Hell. Real or Man Made

Is hell a real place that millions of people are already in and many more to come?

The early Jewish view of the afterlife was when a person died, they went to a place called Sheol. The Greeks had a similar view except they called their place ‘Hades’. So eventually both names, Sheol and Hades came to be used interchangeably. In these ‘places’ a person’s soul ‘waited’ until it was resurrected at the final judgment. So where does Hell fit into these views?
The mainstream view of Hell in the past and up to the present day is that it is a place of eternal punishment, torment and suffering for sinners and evil people. It is a place for all those people who had rejected ‘God’ and Jesus while they were alive. These people do not go to heaven upon their deaths, but instead, they go to ‘Hell’, for eternity. Let’s look at how this view came to be so widely accepted.

In the ancient past, most people believed that there were many gods in heaven and they all ‘served’ different functions. There were gods for protection, good health, crops, pregnancy, blessings, peace, and pretty much anything you wanted in life, there was probably a ‘god’ that a person could pray to and ask for help.
When life was difficult and prayers weren’t answered, one of these ‘gods’ could be blamed and people were generally accepting of this way of thinking about ‘the gods’. For example, if a bad storm destroyed a farmer’s crops, then the farmer (and others) could blame one of the many gods for allowing the storm to happen, or for not stopping it from happening.

Eventually, people’s beliefs moved to having one God which is known as Monotheism. The view of ‘one God” is believed by Christians, Jews and Muslims. However, now with the belief in monotheism, a new problem started to emerge amongst people’s perception of good and evil, and associated redemption and punishment. People started asking “Who do we blame when things go wrong, when we see evil people prospering and the poor being treated unjustly. Do we now blame, the one God? “.

In the above example of the storm destroying the farmer’s crops, if the farmer was considered to be a kind and righteous man then the farmer and other people would probably ask “why did the farmer get punished and his crops destroyed when he was considered to be ‘good’”. If the same storm bypassed the farm of a man who was considered to be ‘bad, evil and cruel’, then the question would arise’ “why is the evil man prospering?”

Hellenistic Influences

After Alexander the Great and his Greek armies invaded, and conquered much of the Mediterranean areas around 334BC, it resulted in Greek philosophy and influence permeating much of the societies in the region and became the dominant ‘world view’. This period of ‘Hellenization’ continued for about 300 years and included influences from Egypt, Persia and India.

The Greek concept of death was related to their view of what happened to a person’s soul when they died. Early Greek philosophers believed that a person had two ‘parts’. A physical body that died and eventually decomposed in the grave and a soul that was immortal and resided in the spirit realm after a person died. This philosophy then raised the question of what happens to a ‘good person’s soul versus a ‘bad person’s soul. They thought the ‘good soul’ would go to heaven for eternity, but, where did the ‘bad soul’ go for eternity? Additionally, shouldn’t they receive some sort of punishment for the ‘evil’ they had done on Earth when they were alive? This conundrum was solved by the ‘invention’ of Hades.

Hades

The Greek view of Hades has a huge number of myths and legends associated with it. It has rivers, other gods and underworld creatures. For the purpose of this discussion, I will stick to the two generally ‘accepted areas’ of Hades. One area for the ‘good’ dead and another for the ‘bad’ dead. One thing both areas had in common was that the inhabitants were waiting for the ‘final judgment’. ‘Good souls’ would eventually be resurrected and go to heaven whilst the ‘bad souls’ would stay in Hades and suffer eternal torment.

How can ‘’souls’ be placed in ‘good’ or ‘bad’ areas without being judged first? People who believe that the parable of ‘Lazarus and the Rich Man’ shows that hell really exists also fall into the error of having people sentenced before they are judged. As a consequence of Greek thoughts, ideas and philosophies influencing the Mediterranean world, the Hebrews were also influenced by them and so they adopted many of these views and philosophies themselves
The invading Romans had also been influenced by Greek thought, Greek architecture and Greek philosophy so that the model of Hades was perpetuated and became a recognized place of the dead and essentially replaced Sheol in many people’s minds.

The Hellenistic worldview continued throughout the Middle East and Europe well into the 300s – 400s AD. Many of the early church fathers were influenced by Greek ways of thinking. As these ‘church fathers’ were very influential in deciding the direction of the early church and the creation of the ‘bible’, we ended up with a bible that has influences from Jewish, Hebrew and Greek ‘world views’.

The Bible and Hell

In the original versions of the Old Testament, there is no mention of the word Hell. We now know that early Hebrews believed in a place called Sheol, which is the grave where they believed they waited until the resurrection. In the early manuscripts of the New Testament, not surprisingly as the New Testament was written by Jews, there is no mention of Hell either. However, there are references to the ‘lake of fire’, to ‘fire and brimstone’ and to ‘eternal punishment’.
Jesus mentioned a place called ‘Gehenna’ which is a valley just outside the city of Jerusalem. It was used as a rubbish dump throughout many centuries and often was filled with dead animals, executed prisoners, rubbish and waste, most of which was burning much of the time. Gehenna was also where people had sacrificed their children to the god ‘Moloch’ by burning them alive.

So this place was ‘known’ to the Jewish people as being ungodly and evil; a place they would try to avoid. So, when Jesus used the word Gehenna, it was as a metaphor to illustrate to the people around him that unless they too wanted to ‘end up in Gehenna’ they needed to repent and believe in him, otherwise they would not be resurrected.

It should be noted that later translations of the bible which were heavily influenced by the Catholic Church translated Sheol, Hades and Gehenna into Hell. So how did ‘Hell’ become a metaphor for a place of torment, a place of fire, brimstone and eternal punishment?

The Divine Comedy

In 1308 an Italian poet called Dante Alighieri wrote a poem called ‘The Divine Comedy’. The poem recounts Dante’s ‘travels’ through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise where he met and conversed with the ‘souls’ who were in each of these three places. The main theme of the poem was to show that evil and sin were always punished. Dante spoke to people in Hell and Purgatory who were rich and evil in their ‘day’ but now were suffering eternal punishment. Whereas those souls in Paradise were happy and at peace.

Dante’s Divine Comedy would be considered a fantasy or horror story by modern audiences; however, to the average uneducated person in the 1300 – 1500’s, it would have seemed like a ‘real’ story. The Catholic Church used Dante’s poem extensively during the Middle Ages to show people all of the horrible things that would happen to their souls if they died outside of Christ and had not lived a righteous and sacrificial life.

Now Dante made all this up, mainly apparently as a ‘veiled’ parody to show the corruption of the church and priests. He wanted to show that despite their high power in society and the church, plus all of the money and riches they had ‘gleaned’ from their ‘flock’, they would not automatically go to heaven. Dante’s descriptions of the torments of Hell were very graphic and would have been quite disturbing to the people of the time as they would have no way of knowing if any of this was actually true.

Unfortunately, the Catholic church started to present the torments of ‘Dante’s’ hell to their congregation as factual, mainly, so some scholars claim, as a means of control, to force obedience to Church doctrine plus to gain money from the congregation. Additionally, painters and artists began to produce paintings and drawings of Dante’s version of Hell. Many of these paintings are extremely gruesome and graphic showing ‘demons’ tormenting the ‘lost souls’. It was quite common for churches to place these types of paintings on the walls of their churches, to remind the attendees what awaited them if they did not repent and follow Jesus. This was a very effective ‘tool’ used by the medieval church to control and instill fear.

So basically, the concept of Hell as a place of eternal punishment and torment, originated from Dante’s imagination, along with associated Hellenistic worldviews. This view of Hell was perpetuated by the Catholic Church and is now ‘popularized’ in most forms of media; books, movies, cartoons, humor, etc. These incorrect views of ‘Hell’ are now ‘mainstream’.

Paradise Lost

Meanwhile, in 1667, John Milton, an English poet, wrote an epic poem called ‘Paradise Lost’. The poem is the retelling of the Genesis story from Adam and Eve’s perspective, detailing how they fell into sin and ‘lost’ their place in Paradise. Milton also describes what was happening in Heaven during this time and tells how Satan rebelled and took 1/3 of the Angels with him when they were all cast out of Heaven.
Milton’s poem is effectively a retelling of the ‘fall of man’. Now it should be noted that just as Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’, is imaginary, so is Milton’s poetic interpretation of the Bible. Milton states at the beginning of his poem that he wanted to explain why God allows evil into his creation. Whilst his poem is imaginary, it had significant effects on people’s views of creation and Satan’s role in why there is evil in the world.

Satan and 1/3 of the angels

In ‘Paradise Lost’ Milton tells how Satan wanted to be like God and rule in Heaven and so he became evil. He started a rebellion in Heaven along with 1/3 of his ‘angelic supporters’ and as a consequence he and his supporters lost the war and God cast them out of Heaven down to Hell.
This view is quite commonly accepted by many Christian religions and is generally accepted as ‘fact’ even though this event is not in the bible. Instead, it came from the imagination of John Milton via his poem ‘Paradise Lost’.
Proponents of this view of a ‘war and rebellion’ in Heaven often quote Isaiah 14:12-17.

“How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart:‘ I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation. On the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’

Now a general reading of these verses does sound like it’s talking about Satan, after all, it mentions ‘Lucifer’, so it must be talking about Satan’s fall from Heaven. Right? Wrong! The above scripture comes from the New King James and the word ‘Lucifer’ is translated incorrectly. In the early original Hebrew/Greek version of this scripture, Isaiah used the word ‘morning star’ because he was referring to the planet Venus, which is also called the ‘morning star’ even today.

So what was Isaiah talking about then? He was effectively being sarcastic as he was talking about one of the great kings of Babylon, who had been defeated and was now a ‘lowly’ person who had been ‘cast down’ from the heights of prestige, privilege and power and was no longer ‘shining brightly’ in the world. The word ‘Lucifer’ is a Latin translation of the word ‘morning star’ and it translates to ‘Venus’. The Latin version of the bible therefore used the translated word for Venus, as ‘Lucifer’. Later English translators were most probably influenced by the scenes in Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’ and so assumed that Isaiah was referring to this as well. Another example of how a piece of literature helped form incorrect biblical views.

So did Satan ‘go bad’ and rebel in heaven? Well as I wasn’t there at the time I can only speculate and try to view things logically. We have seen previously that there was a general belief that the ‘dead’ waited in Sheol/Hades until the final judgment. Why couldn’t they go straight to heaven? Because they were sinners and as God is holy there can be no sin in heaven. Hence, if ‘evil crept’ into Satan’s ‘heart’, surely, he would have been removed immediately.

Rebellions on earth usually take a while to occur; a few people initially, then more are added and finally, some form of action takes place. How likely is it that an all-knowing Holy God would not know if something like that was happening in his heavenly realm? It’s quite nonsensical.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I think I have clearly shown that the idea of Hell is a man-made one. Ideas and stories of Hell have been ‘past down’ through the ages to a predominately uneducated population by the Church, who had, and still have, ulterior motives to continue the idea of an eternal punishment for sinners.

Additionally, the belief in Hell fills a place in some people’s sense of injustice and punishment. If people see and experience injustice in their lives, then they may gain some ‘comfort’ in believing that ‘their tormentors’ will get their ‘just desserts’ in the afterlife, in Hell. As a consequence, they will consider many of my views above to be incorrect as it seems ‘unfair’ that bad people don’t get punished, if not in this life, then at least in the next one.

“Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:37)

“There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?”(James 4:12)

“As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive” .(Coll 3:12)