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Q.
Are such things to be taken literally?
after death was thought to be in a place called Sheol, a place of shades, where
there is no consciousness. Sheol contains neither pleasures nor torments.
During Israel’s captivity in Babylon, Jews were exposed to Zoroas-
trianism, a religion that includes a belief in resurrection and a two-place
afterlife—the equivalent of heaven and hell. By New Testament times, belief
in resurrection, heaven, and hell were widespread—albeit not universal—in
Judaism.
Hell as a place of torment and stink became well developed many centu-
ries after the Bible by the Christian writer Dante Alighieri, but sometimes the
roots of a mythical or nonphysical place are found in real places. “Gehenna,”
as a place of torment for evil people, was associated with the Valley of Hin-
nom, south of Jerusalem, where the city dumped its garbage.
Very important beliefs are associated with hell, such as sin, judgment,
consequence, and resurrection. Christianity—or any other religion—is like a
language; one must understand each symbol within a greater grammar.
Jason Boyett
Who is...
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Jason Boyett
I can recite the alphabet faster in reverse than
I can say it in alphabetical order.A.
No, they are not the same. Four words—the Hebrew word “Sheol”
and the Greek words “Hades,” “Gehenna,” and “Tartarus”—have
been translated as the English word hell. We think of hell as a fi ery
place of torment for sinners, but only “Gehenna” fi ts that description.
Sheol was an all-purpose term referring to the shadowy realm of the dead
(the grave), and earlier Old Testament books seem to indicate that every-
one goes there—not just the wicked. In the New Testament, the Greek word
Hades is used interchangeably with Sheol—it’s the place of the dead. Tartarus
appears only once in the Bible, in 2 Peter 2:4. It refers to Tartarus, the dungeon-
like netherworld in Greek mythology fi lled with suffering and torment. The
context indicates it is where demons reside.
The hell-as-torture-chamber idea comes from Gehenna, which Jesus
described as a destination for sinners. This word originates with a Hebrew
name, Ge-Hinnom, which refers to the Hinnom Valley, a garbage dump
outside Jerusalem. Trash, animal carcasses, and the bodies of criminals were
dumped there, and the valley burned continuously—an evocative image
of hell.