Heaven and Hell in Jewish and Christian Tradition

 

Though there is no official Jewish conception of the afterlife, Jewish sources do provide images of a torturous hell and heavenly paradise.

 

Like other spiritual traditions, Judaism offers a range of views on the afterlife including some parallels to the concepts of heaven and hell familiar to us from popular Western (i.e., Christian) teachings.

Sheol: An Underground Abyss?

The subject of death is treated consistently in the Bible, indicating that physical death is the end of life. This is the case with such central figures as Abraham, Moses, and Miriam.

There are, however, several biblical references to a place called Sheol (cf. Numbers 30, 33). It is described as a region "dark and deep," "the Pit," and "the Land of Forgetfulness," where human beings descend after death. The suggestion is that in the netherworld of Sheol, the deceased, although cut off from God and humankind, live on in some shadowy state of existence—When in fact it is the grave. HELL = O.T. Strong’s 7585 = “ol” = grave, by extension, realm of death, deepest depths; transliterate “Sheol”. Ref: Attached Word Chart

Our “traditional” view of hell or hades comes from Greek Mythology. When Zeus became the ruler of the sky he made Hades king of the Underworld. Although an Olympian (god), Hades preferred the Underworld and rarely left his kingdom. His weapon was a pitchfork, which he used to create earthquakes, similar to the way Poseidon used his trident. He also had a helmet of invisibility, which he had received as a gift from the Cyclopes in order to use it during the clash of the Titans. You can see where our caricatures of the devil with a pitchfork come from!

While this vision of Sheol is rather bleak (setting precedents for later Jewish and Christian ideas of an underground hell) there is generally no concept of judgment or reward and punishment attached to it. In fact, the more pessimistic books of the Bible, such as Ecclesiastes and Job, insist that all of the dead go down to Sheol (the grave), whether good or evil, rich or poor, slave or free man (Job 3:11-19).

You will note that the Latin Vulgate mentions hell 111 times, which is the highest number of times the word hell occurs when compared to all of the other Bible versions.

All of the popular Protestant Bible versions like the King James Version (KJV), the American Standard Version (ASV), the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), the New International Version (NIV) and the New King James Version (NKJV) do not agree with the Latin Vulgate, nor even between themselves, as to the number of times the word hell appears in the Bible.

Only in the Latin Vulgate, the KJV and the NKJV does the word hell appear in the Old Testament of the Bible, but even these versions have wide disagreements on the number of times hell occurs in the Old Testament. The Latin Vulgate mentions hell 87 times, whereas the KJV mentions hell 31 times and the NKJV mentions hell only 19 times. Proper translation of these words are the key to understanding: Ref: Attached Chart.

All versions of the Bible except for these three, the Latin Vulgate, the KJV and the NKJV, reject any notion of hell occurring in the original Hebrew Manuscripts of the Old Testament. Also, note from the translators of the Jewish Publication Society Bible and the Tanakh: The Complete Jewish Bible--they disagree with the Latin Vulgate, the KJV and the NKJV by making no mention of hell whatsoever in their Bibles. If the Jews, who are experts in their own Hebrew language, do not include hell in their Bibles, then this further confirms that there is not a single word that means hell in the Hebrew Manuscripts of the Old Testament.

There are also several Bible versions that reject any notion of hell occurring in the Greek Manuscripts of the New Testament. Among others, these versions include Young’s Literal Translation, Rotherham’s Emphasized Bible and the Emphatic Diaglott Greek/English Interlinear Bible.

These are amazing and shocking facts that should make any Christian stop in his tracks, and start to seriously question the validity of the doctrine of hell. The truth of the matter is that there is not one single word in the Hebrew and Greek Manuscripts of the Bible that means hell as we have traditionally been taught. Hell, as traditionally taught is a man-invented, pagan, unchristian, belief that was first embraced and Christianized by Roman Catholicism, and incorporated into the Bible by Jerome through his Latin Vulgate in the early history of Christianity. Note: We will see that the Lake of Fire in Revelation 20 is “hell.”

Jerome mistranslated as many as four different words to mean hell. These words are: one Hebrew word sheol, and three Greek words hades, tartarus and gehenna. These words do not mean hell. Let us now clearly explain the true biblical meanings of these words. Ref: Attached Chart

Sheol occurs 65 times in the Hebrew Manuscripts of the Old Testament, and it means the grave (the place of the dead) or the pit, as correctly translated in almost all modern versions of the Bible since the KJV.

Hades occurs 11 times in the Greek Manuscripts of the New Testament and it is the direct equivalent of the Hebrew word sheol; thus it also means the grave or the pit. This is how most modern versions of the Bible translate hades. Strong’s Concordance: Hebrew 7585 – grave, by extension, realm of death, deepest depths-Sheol: hell, grave.

Some Bible dictionaries give an added meaning to hades of ‘the underworld’ or ‘the place or state of departed spirits’. But this meaning has been influenced by pagan Greek mythology and has no biblical basis.

Tartarus occurs only once in the Greek Manuscripts of the New Testament in 2 Peter 2:4…For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell (tartarus) and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment… Please note that God cast the angels who sinned down to tartarus and chained them in darkness, to be reserved for judgement.

The truth of the Bible is that Satan and his angels sinned by rebelling against God during the Pre-Adamic Age, when they rose up from the earth to usurp God’s throne. God cast them back down to earth and completely destroyed all Pre-Adamic life on earth. The earth was thrown into complete darkness, and God confined Satan and his fallen angels to this dark, chaotic (Tohu and bohu) ruined earth (Genesis 1:2). It was the earth, in this state, which was tartarus, the physical and spiritual prison of darkness for Satan and his fallen angels.

When God renewed the face of the earth and its heaven (earth’s atmosphere) at the beginning of the Adamic Age (Genesis 1:3-31), Satan and his fallen angels received a relative degree of physical freedom when they became the spirits of the air, able to roam the earth’s surface to tempt and deceive mankind. However, their movement is still confined to earth and its heaven (earth’s atmosphere) and they remain chained in this prison of spiritual darkness. This earth is still their tartarus prison, where they are reserved for final judgement in the Lake of Fire.

Gehenna occurs 12 times in the Greek Manuscripts of the New Testament, and each and every time that gehenna occurs, it has been mistranslated to mean hell in versions of the Bible that support the doctrine of hell. It is Jesus Christ Himself who uses the Greek word gehenna 11 out of the 12 times that gehenna occurs in the Bible, for example in Matthew 18:9.

Matthew 18:9… And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes, to be cast into hell (gehenna) fire.

When Jesus Christ uses the term gehenna fire, He does not mean everlasting tormenting hell fire. By the term gehenna fire, Jesus means God’s age ending judgmental fire on the Day of Judgement.

Gehenna takes its name from a valley located in Jerusalem called the valley of Hinnom. During Jesus’s time on earth, this valley was used as the city dump. A fire was constantly kept alight there to burn up and consume all of the city’s unwanted rubbish an bodies of criminals.

Let us understand the spiritual meaning and significance of this original Greek word gehenna, which Jesus uses to refer to the fire of judgement on the Great White Throne Judgement Day. This is the future age-to-come White Throne judgement for all resurrected unbelievers and for Satan and his fallen angels. This is Hell.

2 Peter 3:7-12 says that on the Day of God’s Judgement, the elements will melt with fervent heat and the whole earth will be dissolved. So, the earth will become a literal ball of fiery molten lava (a lake of fire).

Hebrews 12:29 says that God Himself is a consuming fire.

Malachi 3:2 says that God is like a refiner’s fire and like the launderer’s soap.

Therefore, putting all of these scriptures together, we can clearly see that God’s Lake of Fire on the Day of Judgement will be for the purpose of final judgment of those not written in the Book of Life. Rev 20.

Jesus Christ says that it is far better to believe the Gospel now, in this life at any cost no matter how extreme or painful that cost might be, than to be cast as an unbeliever into gehenna fire on the Day of Judgement.

Clearly understand that Jesus Christ did not speak about hell as we have traditionally been taught. Jesus Christ spoke about gehenna, which is an age-to-come, final judgement for all resurrected unbelievers and all fallen angels. Read Revelation 20.10: Satan and his angels thrown into the Lake of Fire and tormented FOREVER. Then read Revelation 20.13-14: Those judged as wicked are also thrown into the Lake of Fire…BUT what does it say about them? They are consumed, not tortured. It says: This is the second death!

Why? Satan and his minions are immortal and cannot die. For humans the wages of sin is DEATH. The only humans who gain immortality are those who are resurrected from the dead in the twinkling of an eye! 1 Corinthians 15.

Our Great God of the Bible is neither a great torturer of people in hell, nor a great annihilator of them either, but He is the Great Savior of the whole world and will judge humanity righteously at the end of this age.

THE PAGAN DOCTRINE OF HELL- Embraced and Christianized by Roman Catholicism 

The doctrine of hell, and the truth of the Bible that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world, cannot both be true at the same time. The Bible is the Word of God and it does not contradict itself. It is the doctrine of hell which is false and unbiblical.

The Bible, in the Hebrew and Greek Manuscripts, does not mention hell as everlasting punishment upon our deaths. Hell is a mistranslation. Jesus Christ did not believe in such a hell and He did not preach such a hell.

The concept of eternal torment in hell is nowhere to be found in the Hebrew and Greek Manuscripts of the Bible, but it is found in the writings of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. For example, Plato (427-347 BC) discusses the concept of hell in his dialogue ‘Gorgias’ where he speaks of eternal punishment.

There can be no doubt that belief in eternal punishment in hell was a pagan belief embraced and Christianised by the church in Rome in the early years of the history of Christianity.

It was indeed the Church at Rome which first taught the pagan doctrine of endless punishment of the wicked, under the umbrella of Christianity. The Roman Catholic Latin Church Fathers, Tertullian (160-220 AD), Jerome (347-420 AD) and Augustine (354-430 AD), all strongly believed in the doctrine of hell.

These early Latin Church Fathers are highly venerated Roman Catholic saints who believed that God’s punishment of unbelievers (all those who reject Roman Catholicism) would be in a hell of everlasting torment.

In 382 AD, Pope Damasus commissioned Jerome to make a revised translation of the Bible in Latin. Jerome, a Roman Catholic by birth, believed in the doctrine of hell and he produced the revised translation of the complete Bible in Latin known as the Latin Vulgate (circa 405 AD). Jerome mistranslated and misinterpreted several key Hebrew and Greek words into the Latin Vulgate in support of the already established doctrine of hell in the Roman Catholic Church. This fits their doctrine of control of the people much better than “sleep” or the grave.

The Latin Vulgate became the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church, and to this very day, it is regarded to be free from any doctrinal errors by the Roman Catholic Church. The Latin Vulgate reigned supreme for over a thousand years and the doctrine of hell became deeply entrenched into the psyche of the Christian world as if it were a true biblical doctrine. It became our “traditional” belief.

This was due to the complete dominance of the Roman Catholic Church throughout the Middle Ages, from the 5^th to the 16^th century.

From circa 590-1517 AD, the Roman Church reigned supreme and dominated the western world where it controlled religion, philosophy, morals, politics, the arts and education, and became a very wealthy institution. This was the dark ages for true Christianity. The vital doctrines of Biblical Christianity had, from all appearances, disappeared from the scene.

During these Dark Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church refused to allow Scripture to be available in any language other than Latin. Those in possession of non-Latin Scriptures were persecuted and sometimes even killed. Only priests were educated to understand Latin, and this gave the church ultimate power. Power to control and rule the masses without question. The Roman Catholic Church capitalized on this enforced ignorance of the peoples for over a thousand years. It is Nicolaitan in nature—control of the people.

The first hand-written English language Bible translation was produced circa 1380 AD by John Wycliffe, an Oxford professor, scholar and theologian. Wycliffe translated it from the Latin Vulgate, which was the only source text available to him. Pope Martin V was so infuriated by the activities of Wycliffe and his translation of the Bible into English such that 44 years after Wycliffe’s death, he ordered the bones of Wycliffe to be dug-up, crushed and scattered in a river!

Some of the most influential figures in Christendom; Tertullian, Constantine, Jerome, John Chrysostom, Augustine, Martin Luther and John Calvin, all believed in the doctrine of hell and were anti-Semitic, Luther left this life with an intense hatred and un-forgiveness in his heart towards Jews.

It is not surprising that the translators of the King James Version (1611 AD) were greatly influenced, both directly and indirectly, by the Latin Vulgate, and they simply copied many of the translation errors made in the Latin Vulgate, in support of the doctrine of hell.

The KJV was the standard version of the Bible for Protestant Christianity for nearly 350 years and it has been translated into many languages. The KJV has had a major influence on formulating the traditional Protestant Christian doctrine of hell, which is of course similar to the Roman Catholic doctrine of hell.

Many subsequent versions of the Bible have corrected the translation errors found in the KJV to varying degrees. However, the most popular versions of the Bible like the NIV, NKJV, NAS, RSV and others have still retained the basic translation errors, which support the doctrine of hell.

However, there are some versions of the Bible like Young’s Literal Translation, Rotherham Emphasised Bible, and the Emphatic Diaglott Greek/English Interlinear Bible, which make no mention of hell in their translations. This group of Bible versions are literal translations of the Hebrew and Greek Manuscripts of the Bible.

Merely understanding the correct translation of these words in the original Hebrew and Greek begins to open our understanding to the truth—and the truth will set you free! The Lake of Fire is the true hell of the Bible.

Additional reading: https://burningbush647.blogspot.com/2023/03/blog-post.htm 

Strong’s Concordance Study 

HELL = O.T. Strong’s 7585 = “ol” = grave, by extension, realm of death, deepest depths; transliterate “Sheol”

          = N.T. Strong’s     86 = Hades, the grave, the place of the dead (10 times)

          = N.T. Strong’s 1067 = Gehenna, hell, Valley of Hinnom

     = N.T. Strong’s 5020= Tartaroo =send to hell, hold captive = a place of torment lower than hades (the grave) in Greek and Jewish literature but not found in the N.T. (1 time; 2 Peter 2.4) Final judgement in Lake of Fire

Grave = O.T. Strong’s 7585 = “ol” = grave, by extension, realm of death, deepest depths; transliterate “Sheol”

            = 6919 = burial site, tomb, grave

            = 6605 = “patah” = open, to be opened, to loosen, release, take off

            = 6900 = Tomb, grave, burial, sepulcher (2 times)

            = 3419 Strong’s N.T. = tomb, grave, sepulcher (4 times)

Pit = hell - Gehenna - the grave, realm of the dead.

Hell= gehenna=hell=Valley of Hinnom Strong’s 1067= Matthew 5.22; 29-30; 10.28; 18.9; 23.15; 23.23. Mark 9.43-47. Luke 12.5. James 3.6.

Hell=Hades= the grave, the place of the dead (Strong’s 86). = Matthew 11.23; 16.18. Luke 10.15; 16.23. Acts 2.27; 31, Rev 1.18; 6.8; 20.13; 20.14

Pit = hell - Gehenna - the grave, realm of the dead.