A professor at the University of Cambridge use to teach a course called “To understand Christianity, you must understand Judaism.”
What The Hell Is Hell to a 1st century Jew... Part 1
The term
Hades appears eleven times in the New Testament, where it is translated as “Hell” ten times and as “grave” once. The word derives from the Greek roots
a- (“not”) and
idein (“to see”), meaning “unseen” or “invisible.” Its sense closely parallels that of the Hebrew term
Sheol, which literally refers to “the grave” or “the realm of the dead.” Figuratively,
Sheol can denote destruction, downfall, calamity, or death within the present world, without any explicit reference to punishment or torment after death. This meaning appears consistently throughout the Old Testament, regardless of whether
Sheol is rendered “Hell,” “grave,” or “pit.” The same understanding applies to
Hades in the New Testament.
According to
The Emphatic Diaglott, “To translate
Hades by the word
Hell, as is done ten times out of eleven in the New Testament, is linguistically inaccurate unless the term retains its original Saxon meaning of
helan—‘to cover.’ The primitive sense of
Hell as something ‘hidden’ or ‘concealed’ aligns closely with the Greek
Hades and the Hebrew
Sheol. The later theological connotations of
Hell as a place of postmortem torment, however, differ significantly from the original meanings of these terms.”
In the Greek Septuagint—the version of the Hebrew Scriptures used in the time of Jesus—
Hades is consistently used as the equivalent of
Sheol. Thus, when Jesus or the apostles used
Hades, it would have carried the same sense as it did in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Dr. George Campbell, a noted biblical scholar, explained that “
Sheol signifies the state of the dead in general, without regard to moral character, happiness, or suffering.”
The term
Tartarus occurs only once in the Bible, in 2 Peter 2:4: “For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell [
Tartarus], and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment.” The Greek expression here is
tartarōsas, derived from
Tartarus. According to classical sources such as Anthon’s
Classical Dictionary,
Tartarus was understood in Greek mythology as a place of punishment for divine beings. In this passage, however, the angels are said to be “reserved unto judgment,” implying that their confinement is temporary and anticipatory rather than final.
The term
Gehenna (The word Hell in your Bible) is derived from the Hebrew
Ge Hinnom (“Valley of Hinnom”). Over time, it evolved through several linguistic forms—Chaldee
Gehennom, Arabic
Jahannam, and Greek
Gehenna.
The Valley of Hinnom (Hell) is a real geographical location on the southern boundary of Jerusalem (Joshua 15:8; 18:16). In ancient times, some Judean kings permitted the worship of the deity
Molech there, a practice condemned in the Hebrew Scriptures (2 Kings 23:10; Ezekiel 23:37–39; 2 Chronicles 28:3; Leviticus 18:21; 20:2).
Later, King Josiah desecrated the site to end such practices, and it eventually became associated with refuse and impurity. Fires were kept burning there to destroy waste, giving rise to the imagery of unquenchable fire and decaying matter—“where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:48). As scholar Moses Stuart observed, “The perpetual fires and decay in the Valley of Hinnom provided the symbolic language for judgment.”
Some translators and commentators suggest that
Gehenna might best have been left untranslated, as it was a known geographical and cultural reference for the audience of Jesus’ time. As Walter Balfour notes, “The Jewish listeners, familiar with the history and locality of the Valley of Hinnom, would have understood
Gehenna as a reference to that place of abhorrence, not as a description of an unseen world of punishment.”
Second Temple Judaism: the controlling worldview of this POST!
Second Temple Judaism was
not heaven/hell-centric. Its core framework was:
- Covenant, land, exile, restoration , Resurrection of the dead , The coming Kingdom of God (Messianic Age) , Age(s) of history, not timeless eternity , Judgment as vindication and correction , God’s final victory over death and evil
2. Death and the state of the dead (Sheol)
Jewish consensus (early Second Temple period)
- Sheol = the realm of the dead , No consciousness of praise or punishment , Righteous and wicked alike go there
Sources:
- Ecclesiastes 9:5
- Psalm 6:5
- Job 3:11–19
This matches : death, not torment, is the problem.
Later developments introduce differentiation
after resurrection, not immediately at death.
3. Resurrection: the central hope
This is critical
By the late Second Temple period,
resurrection—not heaven—became the dominant hope.
Key Jewish texts:
- Daniel 12:2 – resurrection to life or shame
- 2 Maccabees 7 – bodily resurrection as covenant justice
- 4 Ezra 7 – resurrection precedes judgment
- Josephus – Pharisees taught resurrection; Sadducees denied it
No Jewish group taught:
- immortal souls escaping to heaven forever
- eternal torment as the default fate
Instead:
God fixes injustice by raising the dead and restoring the righteous.
This is exactly Paul’s framework in 1 Corinthians 15....
