by John D Carmack

Created on: February 05, 2009

What happens when you die? What about "bad people"? Do they go to Hell when they die? The answer may shock you! Some people claim to get their answers from the Bible, but what does it really say?

First off, which "hell"? Did you know that there are no less than 3 Greek words for "hell" in the NT? What would people who read the OT have thought of when it spoke of "hell"? What would the audience Jesus was talking to have thought about when He taught about "hell"?

"Hell" in the Old Testament

We need to remember that the NT builds upon the Old. The OT language was Hebrew, and the word that is commonly translated "hell" is "sheol". It is variously translated "hell", "grave" or "pit". It actually means "hell", but the problem is that people do not even know the origin of the English word "hell". Farmers used to put their potatoes into "hell", or a root cellar. "Hell" and "hole" have the same origins. It comes from the Germanic "kel", which meant "concealed place" and mutated into "hall", "hole", "hollow" and "helmet" as well as "hell" (see "Hell" at dictionary.com. "Hell" is just a hole in the ground! Specifically, it is the grave!

"Hell" in the OT was not a place of torment. There never is any indication of a place of eternal torment in the OT at all!"One of the great difficulties with the popular view of final punishment or hell is the profound silence of the Old Testament. Everywhere we find God warning sinners to repent. He threatens judgment for disobedience and carries it out on many occasions. But the idea of endless torture after death is extremely obscure."

~ Endless Torture Unbiblical

Think about this! Is God fair? Would He have sent people who lived up to NT times to an ever torturing hell, but not warn them about it? Does this make sense?

"The absence of explicit instructions regarding the punishment due Adam and Eve - and their posterity - is bewildering in light of the common view. Did God send sinners to hell for thousands of years before He ever disclosed this awful fact? We wonder how God could have warned Israel in precise detail about plagues, droughts and other punishments without saying a word about the worst punishment of all. Read the penalties for disobedience to the Mosaic Law (Deut. 28:15-68). Where are the warnings of hellfire in a future life?"

~ ibid

What, then, does the OT say about the fate of the unrighteous?

"the soul that sinneth, it shall die."

~ Eze 18:4c

"The soul that sinneth, it shall die."

~ v20a

"That the wicked is reserved to the day of

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