Hell Examined

The concept of hell as understood today—a place of eternal punishment, hell fires, devils and so on, a place we enter after the final judgment at the end of time or, in the popular mind, right after death—does not have the same meaning that it had in its own time when the word Sheol was used in Hebrew. It meant the grave, the pit, or the abyss. And indeed, the etymology of the word points back to saal, meaning to burrow or to dig. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia (here), it is the place where “the dead meet (Ezek. xxxii.; Isa. xiv.; Job xxx. 23) without distinction of rank or condition—the rich and the poor, the pious and the wicked, the old and the young, the master and the slave—if the description in Job iii. refers, as most likely it does, to Sheol. The dead continue after a fashion their earthly life.” Understood in this way, Sheol is therefore pretty much the same sort of place as the Greek Hades, the under-world. Not surprisingly, when the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek, the word Hades was used to translate Sheol. Both are realms of shades, not specifically of punishment. And, come to think of it, our own word, hell, is derived from hole, hollow, and the Anglo-Saxon helan, meaning to hide. In Latin it is infernus, thus the “below.”

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia (here), the meaning associated with this word changed with the rise of Christianity. After Christ’s ascension to heaven, the just go to heaven and hell then becomes the place of the damned. Thus references to Sheol in the Old Testament refer to a realm of shades where everybody goes; in the New Testament a new word is often used, Gehenna, derived from a term meaning Valley of Hinnom, an actual geographical location where in Israel Moloch had once been worshipped.

The upshot of all this is that our concept of hell is relatively new and closely associated with Christianity and the doctrine of redemption.

Now, of course, Old and New Testaments are both considered the Word of God, literally by some branches of Christianity. Therefore concepts like a vengeful God—e.g. “The Lord is a jealous God and avenging, the Lord is avenging and wrathful; the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies.” Nahum 1:2—are combined with the New Testament concept of hell. And from this combination of concepts arises the popular controversy over hell in our times. On one side are those who cannot believe that God could be vengeful, never mind what Nahum of Elkosh said. Therefore the concept of a realm where the wicked go to be eternally tortured is thought to be unworthy of God.

The other side, in effect, argues that actions have consequences, that a law governs reality, and that you can’t simply “get away with it.” But. And there is a but here. But given their beliefs, particularly in the authority of the Bible and its literal truth, they give this idea—actions have consequences—the most lurid form possible, thereby weakening that idea’s unassailable logic.

But the much more scary thought, for someone of my age—when the Heavenly Gates become visible ahead—is the Hindu concept of hell. It simply is that we must come back, if we are bad, back into this dimension, starting as babies again—and if we’ve been very wicked in this life, our re-entry will be at a much less favorable level than we’ve enjoyed in our current life. In the Hindu conceptualization hell is right here; and now. And if you wish for proofs of that, study history and read the papers. And if you are well off, comfortable, indeed complacent, just ponder a rephrasing of one of Jesus' famous sayings: “Satan’s house has many mansions.”