with all due respect, Darren — from now on, when you make statements such as this:
No Thomas Hell in Scripture is NOT translated Gehenna.
I am going to ask you for the evidence to support your argument. Here is the evidence in support of mine:
The term 'hell' is from the Anglo-Saxon
helan or
behelian, "to hide". This verb has the same primitive as the Latin
occulere and
celare and the Greek
kalyptein. Thus hell denotes a dark and hidden place. In ancient Norse mythology
Hel is the ill-favoured goddess of the underworld. Only those who fall in battle can enter Valhalla; the rest go down to Hel in the underworld, not all, however, to the place of punishment of criminals.
The Latin
infernus, the Greek
Hades, and the Hebrew
sheol all correspond to the word hell.
Infernus designates a place within and below the earth, as does
Hades.
Sheol is generally supposed to come from the Hebrew root meaning, "to be sunk in, to be hollow"; accordingly it denotes a pit or a place under the earth.
In the Hebrew Old Testament
sheol (Septuagint
hades; Vulgate
infernus) is used in general to designate the kingdom of the dead, of the good (Genesis 37:35) as well as of the bad (Numbers 16:30); it means hell in the strict sense of the term, but as both just and unjust abide there, it is closer to the limbo of the Fathers, as all await the final judgement.
As it is believed the just in sheol/hell were taken into heaven at the time of Christ's Ascension,
hades (Vulgate
infernus) in the New Testament always designates the hell of the damned. Since Christ's Ascension the just no longer go down to the lower world, but they dwell in heaven (2 Corinthians 5:1).
However, in the New Testament the term
Gehenna is used more frequently in preference to
hades, as a name for the place of punishment of the damned.
Gehenna is the Hebrew
gê-hinnom (Nehemiah 11:30), or the longer form
gê-ben-hinnom (Joshua 15:8), and
gê-benê-hinnom (2 Kings 23:10) "valley of the sons of Hinnom". Hinnom seems to be the name of a person not otherwise known. The Valley of Hinnom is south of Jerusalem and is now called Wadi er-rababi. It was notorious as the scene, in earlier days, of the horrible worship of Moloch. For this reason it was defiled by Josias (2 Kings 23:10), cursed by Jeremias (Jeremiah 7:31-33),
and held in abomination by the Jews, who, accordingly, used the name of this valley to designate the abode of the damned (Targ. Jon., Gen., iii, 24; Henoch, c. xxvi).
And Christ adopted this usage of the term.
So you see, I think the mistake lies in not knowing how the Jews understood the term 'gehenna', and what the term implied for them ... Jesus used the term as they understood it.
Today we translate the Hebrew into Greek, then English, then assume all manner of pagan attributions ... then we remove the pagan attributes, but we don't incorporate the contemporary Hebrew meaning.
+++
Besides
Hades and
Gehenna, we find in the New Testament many other names for the abode of the damned. It is called "lower hell" (Vulgate
tartarus) (2 Peter 2:4), "abyss" (Luke 8:31 and elsewhere), "place of torments" (Luke 16:28), "pool of fire" (Revelation 19:20 and elsewhere), "furnace of fire" (Matthew 13:42, 50), "unquenchable fire" (Matthew 3:12, and elsewhere), "everlasting fire" (Matthew 18:8; 25:41; Jude 7), "exterior darkness" (Matthew 7:12; 22:13; 25:30), "mist" or "storm of darkness" (2 Peter 2:17; Jude 13). The state of the damned is called "destruction" (
apoleia, Phil., iii, 19, and elsewhere), "perdition" (
olethros, 1 Timothy 6:9), "eternal destruction" (
olethros aionios, 2 Thessalonians 1:9), "corruption" (
phthora, Galatians 6:8), "death" (Romans 6:21), "second death" (Revelation 2:11 and elsewhere).
Gehanna is the fire that burned in the valley of Hinomm.
Yes, but it signified much more than that.
In English, for example, we have a saying "being sent to Coventry" — now Coventry is a very nice English town. The Germans knocked it about a bit during the war, but on the whole it's quite nice and pleasant ... so you would assume there's no great harm in that. But the phrase actually means to be excluded and ignored, to be shunned by society ... not very nice at all.
D'you see my point? Unless you know the precise useage of the term, you would make a mistake.
but the whole idea of a place where a person will be tortured with fire and brimstone for ever and ever is a man made doctrin.
I suggest, from the references above ... that it is a Scriptural doctrine. Not the Scriptural use of the term "unquenchable fire", "everlasting fire" and "eternal destruction".
Not once does Jesus teach or even say that Hell is a place where you will be sent forever and ever ... or your evil. Not once.
Yes He does, more than once ... but you have to understand the terms He uses as He means them, not as we assume them to mean. The question of non-believers is seconadary, but Christ is quite explicit that hell is real, and everlasting.
If you notice in the O.T. there is not ONE word HELL not one you wont fine hell being a place of torture after death it is UNscriptual.
Excuse me ... but I count the New Testament as Scripture, too. The references are there.
I will blow your mine now ... Does this make since to you?
Not really ... sorry.
Then we are judged and sentence either to heaven or hell were we will spent eternity. WHAT? we are sent back to where we just came what kind of god is this does this make any since not to me it sounds pretty dumb.
Then I suggest you have misunderstood?
The point being that, at Christ's coming, the New Jerusalem (Rev 3:12, 21:2) the
Parousia, will initiate the general resurrection and the Last Judgement ... at which point the justified shall enter the new kingdom and occupy the station according to how they have lived their lives (some close, some distant, but all in paradisical bliss) whilst the unjust shall cease to be any longer ... so there is 'no going back' but rather then final destruction of all that which does not belong with God.
Logically it don't add up.
Then I suggest you find someone to explain it to you, rather than assume that because you don't understand it, it's wrong.
Thomas