When I tell believers about God's victorious love and grace, that God through Yeshua "will draw all men" (John 12:32); "all men to justification of life" (Rom. 5:18,19); "in Yeshua shall all be made alive" (1 Cor. 15:22-28); "to head up all in the Yeshua" (Eph. 1:10); "That in the name of Yeshua every knee shall bow...every tongue should be acclaiming that Messiah Yeshua is Adonai, for the glory of God" (Phil. 2:10,11); "Who will have all men to be saved" (1 Tim. 2:4); "We have our hope set on the living God Who is the Savior of all men" (1 Tim. 4:10); "The all is created through Him and for Him" and "Through Him to reconcile the all to Him (making peace through the blood of His cross" (Col. 1:16, 20). When I declare God's glorious plan to restore all back to Himself, someone asks, "But what about hell?"
Yeshua never used the English word "hell" and He never used any Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic word meaning what most people believe "hell" means. For years I have asked preachers, "How many times is the word "hell" in the Bible, and how many Hebrew and Greek words are translated "hell" in your King James Bible?" None of them answered the question.
That the King James translators did not understand what "Sheol" and "Hades" meant is proven by the following:
"Out of the belly of hell (Sheol) cried I." (Jonah 2:2) Verse 1:17 tells us he was "in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights." Where was Jonah-in Hell or in a fish? If "Sheol" is translated "unseen" we have no problem. Jonah was in the "belly of the fish" and was "unseen." We know that Jonah was "in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights." (Jonah 1:17) This agrees with the words of Jesus, for He said, "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish." (Matt. 12:40) In the Greek Septuagint, (the Hebrew Old Testament translated into Greek around 200 B.C.) we find the Greek adjective aionios translated "forever" in Jonah 2:6 in the King James Bible. It is obvious that aionios "forever" cannot mean more than three days and three nights.
There is a problem here.
In 1 Cor. 15:55, the King James' Greek text contains the Greek word "Hades." They translated the Greek word "Hades" into the English word "grave," but they gave an alternative translation "Hell" in the margin. In Rev. 20:13,14, The Greek Text contains the word "Hades" which they translated into the English word "Hell." In the margin they put the alternative translation of "grave." It should begin to appear to the objective reader of the King James Bible that the translators were uncertain as to the meaning of the words "Hades" and "Sheol."PHP:The modern reader of a King James Bible printed in this century will not know this because many of the modern editions of the KJV have removed the marginal readings the original King James contained.
"Hades" occurs 11 times in the King's Greek Text (often misnamed "Textus Receptus"). When we study "Hades," let us remember that according to the KJV, Yeshua was in "Hell." (see Acts 2:27, 31) Obviously Yeshua' soul was not in "hell-fire."
Another Greek word "Gehenna" occurs 12 times in the New Testament; 11 times in the Gospels and one time in the Epistle of James. Yeshua used "Gehenna" about 7 times. Some of the occurrences of "Gehenna" are in parallel passages, that is, they refer to the same event. "Gehenna" is the Greek form of the Hebrew "ge-hinnom." It literally means "valley of Hinnom" Sometimes it is referred to as the "valley of the sons of Hinnom." In the Old Testament "Tophet(h)" also refers to this place. (See Young's Concordance under Hinnom) "Gehenna" is a valley that lays on the west and southwest of Jerusalem. In the valley, Israel offered up its children as a burnt offering to a god who came to be known as Moloch.
In Jeremiah, we hear God speaking to Jeremiah regarding this sacrifice, "And they have turned to Me the back, and not the face;though I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet they have not listened to receive instruction. but they set their abominations in the house which is called by My name, to defile it. And they built the high places of Baal which are in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and daughters to pass through the fire to Molech, which I did not command, nor did it come into My mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin." (Jer. 32:33-35) Jeremiah says this valley would one day be called the "Valley of slaughter." (Jer. 7:30-33) This Scripture had its literal fulfillment in 70 A.D. at the destruction of Jerusalem.
King Josiah, in his days, desecrated this place by tearing down all the idols, crushing or burning them, and burning human bones on them (probably those of the priests who presided over these rituals). A Jew was not allowed to touch anything that touched a dead human being. Please note, it was God's own people who were doing the burning, not God, and He said such a thing never entered His mind. Also note, not one single time in the entire Old Testament was this word "Ge-hinnom" translated "hell."
In Yeshua' day, this valley was a city dump very much like modern dumps-always being filled, and therefore always having something for the fire to consume and worms to eat. ("where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.) It was a place fit only for waste. Should a Jew, God's "chosen" people ever be given a burial in "Gehenna," it would be the most humiliating thing that could ever happen to him. It would be like saying that one's life here on earth was completely worthless, fit only for the dump. For Yeshua to tell a religious Jew, such as a Pharisee, that his life, his religious works, his devotion to God were fit only for the city dump, was to insult him in the worst possible way. Jews went to great efforts to make their funerals great events. Some even hired professional "mourners" to cry at their funeral. Herod was going to have the leaders of Israel killed on his day of death so that Israel would mourn on his death. This is the kind of mentality Jews had regarding their life and they way they should leave this world. Even today, one will hear Jews say that the most important thing a person owns is his name. They will go to great lengths to keep their name alive. They will name buildings, start foundations, etc., to keep their name alive. Many, who no longer believe in a resurrection feel this is the only way they can stay alive beyond the grave-to have their name remain in the minds of future generations.
Returning to "Gehenna," one can walk through this valley even today and return unscathed by its fires and untouched by the worms (maggets) which actually consumed a good part of the religious Priestly community of Israel in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Their bodies were piled up and their blood ran down into this very valley which Jesus prophesied would be the disgraceful burial place for hundreds of thousands of Jews of that very generation Yeshua was speaking to.
Whatever this valley represented in the Old Testament must be carried over to the New Testament. Nowhere in the Old Testament is this place translated "Hell" and nowhere in the Old Testament is there a hint that this place referred to a place of eternal punishment after death. The word which Yeshua referred to most often which the King James Bible unfortunately chose to render "hell," in the New Testament, but did not do so in the Old Testament, is this word "Hinnom" or Ge-hinnom (valley of Hinnom) or "Ge-ben-hinnom" (valley of the sons of Hinnom) which was transliterated into the Greek as "gehenna." A thorough study of this place in the Old Testament will dispel much myth regarding its significance. The Scriptural references for such a study are: Josh. 15:8; 18:16; 2 Kings 9:7; 15:3,4; 23:10, 36, 39; Ez. 23:37,39; 2 Chr. 28:3; Lev. 18:21; 20:2; Jer. 7:30-32; 19:2-6; 32:35. Remember, this place is never referred to as "Hell" in the Old Testament. References to this very same place in the New Testament are: Matt. 5:22; 5:29, 30; 10:28; 18:9; 23:15; 23:33; Mark 9:43; 9:45; 9:47; Luke 12:5; James 3:6. It should be mentioned that most of these references come from Yeshua' mouth and every reference to this word "gehenna" was addressed to God's own people, not to the nations around Israel.
The Greek word "tartarus" occurs one single time in the entire Bible and it is found in 2 Peter 2:4. It is the place where sinning messengers (angels) are reserved unto judgment.
The English word "Hell" occurs 54 times in the King James Bible, and is a translation of 4 Hebrew and Greek words. Not one of the words has a meaning even closely related to the meaning theologians have given the English word "Hell." Many Bibles translated in the last one hundred years do not contain the English word "Hell." Almost all of them have found no justification for translating "Sheol" into "Hell." Therefore, almost all English Bibles do not contain any references to our modern concept of "Hell" in the Old Testament. From Genesis to Malachi, "Hell" has disappeared as a result of better translating. Many Bibles have eliminated the word entirely.
Returning back to the subject of "Hell," we have found that the Hebrew word "Sheol" should never have been translated "Hell." The Jews today, whose Bible consists of the Old Testament do not translate it "Hell" because in no way does "Sheol" correspond with the images and doctrines the church associates with the word "Hell." The Greek word "Hades" is the equivalent of "Sheol" and has the same meaning.
The Greek mythological place the Greeks called "Tartarus" occurs one time in the Biblical text to denote a holding place for messengers (angels) "til" judgment which indicates an eventual release from this place.
Well said.
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