In the last article in this series we looked at the Jewish concept of ‘hell’ and found that the idea of ‘eternal conscious torment’ did not appear to have come from the Old Testament. So let’s look at where it may have sprung from.

Gehenna

It has to be said that there are passages in the Gospels that might be seen to bolster the Medieval picture of furnaces staffed by demons prodding the damned with pitchforks.

In Mark 9:42 -48 Jesus speaks of those who come under the punishment of God using imagery drawn from the municipal rubbish heap outside Jerusalem, in the valley of Ben Hinnom.  This place, called, Gehenna, was cursed as a site of idolatrous worship of Baal and Molech. It is pictured as constantly burning as more rubbish is added day by day. Here, we need to strip away our assumptions and look at the actual words again: Jesus does not say that the ‘rubbish’ lasts forever but that: their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.

It seems that the worms get eternal life, even if the damned don’t. Clearly we need to look more closely at the concept of things going on ‘forever’.

Idioms

There are two things that can trip us up. The first is the use of idioms. Like all cultures, the ancient Jews used shorthand terms to describe things. Moses was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights, Noah’s rain had the same duration. It took Elijah forty days and forty nights to reach Mount Horeb when he was fleeing from Jezebel, and Jesus was in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights. This is either an amazing coincidence or it’s a Hebrew idiom that just means, ‘a really, really long time’.

In the same way, the term ‘forever’ tends to be taken literally by post-Enlightenment Westerners but it is used 56 times in the Bible to describe things that have already ended. It seems to be used to denote things that are irrevocable rather than endless in duration.  Looking at Isaiah 66, which is the passage that Jesus is drawing on when he speaks of Gehenna, we see the same ‘endless’ fire and worms burning and eating the dead bodies of those who rebelled against God. The point here is that their destruction is total, and the ‘forever’ element is added to underline the point. It’s like saying ‘I’m going to kill you ... to death.’

Two ages

We also need to look more carefully at the word ‘Eternal’. The Jews divided time into two ages; this current age and ‘the age to come’. This one is temporal, the age to come is ‘eternal’. Things that belong to that second age are described as ‘eternal’ but in a way that doesn’t necessarily mean that they have everlasting duration.

Look at Mark 3.29: But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven, he is guilty of an eternal sin. Does this mean that the sin goes on forever and ever or, rather, that its effects are eternal? In the same way, when Jesus describes the ‘goats’ as going away to eternal punishment in Matthew 25, we can view this not so much as punishment that goes on forever and ever but rather punishment that is eternal in nature, punishment that is final and who’s effects last forever.

So, if you ever meet with an eternal worm, you had better keep feeding it because there’s no guarantee that it will last forever.

The next article in this series will look at the Lazarus and Dives story in Luke 16.

How do you take these words of Jesus about 'eternal punishment'?

What do you think he is referring to?