Hell in Christianity

A detail from Hieronymus Bosch's depiction of Hell (16th century)

In some versions of Christian theology, Hell is the place or state into which, by God's definitive judgment, unrepentant sinners pass in the general judgment, or, as some Christians believe, immediately after death as a result of a person's choice to be separated from God (particular judgment). Its character is inferred from teaching in the biblical texts, some of which, interpreted literally, have given rise to the popular idea of Hell. Some theologians see Hell as the consequence of rejecting union with God.

Different Hebrew and Greek words are translated as "Hell" in most English-language Christian Bibles. These words include:

• "Sheol" (Biblical Hebrew: שְׁאוֹל, romanized: Šəʾōl) in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), and "Hades" in the New Testament. Some modern versions, such as the New International Version, translate Sheol as "grave" and transliterate "Hades". Some denominations, like the Jehovah's Witnesses, believe that these refer to a state of complete unconsciousness. It is generally agreed that both Sheol and Hades typically refer to the grave, the temporary abode of the dead, the underworld.
• "Gehenna", in the New Testament, in which it is described as a place where both soul and body can be destroyed (Matthew 10:28) in "unquenchable fire" (Mark 9:43). The word is often translated as "Hell", but it is sometimes transliterated as Gehenna.. Gehenna, referenced in Joshua 18:16, Jeremiah 7:31, Jeremiah 19:2, and Jeremiah 19:6 in the Hebrew Bible, Rosh Hashanah 17a:3 and Shabbat 33b:7 in the Talmud, and Shemot Rabbah 2:2 and Bereshit Rabbah 48:8 in the Midrash, was a physical location situated outside the city walls of Jerusalem.
• The Greek verb ταρταρῶ (tartarō, derived from Tartarus), which occurs once in the New Testament (in 2 Peter 2:4), is almost always translated by a phrase such as "thrown down to hell". A few translations render it as "Tartarus"; of this term, the Holman Christian Standard Bible states: "Tartarus is a Greek name for a subterranean place of divine punishment lower than Hades."

Jewish background

Main articles: Sheol and Gehenna

Initially in ancient Jewish belief, the dead were consigned to Sheol, a place to which all were sent indiscriminately. Sheol was thought of as a place situated below the ground—a place of darkness, silence, and forgetfulness. By the third or second century BC, the idea had evolved to encompass separate divisions in Sheol for the righteous and wicked, as in the Book of Enoch.

By the Savoraic or early Geonic parts of the Rabbinic period (500–640 AD), Gehinnom was viewed as the place of ultimate punishment, as Rabbi Yehudah is recorded teaching in Kiddushin 82a:8: "[Even] the best of physicians is to Gehenna, and [even] the fittest of butchers is a partner of Amalek." It is also noted as such in the earlier apocryphal Assumption of Moses and 2 Esdras.

New Testament

Three different New Testament words appear in most English translations as "Hell":

Greek NT	NT occurrences	KJV	NKJV	NASB	NIV	ESV	CEV	NLT
ᾅδης (Hades)	9	Hell (9/10)	Hades (10/10)	Hades (9/9)	Hades (7/9 or 4/9)	Hades (8/9)	death's kingdom (3/9)	grave (6/9)
γέεννα (Gehenna)	12	Hell	Hell	Hell	Hell	Hell	Hell	Hell
ταρταρῶ (Tartarō̂, verb)	1	Hell	Hell	Hell	Hell	Hell	Hell	Hell

The most common New Testament term translated as "Hell" is γέεννα (gehenna), a direct loan of Hebrew גהנום/גהנם (ge-hinnom). Apart from one use in James 3:6, this term is found exclusively in the synoptic gospels. Gehenna is most frequently described as a place of punishment (e.g., Matthew 5:22, Matthew 18:8–9; Mark 9:43–49).

The New Testament also uses the Greek word hades, usually to refer to the abode of the dead (e.g., Acts 2:31; Revelation 20:13). Only one passage describes hades as a place of torment, the parable of Lazarus and Dives (Luke 16:19–31). Jesus here depicts a wicked man suffering fiery torment in hades, which is contrasted with the bosom of Abraham, and explains that it is impossible to cross over from one to the other. Some scholars believe that this parable reflects the intertestamental Jewish view of hades (or sheol) as containing separate divisions for the wicked and righteous.

Parables of Jesus concerning the hereafter

In the eschatological discourse of Matthew 25:31–46, Jesus says that, when the Son of Man comes in his glory, he will separate people from one another as a shepherd separates sheep from goats, and will consign to everlasting fire those who failed to aid "the least of his brothers". This separation is stark, with no explicit provision made for fine gradations of merit or guilt:

Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me. ...whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.

— Matthew 25:41–43 (NIV)

Similar concepts

Lake of Fire

Further information: Lake of fire

The Book of Revelation mentions a lake of fire and brimstone in which unrighteous people are thrown.

Abyss

Further information: Abyss (religion)

According to the Book of Revelation, the abyss is the place in which the Seven-Headed Dragon is imprisoned during the Millennium.

Eastern Orthodox views

Hell – detail from a fresco in the medieval church of St Nicholas in Raduil, Bulgaria

See also: Bosom of Abraham

See also: Apocatastasis, Aerial toll house, and Eastern Orthodox theology

Some Eastern Orthodox Christians believe that Heaven and Hell are relations to or experiences of God's just and loving presence. There is no created place of divine absence, nor is hell an ontological separation from God. One expression of the Eastern teaching is that hell and heaven are dimensions of God's intensifying presence, as this presence is experienced either as torment or as paradise depending on the spiritual state of a person dwelling with God. For one who hates God and by extension hates himself as God's image-bearer, to be encompassed by the divine presence could only result in unspeakable anguish. Aristotle Papanikolaou and Elizabeth H. Prodromou write in their book Thinking Through Faith: New Perspectives from Orthodox Christian Scholars that for the Eastern Orthodox: "Those theological symbols, heaven and hell, are not crudely understood as spatial destinations but rather refer to the experience of God's presence according to two different modes."

Several Eastern Orthodox theologians do describe hell as separation from God, in the sense of being out of fellowship or loving communion. Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov) spoke of "the hell of separation from God". Paul Evdokimov stated: "Hell is nothing else but separation of man from God, his autonomy excluding him from the place where God is present." According to Theodore Stylianopoulos, "Hell is a spiritual state of separation from God and inability to experience the love of God, while being conscious of the ultimate deprivation of it as punishment." Michel Quenot stated: "Hell is none other than the state of separation from God, a condition into which humanity was plunged for having preferred the creature to the Creator. It is the human creature, therefore, and not God, who engenders hell. Created free for the sake of love, man possesses the incredible power to reject this love, to say 'no' to God. By refusing communion with God, he becomes a predator, condemning himself to a spiritual death (hell) more dreadful than the physical death that derives from it." Another writer declared: "The circumstances that rise before us, the problems we encounter, the relationships we form, the choices we make, all ultimately concern our eternal union with or separation from God."

"A Monster from Hell". A 19th-century Russian hand-drawn lubok.

The Eastern Orthodox Church rejects what is presented as the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory as a place where believers suffer as their "venial sins" are purged before gaining admittance to heaven.

Images

Icon in Saint Catherine's Monastery, Sinai, showing monks falling from the Ladder to Heaven into the mouth of a dragon, representing Hell

John Chrysostom pictured Hell as associated with "unquenchable" fire and "various kinds of torments and torrents of punishment".

Icons based on The Ladder of Divine Ascent, by John Climacus, show monks ascending a thirty-rung ladder to Heaven represented by Christ, or succumbing to the arrows of demons and falling from the ladder into Hell, sometimes represented by an open-jawed dragon.