Question regarding Hell (Gehenna, Hades etc)

When JESUS first mentions hell, in Matt. 5:22, He used the term 'gehenna', the lake of fire. In the famous Matt. 16:18, the verse the RCC uses to justify the office of Pope, Jesus uses the teerm 'gates of HADES' , rendered 'gates of HELL' in the KJV. In Matt. 23:33, Jesus speax of the 'damnation of GEHENNA'. And in Luke 16:23, in His parable of the rich man & the beggar Lazarus, He uses the term 'hades'. We see in this parable that hades is divided into areas of 'torments' and 'paradise'. He told the repentant thief on the cross that 'today, you shall be with Me in PARADISE.And in Acts 2:27 & 31, Peter spoke of David's prophecy of Christ, saying His soul was not left in HADES. And the kicker is Rev. 20:14 where HADES is cast into the lake of fire.

Jesus clearly differentiates between hades and gehenna, and it's a goof to render hades as hell. JESUS DID NOT GO TO HELL upon His death on the cross; He went to the PARADISE area of HADES.

 

Hades simply means the place of the dead. Strongs defines hades as used in Luke 16:23 where the rich man went when he died as:

1) name Hades or Pluto, the god of the lower regions
2) Orcus, the nether world, the realm of the dead
3) later use of this word: the grave, death, hell

So, this simply means the place where all dead go, and does not speak of punishment. So it is appropriate to say Jesus went to hell. And when Peter spoke of Jesus's soul not being left in hell, the word hades was used.

Acts 2:31 He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption.

And Jesus used the word hades to show a place of punishment as he did in Matthew 11:23

Matt 11:23 And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.
24 But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee.

In verse 23 Jesus used the word hades translated hell, and verse 24 shows he is speaking of the unsaved. So, Jesus used both gehenna and hades to describe the place of torment where unsaved persons go.

 

They should all be translated hell. Not Hell means the place of the dead. Its over time that we get the conotation that hell was the same as the place of judgement.

 

Great post.

I think so much of our problem today of folks not knowing about Heaven, Hell, Hates and Paradise is due to the teaching and preaching so many of us get and what so many schools are teaching.

Bishop John A. Robinson and his liberal teaching has causes much trouble. He taught that Christ remains on the cross as long as one sinner remained in hell.

James Mill said ,"I will call no being good, who is not what I mean by good, when I use the word of my fellow creatures, and if their be a Being who can send me to hell for not calling on him, to hell I go."

Clark Pinnock taught and believed that the fire of God consumes the lost to extinction.

I don't think most Christians hear as much about hell in church, SS, Training Union as yesteryear. I read a report of how few in my book of Baptist who believe in hell or Satan or that Jesus is the Son of God and this survey was of pastors and seminary professors.

 

As with many other words, the Greek word hades has more than one meaning. The Anlex lexicon gives the following meanings: "(1) the place of the dead underworld (AC 2.27); (2) usually in the NT as the temporary underworld prison where the souls of the ungodly await the judgment (LU 16.23); (3) personified as following along after Death (RV 6.8)" (Accessed in Biblos 8.0 software.)

Sometimes it can be translated as "the place of the dead" or something similar, other times it can be translated as "Hell." (I capitalize "Hell" in English because it's a real place, as is New York.) One place where it clearly seems to mean Hell is in Matt. 11:23, where it is contrasted with Heaven. Again in the story of the rich man and Lazurus, since there is clearly eternal suffering, it should be translated Hell (Luke 16:23).

 

Winman and John of Japan, what about Jesus' telling the repentant thief on the cross that 'Today, you shall be with Me in PARADISE'? I believe He was referring to the "Abraham's bosom" area of hades, not heaven, His Father's abode. Remember, after He was resurrected, He said He had not yet ascended to His Father, so He hadn't yet returned to heaven. However, He WAS in PARADISE 3 days & nights.

I believe the KJV translators were a little over-zealous in translating hades as hell.

 

So there was a paradise section of Abraham's bosom but not a Hell section? Where is your evidence that somehow Hell didn't exist until after Christ died?

Edit: After re-reading the passage, I think my first statement here is inaccurate.

Note in the Luke passage, Abraham's bosom was far off from where the rich man was. And the place Lazurus was called was Abraham's bosom and was not called hades. However, the place the rich man went was specifically called hades and specified as a place of torment. This all says to me as a linguist and translator that Hell is the right English word in this passage. It's all about context.

 

Jesus is spoken of in Acts 2:27 and 31, and those passages read HADES, so paradise IS included in hades. The area ofhades where the souls of the wicked go is gererally called 'torments' after Jesus' parable. Now,while torments is the forerunner of the true hell, the lake of fire, I believe to simply call it hell is misleading. Were we just now receiving Scripture, we might call it "beta hell" or similar.

 

Roby, you are apparently operating on the principile that hades must always be translated the same way, and that there is only one meaning to it. Historically this is not true. In the writings of Homer, the Greek poet (Illiad and Odyssey), the word is used for two different meanings: Hades the Greek god of the underworld, and Hades the place of the dead.

Consider Luke for a moment. He was a Greek, and his primary audience was Theophilus, a Greek. Now Luke does use gehenna once when quoting Jesus (12:5). However, it makes sense to me that he would use hades to refer to Hell instead in ch. 16 because:
(1) the average Greek would not understand gehenna, a Hebraism.
(2) Again, according to one source I read, by the first century, hades had become a term evoking fear to Greeks. (I admit I haven't proved this to my own satisfaction yet, but I'm researching.) This argues against it being used by Luke for just generally "the place of the dead."

Now, furthermore, your argument seems to insert dispensational theology into semantics. In semantics the most important point is, how is the word used? Your term "torments" doesn't cut the mustard for me. There is no equivalent word in 1st century Greek.