When we think of hell we usually think of fire. Somewhere deep within the bowels of hell we imagine there is a fiery furnace stoked by demons waiting for the ungodly. Interestingly, in some conceptions of hell the opposite is true. In Dante's poetic vision of hell, despite its name (Inferno), the lowest depths of hell, where Satan is held, is a place of icy coldness. There is no fire, there is no energy. Here, the essence of hell is not flame but lifelessness. But the reason we associate hell with fire is probably because in the New Testament the word often translated 'hell' is actually the word Gehenna, a word which originally conveyed the meaning of the terrible fiery furnace of apocalyptic judgement. Jesus makes frequent references to Gehenna, warning his listeners that their behaviour may well lead them there on the last day when he returns to judge the world! The problem is that by translating the word as 'hell' modern day readers associate his warnings with the kind of hell with which we are familiar; a post-mortem place of punishment and torment inhabited by the devil and his demons. But Jesus had no such notion in mind. For him, as for the Hebrew prophets and the Jewish pseudepigraphal writers before him, Gehenna meant fiery destruction, God's incinerator, where all the rubbish all that opposed the good purposes of God would be burned up. "In these writings Gehenna has become a metaphor for the fiery judgement of God on the wickedness of the earth. When God's great eschatological judgement comes, all that is wicked and defiling will be thrown into the great lake of fire of Gehenna. Once, that had been a place where wicked people lit fires to sacrifice their children to Molech. Now, in these visionary, imaginative documents, it has become a place where the fire of God will consume all wickedness. So, when Jesus warned his hearers that by their actions they risked Gehenna, he was warning them that they risked finding themselves on the wrong side of history, being part of that part of the cosmos that will have no place in the new creation of God. Beware, says Jesus, lest you find yourself on the wrong side of God, for ultimately only God's purposes will last. Everything else will be "burned up". In the end, only God and those things conformed to his love will remain".
The previous posts have argued that hell as a place of eternal torment and punishment, the domain of the the devil and his demons, does not exist in the Hebrew Bible. Instead, we read there that the destination of those who die is a shadowy, silent place called Sheol, where the dead become rephaim (shades). There is no real afterlife there, rather it is described as a place of sleep and forgetfulness. In the last post (Lost in Translation) I suggested that the reason that we do think the Hebrew bible talks about hell is because the King James version translators frequently used the word hell to translate the Hebrew word Sheol. English speaking readers of the bible were bound to think that the writers of the Hebrew bible believed in and wrote about hell, the hell of Satan, demons and post-mortem punishment. In fact as I have argued before, the Hebrew bible taught no such thing. Sheol was not a place of punishment, not was it the destination only of the wicked. When we look at the Christian New Testament however, there seems to be a different perspective. On a number of occasions in the gospels, Jesus seems to be warning people not to behave in such a way that they incur hell fire.
But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgement; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, “You fool”, you will be liable to the hell of fire. (Matthew 5.22 NRSV) What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. (Matthew 10.27-28 NRSV) Fill up, then, the measure of your ancestors. You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell? (Matthew 23.32 NRSV) Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. (Matthew 23.15 NRSV) I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that can do nothing more. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! (Luke 12.4-5 NRSV) So, it seems that Jesus consistently warned people to avoid being condemned to hell. Gehenna isn't "hell"The problem is that the Greek text doesn't use the word "hell"; no such word exists in Greek. The Greek word translated hell in each of the texts above is Gehenna. Gehenna is the Greek form of the name Ge-hinnom, a valley which lies just outside of Jerusalem, today known by the name Wadi er-Rababi. For various reasons (explained below) this valley had become associated with the idea of the eschatological (end-times), fiery judgement and the punishment of the wicked. The point is that Gehenna is not the christian hell. In each of these verses Jesus is not warning people how to avoid hell, but rather how to avoid Gehenna. When we use the word hell it conjures up a distinct set of ideas and concepts based on 2000 years of theological speculation and literary and artistic imagination. When we say hell we usually think of tormented souls, of demons or devils, of a dominion or place ruled over by Satan and a system of punishments appropriate to the crime. We also think of an immediate destination - it's where you go when you die (if you deserve it/haven't put your faith in Christ). None of this bears any relation to the biblical idea of Gehenna. Gehenna was a physical place which had a real history. Gehenna is the Greek name for the Hinnom valley, which lies to the South and South West of Jerusalem. Something of that history went into the imagery which came to be associated with the name Gehenna as used by Jesus (and other Jews) in the first century AD and beyond. It was a name that conjured up the image of terrible fiery judgement, but that fiery judgement was something that people understood in a particular way because of the history of the Hinnom valley. It was a judgement that would come at the end of history and which would consume everything (and everyone) opposed to God and His purposes. The valley of (Ben) HinnomThis is a picture of the valley of Hinnom (Wadi er-Rababi) today. It looks pleasant enough but during the early history of the southern Hebrew kingdom (Judah) it came to be associated with a particularly violent and nasty practice. It was the place where in the 8th and 9th centuries B.C. people burned their children as sacrifices to the Canaanite God Molech (or Moloch or Molok). The sacrifices were made on or at something (or somewhere) called a Topheth. This may have referred to a raised point (a high place) in the valley. On or at this Topheth the fires were lit and the children were forced to "go through" the flames on their way to Moloch. They were burned alive. It is clear from a number of references in the Hebrew bible that the cult of Molech and the sacrifice of children was a terrible reality in ancient Israel. In the Torah there are clear warnings about participation in the cults of the local (Canaanite) divinities who demanded child sacrifice. You shall not give any of your offspring to sacrifice them (pass them) to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord. (Leviticus 18.21 NRSV) Say further to the people of Israel: Any of the people of Israel, or of the aliens who reside in Israel, who give any of their offspring to Molech shall be put to death; the people of the land shall stone them to death. I myself will set my face against them, and will cut them off from the people, because they have given of their offspring to Molech, defiling my sanctuary and profaning my holy name. And if the people of the land should ever close their eyes to them, when they give of their offspring to Molech, and do not put them to death, I myself will set my face against them and against their family, and will cut them off from among their people, them and all who follow them in prostituting themselves to Molech. (Leviticus 20.2-5 NRSV) But the cult existed nevertheless and apparently even the kings of Judah (the southern kingdom) took an active part in it. We read in 2 Chronicles Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign; he reigned for sixteen years in Jerusalem. He did not do what was right in the sight of the Lord, as his ancestor David had done, but he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel. He even made cast images for the Baals; and he made offerings in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and made his sons pass through fire, according to the abominable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. He sacrificed and made offerings on the high places, on the hills, and under every green tree. (2 Chronicles 28.1-4 NRSV) Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign; he reigned for fifty-five years in Jerusalem. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the abominable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. For he rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had pulled down, and erected altars to the Baals, made sacred poles, worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them. He built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, ‘In Jerusalem shall my name be for ever.’ He built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. He made his son pass through fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom, practised soothsaying and augury and sorcery, and dealt with mediums and with wizards. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. (2 Chronicles 33.1-6 NRSV) It is not clear from the biblical evidence how widespread the cult was but from these references I would imagine that the royal patronage gave it a great deal of kudos in ancient Judah. The ferocity of the biblical condemnation of these practices both in the histories and in Leviticus would suggest that it was "a real and present danger" to those who supported the sovereign and unique claims of Yahweh over the nation. In other words this wasn't something a few people did in secret. This was, I think, a widespread and popular cult and it's terrible worship was held in full sight of the population of Jerusalem on the high place in the valley of Hinnom (Gehenna). Those terrible fires must have been a familiar part of life for many of those who lived in Jerusalem in those days. For that reason the writers of the nation's "official" history took great pleasure in describing the righteous king Josiah's war on the activities of these cults and their followers. In the Chronicler's history we read that even as a young king, at the tender age of 12, Josiah sought to reform the nation's religious and moral life. in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the sacred poles, and the carved and the cast images. In his presence they pulled down the altars of the Baals; he demolished the incense altars that stood above them. He broke down the sacred poles and the carved and the cast images; he made dust of them and scattered it over the graves of those who had sacrificed to them. He also burned the bones of the priests on their altars, and purged Judah and Jerusalem. In the towns of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, and as far as Naphtali, in their ruins all around, he broke down the altars, beat the sacred poles and the images into powder, and demolished all the incense altars throughout all the land of Israel. Then he returned to Jerusalem. (2 Chronicles 34.3-7 NRSV) According to the history we know as 2 Kings, Josiah's reforms specifically targeted the Moloch cult. He defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of Ben-hinnom, so that no one would make a son or a daughter pass through fire as an offering to Molech. (2 Kings 23.10 NRSV) Gehenna as prophetic symbolismLater, the prophet Jeremiah used the memory of the Molech cult to remind his hearers that as a people they had been idolatrous and unfaithful to Yahweh and that therefore they deserved their fate i.e. to be invaded and to become exiles from the land they had defiled. As Alan Bernstein explains in his brilliant book The Formation of Hell It is the prophet Jeremiah who seared the memory of these rites into the Jewish imagination. He pointedly and repeatedly reminded the Jewish people of how far they had fallen before. It is no good to protest your innocence, proclaims the prophet. “How can you say ‘I am not defiled, I have not gone after the Baals’? Look at your way in the valley; know what you have done” (Jeremiah 2.23). For you have built altars sacred to Baal on the high place of Topheth in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom. You have “profaned that place by burning incense in it to other gods…and filled this place with the blood of innocents” (19.4) by “burning [your] sons and [your] daughters in the fire” (7.31) “as burnt offerings to Baal” (19.5). This desecrated ravine, where the bodies of sacrificial victims were disposed of, will become a burial place: “Therefore, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when it will no more be called Topheth, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of Slaughter: for they will bury in Topheth” (7.32). (Formation of Hell p 168-9) Jeremiah "turns the tables" on the idolatrous people. Where once they had burned the innocent and where the charred and burnt bodies had lain unburied and unmourned, so now in that same place their bodies would lie unburied and unmourned, not as sacrifices to a pagan god but as the victims of the approaching Babylonian armies, God's judgement on the nation he loved. For the people of Judah have done evil in my sight, says the Lord; they have set their abominations in the house that is called by my name, defiling it. And they go on building the high place of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire—which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind. Therefore, the days are surely coming, says the Lord, when it will no more be called Topheth, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of Slaughter: for they will bury in Topheth until there is no more room. The corpses of this people will be food for the birds of the air, and for the animals of the earth; and no one will frighten them away. And I will bring to an end the sound of mirth and gladness, the voice of the bride and bridegroom in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; for the land shall become a waste. (Jeremiah 7.30-34 NRSV) Later, the valley of Hinnom is the dramatic setting for Jeremiah's visual parable to the elders and priests of God intention to "shatter" Judah. Again, the valley where the children were sacrificed to Molech will become the scene for devastation on a massive scale. Thus said the Lord: Go and buy a potter’s earthenware jug. Take with you some of the elders of the people and some of the senior priests, and go out to the valley of the son of Hinnom at the entry of the Potsherd Gate, and proclaim there the words that I tell you. You shall say: Hear the word of the Lord, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to bring such disaster upon this place that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle. Because the people have forsaken me, and have profaned this place by making offerings in it to other gods whom neither they nor their ancestors nor the kings of Judah have known, and because they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent, and gone on building the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as burnt-offerings to Baal, which I did not command or decree, nor did it enter my mind; therefore the days are surely coming, says the Lord, when this place shall no more be called Topheth, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of Slaughter. And in this place I will make void the plans of Judah and Jerusalem, and will make them fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of those who seek their life. I will give their dead bodies for food to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the earth. And I will make this city a horror, a thing to be hissed at; everyone who passes by it will be horrified and will hiss because of all its disasters. And I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and all shall eat the flesh of their neighbours in the siege, and in the distress with which their enemies and those who seek their life afflict them. Later we find Ezekiel preaching to the exiled Israelites, reminding them that it was their idolatry and especially this terrible cult of child sacrifice to Molech that had separated them from God. You took some of your garments, and made for yourself colourful shrines, and on them played the whore; nothing like this has ever been or ever shall be. You also took your beautiful jewels of my gold and my silver that I had given you, and made for yourself male images, and with them played the whore; and you took your embroidered garments to cover them, and set my oil and my incense before them. Also my bread that I gave you—I fed you with choice flour and oil and honey—you set it before them as a pleasing odour; and so it was, says the Lord God. You took your sons and your daughters, whom you had borne to me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. As if your whorings were not enough! You slaughtered my children and delivered them up as an offering to them. (Ezekiel 16.16-21 NRSV) Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: Will you defile yourselves after the manner of your ancestors and go astray after their detestable things? When you offer your gifts and make your children pass through the fire, you defile yourselves with all your idols to this day. And shall I be consulted by you, O house of Israel? As I live, says the Lord God, I will not be consulted by you. (Ezekiel 20.30-31 NRSV) But many years before Jeremiah and Ezekiel sought to explain national disaster and exile in terms of the Israelites' adherence to the terrible cult of Molech, the prophet Isaiah had used the same kind of imagery to paint a picture of fiery judgement, not for the inhabitants of the city but for the foreign invaders, the Assyrians. The Lord will cause people to hear his majestic voice Here, there will again be sacrifice on the raised place (the Topheth). Great fires will again be lit but this time the victims will not be the nation's children but the invading hordes from Assyria and their king. In a number of ways then the cult of Molech and sacrifice of children by fire came to have a profound influence on the religious discourse of ancient Israel. Either as warning of future doom or as a metaphor for God's destructive power, the great prophets of Israel and Judah used the imagery of Gehenna and the Molech cult to speak the word of God to their audiences. Gehenna as an image of fiery destruction became embedded in the religious tradition of the Jewish people. Gehenna in the Apocalyptic imaginationIt is no surprise then, that many years later, in the time after the Maccabean revolution, when Judea was subject to the political influence and outright military power of Hellenistic kings and Roman emperors, Jewish visionaries, seeking images to express what they believed would be God's once-and-for-all, end of days intervention in human history to destroy the enemies of Israel and restore the cosmos to its intended integrity, turned to the fiery imagery of the Hinnom valley (Gehenna). Here, as they read of it in Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, was an image which they could use to express both God's hatred of evil (the evil of idolatry and child sacrifice) and at the same time his determination to root out do away with everything (and everyone!) opposed to his will. In one of their most influential documents, the collection of writings we know as 1 Enoch, the legendary antediluvian (living before the flood) patriarch Enoch is shown the ultimate fate of the angels who had rebelled against God and brought such terrible destruction to the human race. We read that Enoch is shown the valley of Hinnom, filled this time not with the faithless fires of the Israelites, but with the cleansing fire of God And I looked and turned to another part of the earth, and I saw there a deep valley with burning fire. And there my eyes saw them making their instruments, iron chains of immeasurable weight. And I asked the angel of peace who went with me, “For whom are these chains being prepared?” And he said to me, “These are being prepared for the host of Azazel, that they might take them and throw them into the abyss of complete judgment, and with jagged stones they will cover their jaws, as the Lord of Spirits commanded. And Michael and Raphael and Gabriel and Phanuel will take hold of them on that great day, and throw them on that day into the burning furnace, that the Lord of Spirits may take vengeance on them, for their unrighteousness in becoming servants of Satan, and leading astray those who dwell on the earth.” (1 Enoch 54.1-6 translation Nickelsberg and Vanderkam) In another writing, which we know as 2 Baruch, the association of Gehenna with the fiery lake is made explicit. Another legendary character from the Hebrew bible, this time Jeremiah's scribe and associate Baruch, is shown a remarkable vision. The vision is then explained to Baruch by the angel who is guiding him: But then he also showed him the measurements of fire, also the depths of the abyss . . . and the beginning of the day of judgment . . . and the mouth of Gehenna, the order of vengeance, and the place of faith, and the region of hope, and a model of the torment to come, and the multitude of innumerable angels, and the armies of flame, and the splendor of lightnings, and the sound of thunders, and the orders of the chiefs of the angels, and the reservoirs of light, and the changes of the times, and the investigations of the Torah. (2 Baruch 59.5-10 translation by Michael Stone and Mattias Henze) In these writings Gehenna has become a metaphor for the fiery judgement of God on the wickedness of the earth. When God's great eschatological judgement comes, all that is wicked and defiling will be thrown into the great lake of fire of Gehenna. Once, that had been a place where wicked people lit fires to sacrifice their children to Molech. Now, in these visionary, imaginative documents, it has become a place where the fire of God will consume all wickedness. So, when Jesus warned his hearers that by their actions they risked Gehenna, he was warning them that they risked finding themselves on the wrong side of history, being part of that part of the cosmos that will have no place in the new creation of God. Beware, says Jesus, lest you find yourself on the wrong side of God, for ultimately only God's purposes will last. Everything else will be "burned up". In the end, only God and those things conformed to his love will remain. This is made clear in the only New Testament apocalyptic book, the book of Revelation. Into the fiery lake (Gehenna) God casts everything that is wrong, everything that has no place in the new heavens and the new earth He is creating. And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulphur, where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night for ever and ever. Then I saw a great white throne and the one who sat on it; the earth and the heaven fled from his presence, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also another book was opened, the book of life. And the dead were judged according to their works, as recorded in the books. And the sea gave up the dead that were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and all were judged according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire; and anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire. (Revelation 20.10-15 NRSV) In Matthew 25 Jesus also warns his listeners that at the end, at the great final judgement, all "the nations" will be separated into "sheep" and "goats", those who have done God's will and those who have not. The "sheep" will be rewarded with participation in God's kingdom while the "goats" will be sent away from the presence of God to the eternal fire "prepared for the devil and his angels". Then he will say to those at his left hand, “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” Then they also will answer, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?” Then he will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.’ (Matthew 25.41-46 NRSV) So, Gehenna is really picture-language, a metaphor for something else, something bigger and more profound than mere "punishment". Gehenna stands for God's triumph over everything that defiles, corrupts and pollutes his beautiful, good world, everything that defiles, corrupts and exploits the lives of his children. Gehenna has a history - a history which gives the word content, a content far removed from the meagre and misleading matrix of images and ideas conveyed by the word hell. Gehenna is heavily metaphorical, a word whose vivid, dramatic, terrifying imagery points a to a deeper meaning behind. Again, as with Sheol, the translators would do better to refrain from translating this term and leave the reader with the power and mystery of the original term. The video by Ian Paul from the St John's college Timeline project is a very helpful introduction to the use of metaphor in Apocalyptic writings. Well worth 9 minutes of your time!
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
April 2016
GalleryThis blog is as much about images as it is about text. Below is a slideshow of the pictures and images used in this blog. Click on any of the pictures to go to the post where that image is featured.
PostsLocating Paradise #1 In a Garden, Far, Far Away
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #5 'Stuck in the Middle With You'
The Resurrection According to Rahner
Today You Will Be With Me in Paradise
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #4 'And Who by Fire'
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #3: Held in the Balance
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #2: Once, Twice, Three Times a Sinner
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #1: The Broad and Narrow Gates
Daily Dante 7: Many Rivers to Cross
Daily Dante 6: 'You Gotta Serve Somebody'
In Hell Everyone Can Hear You Scream. The Vision of Tundale #3
Teeth, Spikes and Cleavers: At the Sharp end of Hell. The Vision of Tundale #2
'No Pain No Gain': The Vision of Tundale #1
'Hellzapoppin':
Illustrations from Le Livre de la Vigne nostre Seigneur, #2 'It's The End of the World as We Know It (and we feel fine)'. Illustrations from Le Livre de la Vigne nostre Seigneur, #1
Visions of Heaven. Botticini's Assumption of the Virgin #2 Blinded by the Light
Visions of Heaven. Botticini's Assumption of the Virgin #1: Glorious and Immortal
Daily Dante 5: What the gates said.
Daily Dante 4: When I find myself in times of trouble
Daily Dante 3: I'll take you there
Daily Dante 2: Fierce creatures
Daily Dante 1: If you go down to the woods today
In Seventh Heaven or 'What Enoch Did Next'
A World of Fire and Ice: Heaven according to Enoch
The Power and the Glory: Visions of God as king in the Hebrew bible
The Beautiful Bestiary of Catherine Cleves: Monsters and Demons in detail.
Heaven is for Real: Heaven as a physical space up above the sky
Resurrecting the Dead or Reviving the Flowers? The loss of resurrection faith in Judaism.
The Defeat of Death #1: The promise of resurrection in the Isaiah Apocalypse.
The Defeat of Death #2: Death as a hostile power and promise of God's victory in Isaiah
Scary Monsters and Super Creeps: The 'Last Judgement' according to Stefan Lochner
Hell in the Hospital: The 'Last Judgement' of Rogier van der Weyden in the Beaune altarpiece.
'Hell' in the New Testament #2: The gates of Hades shall not prevail
The Hours of Catherine Cleves: Imagining hell and purgatory in Catherine's prayer book
'On Earth as in Heaven': The kingdom of God as a revelation of heaven
'Hell' in the New Testament #1: Gehenna
Lost in Translation #1: How the King James version got it so wrong about hell
Heaven is not our home
Domes, Depths and Demons: The cosmology of the Hebrew world
A Bigger God
"See you in Sheol" - Sheol, the common destination of all
Heaven, Hell and Christian Hope
BooksBelow are some of the books which have helped me the most in the research and writing for this blog. Click on any image to find out more about that book at its page on Amazon uk.
Categories
All
|