Does Hell Exist?

[Data]

The question for debate is does hell exist? If so, what does the Bible teach hell is?

[1213]

...
No, Gehenna is a literal valley used in a figurative sense. The lake of fire is a symbolic representation of the second death. ..

In Bible the Gehenna is a fire lake. I don't think that fits to the literal valley in any way, sorry.

[Data]

...
No, Gehenna is a literal valley used in a figurative sense. The lake of fire is a symbolic representation of the second death. ..

In Bible the Gehenna is a fire lake. I don't think that fits to the literal valley in any way, sorry.

I don't think you are listening? Gehenna is a valley S and SW of ancient Jerusalem. The Lake of fire is symbolic for everlasting destruction. They aren't the same.

[2timothy316]

No, Gehenna is a literal valley used in a figurative sense. The lake of fire is a symbolic representation of the second death. Eternal destruction. No hope for resurrection. Satan, his demons and followers, death and hell (the grave) are figuratively thrown there to symbolize their eternal destruction. No more Satan, no more sin, no more death, no more grave.

I'd like to interject here that 2nd death does mean that a person that goes into the lake of fire suffered a 1st death and dies a 2nd time. I am finding many people are confused by the term 2nd. The term second death is not denoting an order but a type. The first type of death is the one that a person can be recovered from. The majority of mankind has suffered this type of death. Jesus suffered this kind of death once for all mankind.

A person or being that suffers the second type of death is unrecoverable. Like a wooden chair thrown into a fire. There is no way to recover something that been burned to ashes. Satan, the first type of death, wicked people, false religions, and human ran governments will be removed forever, never to return. There is no mention of the second type of death being removed in the Bible. Thus, once the first type of death is removed, if a person or angel decides they want to rebel against Jehovah like Satan, Adam & Eve did in the past. There will no option for the type of recoverable death we have today. They will go straight to the lake of fire, AKA the second type of death.

[theophile]

No, Gehenna is a literal valley used in a figurative sense. The lake of fire is a symbolic representation of the second death. Eternal destruction. No hope for resurrection. Satan, his demons and followers, death and hell (the grave) are figuratively thrown there to symbolize their eternal destruction. No more Satan, no more sin, no more death, no more grave.

I'd like to interject here that 2nd death does mean that a person that goes into the lake of fire suffered a 1st death and dies a 2nd time. I am finding many people are confused by the term 2nd. The term second death is not denoting an order but a type. The first type of death is the one that a person can be recovered from. The majority of mankind has suffered this type of death. Jesus suffered this kind of death once for all mankind.

A person or being that suffers the second type of death is unrecoverable. Like a wooden chair thrown into a fire. There is no way to recover something that been burned to ashes. Satan, the first type of death, wicked people, false religions, and human ran governments will be removed forever, never to return. There is no mention of the second type of death being removed in the Bible. Thus, once the first type of death is removed, if a person or angel decides they want to rebel against Jehovah like Satan, Adam & Eve did in the past. There will no option for the type of recoverable death we have today. They will go straight to the lake of fire, AKA the second type of death.

Could we not say that Gehenna, and the lake of burning sulfur, takes the place of the grave / Hades / Sheol / hell in the age to come? That just as heaven and earth are made new at the end, so too a grave beyond the grave is established? i.e., an uber-hell? One where the grave or death itself can be put to rest? Along with Satan and all its minions? (I hesitate to say 'rest', since there is a notion of everlasting torment / testing that happens there, but more a turn of phrase... i.e., I'm not sure I agree the second death involves utter destruction...)

The other note here is the two-fold aspect of Gehenna. First, as a place of idolatry, child sacrifice, etc. Second, as a dumping ground and place of final judgment. I think there's a development that makes sense between these too aspects, but the latter, or Gehenna as a dumping ground, is very grave-like in its imagery. i.e., it still very much fits the etymology of 'hell', and what many popularly believe of the notion. (Bodies heaped upon bodies, burning sulfur heaped upon them, etc. etc.)

[2timothy316]

No, Gehenna is a literal valley used in a figurative sense. The lake of fire is a symbolic representation of the second death. Eternal destruction. No hope for resurrection. Satan, his demons and followers, death and hell (the grave) are figuratively thrown there to symbolize their eternal destruction. No more Satan, no more sin, no more death, no more grave.

I'd like to interject here that 2nd death does mean that a person that goes into the lake of fire suffered a 1st death and dies a 2nd time. I am finding many people are confused by the term 2nd. The term second death is not denoting an order but a type. The first type of death is the one that a person can be recovered from. The majority of mankind has suffered this type of death. Jesus suffered this kind of death once for all mankind.

A person or being that suffers the second type of death is unrecoverable. Like a wooden chair thrown into a fire. There is no way to recover something that been burned to ashes. Satan, the first type of death, wicked people, false religions, and human ran governments will be removed forever, never to return. There is no mention of the second type of death being removed in the Bible. Thus, once the first type of death is removed, if a person or angel decides they want to rebel against Jehovah like Satan, Adam & Eve did in the past. There will no option for the type of recoverable death we have today. They will go straight to the lake of fire, AKA the second type of death.

Could we not say that Gehenna, and the lake of burning sulfur, takes the place of the grave / Hades / Sheol / hell in the age to come?

The Bible doesn't seem to suggest that the second type of death takes the place of the grave. As of right now it would seem they co-exist. Until the grave is tossed into the second death. The grave is an enemy of mankind. As of right now it is inevitable and unavoidable. Something has to be thrown into the second death by God himself and it is not an inevitable certainty to anyone that lives. So, I don't think we can say, in the strictest sense of definition, the lake of fire replaces the grave. What we can say is that the lake of fire will be the only type of death left.

That just as heaven and earth are made new at the end, so too a grave beyond the grave is established? i.e., an uber-hell? One where the grave or death itself can be put to rest? Along with Satan and all its minions? (I hesitate to say 'rest', since there is a notion of everlasting torment / testing that happens there, but more a turn of phrase... i.e., I'm not sure I agree the second death involves utter destruction...)

To find out what the second death (note the word death not more life is used in the Bible) is we need to compare two scriptures.

Revalation 20:14 - "And death and the Grave were hurled into the lake of fire. This means the second death, the lake of fire."
Compared with...
1 Corinthians 15:26 - "And the last enemy, death, is to be brought to nothing."

If death's final destination is being 'brought to nothing' or being 'hurled into the lake of fire', the grave and death can't be tortured as these are just concepts. Then the lake of fire can only be symbolic of complete annihilation. Just as things tossed into Gehenna are burned never to be retrieved. Its the only description that is harmonious with other scriptures such as Ecc 9:5 and Ps 146:4 that describe the condition of anything dead, graveyard dead or lake of fire dead.

The other note here is the two-fold aspect of Gehenna. First, as a place of idolatry, child sacrifice, etc. Second, as a dumping ground and place of final judgment. I think there's a development that makes sense between these too aspects, but the latter, or Gehenna as a dumping ground, is very grave-like in its imagery. i.e., it still very much fits the etymology of 'hell', and what many popularly believe of the notion. (Bodies heaped upon bodies, burning sulfur heaped upon them, etc. etc.)

As humans we personify things. Even dead things. We imagine a field on fire with dead bodies in it, we can't help but think those bodies are feeling the flames. But they are not. Those bodies are nothing more than lifeless bio-matter which will either decay or burn to ash. Genesis says it best, "In the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return.” (Gen 3:19) Many people can't accept that people are just dust. We are atoms. Humans are not spirit creatures wrapped in dust. We are completely dust and the dust that made us as people is what we return to after we die, no more no less.

[Data]

No, Gehenna is a literal valley used in a figurative sense. The lake of fire is a symbolic representation of the second death. Eternal destruction. No hope for resurrection. Satan, his demons and followers, death and hell (the grave) are figuratively thrown there to symbolize their eternal destruction. No more Satan, no more sin, no more death, no more grave.

I'd like to interject here that 2nd death does mean that a person that goes into the lake of fire suffered a 1st death and dies a 2nd time. I am finding many people are confused by the term 2nd. The term second death is not denoting an order but a type. The first type of death is the one that a person can be recovered from. The majority of mankind has suffered this type of death. Jesus suffered this kind of death once for all mankind.

A person or being that suffers the second type of death is unrecoverable. Like a wooden chair thrown into a fire. There is no way to recover something that been burned to ashes. Satan, the first type of death, wicked people, false religions, and human ran governments will be removed forever, never to return. There is no mention of the second type of death being removed in the Bible. Thus, once the first type of death is removed, if a person or angel decides they want to rebel against Jehovah like Satan, Adam & Eve did in the past. There will no option for the type of recoverable death we have today. They will go straight to the lake of fire, AKA the second type of death.

Could we not say that Gehenna, and the lake of burning sulfur, takes the place of the grave / Hades / Sheol / hell in the age to come?

If it (the grave / Hades / Sheol / hell) is thrown into the lake then how is it not taking its place? Also, the founding of the world marking the beginning of the end times indicates that the age to come wouldn't exist until that time. For what does Christ have to do with Belial?

That just as heaven and earth are made new at the end, so too a grave beyond the grave is established? i.e., an uber-hell? One where the grave or death itself can be put to rest? Along with Satan and all its minions?

Heaven and earth are made new, whereas death, Satan, the grave, et cetera are destroyed completely.

(I hesitate to say 'rest', since there is a notion of everlasting torment / testing that happens there, but more a turn of phrase... i.e., I'm not sure I agree the second death involves utter destruction...)

I like to use this analogy. If a person tells a friend who is about to do something that will surely get that friend killed "You'll be sorry." It isn't literally true because the friend will not be sorry, the friend will be dead. Same thing with torment.

The other note here is the two-fold aspect of Gehenna. First, as a place of idolatry, child sacrifice, etc. Second, as a dumping ground and place of final judgment. I think there's a development that makes sense between these too aspects, but the latter, or Gehenna as a dumping ground, is very grave-like in its imagery. i.e., it still very much fits the etymology of 'hell', and what many popularly believe of the notion. (Bodies heaped upon bodies, burning sulfur heaped upon them, etc. etc.)

The Hebrew word sheol comes from the word shaal which means to ask or request. "The common receptacle or region of the dead; so-called from the insatiability of the grave, which is as it were always asking or craving more." - A Compendious Hebrew Lexicon, Samuel Pike, Cambridge, 1811, p. 148.

Sin equals death. Take that away and the grave (sheol, hades, hell) is no longer asking anything.

[onewithhim]

The question for debate is does hell exist? If so, what does the Bible teach hell is?

It does not exist as most people think it is---a place where fire consumes the wicked and yet they don't die. That is something that was dreamed up by those that misunderstood the actual meaning and took symbolic statements as literal. These individuals folded pagan teachings in with Christian beliefs and because the Bible mentions the Devil being tormented in the lake of fire they say that it is literal, when most of Revelation is symbolic anyway.

The King James Version has mistranslated many verses by inserting the word "hell" in many places that it shouldn't be. It renders "Gehenna" as "hell." It renders "Tartarus" as "hell." There are other examples as well. All the while, "hell" means the grave. When you replace "hell" with "the grave," you will get the real meaning of the verse under examination. ("Gehenna" Matt.5:22, 29, 30; 10:28; 23:33 actually means a garbage dump outside Jerusalem where corpses were thrown in with the garbage to be burned up to nothing. When Jesus used it, he was telling the Pharisees that they were liable to become annihilated completely, with nothing left of them. Not that they would literally suffer in flames forever. "Tartarus" 2nd Peter 2:4 simply means a spiritual darkness that the demons are suffering, not a fiery hell.)

Let's think a minute.....if people were roasted in flames forever, they would still be alive, right? The Bible says that it is DEATH that the wicked are liable for. So for the wicked to still be alive is contradicting the Scriptures. Jesus meant that, again, the wicked would really be dead and would be completely obliterated.

[onewithhim]

...
No, Gehenna is a literal valley used in a figurative sense. The lake of fire is a symbolic representation of the second death. ..

In Bible the Gehenna is a fire lake. I don't think that fits to the literal valley in any way, sorry.

Gehenna is not a fiery lake. It is the valley of garbage where they threw carcasses to burn up (completely, to no longer exist).

[2timothy316]

...
No, Gehenna is a literal valley used in a figurative sense. The lake of fire is a symbolic representation of the second death. ..

In Bible the Gehenna is a fire lake. I don't think that fits to the literal valley in any way, sorry.

Gehenna is not a fiery lake. It is the valley of garbage where they threw carcasses to burn up (completely, to no longer exist).

The only thing Gehenna and the lake of fire have in common is that they both symbolize where worthless things to God go to be completely destroyed. Jesus was using the trash heap of Gehenna as reference to explain to his followers that one doesn't want to be viewed as trash to God.

[Data]

Let's think a minute.....if people were roasted in flames forever, they would still be alive, right? The Bible says that it is DEATH that the wicked are liable for. So for the wicked to still be alive is contradicting the Scriptures. Jesus meant that, again, the wicked would really be dead and would be completely obliterated.

Yeah, and also a spirit creature like Satan and his angels wouldn't be harmed by flame.