions. This is a piece of faith I kind of ignored because I just didn’t want to think about it. It made me uncomfortable. But recently pieces on hell kept coming across my various news feeds and it seemed time to just delve into it.

Growing up, I was taught that hell is a place of eternal damnation, continual torment, fire, anguish, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. We are all sinners, and sin must be punished, so we are all destined for this awful place. That Jesus was the only way to escape this torment. If you were to ask for his forgiveness and recieve his mercy, he would wash all your sins away, and spare you eternal punishment. Most Christians believe some variation of this narrative, so to challenge that a part of it was incorrect would be to challenge the entire foundation of their faith. So I understand anyone who may be uneasy or wary of the idea. I certainly was.

There were two things that made me uncomfortable with this idea of eternal torment for non believers.

The first was the question about people who never heard of God during their time on earth. This could be as result of being remote and secluded from civilization, or infant death, or mental disabilities. What if a child died before they were able to understand salvation? Now, for the people I was around, most of them made caveats for the mentally disabled and babies, but used the remote civilizations as a rallying cry for further missions. We have to take the gospel to them or they will go to hell. They received no caveats. This just did not sit well with me. I could not fathom a loving God never giving them a chance of redemption.

Second was how hell has been used to manipulate and control people by terrifying them. You must do as we tell you, or you aren’t truly saved and probably going to hell. People didn’t come to God or to church because God is loving and supportive, a very present help in trouble. They came to God and Church out of absolute fear of burning consciously forever in a lake of fire.

One piece I read put forth that hell was not taught by Jesus, or the ancient Jews, it was an idea that crept into Judaism from the Greeks during the span between the Old and New testaments. This idea piqued my interest.

So I looked it up. Every time hell is mentioned in the Old Testament and what was the Hebrew word that was used. Turns out, the English words vary depending on the translation you are using, but the Hebrews words do not vary. So the same Hebrew word would sometimes be translated to English as “Hell”, other times as “death” or “the pit”.

The most common word is Sheol. This word is used in the Old Testament frequently. According to ancient Judaism, Sheol is the place of the dead. Not a place of punishment or of reward, just a place you went after you died. This is why it is sometimes translated as “the grave” or just as “death”. When I was young I was told Sheol was synonymous with Hell and the words could be used interchangeably. I remember this being associated with the Proverbs passage about the seductive woman who tempts a young man and it being said her footsteps have taken hold in Sheol. This was always taught metaphorically, usually to shame young kids into abstinence. This woman was promiscuous and led to hell, the same fate is in store for teens who have lots of unmarried sex.

But what if this isn’t metaphorical? What if we take this literally? If Sheol is the place of the dead and she was on her way there could that mean this woman was dying? It’s made clear, she tempts lots of young men. Hygeiene was not much back then, STIs had to exist, and antibiotics did not. Even just a virus would be easy to transmit. It’s in Proverbs 5:5 that says “Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol;” And another passage about temptresses in Proverbs 7:27 says “Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death.” Could this verse mean literally, this woman will kill you? Do you see how that changed the entire meaning of the passage? It still serves as a warning to not succumb to temptation, but instead of eternal damnation as the outcome, death is the outcome.

Next word I came across was Abaddon. This one is a little more tricky. It appears in both testaments, and means destruction, but in the New Testament it is personified as an Angel. So is Abaddon a place of destruction or is it the Angel of Death? I found lots of conflicting info on this. Some believe Abaddon is actually sent by God to hand out his punishment before his return in Revelation. In the verses I found it in the Old Testament it was coupled with Sheol. So it came as death and destructin.

But then I moved on to the New Testament. Not just needing to know what my English translations said, but what the Greek said. So again I looked up the word hell in the New Testament and which word in the orginal language was used. Most references of hell, or specifically, the lake of fire come from Revelations. Entire book series have been dedicated to explaining the end times, so I’m not going to. I am going to let you know what I can dissect from language though.

The first word I came across was Gehennna. I never heard this word growing up, I first heard it in an anime, as an adult. That is because in the KJV, the version I was raised solely reading, it is translated to hell every time. In this case, it may be more appropriate than with Sheol. Gehenna references an actual place. A valley, where people performed child sacrifices. The land was declared cursed and became synonymous with wickedness, understandably. It became the place where the evil were sent, and over time became known as the land of the wicked. Its is simple to see the connection between it and the idea of hell. Only the evil are sent there, cast out and separated from good.

Another word used in the New Testament is Hades. This word is used in the same manner Sheol is used in the Old Testament. This, actually makes a lot of sense to me. Hades is the god of the underworld, and the land of Hades is were the dead are. It’s a station the dead pass through. The idea of a neutral place all the dead go to, aligns with Sheol and even the Greeks idea of Hades’ realm. Now wouldn’t this confirm the piece I read about Greek culture seeping into Judaism? Maybe. But I could also see it as a simple borrow of their language as well. Although in English it may have been changed to hell, I dont think the ancients meant it as a place of punishment.

Then there is the word Tartarus used only once in 2 Peter 2:4. In KJV this verse says, “For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment” In the Complete Jewish Bible, this verse reads as “For God did not spare the angels who sinned; on the contrary, he put them in gloomy dungeons lower than Sh’ol to held for judgement.” And in the Youngs Literal Translation it reads, “For if God messengers who sinned did not spare, but with chains of thick gloom, having cast [them] down to Tartarus, did deliver [them] to judgment, having been reserved,” It is usually traslated as hell, like in the KJV though sometimes left as tartarus, as in the YLT. This I do find interesting as Tartarus is the pit Zues trapped the titans in after he defeated them. Where the realm of Hades was the land of the dead, Tartarus was a place deeper, a place only the most wicked were sent to be imprisoned. Even though, this seems to borrow from Greek mythology, it also aligns with the idea that hell is a place reserved only for the most Evil, as with Gehenna, and is a seperate place than Sheol or Hades.

So simply based on the language used in these words we can start to paint a picture. Sheol/Hades is a land where the dead are, neither in happiness or anguish, waiting to be transferred to heaven or hell. And Gehenna/Tartarus is a sereate place reserved only for evil beings.

This brings us to two questions. First being, aren’t believers taken directly from their earthy bodies to heaven when they die? The concept of a realm of the dead kind of contradicts that. And second, is hell then eternal?

For the first, let’s look at the verse so often quoted at funerals and at greiving family members. 2 Corinthians 5:8 “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” KJV It is often summarized with a rub on your shoulder as, “you know as the Bible says, absent from the body, present with the Lord.” To try and comfort you about the deceased relative. But if Sheol exists, we are not imemedietly present in heaven the moment we are absent from our earthly forms. The passage this comes from talks about the eternal bodies we will have and how burdensome our earth bound bodies are, so this connection is not hard to make. However, this passage doesn’t ever say were immediately present with the Lord.

Conversely, I think many of even common Christian’s beliefs support the reality of Sheol. In the end times there will be a resurrection and the dead will rise at the trumpet sound. Its pepperd throughout the NT this resurrection of the dead. John 6:40 reads “And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.” KJV (Notice that little prepositional phrase “at the last day”?) 1 Corinthians 15 is where we get the trumpet sounding from. Verse 52 says, “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” KJV the resurrection is taught, and sung about endlessly. But if all the dead are already with God why are they being resurrected? I’ve heard this explained as their spirits are with God but their bodies aren’t and that’s what raises at the trumpet sound. Although I’m not sure people want their old bodies in heaven and if we are given new perfect bodies, we don’t need the ones we’re riding in now.

Now for the eternal question. Nowhere else in all of the Bible is the Lake of Fire, often described as hell, mentioned outside of Revelation. So much of this book is confusing and complicated. Chapter 20 speaks quite bit about this Lake of Fire. Starting in verse 10, “and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” And then in verse 14, “Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.” ESV Before this death and Hades give up all the dead and they are judged according to the book (the Lamb’s Book of Life) and then those not found within were also cast into the Lake. This should undoubtedly settle eternal hell right? It does say the devil, the beast and the false prophet are tormented forever and ever, but does not say that about the others. This tiny phrase “their part” in Rev 21:18 leads some to believe that for even the worst of us, the Lake of Fire is temporary “But as for the cowards and unbelieving and abominable [who are devoid of character and personal integrity and practice or tolerate immorality], and murderers, and sorcerers [with intoxicating drugs], and idolaters and occultists [who practice and teach false religions], and all the liars [who knowingly deceive and twist truth], THEIR PART will be in the lake that blazes with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” AMP Even others draw from the previous chapter that the saints were resurrected before this, and so the dead rising in Revelation 20 would be the non believers who are then judged and punished for their deeds according to the books. “And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, and death and Hades (the realm of the dead) surrendered the dead who were in them; and they were judged and sentenced, every one according to their deeds.” Revelation 20:13 AMP So does this mean only the worst could not be reconciled and had to be sentenced to the Lake of Fire? Several other verses refer to those in torment and state they still refused to repent. Which gives the idea that they had the opportunity to do so.

None of us have been dead, and the end times have not come yet, so all of this is ultimately unknown. But from what we know of God, and what we can learn from the Bible, we can get a pretty solid idea. When we die we kind of hang out in suspension until the ressurection at the end of time, at which point we are judged. The righteous are spared punishment, the other’s sentences are handed down, and some may be punished in the lake of fire, but no one is denied repentance. So according Revelation the lake of fire is real, but I believe it is not a permanent punishment. Only Satan, the beast, and false prophet are tormented forever.

Feel free to share you knowledge and thoughts on this, but again I demand kindness and tact.