Isaiah 66:24 Mark 9:43-47 Gehenna, dead bodies, worm doesn't die

LittleLambofJesus · Nov 1, 2019

Has anyone studied on Isaiah 66:24 and Mark 9 concerning the gehenna of fire where the worn doesn't die and fire isn't quenched? Could that be symbolizing the fiery holocaust of 70AD Jerusalem?
Discuss......

Isaiah 66:
1This is what the Lord says:
“Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.
Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be?
2Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being?”

22“As the new heavens and the new earth that I make will endure before me,” declares the Lord, “so will your name and descendants endure. 23From one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, all mankind will come and bow down before me,” says the Lord. 24“And they will go out and look on the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; the worms that eat them will not die, the fire that burns them will not be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.”

24 “And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.”

Mark 9:43 `And if thy hand may cause thee to stumble, cut it off; it is better for thee maimed to be entering into the life, than having the two hands to go away to the gehenna, to the fire--the unquenchable-- 44 where their worm is not dying, and the fire is not being quenched.
45 `And if thy foot may cause thee to stumble, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter into the life lame, than having the two feet to be cast to the gehenna, to the fire--the unquenchable-- 46 where there worm is not dying, and the fire is not being quenched.
47 And if thine eye may cause thee to stumble, cast it out; it is better for thee one-eyed to enter into the reign of God, than having two eyes, to be cast to the gehenna of the fire-- 48 where their worm is not dying, and the fire is not being quenched;
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A few good vids on those passages..........

joshua 1 9 · Nov 1, 2019

LittleLambofJesus said:
Has anyone studied on Isaiah 66:24 and Mark 9 concerning the gehenna of fire where the worn doesn't die and fire isn't quenched?

Gehenna was a real garbage dump at the time of Jesus. Under the law of Moses this is where they took their garbage to get rid of it. The fire is always burning and there are worms that eats the garbage. Neil Degrasse Tyson says: “I would request that my body in death be buried not cremated, so that the energy content contained within it gets returned to the earth, so that flora and fauna can dine upon it, just as I have dined upon flora and fauna during my lifetime” The Bible suggests that this is a place where they took bodies to burn them.

Jeremiah 7:31–32 (ESV) — And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire,

Der Alte · Nov 1, 2019

joshua 1 9 said:
Gehenna was a real garbage dump at the time of Jesus. Under the law of Moses this is where they took their garbage to get rid of it. The fire is always burning and there are worms that eats the garbage. Neil Degrasse Tyson says: “I would request that my body in death be buried not cremated, so that the energy content contained within it gets returned to the earth, so that flora and fauna can dine upon it, just as I have dined upon flora and fauna during my lifetime” The Bible suggests that this is a place where they took bodies to burn them.
Jeremiah 7:31–32 (ESV) — And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire,

I am sorry you are misinformed. There was a trash dump in a valley near Jerusalem but it was not Ge Hinnom/Gehenna it was the Kidron valley, see below.

Jewish Encyclopedia, Gehenna
The place where children were sacrificed to the god Moloch … 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). … 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 supposed bias of Christian translators. DA]

(I)n general …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]
… 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, [ שׁאול /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 [x. 6, xci. 9, etal] 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 toIsa. xxxiii. 11 (Sanh. 108b).
Link: Jewish Encyclopedia Online
Note, scripture references are highlighted in blue.
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Encyclopedia Judaica:
Gehinnom (Heb. גֵּי בֶן־הִנֹּם, גֵּי בְנֵי הִנֹּם, גֵּיא בֶן־הִנֹּם, גֵּיא הִנֹּם; Gr. Γέεννα; "Valley of Ben-Hinnom, Valley of [the Son (s) of] Hinnom," Gehenna), a valley south of Jerusalem on one of the borders between the territories of Judah and Benjamin, between the Valley of *Rephaim and *En-Rogel (Josh. 15:8; 18:16). It is identified with Wadi er-Rababi.
…..During the time of the Monarchy, Gehinnom, at a place called Topheth, was the site of a cult which involved the burning of children (II Kings 23:10; Jer. 7:31; 32:35 et al.; ). Jeremiah repeatedly condemned this cult and predicted that on its account Topheth and the Valley of the Son of Hinnom would be called the Valley of the "Slaughter" (Jer. 19:5–6).
In Judaism the name Gehinnom is generally used as an appellation of the place of torment reserved for the wicked after death. The New Testament used the Greek form Gehenna in the same sense.
Gehinnom
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Talmud -Tractate Rosh Hashanah Chapter 1.
The school of Hillel says: . . . but as for Minim, [followers 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."
Link: Tract Rosh Hashana: Chapter I.

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The traditional explanation that a burning rubbish heap in the Valley of Hinnom south of Jerusalem gave rise to the idea of a fiery Gehenna of judgment is attributed to Rabbi David Kimhi's commentary on Psalm 27:13 (ca. A.D. 1200). He maintained that in this loathsome valley fires were kept burning perpetually to consume the filth and cadavers thrown into it. However, Strack and Billerbeck state that there is neither archaeological nor literary evidence in support of this claim, in either the earlier intertestamental or the later rabbinic sources (Hermann L. Strack and Paul Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud and Midrasch, 5 vols. [Munich: Beck, 1922-56], 4:2:1030). Also a more recent author holds a similar view (Lloyd R. Bailey, "Gehenna: The Topography of Hell," Biblical Archeologist 49 [1986]: 189.
Source, Bibliotheca Sacra / July–September 1992
Scharen: Gehenna in the Synoptics Pt. 1

/…..Note there is no “archaeological nor literary evidence in support of this claim, [that Gehenna was ever used as a garbage dump] in either the earlier intertestamental or the later rabbinic sources” If Gehenna was ever used as a garbage dump there should be broken pottery, tools, utensils, bones, etc. but there is no such evidence.

“Gehenna is presented as diametrically opposed to ‘life’: it is better to enter life than to go to Gehenna. . .It is common practice, both in scholarly and less technical works, to associate the description of Gehenna with the supposedly contemporary garbage dump in the valley of Hinnom. This association often leads scholars to emphasize the destructive aspects of the judgment here depicted: fire burns until the object is completely consumed. Two particular problems may be noted in connection with this approach. First, there is no convincing evidence in the primary sources for the existence of a fiery rubbish dump in this location (in any case, a thorough investigation would be appreciated). Secondly, the significant background to this passage more probably lies in Jesus’ allusion to Isaiah 66:24.”
(“The Duration of Divine Judgment in the New Testament” in The Reader Must Understand edited by K. Brower and M. W. Ellion, p. 223, emphasis mine)
G. R. Beasley-Murray in Jesus and the Kingdom of God:
“Ge-Hinnom (Aramaic Ge-hinnam, hence the Greek Geenna), ‘The Valley of Hinnom,’ lay south of Jerusalem, immediately outside its walls. The notion, still referred to by some commentators, that the city’s rubbish was burned in this valley, has no further basis than a statement by the Jewish scholar Kimchi (sic) made about A.D. 1200; it is not attested in any ancient source.” (p. 376n.92)
The Burning Garbage Dump of Gehenna is a myth - Archaeology, Biblical History & Textual Criticism
Miqweh of Second Temple Period. ......Jerusalem City-Dump in the Late Second Temple Period, ZDPV, 119/1 (2003),
The chance discovery of an Early Roman city dump (1st century CE) in Jerusalem has yielded for the first time ever quantitative data on garbage components that introduce us to the mundane daily life Jerusalemites led and the kind of animals that were featured in their diet. ...
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Excavations near the Temple Mount and within the residential areas have already shown that no waste had accumulated there (Reich and Billig 2000), and thus waste must have been removed, most likely in an organized manner. Recently, the contemporaneous city-dump was identified on the eastern slope of the south-eastern hill of Jerusalem in the form of a thick mantle (up to 10 m, 200,000 m3 ) (Reich and Shukron 2003). The dump is located roughly 100 m outside and south-east of the Temple Mount on the eastern slope of the Kidron Valley (fig. 1), and extends at least 400 m and is 50–70 m wide. Large amounts of pottery and coins date the dump to the Early Roman period (the 1st century BCE and the 1st century CE up to the destruction of the city by the Romans in 70 CE). A preliminary study of the garbage (Bouchnik, Bar-Oz and Reich 2004; Bouchnik et al. 2005) showed the presence of animal bones, and a detailed multidisciplinary joint study of the debris was carried out.
https://www.researchgate.net/public...udy_of_the_City-Dump_of_Early_Roman_Jerusalem

eleos1954 · Nov 2, 2019

LittleLambofJesus said:
Has anyone studied on Isaiah 66:24 and Mark 9 concerning the gehenna of fire where the worn doesn't die and fire isn't quenched? Could that be symbolizing the fiery holocaust of 70AD Jerusalem?
Discuss......

Isaiah 66:
1This is what the Lord says:
“Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.
Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be?
2Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being?”

22“As the new heavens and the new earth that I make will endure before me,” declares the Lord, “so will your name and descendants endure. 23From one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, all mankind will come and bow down before me,” says the Lord. 24“And they will go out and look on the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; the worms that eat them will not die, the fire that burns them will not be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.”

24 “And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.”

Mark 9:43 `And if thy hand may cause thee to stumble, cut it off; it is better for thee maimed to be entering into the life, than having the two hands to go away to the gehenna, to the fire--the unquenchable-- 44 where their worm is not dying, and the fire is not being quenched.
45 `And if thy foot may cause thee to stumble, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter into the life lame, than having the two feet to be cast to the gehenna, to the fire--the unquenchable-- 46 where there worm is not dying, and the fire is not being quenched.
47 And if thine eye may cause thee to stumble, cast it out; it is better for thee one-eyed to enter into the reign of God, than having two eyes, to be cast to the gehenna of the fire-- 48 where their worm is not dying, and the fire is not being quenched;
============================

In many Bible translations, the word hell appears eleven times on Jesus’ lips. He actually used the Greek term gehenna, from the Hebrew name Gê Hinnom, Valley of Hinnom. According to the Old Testament, in this gorge south of Jerusalem, kings Ahaz and Manasseh conducted the horrendous pagan rite of burning children to Molech (2 Chron. 28:3; 2 Chron. 33:6). Later, godly king Josiah brought the practice to a halt (2 Kings 23:10). Because of the sins perpetrated in it, Jeremiah prophesied that God would make the place a valley of slaughter (Jer. 7:32-33; Jer. 19:6). Hence, for the Jews, the valley became a symbol of the last judgment and the punishment of the impenitent. Jesus used the name figuratively, without explaining any details regarding the time and place of the punishment, which we find in other biblical passages. Hell, though, is not a place of eternal punishment.

Mark 9:48 is taken from Isa 66:24. In that chapter the future salvation of Jerusalem as well as the judgment on unbelievers are depicted. Interestingly enough v. 24 talks about corpses or dead bodies which are affected by the worm and the fire. These are not living beings anymore. The word "worm" is found in the singular and not in the plural. The fire is unquenchable in the sense that nobody can quench it until it has done its work. In Jer 17:27 the destruction of Jerusalem is announced which took place when the Babylonians conquered the city .The fire could not be quenched. But today it does not burn any longer. It burned until it had consumed what can be consumed. After that it was extinguished.

Thus, neither the fire nor the worm are eternal. The text does not talk about a soul either, separated from the body. If such a soul would exist, it would not be affected by worm or fire anyway. On the other hand, the worm cannot be equated with the disembodied soul of humans. The worm is "their worm", namely those who stood in opposition to God and have now passed away. It is so to speak not an individual worm. The worm is furthermore so closely related to fire that it must be regarded as a means of destruction similar to the fire. Nowhere in the Bible is a worm identified with the soul. Living human beings can be compared to worms (Ps 22:6 and Job 25:6). However, when they die they become food for the worms, as Isaiah stresses in Isa 14:ll. In other words, within the Book of Isaiah "worm" is a term that relates to judgment. It is not a human part that lives on.

Apex · Nov 6, 2019

LittleLambofJesus said:
Could that be symbolizing the fiery holocaust of 70AD Jerusalem?

I've been leaning this way for a while now.

LittleLambofJesus · Nov 11, 2019

joshua 1 9 said:
Gehenna was a real garbage dump at the time of Jesus. Under the law of Moses this is where they took their garbage to get rid of it. The fire is always burning and there are worms that eats the garbage. Neil Degrasse Tyson says: “I would request that my body in death be buried not cremated, so that the energy content contained within it gets returned to the earth, so that flora and fauna can dine upon it, just as I have dined upon flora and fauna during my lifetime” The Bible suggests that this is a place where they took bodies to burn them.

Jeremiah 7:31–32 (ESV) — And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire,

Thank you for that informative post.

Jer 7:32
“Therefore behold, the days are coming,” says the LORD, “when it will no more be called Tophet, or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; for they will bury in Tophet until there is no room.

Jer 19:6 “therefore behold, the days are coming,” says the LORD, “that this place shall no more be called Tophet or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter

Gehenna - Wikipedia

Gehenna is a small valley in Jerusalem. In the Hebrew Bible, Gehenna was initially where some of the kings of Judah sacrificed their children by fire.[1] Thereafter, it was deemed to be cursed (Jer. 7:31, 19:2–6).[2]

In rabbinic literature Gehenna is a destination of the wicked.[3] This is different from the more neutral Sheol/Hades, the abode of the dead, although the King James Version of the Bible usually translates both with the Anglo-Saxon word "hell".

In the King James Version of the Bible, the term appears 13 times in 11 different verses as Valley of Hinnom, Valley of the son of Hinnom or Valley of the children of Hinnom.

The Valley of Hinnom is the modern name for the valley surrounding Jerusalem's Old City, including Mount Zion, from the west and south. It meets and merges with the Kidron Valley, the other principal valley around the Old City, near the southeastern corner of the city.
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Isaiah 66:24 Mark 9:43-47 Gehenna, dead bodies, worm doesn't die

LittleLambofJesus

Hebrews 2:14.... Pesky Devil, git!

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joshua 1 9

Well-Known Member

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Der Alte

This is me about 1 yr. old.

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eleos1954

God is Love

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Apex

Radical Centrist & Ethicist

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LittleLambofJesus

Hebrews 2:14.... Pesky Devil, git!

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