by Jane Daniels

Created on: November 03, 2010

Have you ever done a Google search on "hell"? It's interesting that Catholic art has depicted hell as a place of eternal flames where the wicked are tortured forever. Very graphic and very ugly, it is a place of Catholic nightmares! Some protestant denominations also carried this teaching along and used it to scare people into submission. Any wonder the poor souls who heard it pounded from the pulpit were in terror of going there.

It was a good tool for keeping the ignorant in line and it worked for centuries. Then in the later parts of the 20th century somebody turned a hose on hell. All of a sudden people didn't really talk about it much anymore. It was still there in the Bible but somehow people didn't quite know what to do with it anymore, so they just started to ignored it...they kind of swept it under the rug and pretended it wasn't there. They still believed that it was a terrible place, but they didn't want to talk about it.

Did "hell" cool off? Or was there more to this subject than most people realize?

What do the original language words tell us about this place that was dreaded by so many for so long?

There are three words used in scripture that are translated "hell". They are the Hebrew word "sheol", the Greek word, "hades" and another expression used by Jesus..."gehenna". There is also the "lake of fire" spoken about in Revelation, which is often used as another reference to "hell".

What can we glean from a study of these words in their original languages?
Let's start with the Hebrew "sheol". What did the Jews understand "sheol" to mean?

The first mention of "sheol" is in Genesis 37:35. Here Jacob has been told his beloved son Joseph has been attacked and killed by a wild animal.
His jealous brothers had actually sold him into slavery and had killed an animal and covered Joseph's distinctive coat with its blood and lied to their father about his death. Here is Jacob's response..."Then all his sons and all his daughters arose to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. And he said, "Surely I will go down to Sheol in mourning for my son." So his father wept for him." (NASB) Jacob believed his son had gone to "sheol".
It is plain that he never imagined his righteous boy to have gone to a place of fiery torment. Sheol was the place that all the dead go. (Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10) It is simply the grave. That is where Jacob said his son had gone and in his grief, he said that he wanted to join him there.

Job is another one who mentioned "sheol". At the height

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