Gehenna

Main article: Jewish eschatology
Valley of Hinnom, c. 1900

Gehenna, gehinnam, or gehinnom (Hebrew: גהנום, גהנם, Greek γέεννα) are terms derived from a geographical site in Jerusalem known as the Valley of Hinnom, one of the two principal valleys surrounding the Old City.

According to parts of the Bible, the site was initially where apostate Israelites and followers of various Ba'als and false gods, including Moloch, sacrificed their children by fire (2 Chr. 28:3, 33:6; Jer. 7:31, 19:2-6 The traditional explanation that a burning rubbish heap in the Valley of Hinnom south of Jerusalem gave rise to the idea of a fiery Gehenna of judgment is attributed to Rabbi David Kimhi's commentary on Psalm 27:13 (ca. A.D. 1200). He maintained that in this loathsome valley fires were kept burning perpetually to consume the filth and cadavers thrown into it. However, Strack and Billerbeck state that there is neither archaeological nor literary evidence in support of this claim, in either the earlier in-tertestamental or the later rabbinic sources (Hermann L. Strack and Paul Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud and Midrasch, 5 vols. [Munich: Beck, 1922-56], 4:2:1030). Also a more recent author holds a similar view (Lloyd R. Bailey, "Gehenna: The Topography of Hell," Biblical Archeologist 49 [1986]: 189.

In time it became deemed to be accursed and an image of the place of destruction in Jewish folklore[1][2]. However, Jewish folklore suggests the valley had a 'gate' which led down to a molten lake of fire (see Sheol).

Eventually the Hebrew term Gehinnom[3] became a figurative name for the place of spiritual purification for the wicked dead in Judaism, a site at the greatest possible distance from heaven. According to most Jewish sources, the period of purification or punishment is limited to only 12 months and every shabbath day is excluded from punishment.[4] After this the soul will ascend to Olam Ha-Ba, the world to come, or will be destroyed if it is severely wicked.[5]

Gehenna is cited in the New Testament and in early Christian writing to represent the final place where the wicked will be punished or destroyed after resurrection.

In both Rabbinical Jewish and Christian writing, Gehenna as a destination of the wicked is different from Hades, the abode of the dead, and is but loosely analogous to the concept of Hell.

Contents

Etymology

English "Gehenna" represents the Greek Geenna (γεεννα) found in the New Testament, a phonetic transcription of Aramaic Gēhannā (ܓܗܢܐ), equivalent to the Hebrew Ge Hinnom, literally "Valley of Hinnom". This was known in the Old Testament as Gai Ben-Hinnom, literally the "Valley of the son of Hinnom", and in the Talmud as Gehinnam (גהנם) or Gehinnom (גהנום). In the Qur'an, Gehenna (Gehennem, Jahannam, جهنم) is a place of torment for sinners or the Islamic equivalent of Hell.

Geography

Tombs in the Valley of Hinnom

The exact location of the Valley of Hinnom is disputed. Older commentaries give the location as below the southern wall of ancient Jerusalem, stretching from the foot of Mount Zion eastward past the Tyropoeon to the Kidron Valley. However the Tyropoeon Valley is usually no longer associated with the Valley of Hinnom because during the period of Ahaz and Manasseh, the Tyropoeon lay within the city walls and child sacrifice would have been practiced outside the walls of the city. Smith (1907),[6] Dalman (1930),[7] Bailey (1986)[8] and Watson (1992)[9] identify the Wadi er-Rababi, which fits the data of Joshua that Hinnom ran East to West and lay outside the city walls. According to Joshua, the valley began in En-rogel. If the modern Bir Ayyub is En-rogel then the Wadi er-Rababi which begins there is Hinnom.[10]

In the King James Version of the Bible, the term appears 13 times in 11 different verses as "valley of Hinnom," "valley of the son of Hinnom" or "valley of the children of Hinnom."

The concept of Gehenna

In the Hebrew Bible

The oldest historical reference to the valley is found in Joshua 15:8, 18:16 which describe tribal boundaries.

The next chronological reference to the valley is at the time of King Ahaz of Judah who sacrificed his sons there according to 2 Chron. 28:3. Since his legitimate son by the daughter of the High Priest Hezekiah succeeded him as king, this, if literal, is assumed to mean children by unrecorded pagan wives or concubines. The same is recorded of Ahaz' grandson Manasseh in 33:6. There remains debate about whether the phrase "cause his children to pass through the fire" meant a simple ceremony or the literal child sacrifice.

Valley of Hinnom, 2007.

The Book of Isaiah does not mention Gehenna by name, but the "burning place" 30:33 in which the Assyrian army are to be destroyed, may be read "Topheth", and the final verse of Isaiah which concerns the corpses of the same or a similar battle, Isaiah 66:24, "where their worm does not die" is cited by Jesus in reference to Gehenna in Mark 9:48.

In the reign of Josiah a call came from Jeremiah to destroy the shrines in Topheth and to end the practice Jeremiah 7:31-32, 32:35. It is recorded that King Josiah destroyed the shrine of Molech on Topheth, to prevent anyone sacrificing children there in 2 Kings 23:10. Despite Josaiah's ending of the practice, Jeremiah also included a prophecy that Jerusalem itself would be made like Gehenna and Topheth (19:2-6, 11-14).

A final purely geographical reference is found in Neh. 11:30 to the exiles returning from Babylon camping from Beersheba to Hinnom.

In extra-Biblical Documents

There is a lack of direct references to Gehenna in the Apocrypha, Dead Sea Scrolls, Pseudepigrapha and Philo.

Josephus does not deal with this aspect of the history of the Hinnom Valley in his descriptions of Jerusalem for a Roman audience. Nor does Josephus make any mention of the tradition commonly reported in older Christian commentaries that in Roman times fires were kept burning and the valley became the garbage dump of the city, where the dead bodies of criminals, and the carcasses of animals were thrown. Source references for this tradition seem to be lacking.

The southwestern gate of Jerusalem, overlooking the valley, came to be known as "The Gate of the Valley" (Hebrew: שער הגיא‎).

In Rabbinical Judaism

The picture of Gehenna as the place of punishment or destruction of the wicked occurs frequently in the Mishnah in Kiddushin 4.14, Avot 1.5; 5.19, 20, Tosefta t.Bereshith 6.15, and Babylonian Talmud b.Rosh Hashanah 16b:7a; b.Bereshith 28b. Gehenna is considered a Purgatory-like place where the wicked go to suffer until they have atoned for their sins. It is stated that the maximum amount of time a sinner can spend in Gehenna is one year, with the exception of five people who are there for all of eternity Sanhedrin 7.

In the New Testament

In the synoptic gospels Jesus uses the word Gehenna 11 times to describe the opposite to life in the promised, coming Kingdom (Mark 9:43-48).[11] It is a place where both soul and body could be destroyed (Matthew 10:28) in "unquenchable fire" (Mark 9:43).

Gehenna is also mentioned in the Epistle of James 3:6, where it is said to set the tongue on fire, and the tongue in turn sets on fire the entire "course" or "wheel" of life.

The complete list of references is as follows:

Translations in Christian Bibles

The New Testament also refers to Hades as a temporary destination of the dead. Hades is portrayed as a different place from the final judgement of the damned in Gehenna. The Book of Revelation describes Hades being cast into the Lake of Fire (Gehenna) (Revelation 20:14). Hades the temporary place of the dead is said to be removed for ever and cast into the Lake of Fire commonly understood to be synonymous with Gehenna or the final Hell of the unsaved. This indicating that any who die after this would never go to a temporary place, Hades, just instead a final judgement of saved or condemned. The King James Version is the only English translation in modern use to translate Sheol, Hades, and Gehenna as Hell. The New International Version, New Living Translation, New American Standard Bible (among others) all reserve the term hell only for when Gehenna is used.

Treatment of Gehenna in Christianity is significantly affected by whether the distinction in Hebrew and Greek between Gehenna and Hades was maintained:

Translations with a distinction:

Translations without a distinction:

Many modern Christians understand Gehenna to be a place of eternal punishment called hell.[13]

On the other hand, annihilationists understand Gehenna to be a place where sinners are utterly destroyed, not tormented forever. Christian Universalists, who believe that God will eventually save all souls, interpret the New Testament references to Gehenna in the context of the Old Testament and conclude that it always refers to the imminent divine judgment of Israel and not to eternal torment for the unsaved.

The Valley of Hinnom is also the traditional location of the Potter's Field bought by priests after Judas' suicide with the "blood money" with which Judas was paid for betraying Jesus.

In Islam

The name given to Hell in Islam, Jahannam, directly correlates with Gehenna as well. The Quran contains 76 or 77 references to Gehenna (جهنم), but no references to Hades (هيدز).

Literary references

[Moloch] made his Grove
The pleasant Vally of HINNOM, TOPHET thence
And black GEHENNA call'd, the Type of Hell.

And thus, joy suddenly faded into horror, and the most beautiful became the most hideous, as Hinnom became Gehenna.

Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne,
He travels the fastest who travels alone.

Gehennom is the bottom underworld set of 20–24 dungeon levels of the roguelike game NetHack. Within bide sundry demons, Orcus, Vlad, Moloch, and the Wizard of Yendor.

Vocalist Randy Blythe of the band Lamb of God mentions Gehenna in the song "Hourglass" from the album Ashes of the Wake.

God forbid you read the signs,
Watch for meaning between the lines.
Gehenna has now arrived,
No hindsight for the blind.
Your trust has been misplaced,
believed the lies told to your face.
Became another casualty,
And now it's too late.

"Gehenna" is also a song by metal band Slipknot from their album All Hope Is Gone. Gehenna is also the name of the second episode of the television series, "Millennium".

The band Fields of the Nephilim released their second EP titled "Returning to Gehenna" in 1986 featuring a song of the same name. In 2001, the band released the album "From Gehanna to Here" which also featured the song "Returning to Gehanna".

The video game Homeworld 2 has two levels, Gehenna Outskirts and Gehenna in which the object is to retrieve the 'Oracle', a small Progenitor relic buried in an asteroid with massive information storage instrumental in recovering the Keeper of Sajuuk

The TV series Kings, a modern-day retelling of the story of the Biblical King David, features several scenes set at a prison called Gehenna, which seems to have only one prisoner: the deposed former King of Carmel, Vesper Abaddon.

See also

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References

  1. ↑ "The place where children were sacrificed to the god Moloch was originally in the "valley of the son of Hinnom," to the south of Jerusalem (Josh. xv. 8, passim; II Kings xxiii. 10; Jer. ii. 23; vii. 31-32; xix. 6, 13-14). For this reason the valley was deemed to be accursed, and "Gehenna" therefore soon became a figurative equivalent for 'hell'." GEHENNA JewishEncyclopedia By : Kaufmann Kohler, Ludwig Blau; web-sourced: 02-11-2010.
  2. ↑ "gehenna." Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary. 27 Aug. 2009. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/gehenna>.
  3. ↑ "Gehinnom is the Hebrew name; Gehenna is Yiddish." Gehinnom - Judaism 101 websourced 02-10-2010.
  4. ↑ "The place of spiritual punishment and/or purification for the wicked dead in Judaism is not referred to as Hell, but as Gehinnom or She'ol." HELL - Judaism 101 websourced 02-10-2010.
  5. ↑ [1]
  6. ↑ Smith, G. A. 1907. Jerusalem: The Topography, Economics and History from the Earliest Times to A.D. 70. London.
  7. ↑ Dalman, G. 1930. Jerusalem und sein Gelande. Schriften des Deutschen Palastina-Instituts 4
  8. ↑ Bailey, L. R. 1986. Gehenna: The Topography of Hell. BA 49: 187
  9. ↑ Watson, Duane F. Hinnom. In Freedman, David Noel, ed., The Anchor Bible Dictionary, New York Doubleday 1997, 1992.
  10. ↑ Geoffrey W. Bromiley International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: E-J - 1982
  11. ↑ Blue Letter Bible. "Dictionary and Word Search for geenna (Strong's 1067)".
  12. ↑ Murdoch & Read (2004) Early Germanic literature and culture’’, p. 160. [2]
  13. ↑ Metzger & Coogan (1993) Oxford Companion to the Bible’’, p. 243.

External links

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Aztec mythology (Mictlan) · Buddhism (Naraka) · Chinese mythology (Diyu) · Persian mythology (Duzakh) · Christianity (Limbo · Hell) · Ancient Egyptian religion (Duat) · Germanic and Norse paganism (Hel · Niflheim) · Greek mythology (Hades · Tartarus) · Hinduism (Naraka  · Patala) · Islam (Jahannam) · Jainism (Naraka) · Judaism (Gehennom · Sheol) · Shinto (Yomi) · Turkic-Mongolian (Erlik)

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