I was raised in a Christian family, and in a community that is overwhelmingly Christian. Over the past decade or so I've seen more and more people begin to look at and study the concept of eternal torment and question it.
The Jews, in Israel before and during the time of Jesus believed in a place of eternal, unending, fiery torment and they called it both Gehinnom/Gehenna and Sheol. When Jesus taught about,
"Eternal punishment, Mt 25:46"
"the fire of hell where the fire is not quenched and the worm does not die, Mk 9:43-48" and
"cast into a fiery furnace where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth, Mt 13:42, 50
better for him [a person who offends a little one] that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Mt 18:6
it had been good for him [the one who betrays Jesus] if he had not been born. Mat 26:24
These teachings supported and sanctioned the existing Jewish view of eternal hell. In Matt. 18:6, 26:24 Jesus teaches that there is a fate worse than death or nonexistence. A fate worse than death is also mentioned in Heb 10:28-31.
Heb 10:28 He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses:
29 Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?
30 For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people.
31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
If Jesus had wanted to say eternal death in Matt 25:46, He knew the word for death and that is what He would have said but He said
eternal punishment. The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection, they knew that everybody died, young, old, good, bad, and knew that it was permanent. When Jesus taught
eternal punishment they would not have understood death, it would have meant something worse to them.
Jesus was born, and grew to maturity, in 1st century Israel. He knew what the Jews, believed about hell. If the Jews were wrong when Jesus taught about mans eternal fate, such as eternal punishment, He would have corrected them. Jesus did not correct them, thus their teaching on hell was correct. Here is historical evidence to support this.
Jewish Encyclopedia, Gehenna
The place where children were sacrificed to the god Moloch was originally in the "valley of the son of Hinnom," to the south of Jerusalem (
Josh. xv. 8, passim; II Kings xxiii. 10; Jer. ii. 23; vii. 31-32; xix. 6, 13-14). For this reason the valley was deemed to be accursed, and "
Gehenna" therefore soon became a figurative equivalent for "hell." Hell, like paradise, was created by God (Sotah 22a); [Note, this is according to the ancient Jews, long before the Christian era, NOT the bias of Christian translators.]
It is assumed in general that
sinners go to hell immediately after their death. The famous teacher Johanan b. Zakkai wept before his death because he did not know whether he would go to paradise or to hell (Ber. 28b).
The pious go to paradise, and sinners to hell (B.M. 83b).
But as regards the heretics, etc., and Jeroboam, Nebat's son,
hell shall pass away, but they shall not pass away" (R. H. 17a; comp. Shab. 33b). All that descend into Gehenna shall come up again, with the exception of three classes of men: those who have committed adultery, or shamed their neighbors, or vilified them (B. M. 58b).[/i]
As mentioned above, heretics and the Roman oppressors go to Gehenna, and the same fate awaits the Persians, the oppressors of the Babylonian Jews (Ber. 8b).
When Nebuchadnezzar descended into hell, [Sheol] all its inhabitants were afraid that he was coming to rule over them (Shab. 149a; comp.
Isa. xiv. 9-10). The Book of
Enoch also says that it is chiefly
the heathen who are to be cast into the fiery pool on the Day of Judgment (x. 6, xci. 9, et al). "The Lord, the Almighty, will punish them on the Day of Judgment by putting fire and worms into their flesh, so that they cry out with pain unto all eternity" (
Judith xvi. 17).
The sinners in Gehenna will be filled with pain when God puts back the souls into the dead bodies on the Day of Judgment, according to Isa. xxxiii. 11 (Sanh. 108b).
Jewish Encyclopedia Online
====================================================================
Talmud -Tractate Rosh Hashanah Chapter 1.
The school of Hillel says: . . .
but as for Minim, [follower of Jesus] informers and disbelievers, who deny the Torah, or Resurrection, or separate themselves from the congregation, or who inspire their fellowmen with dread of them, or who sin and cause others to sin, as did Jeroboam the son of Nebat and his followers,
they all descend to Gehenna, and are judged there from generation to generation, as it is said [Isa. lxvi. 24]: "And they shall go forth and look upon the carcases of the men who have transgressed against Me; for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched." Even when Gehenna will be destroyed, they will not be consumed, as it is written [Psalms, xlix. 15]: "And their forms wasteth away in the nether world," which the sages comment upon to mean that their forms shall endure even when the grave is no more. Concerning them Hannah says
[I Sam. ii. 10]: "The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces."
Tract Rosh Hashana: Chapter I.
