by Steve Bro

Created on: June 02, 2010   Last Updated: October 07, 2011

There are still many devout religious people in the world today who spend much of their lives contemplating the terrifying prospect of being burned endlessly in “Hell” for the things they do wrong in life. For these people, “Hell” is a deserving end, created by God and, they do not question it as a possible future. So powerful a threat has this been throughout the ages that millions have led an austere lifestyle, even abstaining from physical pleasure within marriage, and alcohol, to avoid this fate. From where do they get this information and how true is it? The authoritative source of information on this subject is the Bible, starting with the Hebrew portion, or, as some refer to it, the “Old Testament”.

The name “Hell” comes from the Hebrew word “Sheol” and the Greek equivalent “Hades”. Both of these words are used in the Bible but, not in the sense that most people understand them today. The basic meaning of the word is “the grave”, the collective place where all dead persons lie.

Where then did this idea of fire and punishment come from? In the Bible there is another word used that is distinct from the words “Sheol” and “Hades”. This word is “Gehenna” and it occurs twelve times in the New Testament. What does it mean? Historians have confirmed that, just outside ancient Jerusalem, there was a valley called “Gey Hinnom”. The Greek equivalent of this word is “Gehenna”. Around the time of the end of King Solomon’s reign (about the 10th century BCE), this valley “Gehenna” was used for sacrifices to idols and false gods. Children were burned alive during these rituals. How did God feel about such savage activities? The Bible tells us at Jeremiah chapter 7, verse 31. There God says “they have built the high places of To’pheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, in order to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart”. 

From the time of the reign of King Josiah, these terrible rituals had been stamped out. The valley where this used to happen was then used as a city waste site where everything, including animal carcasses and dead criminal’s bodies were thrown. To avoid odours and disease, this dump site was kept burning constantly so that everything was eventually reduced to ashes (fire has always been

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