By Jamie Moran

1. The Jewish Sheol is the exact same as the Greek Hades. No loss of meaning occurs if, on every occasion when Hebrew says ‘Sheol’, this is translated as ‘Hades’ in Greek. The term ‘Hades’ is well known in English, and thus might be preferred to the term ‘Sheol.’ Their meaning is identical.  

Neither Sheol nor Hades are the same as the Jewish ‘Gehenna’ which should only be translated as ‘Hell.’

Sheol/Hades= abode of the dead.

Gehenna/Hell= abode of the wicked.

These are two qualitatively different places, and should never be treated as the same. The King James Version of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures translates all occurrences of Sheol and Gehenna as ‘Hell’, but this is a huge mistake. All modern translations of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures only use ‘Hell’ when Gehenna occurs in the original Hebrew or Greek text. When Sheol occurs in Hebrew, it becomes Hades in Greek, and if Hades is not deployed in English, then an equivalent expression is found. The English term ‘prison’ is sometimes preferred in relation to ‘the departed’, but this is ambiguous, because in different senses, Hades and Gehenna are both ‘imprisoning.’ To speak of persons in the afterlife as in some sense in jail does not adequately differentiate Sheol/Hades from Gehenna/Hell. It is important to note the difference, because Hades as Deadness and Hell as Evil carry very different implications in any text where they occur. Modern Jewish scholars speak with one voice – very unusually for them – in asserting that only Gehenna should be translated as ‘Hell.’ [An old Anglo-Saxon word, claims one writer, meaning ‘hidden.’]   

It is the qualitative difference in human experience, and difference in symbolic meaning, that sets out a clear contrast.

[1] Sheol/Hades=

A place of forgetfulness, ‘deadness’, ghost-life= half-life.

Dark and gloomy= ‘insubstantial’; a nether-world, the mythical ‘Underworld.’

David in the Psalms refers to Sheol as a ‘Pit.’

[2] Gehenna/Hell=

A place of unquenchable fire and the worm that does not die; the place of torment.

Those in Gehenna feel pain and weep. The worm gnawing away at the dead corpse= remorse. The burning flames that do not let up= self-reproach.  

Abraham saw Gehenna as a ‘Fiery Furnace.’

Thus, Hades/Sheol= a Pit of Deadness underground, whilst Gehenna/Hell= a Furnace of Evil [equated with a Valley that has become like a furnace].

2. Around 1100 AD, the Jewish Rabbinical tradition identified Gehenna as the rubbish dump outside Jerusalem, where ‘filth’ was cast away. Though Gehenna is a symbol, a figurative expression, the equation of the symbol with the ‘Valley of Hinnom’ is very plausible.

 ‘Gehenna’ is Greek, yet it could very well come from the Hebrew for the Valley of Hinnom= ‘Ge Hinnom’ [thus= Gehinnom].’ In the Talmud, the name is ‘Gehinnam’, and in the Aramaic spoken by Jesus= ‘Gehanna.’ In modern Yiddish= ‘Gehenna.’

If the Valley of Hinnom below Jerusalem is indeed the origin both for the symbol and linguistic terminology of Gehenna passed on from Judaism into Christianity, that would make sense of the ‘unquenchable fires’ and ‘worms that do not die’.. Both these images are from Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and when Jesus uses Gehenna 11 times in the New Testament, he means Gehenna, not Hades or Sheol, because he borrows that exact prophetic imagery.

3. The story about Gehenna as a literal topographical place at a certain moment in time is very meaningful in regard to why it symbolically became Hell.

The valley began as a place where worshippers of the Canaanite pagan religion sacrificed their children [Chronicles, 28, 3; 33, 6] to the pagan deity called Moloch [one of several pagan ‘lords’, or Ba’als= St Gregory of Nyssa links Moloch to Mammon]. These worshippers of Moloch burned their children in fire, in order to get worldly gain= worldly power, worldly riches, comfort and luxury, ease of life. Already this gives a profound meaning= Hell is the sacrificing of our children for religious reasons, when religion is used idolatrously to grant us an advantage in this world. That links to a saying of Christ, which asserts that, though offences against children must come, it would be better for the person committing them if he had been thrown into the ocean and drowned to prevent him from doing such a grave crime. It is better to die and end up in Hades, in the afterlife, than to commit hellish crimes against the innocence of children in this life. To be in Hell, in this life or beyond it, is far more serious than simply expiring.. Yet, which of us has not, in ways blatant or subtle, harmed the children entrusted to our care by God? Killing off the child-like spark, before it can be ignited, is a key strategy by the devil for blocking the redemption of the world.

To the Jews, this place of idolatry and pagan cruelty was an utter abomination. Not only followers of the Canaanite religion but apostate Jews ‘practiced’ child sacrifice in this place, for religious reasons [Jeremiah, 7, 31-32; 19, 2, 6; 32, 35]. No worse place on earth could be imagined for any Jew following Yahweh. [This throws the story of Abraham into a very different light.] Such a place would attract evil spirits and evil forces in real numbers. ‘This is hell on earth’ we say, referring to situations, events, happenings, where evil power seems to be concentrated, so that doing good, or loving sacrificially, is particularly opposed from ‘the surrounding atmosphere’, and therefore becomes very difficult, if not virtually impossible.  

Over time, the Jews used this numinously hideous valley as a rubbish dump. It was not merely a convenient place to throw away unwanted debris. It was regarded as ‘unclean’, religiously. Indeed, it was regarded as a place utterly ‘accursed’ [Jeremiah, 7, 31; 19, 2-6]. Thus for the Jews, it was a place of ‘filth’, literally and spiritually. Things regarded as ritually unclean were dumped there= the carcasses of dead animals, and the bodies of criminals. The Jews buried people in tombs above ground, thus for the body to be cast away in this manner was considered horrendous, almost the worst that could befall someone.

The ‘unquenchable fires’, and the ‘worms gnawing away without ever stopping’, as two images which are taken as definitive of what happens in Hell, come from a reality, then. They are not purely metaphorical. The Valley had fires burning in it all the time, to burn up the filthy trash, and especially the rotting flesh of animals and criminals, and of course, legions of worms found the corpses delicious= they literally became worm food. So= the ‘Hell’ derived from the Valley of Gehenna is a place of ever burning fires – with sulphur and brimstone added to make that burning more efficacious – and hordes of worms always eating.

Though Judaism before Jesus already had a multiplicity of differing interpretations, one point stands out, and should be flagged up as necessary to any understanding of Hell – as distinct from Sheol/Hades. Ending up in Hell is a kind of debacle, a disgrace, a loss of honour, a sign of no integrity, a ‘destruction.’ In Hell, all your plans, works, aims, projects, end up ‘destroyed.’ Your life work, what you ‘did’ with your time in the world, comes to catastrophic ruin.

4. The Rabbinic method of teaching, which Jesus deployed in the same manner as earlier Jewish rabbis, blends the historical and the symbolic ‘as one.’ The rabbis, and Jesus is the same, always choose some literal historical reality, and then add heights and depths of symbolic meaning to it. This means that two converse kinds of hermeneutic are false to this method of storytelling to teach life lessons to listeners of the stories.

On the one hand=-

If you interpret the sacred text only literally, as fundamentalists and evangelicals, or the religiously conservative do, you miss the point. For there is a wealth of symbolic meaning latent in the literal historical ‘fact’ which gives it more meaning that its sheer factuality can transmit. Starting with the literal historical, the meaning takes you into other dimensions at a remove from that particular time and place, and not confined to it. This extra meaning can be mystical or psychological or moral; it always expands the ‘ostensible’ meaning by bringing mysterious spiritual factors into play. The literal is never simply literal, because the literal is a metaphor for something beyond it, yet incarnate in it. The literal is a poem– not a computer print-out, or a set of rational-factual statements. These kinds of literalism have a very limited meaning. They mean little, because their meaning is limited to only one level, a level not rich in meaning, but deprived of meaning.

Studying Hasidic Jewish interpretations of the Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible is very instructive. These interpretations use the historical narrative as spring-boards to symbolic meanings quite far from any literalist reading. Very subtle layers and levels of meaning are uncovered. Yet it is these subtleties which inhere, indwell, ‘what really happened.’  

On the other hand=

If you interpret the sacred text only metaphorically, or symbolically, denying that the particular embodiment in which it is couched matters, then you proceed more in a Greek Hellenic, not a Jewish, manner. You go too fast to disembodied universals of meaning, or generalities that supposedly apply across the board, anywhere at any time. This anti-literalist approach to the Rabbinical method of meaning-making also falsifies it. For Jews, the particular place and the particular time matters in the meaning, and cannot be shed as if it were merely an ‘outer suit of clothing’, not the ‘inner reality.’ The true meaning is incarnate, not disincarnate= not floating in some space, whether that non-physical domain is seen as psychological or as spiritual [or a mixture of the two= the ‘psychic matrix’]. The true meaning therefore has a body, not just a soul, for the body is what ‘anchors’ meaning in this world.

Such incarnateness of meaning is asserting that the extra symbolic meanings are ‘situated’ in a given historical context, and the sheer fact they are contextualised, and how they are contextualised, is important to interpreting them. Even if he had subsequent generations in mind, Jesus was teaching first century AD Jews living in a very definite setting, and much of what he says to them has to be interpreted in terms of those people, in that time and in that place.

Yet, given how often Jesus quotes from the Psalms and Isaiah, often echoing them directly in his words [echoes that his audience would have picked up], implies that he saw analogies between past events and present events. He used a form of what is called ‘types’ in his meaning-making= certain symbols recur, in different forms, not because they are ‘archetypes’ in Plato’s or Jung’s sense, but because they refer to mysterious spiritual meanings and energies repeatedly intervening in historical circumstances, always doing something similar as in the past [creating continuity] and always doing something new different from the past [creating discontinuity]. In this way, Jesus upholds an ongoing ‘progressive revelation’ with both ongoing themes and new departures, leaps forward, not foreseeable. New occurrences of types, in altered circumstances, bring new meanings, but often throw additional meaning on the old types. They mean more, or mean something different, when seen retrospectively. In this way, tradition never stalls, simply repeating the past, nor does it just break off from the past.

Gehenna/Hell has to be read in this complex Rabbinical way, understanding both its historical context and the hidden meanings latent in its potent symbolism. Only if are aware of both aspects do we use an interpretation which is ‘existential’, not the metaphysical on its own, nor the literal on its own. Neither is Jewish.

5. “Two rabbis, three opinions.” Judaism has always, to its credit, tolerated multiple interpretations of sacred texts and indeed had different streams of interpretation of the whole of religion. This is very evident in regard to the interpretation of Gehenna/Hell. Judaism does not speak with one voice on this significant matter.

There were Jewish writers even before the time of Jesus who saw Hell as punishment for the wicked= not for those who are a mix of righteousness and sin, but for those given over, or given up, to real wickedness, and likely to go on forever; other Jewish writers thought of Hell as purgational. Some Jewish commentators thought of Sheol/Hades as purgational.. It is complicated.

Most schools of thought believed that Hades is where you go after death. It is ‘The Land of the Dead’ in many mythical systems. It is not annihilation, or complete obliteration of the human personhood or its consciousness. It is where, once the body is dead, the soul goes. But the soul, without body, is only half alive. Those in Hades/Sheol are ghostly in a strong symbolic sense= they are cut off from life, cut off from people alive in the world. They continue, as it were, but in some reduced state. In this respect, the Jewish Sheol and Greek Hades are very much the same.

Sheol/Hades was regarded an ante chamber where you go after death, to ‘wait’ for the general resurrection, in which all people will regain body as well as soul. They will not be, ever, ‘purely’ spirit.

For some Jewish commentators, Sheol/Hades is a place of atoning for sins, and as such, is definitely purgational. People can ‘learn’, they can still face their life and repent, and let go of the ‘dead wood’ they clung on to in life. Hades is a place of regeneration, and healing. Hades is restorative, for those who avoided inner wrestlings with inner truth in their time in this world.

Indeed, for certain Jews, Sheol/Hades had an upper chamber and a lower chamber. The upper chamber is paradise [also ‘Abraham’s bosom’ in the parable of the rich man who shuns the leper at his gate], and is where people having attained sanctity in their life on earth go once it ends. The lower chamber is less salubrious but holds out the possibility of shedding past mistakes. It is not an easy place, but its outcome is very optimistic. The ‘lower’ people are less advanced, and the ‘higher’ people are more advanced, but once Hades does its work, they are all equally ready for the entry of all humanity into the ‘everlasting.’   

For other Jewish commentators, Gehenna/Hell — not Sheol/Hades — was the place of purgation/purifying/cleansing. You atoned for your sins, and thus sin itself was burned out of you, like fire consuming rotten wood. At the end of that ordeal in the furnace, you were ready for the general resurrection. You spent only 1 year in Hell! Moreover, only 5 people were in Hell forever! [The list must have increased by now..]

For modern Hasidism, once purged — wherever that occurs — the soul that is resurrected with its body proceeds on to heavenly happiness in the unceasing [olam to olam] kingdom of God. These Hasids tend to dismiss the idea of a Hell where wicked people remain eternally, and are punished eternally. If a Hasidic Orthodox Jew uses the symbol of ‘Hell’, it invariably has a purgational effect. The Fire of God burns out sin. In that sense, it readies the person for eternal bliss, and hence is a blessing, not a curse.

6. For many Jews before the time of Jesus, however, there is a markedly different interpretation which is entirely Dualistic= this stream of Jewish tradition resembles the belief in ‘Heaven and Hell’ as eternal principles in the afterlife held by Fundamentalist and Evangelical Christians of today. But, many Jews and Christians down the ages have held to this Dualistic belief about the split eternity awaiting humanity. On this view, the wicked ‘go to Hell’, and they go there not to be purged, or regenerated, but to be punished.  

Thus, for Jews of this perspective, Sheol/Hades is a sort of ‘half-way house’, almost a clearing-house, where people who have died await the general resurrection of everyone. Then, once everyone is raised in body and soul, the Last Judgement occurs, and the Judgement determines that the righteous will go to Heavenly bliss in God’s presence, whilst the wicked will go to Hellish torment in Gehenna. This Hellish torment is eternal. There is no let up, no change possible.

7. It is easy enough to locate places in both the Jewish Bible and the Christian Bible where this long-standing Dualism seems to be supported by the text, though often that is ‘open to interpretation.’

None the less, it is more truthful to acknowledge that at times, Jesus sounds Non Dualistic, even Anti Dualistic, whilst at other times, he sounds Dualistic. As is his way, he confirms older tradition even as he upends it by introducing new elements into the ongoing tradition. If you accept it all, a very complex dialectic of severity and universality emerges.

Hence the paradox of both Jewish and Christian Scriptures is that Dualistic and Non-Dualistic texts both exist. It is easy to pick one kind of text, and ignore the other kind. This is either a clear-cut contradiction; or, it is a tension that has to be accepted, a mysterious paradox. Justice and Redemption co-inhere in Judaism, and Jesus does not disturb that two-faceted manner in which the Fire of Spirit, the Fire of Truth, the Fire of Suffering Love, functions. Both horns of the dilemma are necessary..

A certain strictness [truth] is what, paradoxically, leads to mercifulness [love].

8. For the Jews prior to the time of Jesus, sins likely to put a person in Gehenna included some obvious things, but also some things we might or might not question today= a man who listened too much to his wife was headed for Hell.. But more obviously= pride; unchastity and adultery; mockery [contempt= as in Mathew, 5, 22]; hypocrisy [lying]; anger [judgementalism, hostility, impatience]. The Letter of James, 3, 6, is very Jewish in claiming that Gehenna will set the tongue on fire, and the tongue then sets on fire the entire ‘course’ or ‘wheel’ of life.

Good Deeds that protected a person from ending up in Hell= philanthropy; fasting; visiting the sick. The poor and the pious are especially protected from ending in Hell. Israel is more protected than the pagan nations all around her and always threatening her..

The worst of all sins= the idolatry of ‘sacrificing our children for religious reasons’, in order ‘to get on’ in this world. When we idolise a false ‘god’, it is always to get worldly benefits, it is invariably to profit from whatever we sacrifice to please this deity’s demands= ‘if you give me your children, I will give you the good life.’ This sounds more like a demon than a god. A deal is struck, you sacrifice something genuinely precious, then the devil will bestow upon you all manner of earthly rewards.

A literal interpretation protests that such things do not happen in our modern, enlightened, progressive, civilised, society! Or if they do, only in backward corners of that society, or only among backward uncivilised peoples.

But a more symbolic-historical interpretation concludes that these very civilised peoples are all engaged in sacrificing their children to the devil, for the worldly gain it will bring them. Look more closely. Look more subtly. This most hellish of all actions is something many parents are doing to their children as a matter of routine, for it reflects the unacknowledged reality of society as a system where, in order to fit in, violence must be done to the person= they can never be true to their native humanity. Leonard Cohen has an amazing song about this, ‘The Story of Isaac’=

The door it opened slowly,

My father he came in,

I was nine years old.

And he stood so tall above me,

His blue eyes they were shining

And his voice was very cold.

He said, “I’ve had a vision

And you know I’m strong and holy,

I must do what I’ve been told.”

So he started up the mountain,

I was running, he was walking,

And his axe was made of gold.

Well, the trees they got much smaller,

The lake a lady’s mirror,

We stopped to drink some wine.

Then he threw the bottle over.

Broke a minute later

And he put his hand on mine.

Thought I saw an eagle

But it might have been a vulture,

I never could decide.

Then my father built an altar,

He looked once behind his shoulder,

He knew I would not hide.

You who build these altars now

To sacrifice these children,

You must not do it anymore.

A scheme is not a vision

And you never have been tempted

By a demon or a god.

You who stand above them now,

Your hatchets blunt and bloody,

You were not there before,

When I lay upon a mountain

And my father’s hand was trembling

With the beauty of the word.

And if you call me brother now,

Forgive me if I inquire,

“Just according to whose plan?”

When it all comes down to dust

I will kill you if I must,

I will help you if I can.

When it all comes down to dust

I will help you if I must,

I will kill you if I can.

And mercy on our uniform,

Man of peace or man of war,

The peacock spreads his fan.

Then, in reading ‘the sacrifice of our children for profit’ more metaphorically, extend the crime against children into, quite simply, the sacrifice of the most vulnerable humans for the sake of Mammon. The ‘crime against humanity’ is widespread; it has many takers today, as it always did.

The Valley of Gehenna, as a Hell on earth, a Hell in the world, is a typology much the same today as in the past. Hell is one of the constants in human existence over all of time.

Why? That is the real question.

(to be continued)