I have covered Sheol and Hades as words improperly
translated to hell in the NT. Now for Gehenna
GEHENNA
Gehenna appears 12 times, and is always rendered "hell." It has nothing to do with Sheol or Hades and to translate it by the same word as is done in the Common Version is unfaithful and inexcusable.
Gehenna is a proper name, and should be so used. There is no warrant for translating it "hell," just theological bias. It is the name of a place. It appears 13 times in the Old Testament and is always there treated as a proper name of an actual site -- the Valley of Hinnom.
And in the New Testament, although truly it is used with a symbolic as well as a literal meaning, still it is on the literal meaning that the symbolic is based, and this cannot be understood if it is falsely translated.
For Jesus’ allusions to it to be understood, the facts of the name and place must be known. And one fact we shall find throughout -- it was a place of destruction and corruption, and not of preservation in torment.
Utter consuming destruction is always
the fundamental idea behind this word.
The Greek Gehenna is a transliteration of the Hebrew Gai Hinnom, meaning "Valley of Hinnom." This valley of Hinnom was the refuse dump of the city of Jerusalem. It can be seen on any map of Jerusalem, curving around the southwestern corner of the city. The Septuagint translators of the Old Testament into Greek use the word Gehenna where "Valley of Hinnom" appears in our version.
Originally, in this valley, there was a place called Topheth, and the history of the valley, as we are interested in it, begins with this place. The word Topheth is generally understood to mean "place of burning," and that is what it was. It was a place where, in the Canaanitish worship, human victims were burnt on an altar or sacrificed on the altar and the bodies then burned. Of King Ahaz it is recorded (2 Chron. 28:3) --
As a result of these practices by the apostate kings of Judah, we find in 2 Kings 23:10 that Josiah, the reformer --
Topheth is mentioned many times in Jeremiah 19. The prophet is sent there to prophesy against Jerusalem, and Topheth, the place of refuse and burning, is used as a symbol of destruction and defilement and consuming judgment.
Isaiah uses the same symbol in foretelling the destruction of Assyria. He says (Isa. 30:33):
In the New Testament the same is true. The literal Gehenna, just outside of Jerusalem, will figure largely as a site of the destructive fiery judgments to which the term is figuratively applied.
Thus the terms Tophet, Hinnom, or Gehenna were used to indicate devouring judgments and the destruction of anything that was cast out as useless and offensive and utterly consumed by corruption and fire.
Christ accordingly used the term of the destiny of the wicked, whom we have seen will be consumed to smoke and ashes by God’s fierce anger.
As in the literal all which was rejected, undesirable, and unclean was cast into Gehenna outside the city, so into the consuming lake of fire outside the spiritual new Jerusalem will be cast all who are found unfit for access into the city.
Not one of the 12 references to Gehenna give any hint of sustained torment, but always, in keeping with other references to Tophet and Hinnom, to burning consumption and destruction. There is not the slightest support for the popular doctrine of hell in any of the uses of Gehenna.
translated to hell in the NT. Now for Gehenna
GEHENNA
Gehenna appears 12 times, and is always rendered "hell." It has nothing to do with Sheol or Hades and to translate it by the same word as is done in the Common Version is unfaithful and inexcusable.
Gehenna is a proper name, and should be so used. There is no warrant for translating it "hell," just theological bias. It is the name of a place. It appears 13 times in the Old Testament and is always there treated as a proper name of an actual site -- the Valley of Hinnom.
And in the New Testament, although truly it is used with a symbolic as well as a literal meaning, still it is on the literal meaning that the symbolic is based, and this cannot be understood if it is falsely translated.
For Jesus’ allusions to it to be understood, the facts of the name and place must be known. And one fact we shall find throughout -- it was a place of destruction and corruption, and not of preservation in torment.
Utter consuming destruction is always
the fundamental idea behind this word.
The Greek Gehenna is a transliteration of the Hebrew Gai Hinnom, meaning "Valley of Hinnom." This valley of Hinnom was the refuse dump of the city of Jerusalem. It can be seen on any map of Jerusalem, curving around the southwestern corner of the city. The Septuagint translators of the Old Testament into Greek use the word Gehenna where "Valley of Hinnom" appears in our version.
Originally, in this valley, there was a place called Topheth, and the history of the valley, as we are interested in it, begins with this place. The word Topheth is generally understood to mean "place of burning," and that is what it was. It was a place where, in the Canaanitish worship, human victims were burnt on an altar or sacrificed on the altar and the bodies then burned. Of King Ahaz it is recorded (2 Chron. 28:3) --
- "Moreover he burnt incense in the Valley of the son of Hinnom, and burnt his children in the fire, after the abominations of the heathen whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel."
As a result of these practices by the apostate kings of Judah, we find in 2 Kings 23:10 that Josiah, the reformer --
- "Defiled Topheth, which is in the Valley of the children of Hinnom (Gai Hinnom -- Gehenna), that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech.
Topheth is mentioned many times in Jeremiah 19. The prophet is sent there to prophesy against Jerusalem, and Topheth, the place of refuse and burning, is used as a symbol of destruction and defilement and consuming judgment.
Isaiah uses the same symbol in foretelling the destruction of Assyria. He says (Isa. 30:33):
- "Tophet is ordained of old; for the king it is prepared; he hath made it deep and large: the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it.
In the New Testament the same is true. The literal Gehenna, just outside of Jerusalem, will figure largely as a site of the destructive fiery judgments to which the term is figuratively applied.
Thus the terms Tophet, Hinnom, or Gehenna were used to indicate devouring judgments and the destruction of anything that was cast out as useless and offensive and utterly consumed by corruption and fire.
Christ accordingly used the term of the destiny of the wicked, whom we have seen will be consumed to smoke and ashes by God’s fierce anger.
As in the literal all which was rejected, undesirable, and unclean was cast into Gehenna outside the city, so into the consuming lake of fire outside the spiritual new Jerusalem will be cast all who are found unfit for access into the city.
Not one of the 12 references to Gehenna give any hint of sustained torment, but always, in keeping with other references to Tophet and Hinnom, to burning consumption and destruction. There is not the slightest support for the popular doctrine of hell in any of the uses of Gehenna.
