Image by ufukgazi from Pixabay

“This is hell” we might proclaim, midway through a boot camp session or a punishing work deadline. We don’t, of course, mean we are literally in a place of eternal torment nor standing in a lake of fire.

Hell continues to be invoked in all sorts of ways, by Christians and non-believers alike, with Dante and Hieronymus Bosch, among others, fanning the flames of our collective imagination.

Considered by some as a swear word, hell can be used to threaten eternal damnation or, more colloquially, to add colour to an exclamation. But do we even know what we mean by the term? And where does this so-called Christian idea even come from?

The Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament) uses the word Sheol to describe the realm of the dead. Sometimes described as a pit and imagined to be a literal place under the earth, Sheol is where the dead – all of them, good and bad – go when they die. At times, Sheol is used poetically to relay the sense of tragedy associated with death. Sheol was not, however, associated with firey torment, nor is it a place of punishment. That idea comes later.

In the New Testament, “hell” is referred to by various terms: Gehenna, Hades, Tartarus, or the Abyss. Gehenna was a valley in or near Jerusalem. One popular theory is that it was the site of a perpetually burning rubbish dump (fire being the ultimate decontaminate in antiquity) and thus served as a metaphor for a site of purification. But there is little historical evidence for this theory.

The more likely reason for Gehenna’s association with “hell” lies in the memory, preserved in the Hebrew Bible, that this was where people burned their children as human sacrifices to the gods. Hence, Gehenna became synonymous with wickedness, fire, and death.

The term Hades comes from Greek culture. Initially used as a name for the god who had dominion over the realm of the dead and then later for the place itself, it was a place where all dead people resided. Homer’s Odyssey famously describes Hades as a place across a river at the end of the world, requiring a guide and long journey for the restless soul. In the Iliad, it is a murky, damp place. In Greek poetry, Tartarus is simply another name for Hades.

The writers of the New Testament, influenced by both Greek and Jewish cultures, incorporated Hades, Gehenna, Sheol, ideas of the Abyss, and other traditions into their conceptions of the realm of the dead. They write in a time when literary tours of hell and stories about the fate of lives after death were common. Most English Bibles translate Hades, Gehenna, and Sheol with the generic term “hell”, leaving readers unaware of the nuances and distinct terms in use.

The innovation of Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity was belief in a resurrection and with it the idea that after death some go to a place of reward and rest, while others are assigned a place of punishment for their bad deeds.

The religious text 1 Enoch 22 describes a Hades-like, watery place where the dead rest until they can be evaluated and judged. Similar images emerge in Christianity. The book of Revelation depicts a scene of final judgement where all the dead are raised to give an account of their actions, with some sentenced to a second death along with all evil (such as Satan) and others to eternal life.

It should be noted that these are poetic and highly symbolic apocalyptic texts whose purpose is primarily to persuade people to stay faithful to their God, not to set out a precise agenda for the afterlife.

The afterlife, in all its forms, is rarely related to correct belief but is rather about one’s actions and behaviour. Hence, vivid descriptions of “hell” emerge within the pages of the Bible and in early Christianity as a means of moral formation designed, as Meghan Henning has argued, to persuade people to act ethically.

For example, Luke’s gospel tells the story of a very wealthy man who lived lavishly and ignored a poor man, Lazarus, who begged outside his gate. In Jesus’ parable, both men die but their situations are shockingly reversed in the afterlife. The poor man finally has enough to eat and his bodily sores are healed up, whereas the rich man now suffers, crying out for a drink of water and begging for mercy.

Similarly, some Christians invoke hell to persuade individuals to repent of their sins. Such rhetoric is from a different time and place, when scaring people into faith seemed like a good idea. Likewise, many ancient Greek texts also depict tours of hell intended to confront readers with ethical questions and educate them about morality. TV shows like The Good Place continue to toy with this anxiety: that one earns a place in either heaven or hell based on one’s ethical deeds in life.

One challenge to the idea of hell as a literal place comes from the Bible itself. Parts of the New Testament record that when Jesus died on the cross he descended into the realm of the dead.

These fleeting references were preserved in ancient Christian creeds. Medieval Christians called Jesus’ descent to the dead the “harrowing of hell”. The theology behind it is that even the realm of the dead (hell) and death itself have been transformed by God.

It begs the question - does hell continue to exist? Many Christians today would say no. Others claim an ongoing belief in a literal place of eternal punishment, which raises a different theological question: what kind of God do you believe in to think God consigns people to eternal torment?

Hell is complicated precisely because it is a term used to denote a cluster of diverse ideas in the biblical tradition. Notions of a fiery place of torment, however, are more influenced by later medieval art, literature and Hollywood movies than they are by the biblical tradition or Christian theology.

Heaven

Image by Vicki Nunn from Pixabay

My pious Baptist grandmother once shockingly confessed, at the ripe old age of 93, that she didn’t want to go to heaven. “Why,” we asked? “Well, I think it will be rather boring just sitting around on clouds and singing hymns all day” she answered. She had a point.

Mark Twain might have agreed with her assessment. He once famously quipped that one should choose “heaven for the climate, hell for the company”.

Most of us have some concept of heaven, even if it is one formed by movies like What Dreams May Come, The Lovely Bones, or think it involves meeting Morgan Freeman in a white room. And while not as complicated as biblical ideas about hell, the biblical concept of heaven is not particularly simple either.

As New Testament scholar Paula Gooder writes:

it is impossible to state categorically what the Bible as a whole says about heaven… Biblical beliefs about heaven are varied, complex and fluid.

In the Christian tradition, heaven and paradise have been conflated as an answer to the question “where do I go when I die?” The idea of the dead being in heaven or enjoying paradise often brings enormous comfort to the bereaved and hope to those suffering or dying. Yet heaven and paradise were originally more about where God lived, not about us or our ultimate destination.

The words for heaven or heavens in both Hebrew (shamayim) and Greek (ouranos) can also be translated as sky. It is not something that exists eternally but rather part of creation.

The first line of the Bible states that heaven is created along with the creation of the earth (Genesis 1). It is primarily God’s dwelling place in the biblical tradition: a parallel realm where everything operates according to God’s will. Heaven is a place of peace, love, community, and worship, where God is surrounded by a heavenly court and other heavenly beings.

Biblical authors imagined the earth as a flat place with Sheol below (the realm of the dead) and a dome over the earth that separates it from the heavens or sky above. Of course, we know the earth is not flat, and this three-tiered universe makes no sense to a modern mind. Even so, the concept of heaven (wherever it is located) continues in Christian theology as the place where God dwells and a theological claim that this world is not all that there is.

The other main metaphor for God’s dwelling place in the Bible is paradise. According to Luke’s version of the crucifixion, Jesus converses with the men on either side of him while waiting to die and promises the man on a neighbouring cross “today you will be with me in paradise”.

References to paradise in the Bible are likely due to the influence of Persian culture and particularly Persian Royal gardens (paridaida). Persian walled gardens were known for their beautiful layout, diversity of plant life, walled enclosures, and being a place where the royal family might safely walk. They were effectively a paradise on earth.

The garden of Eden in Genesis 2 is strikingly similar to a Persian Royal garden or paradise. It has abundant water sources in the rivers that run through it, fruit and plants of every kind for food, and it is “pleasing to the eye”. God dwells there, or at least visits, and talks with Adam and Eve like a King might in a royal garden.

In the grand mythic stories that make up the Bible, humans are thrown out of Eden due to their disobedience. And so begins a narrative about human separation from the divine and how humans find their way back to God and God’s dwelling (paradise). In the Christian tradition, Jesus is the means of return.

The Easter event that Christians celebrate around the globe at this time of year is about the resurrection of Jesus after his violent death on the cross three days earlier. Jesus’ resurrection is seen as the promise, the “first-fruits” of what is possible for all humans – resurrection to an eternal life with God. This is, of course, a matter of faith not something that can be proven. But reconciliation with God lies at the heart of the Easter story.

The last book of the Bible, Revelation, conflates the idea of heaven and paradise. The author describes a vision of a new, re-created heaven coming down to earth. It is not escapism from this planet but rather an affirmation of all that is created, material, and earthly but now healed and renewed.

This final biblical vision of heaven is a lot like the garden of Eden – complete with the Tree of Life, rivers, plants and God – although this time it is also an urban, multicultural city. In what is essentially a return to Eden, humans are reconciled with God and, of course, with one another.

Heaven or paradise in the Bible is a utopian vision, designed not only to inspire faith in God but also in the hope that people might embody the values of love and reconciliation in this world.

Robyn J. Whitaker
This two part article was republished from http://TheConversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original articles http://https://theconversation.com/what-is-hell-exactly-we-might-joke-its-other-people-but-the-bible-has-a-more-complicated-answer-113732 and https://theconversation.com/what-and-where-is-heaven-the-answers-are-at-the-heart-of-the-easter-story-115451 .