Discussion About Sheol, Gehenna and Hades
| Gehinnom Valley of Hinnom |
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BA: “Hell” translates the Greek word “hades”, not “Gehenna”.
XX: Please present evidence from an expert on your claim about the translation. I want quotes, citations, and links.
BA–“Gehenna . . . It is place where the wicked are destroyed body and soul, which perhaps echos the idea of annihilation (Mt 10:28). . . . These passages suggest the apocalyptic imagery of other NT passages is to be taken for what is, imagery, and not as strictly literal theological affirmation”—Dictionary of the Bible, pp 299-300, by John L McKenzie, S. J.
“Sheol . . . Sheol is death . . . In the NT Sheol (Gk hades) appears in several forms . . . Sheol/Hades is replaced by death . . . Hades as a destructive power follows death . . . Hades is the agent of destruction”—Ibid. pp 800-801
“If your hand makes you sin, cut it off. Better that you should be maimed but obtain eternal life, rather than keep both hands and go to Gey-Hinnom, to the unquenchable fire! And if your foot makes you sin, cut it off! Better that you should be lame but obtain eternal life, rather than keep both feet and be thrown into Gey-Hinnom! And if your eye makes you sin, pluck it out! Better that you should be one-eyed but enter the Kingdom of God, rather than keep both eyes and be thrown into Gey-Hinnom”—Mark 9:43,45,47,48 Jewish New Testament
Jesus is obviously using figures of speech in this account.
Why are verses 44 and 46 omitted in this and most modern translations?
“These verses, lacking in some important early manuscripts, are here omitted as scribal additions. They simply repeat Mk 9:48 itself a modified citation of Is 66:24”—NAB note on Mark 9:44,46
Notice the cross-reference back to Isaiah 66:24. Why? Let’s see:
“They shall go out out and see the corpses of the people who rebelled against me; For their worm shall not die, their fire shall die, their fire shall not be extinguished; and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh”—Isaiah 66:24 NAB
“God’s enemies lay dead outside the walls of the New Jerusalem; just as in the past, corpses, filth and refuse lay in the Valley of Hinnom (Gehenna) outside the city; cf. 34:1-4; 2 Kgs 23:10”—NAB note on Isaiah 66:24
This is the background to the cross-reference (Isaiah 66:24) of Mark 9:43-48.
Concerning “Gehinnom,” the Jewish commentator David Kimhi (1160?-1235?), in his comment on Psalm 27:13, gives the following historical information: “And it is a place in the land adjoining Jerusalem, and it is a loathsome place, and they throw there unclean things and carcasses. Also there was a continual fire there to burn the unclean things and the bones of the carcasses. Hence, the judgment of the wicked ones is called parabolically Gehinnom.”
BA—“Hades” does not appear in the Greek text at Matthew 10:28. The original Greek is accurately translated, “be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna” (Matthew 10:28 NAB). The NIV mistranslates “Gehenna” as “hell”.
Notice that even the “soul” is destroyed in Gehenna, clearly picturing eternal destruction.
XX: Here is another one: “41 The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. 42 They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Mat 13:41-42 NIV
BA—Just as the “wheat” and the “weeds” are symbolic in this parable, so is the “fire”. Many things in parables are word pictures, illustrations.
XX: And here is another one: “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Mat 25:41 NIV
BA—How can immaterial spirits (“the devil and his angels”) burn?—They can’t!
XX: And here is another one: “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” Mat 25:46 NIV
BA–Yes,“they will be punished with everlasting destruction ” (2 Thessalonians 1:9 NIV), not eternal life in fire.
The Hebrew words Sheol, Gehenna and Hades are not accurately rendered as “Hell”, but are more accurately transliterated as Sheol, Gehenna and Hades. Only Gehenna means eternal destruction. Sheol and Hades simply mean death.
4 thoughts on “Discussion About Sheol, Gehenna and Hades”
This is all very interesting, but I don’t trust your interpretation of Bible verses. I will comment after I have read Bart Ehrman’s book on Heaven and Hell.
Also, Ehrman’s views do not exactly coincide with the Bible, but perhaps they will help you appreciate the Bible doesn’t anywhere present the commonly held views of heaven and hell.
Ehrman isn’t sure whether he’s atheist or agnostic. Notice what he said in the NPR interview:
“I actually consider myself both an atheist and an agnostic because I – you know, I don’t really know if there’s a superior being in the universe, but I don’t believe there is. And so in terms of what I know, I’m an agnostic. But in terms of what I believe, I’m an atheist.”
Ehrman definitely believes death is like sleep. Notice the NPR interview:
“GROSS: In a time like this, do you wish you could still believe in a heaven that offers eternal life, in a place where you would be united with loved ones?
EHRMAN: Yeah, that would absolutely be good. It’s not that I wish I believed it; I wish that it were true. And as I say in my book, as we’ll probably get to, it may be true that we will live after we die. But if we do, it’ll be something pleasant like that. It’s not going to be something awful. So I – you know, it’s not that I wish I believed it so much as I wish that it were true.
GROSS: So what do you believe about death now, about what happens after you die?
EHRMAN: Well, I – you know, I’ve read about death and thought about death and the afterlife for many, many years now and what – you know, what philosophers say and theologians say and biblical scholars say and, you know, what people generally say. And I still think that Socrates is the one who probably put it best. When he was on trial, on capital charges – so it was a death sentence awaiting him – he was talking with his companions about what death would be, and his view is that it’s one of two things.
Either we live on and we see those we knew before and those we didn’t know before, and we spend all of our time being with them, which for him was absolute paradise because Socrates liked nothing better than conversing with people, and so now he could converse with Homer and with all the greats of the Greek past. So that would be great. And if it’s not that, he said it would be like a deep sleep. Everybody loves a deep, dreamless sleep. Nobody frets about it or gets upset by having it. And so that’s the alternative. And so it’s either a deep sleep, or it’s a good outcome, and either way it’s going to be fine. And that’s exactly what I think.”
Ehrman’s view that death is like sleep harmonizes with the Bible.
The Bible, including Jesus, plainly states that people who are “dead” (John 11:14) are like they are “asleep” (John 11:11).
BA—Five years ago, after Ehrman’s book “Heaven and Hell” came out, he was interviewed on NPR, and these are some excerpts from that interview:
EHRMAN: “I think one of the hardest things for people to get their minds around is that ancient Israelites and then Jews and then Jesus himself and his followers have a very different understanding of what the relationship between what we call body and soul. Our view is that we – you’ve got two things going on in the human parts. So you have your body, your physical being, and you have your soul, this invisible part of you that lives on after death, that you can separate the two and they can exist – the soul can exist outside of the body. That is not a view that was held by ancient Israelites and then Jews, and it’s not even taught in the Old Testament.
In the Old Testament, what we would call the soul is really more like what we would call the breath. When God creates Adam, he creates him out of earth, and then he breathes life into him. The life is in the breath. When the breath leaves the body, the body no longer lives, but the breath doesn’t exist. We agree with this. I mean, when you die, you stop breathing. Your breath doesn’t go anywhere. And that was the ancient understanding, the ancient Hebrew understanding of the soul, is that it didn’t go anywhere because it was simply the thing that made the body alive.
And so in the Old Testament, there’s no idea that your soul goes one place or another because the soul doesn’t exist apart from the body. Existence is entirely bodily. And that was the view that Jesus then picked up.
The people, in the Book of Revelation, human beings who aren’t on the side of God, are actually destroyed. They are wiped out. This is the view that is fairly consistent throughout the New Testament, starting with Jesus. Jesus believed that people would be destroyed when – at the end of time, they’d be annihilated. So their punishment is they would not get the kingdom of God. That also is the view of Paul, that people would be destroyed if – when Jesus returns. It’s not that they’re going to live on forever. And it’s the view of Revelation. People do not live forever. If they aren’t brought into the new Jerusalem, the city of God that descends from heaven, they will be destroyed.”
BA—As you can see, Ehrman knows that the common views of Heaven & Hell are not in the Bible.