N. T. Wright’s recent book Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (New York: HarperOne, 2008) raises important issues about Jesus’ message and eschatology. He correctly emphasizes that Jesus’ message (and the NT as a whole) is not about going to heaven. Wright does not discuss "hell" much and suggests references to gehenna are primarily an earthly warning. My concern is to stress that we know far less from Scripture about "hell" than most Christians think. If asked if I believe in hell, I often respond that I believe in gehenna. Most NT writers never mention "hell" or even have much on judgment by fire. All of us know what the English word "hell" means, but that meaning derives from medieval sources (and Greco-Roman ideas) more than Scripture. The relevant scriptural words sheol, gehenna, and hadēs, are surprising undefined in the Bible, and I would suggest none should not be translated by "hell" because of the associations of the latter. It is better, at least for sheol and gehenna, to transliterate the words (as NRSV does for sheol).
Sheol is the Hebrew word for the grave, the pit, the place of the dead and does not mean "hell," even though the KJV uses "hell" thirty times of the sixty-five times the word occurs, which is reason enough by itself to prefer a more modern translation. There is no basis for a two compartment view of sheol, and the word gives us virtually no information about the after life or the intermediate state.
Gehenna occurs only twelve times, with James 3:6 being the only occurrence outside the Synoptic sayings of Jesus, and there it refers to destruction caused by the tongue. Whatever other influences are involved, the origin of the term is in the Hebrew gē ben hinnom ("valley of the son of Hinnom"), a geographical location, at times the site of child sacrifice, but God’s judgment on this practice turned it into a valley of slaughter (Jer 7:31-32). Fire is associated with gehenna in three of the twelve occurrences.
Hadēs is the most problematic, for the Septuagint consistently translates sheol with hadēs, which in the ten NT occurrences often means no more than the grave or death (Acts 2:31) but at least in Luke 16:23 is clearly a place of punishment.
No one emphasizes judgment as strongly as Jesus, and that part of his message deserves much more focus than it currently receives. Judgment gives significance to life. Wright has some validity in saying the occurrences of gehenna are primarily for earthly warning, but that does not mean they do not have eschatological significance. How can we do justice to the strong focus on judgment in Jesus’ message without going beyond the limited information about the nature of judgment given in the Gospels? (And no, the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16 is not intended to give us a literal picture of judgment.)
Post new comment