What In the Heck Is "Hell"?
Three words used for “hell” in the Bible:
1. Tartaroo - a word borrowed from the Greek world which was a reference to the place where angels were punished in the world of mythology.
2. Hades – A Greek translation of the Hebrew word Sh’ol – only word used for hell in the Old Testament and refers to the world of the dead, grave, pit, and sleep. The Gates of Hades is a physical place in the Decapolus where the pagan God, Pan, was worshiped.
3. Gei-Hinnom – A reference to The Valley of Hinnom. 2 Kings 23:10, “He (King Josiah) desecrated Topheth, which was in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, so no one could use it to sacrifice his son or daughter in the fire to Molech.”
Molech was a god that the people would sacrifice their first born child to by burning him or her in the Valley of Hinnom. King Josiah destroyed and desecrated the place so that it could never be used for anything other than a town dump, which it became and was still being used for in the days of Jesus.
People would take their garbage to the Valley of Hinnom in Jerusalem where a continuous fire would burn the trash. Wild dogs would fight for scraps of food. And as they fought they would make a high pitched whimper like fighting dogs do and their teeth would grind together. This was known as the “weeping and gnashing of teeth in Gei-Hinnom."
When Jesus speaks of a person being cast into hell, he is referring to the wasted life; a life which is good for nothing but the local dump. When we don’t follow God, we are like food that can’t be eaten, therefore we have become a rotten spot in the Kingdom of God, which is better off being thrown in the garbage where only wild animals will find anything of value in the waste that has become the life of a child of God.
Hell for Jesus and his followers was a literal place to which they could point and say, "That's all you are good for, unless you are doing God's will." For them, it was not a spiritual, after death place, but a very real and present, ever-burning, stinking place where wild dogs fought for the garbage.
In His dust,
Johnny
20 comments:
Nice serving. I am especially thankful since it was a special order. Perhaps a side of what happens when I die would come in handy. Do I go to one of these 3 places?
Have you heard Rob Bell's sermon on Hell? It's quite interesting.
I like to refer to it as "The Hot Place."
Rob Bell's "Jesus Wants to Save Christians III," David H. Stern's Complete Jewish Bible, Strong's Concordance, and the NIV are all my recourses for this blog.
In His dust,
Johnny
In his dust? What happened to "forever learning?" Did you quit learning? Just kidding . . . I suppose they're synonymous ideas anyway. . .
Good post . . . I’ll be (and have been) out of the blog loop for a while . . . I’m just too busy to blog . . .
Blessings,
Bret
I'm going to leave this blog up for awhile without posting a new one until at least December 4th.
It has been brought to my attention, appropriately, that I am posting too often and should give more time for responses and dialogue. Thank you for the advice.
Grace and peace, forever learning, In His dust,
Johnny
How interesting that we have ascribed brutal torture, something even the UN has condemned, to a loving God. Why is it that we lock away murderers, rapists, and sadistic criminals, but allow God to do those very things we can not even fathom? What parent can even imagine someone torturing their child? Then we have the metaphysical problem such as, God is supposed to win, but can’t if hell is eternal... or God is “All in all”, yet sin and rebellion continue in hell. This perspective of Hell developed in the Church, not in Judaic thought. In fact, up until the Maccabeus era the Jews didn't even believe in the eternal heaven or hell. The idea of an eternal reward was lived through one's children. In that way, we live forever. When young soldiers starting dying without children the Jews altered their perspective on eternity to accommodate this tragedy. Therefore, they must live forever in another life. But that’s ok, because we have to leave room for progressive revelation.
There are three major hypothesis that developed through the years:
Tertullian – Everlasting Hell (Developed and quasi-official in 543 and cemented as a part of Christian theology by Augustine in his book City of God.
Didache – Annihilationism
Origen – Universalism (Metaphorical Hell)
Annihilationism goes something like this:
We all have a filter through which we perceive the world and scripture and we filter scripture with the notion that the soul is immortal. Scripture tells us that only God is eternal. What if we were to look at all the references to Hell with the idea that it ends or is temporary? When scripture says eternal punishment, the word eternal simply means that it will exist until it has consumed. For instance, a fire is eternal, but when it burns all the wood it goes out. Is hell forever or perhaps one simply ceases to exist. Maybe eternal life is a reward, and hell is the end of existence.
There is also evidence for a metaphorical hell, as Johnny noted.
Maybe we need to ask the tough questions. If hell is metaphorical, then is heaven? Or if hell is metaphorical on earth, then is Universalism (everyone makes it to heaven) a reality? If so, we need to adjust our exclusive view of salvation. I believe our view of eternity is critical to our view of humanity. Do we honestly believe that God will burn people alive because they are not Christian? If so, we have altered salvation through faith and grace, to an intellectual decision based on knowledge.
Perhaps its time to stop with the fear campaign and reward system. We need to look for our gratification here and now. Salvation is not just a prayer; it is salvation from poverty, from injustice, from prostitution, and salvation from fear.
I could go on all day, but you get the point…I hope.
Eternally confused,
John
Jesus was very clear about the Kingdom of Heaven being the people of God doing God's will on earth. He was also very Jewish and very rabbinical in his teaching style, which means that he would have used many visual aids in his teachings. I can see him standing near the Valley of Hinnom, pointing toward the fire, smoke, and wild dogs, saying “That is what a life without God is like; it is like the trash that is no longer useful in the world.”
As I speak to people, I hear some say that if we believe that Jesus was not speaking metaphorically but literally about hell, then this must be how God intended for us to understand heaven, hell, et cetera. I don't agree.
If I did agree, then I would have no basis for denying that any religion that claims to have a new revelation has received it from God.
Joseph Smith's and Elijah Mohammad's "new scriptures" must be what God wanted them to have or how could so many millions of people be fooled by a human being's writings?
I am struggling to stay on the subject here, but I must say that I truly believe there is no Old Testament and New Testament. I believe there is the Word of God and the first century commentary, which we call the New Testament. After all, Jesus said, "I did not come to misinterpret the Torah, but to clearly interpret it." The New Testament is written documentation of that clear interpretation, but not a "New" Torah.
Calling the Torah, prophets, writings, and poetry of God an "Old Testament" is actually an influence of Marcion who believed and taught that the God of the Jewish scriptures was a God of wrath and punishment, while the God of the New Testament is a God of Grace and love. We cannot deny that the church has been influenced by Marcion's views, even if we disagree with them today. In fact, most Christians have no trouble at all giving away a Bible with the entire "Old Testament" removed.
As we study the context of Jesus' first century words, it is becoming more and more evident that a definite Greek agenda of mythology and Western influence has been placed in the minds of the church from early theologians and even some translators.
Hell is very real. It is real every time a child is abused, a store is robbed, a person dies of cancer, someone is left without help or hope, a marriage breaks up, and on and on. It is the job of Christ’s followers to introduce the Kingdom of Heaven to the world by being God’s people doing God’s will on earth.
Forever learning,
Johnny
Amen Johnny. Good comment.
some of us are so blessed to have hell in front of our face all day every day. for those who don't, i hope it's as vivid a picture as if you did.
Hey Sheri,
We all see hell and we all see heaven. We can all choose to enter hell and we can all choose to enter heaven.
Hell is doing things contradictory to God's will and way. Heaven is doing things according to God's will and way.
Sometimes others bring hell with them and we experience their hell with them. Other times we bring hell with us and the response of others to us and our behavior makes it obvious.
Our job is to carry heaven everywhere we go, even when walking in another person's hell.
Grace and peace,
Johnny
This is wonderful dialogue…lets go further. If one truly believes that Heaven and Hell exist now in the temporal or metaphor, then how do we define the eternal? Is there eternal life as the conservative evangelical church has taught or is that an easy way out?
Karl Marx has some very profound philosophical insights concerning religion and its innate origins. Of course, we are familiar with his communist Manifesto and whether or not we agree with the totality of his theory isn’t important for this topic. But let me quote him from his book, Philosophy of Right.
“Religion is simultaneously an expression of genuine suffering and a protest against suffering. Religion is the sigh of oppressed creatures; it is the feeling amidst a feelingless world, the soul of our soulless condition. It is the opium of the people.”
He believed that religion or eternal life was an innate reaction to poverty and a hopeless life. In other words, those who were oppressed needed to believe that there was something beyond there predicament. If they suffer now, then they will have mansions in heaven. It was consolation, or opium. If you look back in history, Greek literature and so forth, you will find the development of eternal life amongst the poor and enslaved while the ruling class had no such belief because there was no need. Being that scripture and its interpretation has been Hellenized (Greekified), have we assimilated and confused the present and future kingdom with the eternal? If so, we are faced with, for many I imagine, faith shattering questions. Are we doing this for nothing? Does life simply end?
Eternally complicating Life,
John
I agree with you Johnny about Hell and Heaven being all around us. Just look into the face of a child who has been abandoned and abused...be on the receiving end of someone who is cold and self-serving, watch the news and see what goes on in our own cities with drugs, rape, disease, adultery, abuse, pre-marital sex, broken families....hell is all around us and every single one of us experience it when we are in ungodly situations..afterall, hell is eternal seperation from God and Satan loves it when we find ourselves dwelling on it....but Heaven is everywhere too.
In my life, I see heaven in my son's smile, in my love-filled marriage, in the hearts and compassion of people who truly care about one another.
I think it is up to the individual to choose what we focus on. We should always be aware of pain and suffering so that we can do our part to alleviate it, but dwelling on it and allowing it's negativity to infiltrate our lives only gives Satan something to smile about. We can bring pieces of Heaven to the earth by living as Jesus asked us to. It won't always feel heavenly, but it'll be a start.
There needs to be something bitter in order to make what is sweet that much sweeter....there can't be any good without bad..there can't be health without sickness...if there's no comparison than there is no appreciation. We can't fully appreciate Heaven without Hell....so we should choose to live our lives in appreciation of Heaven, dwelling on it's glory and it's victory over hell. Afterall, the battle is already won!
I was studying tonight on this subject and learned that the story of Lazarus and the rich man has much more meaning than preachers have taught us. In fact, most preachers have missed the point altogether.
The story is about gates. It is about people who keep themselves from associating with others. The rich man used his wealth to put up a gate and keep Lazarus out. In the parable, Lazarus, in death, remains separated just as he had wished to be in life. The interesting part is that, even in death, he still sees Lazarus as his servant, which is why he asks Abraham to send Lazarus to serve him by giving him water and then asks Abraham to send Lazarus to speak to his family.
This is a story about self-imposed hell. Hell is any situation in which we separate ourselves from others, whether through racism, prejudice, or social standing. When we put up gates or walls of any kind, we are creating a hell, because hell is the opposite of heaven, which is universal acceptance and community.
Lazarus created a private world, where he not only kept others out, but he kept himself in.
Whether we keep others out or shut ourselves in, we are entering the opposite of heaven. Heaven is wherever there is community and acceptance of all. Hell is any circumstance where someone is kept out.
With that said, I can name many churches of hell.
Grace and peace,
Johnny
Woah...bold last statement. Sadly, I have to agree with you.
I remember a good friend of mine once told me about a woman that he was trying for a year to get to come to church....the woman was a prostitute.
Finally she agreed and after the service the Pastor introduced himself to her and told her not to come back until she learned how to dress.
Makes you wonder who is heaven bound....
Makes me wonder who is in heaven right now.
Most Christians are not disciples nor are they in the Kingdom of Heaven.
When people ask me if I think so and so went to heaven, I respond, "That's not the right question." The right question is, "Were they in heaven before they died?"
Grace and peace,
Johnny
I find this all very interesting, but am a bit confused about whether you are saying there is a heaven or not after this life.
I totally understand and agree with what you are saying about heaven and hell in this life, but am curious to know more about what you believe regarding after our death and why you believe what you do.
Do you believe everything Jesus spoke regarding the Kingdom of Heaven is all related solely to our life here and now, or do you believe in a Heaven of some sort after our death?
Hey Angela,
I believe that Jesus spoke of the kingdom of Heaven as God's will being done and wherever it is being done by His people, there we find the kingdom of Heaven.
I also believe, as the Bible states, that there is an eschatological heaven where Jesus will be the reigning King and all people present will be doing the will of God forever. I believe that hell is any division between God and His people and that the eternal punishment of those who are not doing the will of God will be very real.
I explain more of this in my later blog "How do I (Inherit Eternal Life)?
Thanks for commenting Angela.
Grace and peace,
Johnny
Thank you for the clarification. This makes a lot of sense and really seems to be in line with scripture. It also explains some questions I've been dealing with lately.
Thank you again for sharing what you are learning with us. I hope you do not mind that I've linked your blog to mine.
Pursuing Truth through God's Eyes,
Ang
Ang,
Thank you for your encouragement. And I am happy to have you link my blog to yours.
Have a great day and keep pointing out the Kingdom in the world.
Grace and peace,
Johnny
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