WHAT THE? HELL?
This week, someone said I was going to Hell if I died because I'm not a Christian. Believe it or not, that's not even the worst insult I've faced this week, but it was certainly the most damning. It made me think though, so I did a little research.
People can believe whatever they want, which is one of the freeing aspects of being a non-believer, because many of the faithful, but I find that often people's religious beliefs are a bit skewed. In fact, they are often not based on what they think they are, or the actual teachings of their religion are a bit different than what they believe. Sometimes modern beliefs are based on centuries of traditional teachings, dogma, and sometimes even on pure ignorance.
For instance, the rapture isn't really in the Bible, despite its prevalence in modern Protestant Christian thought. So, I wasn't surprised when I discovered that Hell isn't really either.
Oh sure, if you read the King James version of the Bible or the New International Version, you will find the word "Hell," although not always in the same places, but if you research the original words that "Hell" replaced, you'll discover that these places don't match at all the idea of "Hell" that modern Christians have.
Early Judaism, and thus much or all of the Old Testament, has no concept of Hell. Over the centuries, an Orthodox and mystical tradition of describing "Gehinnom" developed and it could be interpreted as "Hell," but it's not really from the Bible. More on Gehinnom in a moment.
The Christian view of Hell is based primarily on the New Testament, but in the original texts, three different words were used that have since been translated into "Hell," and all three of those words have different meanings. None of those meanings will be recognizable to most modern Christians.
Hades or Sheol: The Greek word "Hades" appears 10 times in the New Testament, and in the King James version, it was translated to "Hell," but really Hades is more similar in meaning to the Hebrew word "Sheol," which is a place of the dead. It is a destination for both the righteous and unrighteous dead, not a fiery place of punishment.
Gehinnom or Gehenna: The Greek word "Gehenna," from the Hebrew "Gehinnom" is used 11 times in the New Testament and is translated to "Hell" in the KJV and NIV. "Gehenna" referred to an actual place on Earth, the Valley of Hinnom, which was a garbage dump outside of Jerusalem. The bodies of those who were thought to have died in sin were tossed there and burned, but it wasn't a metaphysical place of torment. It was just a big burn pile.
Tartarus or Tartaroo: "Tartarus" was used only once in the New Testament, but it was translated to mean "Hell." It comes from the epic poem the Iliad, and is used in II Peter to indicate a place of fallen angels. This particular "Hell" mentions nothing about the afterlife or the souls of humans being sent there as punishment.
Now you may say that there are other references that surely mean the Hell you envision when you close your eyes and wish the person that just pissed you off would go there. And it's true there are mentions of condemnation and punishment and especially in the wacky Book of Revelation, lakes and pits of fire. But none of those are actually described as "Hell" in the Bible.
So, I'm not particularly worried about going there. I don't think you should be either, but I'm sorry if you're bothered or worried by what I wrote.
But if you feel relieved or even if your curiosity is raised a little bit, here's another tidbit of Biblical trivia: The idea of "going to heaven" isn't really in the Bible either...
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