On October 31st, billions of people will celebrate Halloween. In the days leading up to this celebration, pastors will be encouraging their congregations to mourn the souls who will be damned for eternity. These heathens, at the end of their earthly lives, will cross over into a pit of fire, doom, and despair. They will be cut off from God for eternity. They had a chance to accept the message of the church, but they did not; and they will be subject to eternal torment at the hands of a horned beast holding a pitchfork. The preacher will challenge such individuals with this call: turn or burn. What a depressing message. Here is why I don’t believe in hell, and neither should you.
Halloween, for most cultures, is a day of celebration. As I have mentioned before, it is a day of celebrating life rather than death. Preachers love to twist this philosophy. It truly bothers me that they baselessly condemn non-Christians for celebrating death yet devote entire sermons to arguing such individuals will face unfathomable torture. Fire? Demons? Eternal separation from God? This, to me, sounds far more wicked than The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Why is the church so infatuated with their opponents facing such unendurable pain and misery? Does the Bible support this?
To the last question, I would like to answer that it depends upon the translation. First, we all know that English is far different from Greek or Hebrew. Words do not simply translate over to our language and convey the same meaning. For instance, to use a popular talking point from the church, there are seven Greek words, or variations, for “love.” All seven words translate to mere “love” in English. Likewise, when translating Greek or Hebrew to English, sentence structures change. Verb usage changes. Translating the ancient languages in which the Bible is written is not as simple as copying and pasting to Google Translate. These languages are quite delicate.
There are four words that translate to “hell” in our modern English Bibles. These are: sheol (Hebrew), Gehenna, Hades, and Tartarus (Greek). With the advent of the King James Version, the most prominent and revolutionary translation of the Bible in the history of English, these four words were translated into one: hell. The “doctrine” of hell rose to prominence beginning with the KJV publication in 1611. Quickly, the Old and New Testaments, as well as church doctrines, began to focus on Heaven’s antithesis. A place where the streets are not paved with gold, but blood, fire, and brimstone. Let us explore what each of these four words really mean.
Sheol
Sheol is a bit of a complicated word to grasp nowadays. We owe this, in large part, to evangelical Christians of the past five centuries who cut the word to fit their conceptualization of hell. Some scholars from the early twentieth century believe sheol comes from a word meaning “hollow.”1 More recent scholars argue that the word means “grave” or “pit,” while still others believe it is synonymous with “underworld.”2 Given the contexts of the term’s usage in the prophets (especially Ezekiel and Isaiah) as well as Job, sheol is closer to, if not synonymous with, “grave.” Job especially gives us a vivid picture, describing sheol as a pit of dust and worms. Consider the following passage from Job:
One person dies in his full strength,
completely at ease and content;
his pails are full of milk,
and the marrow in his bones is moist.
Another dies with embittered heart,
never having tasted happiness.
They lie down alike in the dust,
and the worm covers them both. (Job 21:23-16)
Good or bad, everyone goes to sheol according to Job. But Job is not alone; the patriarch Jacob even considers that he will enter sheol upon his passing (Gen. 37:35; 44:29). Both the CJB and NIV correctly translate sheol to “grave.” My favorite psalm, Psalm 88, refers to sheol as a pit or grave five times (88:4, 5, 7, 6, 12). So now that we know what sheol is, who goes there?
It goes without saying that the wicked descend to sheol after death. But so do the righteous. Both Jacob and Job are biblical characters we would consider righteous, and yet they acknowledge that they will enter the “grave.” Hezekiah, one of Judah’s “good kings” who enacted sweeping reforms for the sole worship of Yahweh, admits he will face the same fate (Isa. 38:10).3 The Psalms beg that the wicked “return to” or “be silenced” in sheol (Ps. 9:18; 31:18). Many evangelicals, at least those familiar with the Old Testament, may refer to Proverbs 15:24, which states, “For the prudent, the path of life goes upward; thus he avoids Sh’ol below.” However, this verse does not speak of the afterlife, merely living a righteous live will be an upward life.4
Finally, a quick note on “eternal separation” from God in Sheol. As a homeschooled churchgoer, I was dually informed that the worst punishment of hell is being separate from God. Whether hell is a fiery pit or pure darkness, detachment from God is the most severe punishment. And yet, one psalmist declares, “If I climb up to heaven, you are there; if I lie down in Sh’ol, you are there” (Psalm 139:8, attributed to David). In the Old Testament, eternal separation from God is nonexistent.
Gehenna, Hades, and Tartarus
Let us start with Gehenna. Jesus uses this term in the Sermon on the Mount, which also translates to hell (Matt. 5:22, 29-30). The foolish who allow their eyes or hands to deceive them will be cast down into Gehenna. So, what is Gehenna? Gehenna is symbolic. Of course, fundamentalists do not understand the overwhelmingly symbolic nature of the Bible and treat every word literally. Gehenna is essentially a dumping ground for the dead, located just outside of Jerusalem.5 In ancient Greek, Roman, and Jewish cultures, the worst punishment one could receive is an improper burial.6 Jesus acknowledges this, declaring that corpses of the sinful will be lumped together in a pit.
As Jesus witnessed to people from a variety of cultures, he did not use only Jewish imagery to evoke his message. In some instances, he turned to Greek interpretations of realms of the dead. Seemingly synonymous with Gehenna, Jesus frequently referred to Hades. For those familiar with Greek mythology, you know that Hades is the god of death. He is also regarded as the king of the underworld, and his name has since become synonymous with the place. Jesus refers to Hades, often translated “hell” in English, in Matthew 11:23; 16:18; Luke 10:15; and 16:23. In the Bible, Hades never associates with Satan and his minions torturing lost souls. Instead, it is identified as either the grave (Sheol) or simply, as in Greek culture, the realm of the dead. Some consider it an intermediate state, common to sheol.
Finally, there is Tartarus. In ancient Greece, Tartarus is “originally a place to imprison those who posed a threat to the rule of the Olympians, later [becoming] a place of punishment for those who had committed serious crimes.”7 The only occurrences of Tartarus in the New Testament are 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 6. It describes a place where fallen angels face punishment.8 And, of course, 2 Peter and Jude are two books of the New Testament that barely made it into the biblical canon.
Conclusion
With the rise of evangelicalism, the flames of their make-believe hell rose. Despite what fundamentalists will wholeheartedly profess, hell is not a biblical doctrine. It is, like many other Christian doctrines, an invention of the church. It is a scare tactic. “Believe what we say, or you will suffer for eternity!” Critics of these schools of thought, including myself, identify this twisted strategy as “turn or burn” evangelism. And it is used as a protruding stratagem this time of the year.
Christians despise horror. They despise Halloween. Watching a horror film is equivalent to participating in the villainous plots of such movies. And yet, they invented an entire doctrine of eternal torment. And they use this false doctrine to judge and condemn those who reject their message. Hell is not real; it is a figment of the evangelical’s imagination. To those celebrating Halloween, fear not the turn or burn messages. The “religion of love” is wrong. The “Scripture of love” is correct. Your loved ones who do not share your beliefs are not burning.
1. Fred B. Pearson, “Sheol and Hades in the Old and New Testament,” Review and Expositor 35, no. 3 (1938): 304, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/003463733803500304?journalCode=raeb
2. Bar, Shaul. “grave Matters: Sheol in the Hebrew Bible.” The Jewish Bible Quarterly 43, no. 3 (2015): 145, https://web.s.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=0&sid=2bfc2708-6c0b-43cd-aca9-2f5fd6a4b655%40redis
3. Ibid., 138.
4. Ibid., 149-150.
5. Bart D. Ehrman, “What Jesus Really Said About Heaven and Hell,” Time, 2020, https://time.com/5822598/jesus-really-said-heaven-hell/
6. Ibid.
7. Michael A. Peters, “Hell as Education: From Place to State of being? Hell, Hades, Tartarus, Gehinnom.” Educational Philosophy and Theory 53, no. 4 (2021): 320. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2019.1675470
8. “What is Tartarus?” Don Stewart, Blue Letter Bible, https://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/don_stewart/don_stewart_167.cfm