What the Hell

"'I am Hel,' she agreed. 'Sometimes called Hela, though most mortals dare not speak my name at all. No jokes, Magnus Chase? Who the Hel are you? What the Hel do you want? You look Hela bad. I was expecting more bravado.'"

Rick Riordan, The Sword of Summer (2015)

Hel, Norse goddess of the dishonourable dead, in an 1889 woodcut after a picture by a German illustrator called Johannes Gehrts. Hela's name is, unsurprisingly, cognate with English 'hell'.

Can we please stop talking about hell?

No, wait, let me rephrase that slightly, before you start worrying that I'm turning into some sort of namby-pamby theological liberal who'd like to reinvent the doctrine of everlasting punishment for the unrighteous as something rather more palatable and rather less true: can we please stop talking about 'hell'? Because ever since I noticed that the ESV uses the English word 'hell' to translate three totally different Greek terms used in the New Testament, I've harboured a growing suspicion that our use of this word in anglophone Christian circles is actually obscuring from us, rather than helping us understand, what the Bible says about life after death and judgement of the wicked. In terms of matching things up with what's revealed in the Bible, I don't really know what Christians mean when they use the word 'hell' in any given instance. And, if you'll forgive me, I dare to suppose that they often don't really know what they mean either.

The way this post is going to work is that I'm going to examine the biblical usage of some Hebrew and Greek words that might be translated or construed as 'hell', and from there, try to illuminate the picture I think the Bible actually paints on this front. I, unsurprisingly, think my case is pretty dang compelling, but do please go and look up the references and consider for yourself and let me know if you discern from the scriptures a yet more compelling alternative.

Here we go, then … References mentioned under more than one category pertaining to the same word are indicated in italics. Some of the references are sort of ambiguous, and of course there's a good deal of overlap between categories, but I've tried to place everything as best I can; if occurrences in a single passage seem to have different aspects as their primary emphasis, I've placed them in different categories. I really hope I haven't messed up on any of the chapter and verse numbers, but boy are there a lot of them, so it's entirely possible that I have.

שְׁאוֹל

Sheol

(sometimes translated e.g. 'grave', 'realm of the dead')

65 occurrences in scripture

• As place where dead people go down to/parallelled with death: Genesis 37:35; 42:38; 44:29; 44:31; 1 Samuel 2:6; 1 Kings 2:6, 9; Isaiah 5:14; 14:9, 11; 28:15, 18; 39:10; 38:18; Ezekiel 31:15, 16, 17; 32:21, 27; Hosea 13:14 (×2); Habakkuk 2:5; Job 7:9; 17:13; 21;13; 24:19; Psalm 6:5; 16:10; 49:14; 55:15; 89:48; 141:7; Proverbs 5:5; 7:27; 9:18; Ecclesiastes 9:10; Song of Songs 8:6
• As place where judged sinners (not necessarily yet dead) go down to/where sin leads: Numbers 16:30, 33; Job 24:19; Psalm 9:17; 31:17; 49:14; 55:15; Proverbs 1:12; 5:5; 7:27; 15:24; 23:14 (in these last two, the point is established by contrast)
• Parallelled with death in context of God's rescue from it: 2 Samuel 22:6; Jonah 2:2; Psalm 18:5; 30:3; 49:15; 86:13; 88:3; 116:3
• As deep place/place under the earth/contrasted with heaven: Deuteronomy 32:22; Isaiah 14:15; 57:9 (though here it refers more generally to far-away-ness); Amos 9:2; Job 11:8; 17:16; 139:8; 157:11
• As place of darkness/concealment: Job 14:13; 17:13; 26:6; Proverbs 15:11 (in these last two, the point is established by contrast: it's not concealed from God)
• As place never satisfied: Habakkuk 2:5; Proverbs 27:20; 30:16
• As place where no one praises God or does other good human activities: Isaiah 38:18; Psalm 6:5; Ecclesiastes 9:10

תְהוֹם

Tehom

(sometimes translated e.g. 'deep', 'depths')

35 occurrences in scripture

• As watery place/source of water/parallelled with sea (including Red Sea): Genesis 1:2; 7:11; 8:2; Exodus 15:5, 8; Deuteronomy 8:7; Isaiah 51:10; 63:13; Ezekiel 26:19; 31:4, 15 (not totally sure here because the idea is of stopping water, but hey); Jonah 2:5; Habakkuk 3:10; Job 28:14; 38:16, 30; 41:32; Psalm 33:7; 42:7; 77:16; 78:15; 104:6; 106:9; 135:6; 148:7; Proverbs 3:20; 8:24, 27, 28
• As deep place/contrasted with heaven: Genesis 49:25; Deuteronomy 33:13; Psalm 36:6; 71:20; 107:26; Proverbs 8:27, 28

אֲבַדּוֹן

Abaddon

(meaning 'destroyer')

6 occurrences in scripture

• Parallelled with Sheol
• as place exposed before God: Job 26:6; Proverbs 15:11
• as place never satisfied: Proverbs 27:20
• Parallelled with death
• as place not knowing wisdom: Job 28:22
• as place where no-one praises God: Psalm 88:11
• As faraway place/place of punishment?: Job 31:12

גֵּי (בֶן) הִנֹּם

Gey (Ven) Hinnom, i.e. Gehenna

(meaning 'valley of (the son of) Hinnom')

• As place in Jerusalem: Joshua 15:8; 18:6; Jeremiah 7:32; 19:2, 6; Nehemiah 11:30
• Specifically, where child sacrifices were burnt: 2 Kings 23:10; 2 Chronicles 28:3; 33:6; Jeremiah 7:31; 19:2, 6; 32:35

And because I clearly haven't bombarded you with enough information yet, here come the New Testament Greek terms:

ᾅδης

Hades

10 occurrences in scriptures

• Translating Sheol, as in Psalm 16:10 (see above): Acts 2:27, 31
• Parallelled with death: Revelation 1:18; 6:8; 20:13, 14
• As place where (wicked) dead go (and are tormented): Luke 16:23
• Contrasted with heaven in context of judgement: Matthew 11:23; Luke 10:15
• As one whose gates shall not prevail against the Church: Matthew 16:18

ἄβυσσος

Abyss

(sometimes translated e.g. 'bottomless pit')

9 occurrences in scripture

• Contrasted with heaven: Romans 10:17
• As place where evil spirits (including the Satan) and end-of-the-age plagues are imprisoned/rise from: Luke 8:31; Revelation 9:1, 2, 11; 11:7; 17:8; 20:1, 3

Ἀβαδδών

Abaddon

(transcribed from the Hebrew; Greek equivalent is Ἀπολλύων, Apollyon, also meaning 'destroyer')

1 occurrence in scripture

• As angel of the Abyss and king of the plague that rises from it: Revelation 9:11

γέεννα

Gehenna

(transcribed from the Hebrew)

12 occurrences in scripture

• As fiery place of ultimate post-death judgement: Matthew 5:22, 29, 30; 10:28; 18:9; 23:33; Mark 9:43, 45, 47; Luke 12:5
• Associated with sin: Matthew 23:15; James 3:6 (again, associated with fire)

τάρταρος

Tartarus

not mentioned in scripture, but the cognate verb ταρταρόω meaning 'condemn to Tartarus' occurs once

• As place where evil angels are imprisoned until judgement: 2 Peter 2:4

Whew. OK. Now, if I haven't yet lost your attention completely (what a diligent reader you are!), here's the picture that I think emerges from all this.

It's pretty straightforward to match up the Greek terms with their Hebrew equivalents: Abaddon and Gehenna are literally just transcribed; and I'll admit that I haven't been through the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) thoroughly, but it seems fair to say that Hades is the standard Greek translation for Sheol, and Abyss for Tehom. That only leaves Tartarus, which I'll deal with in a moment.

Hades, like Hel, was of course used to refer both to the realm of the dead and the deity who ruled it. Here's Hades with his pet dog Cerberus, according to a statue in the Museum if Archaeology in Crete; thanks to Aviad Bublil on Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hades%26cerberus-AviadBublil.JPG#mw-jump-to-license.

What we have, then, are three different locations. Sheol/Hades is a deep, dark place where humans go when they die; Tehom/the Abyss is a deep, watery place where evil spirits are; and Gehenna was a place in Jerusalem where children were burnt in fire to appease false gods, and hence the name came to refer to a fiery place where the true God will expend his wrath on the unrighteous. (As for Abaddon, it's hard to build up a clear picture from the Old Testament references, so I'm happy to lean on the New Testament one for my definition: he's the angel in charge of the Abyss, whose name is apparently sometimes used metonymously - further investigation needed.) For this reason, I think it seems very persuasive to equate Gehenna with the lake of fire mentioned in Revelation 19:20 and 20:10, 14-15. And who ends up in the lake of fire? The beast, the false prophet, the devil, death, Hades, and anyone whose name isn't written in the book of life.

But hang on - Hades is Sheol, right? So that means Sheol isn't the permanent abode of the dead, because it's thrown into Gehenna at the end of the age. Equally, note that the beast and the devil rise out of the Abyss before they're thrown into Gehenna. At the moment, then, the human dead are being kept separately to evil spirits - the former in Sheol, the latter in Tehom - but at the end of the age, those temporary holding cells will be done away with, and all the unrighteous, human or spirit, will end up in one place: Gehenna.

The fact that the Abyss is clearly the abode of evil spirits leads me to consider Tartarus, as alluded to in 2 Peter 2:4 (see above), another equivalent term for it. If you keep reading in 2 Peter, you'll find, a few verses into the next chapter, confirmation that all that belongs to the present order is reserved for destruction in fire, i.e. Gehenna. But that's preceded by a declaration that the former order was destroyed in water, out of which the present order was then created. Here we have an allusion to what happened before the beginning of Genesis, when the earth was formless and void and darkness was over the face of Tehom and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. Over the waters. Which already existed. Because, according to Peter, the previous cosmos was destroyed in water.

This explains why, whereas Gehenna is conceived of as fiery, Tehom is conceived of as watery. The final judgement of the age before our own came in water, and the prison of the rebels of that age was therefore a watery one. (Quick side note: for this reason, it makes perfect sense that when God decided to wipe out all flesh in Genesis 6, he did it with water, because that's what your standard medium of judgement was at that stage. Of course, he subsequently ruled out the option of ever using the same strategy again, and so in later scripture you get increasing use of fire imagery to describe judgement, though water imagery for this purpose doesn't immediately disappear or anything.) The final judgement of the present age, by contrast, will come in fire, and the ultimate prison for rebels of both ages is therefore a fiery one. In the age to come, of course, there will be no rebellion, nor, therefore, any need for a final judgement.

So that's lots of death and judgement so far: where does God's salvation plan fit into all this? The story of the rich man and Lazarus is very informative here. Lazarus died and was carried by angels to Abraham's side; the rich man died and ended up in torment in Hades, i.e. Sheol. Abraham confirmed that there was a great chasm between these two places, but they evidently weren't too far separated to hold a conversation across that chasm. One of the key things we learn about Sheol from the Old Testament is that it's at the very opposite end of the cosmos to God's abode in heaven, so I don't think Abraham and Lazarus are in heaven at this point; they would seem, rather, to be in a different bit of Sheol, a bit where things suck a lot less. This makes sense of the implicit assumption in the Old Testament that Sheol is where everyone goes when they die, not just the wicked: for instance, Jacob and his sons all talked about his prospective death from sheer grief in terms of going down to Sheol, which would be a pretty terrible thing to say if there were some other afterlife option for righteous people. In Adam, all die, and all go to Sheol.

But then Jesus said to the thief on the cross that he would today be with him in paradise - the abode of God, heaven. And Paul talks about death as going to be with the Lord, who is, since his ascension, very definitely in heaven. Evidently, people can now go to heaven and not Sheol when they die. Something has changed. Gosh, it couldn't possibly be Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, justification of the elect, and defeat of sin and death, enabling sinful humans to stand in the presence of a holy God as beloved sons, could it? As in Adam all die, so in Christ all are made alive. So when Peter talks about the gospel being preached to the dead, so that, though judged in flesh - sent to Sheol - they might live in spirit, I assume he means that when Jesus died, and went to Sheol himself, he preached the gospel to Abraham and Lazarus and all the rest on that side of the chasm, and they believed and were born again and raised to the heavenlies, like the rest of us have been. Isn't that a neat solution to the question of what eternal salvation looked like before Jesus?

To summarise, then - I think a nice chronological schema should do it:

• Former age
• Judgement in water; rebels (evil spirits) in Tehom
• Present age
• Humans all go to Sheol when they die, but there's a nice separate bit for those who had faith
• The cross: all those with faith now go to heaven to be with the Lord; the rest still get Sheol
• Evil spirits still in Tehom
• End of the age: judgement in fire; rebels (from both ages, i.e. spirits and humans) all thrown into Gehenna
• Future age
• New heavens and earth; all righteous (spirits and humans) with the Lord forever and ever; no rebellion; no final judgement

So I hope you can see why I think the term 'hell' is potentially not a very helpful one with which to refer to the fate of those who die in their sins. If you're convinced by my proposed system - which to my mind just falls out of scripture if you really look at it, but as I say, always very happy to be corrected - then can I encourage you to join me in trying to replace 'hell' with an appropriate term for what you actually mean in the instance at hand? I tend to feel we can only do ourselves a favour by being clear about this stuff.

But the key point is always, of course, that all thanks and praise are due to God who was and is and is to come, whose judgement on rebellion is just and proportional, who has unbelievable mercy on sinners like you and me to buy us back from the trajectory of ending up first in Sheol and then in Gehenna, by the blood of Jesus who underwent that judgement of death in our stead; and unbelievable grace to grant us to dwell in his own presence, to receive the inheritance of the perfect age to come, which will end neither in water nor in fire nor in anything, but rather continue forever and ever. Can I get an 'amen'?