[quote]honest_lifter
Recap: Hades, or Sheol, is the common grave of mankind and is not a place of torment as some believe.[/quote]
For the third time:
My answer: There are three words translated as “hell” in various English versions: Hades, Tartarus and Gehenna. Hades seems to be a reference to the intermediate state of people prior to the Judgment while the one place in which tartarus is used (2 Peter 2:4) seems to be referring to an intermediate state of wicked angels. Gehenna, which is compounded from two Hebrew words ge and Hinnom, literally means “valley of Hinnom.”
Hinnom thus originally was a name for a valley just southeast of Jerusalem. That’s the valley where children were sacrificed to Molech (2 Chronicles 28:3; 33:6). Josiah, in his effort to stamp out idolatry, turned the Valley of Hinnom (Gehenna) into a dump for burning trash and the disposal of unclean corpses (2 Kings 23:10). It was also the place where the bodies of those slain in the destruction of Jerusalem were thrown (Isaiah 66:24 and Jeremiah 7:32). It thus became associated in the prophetic writings with the place of judgment and doom. In the New Testament, gehenna is no longer identified with the Valley of Hinnom. It now simply means eternal punishment.
When the valley of Hinnom was a garbage dump, fires burned there continually. It is thus not surprising that the words unquenchable fire, eternal fire and furnace of fire are associated with the usage of the word gehenna.
In the New Testament, that compound word “Gehenna” is used 12 times. Eleven of those references are in statements of Jesus. In all 12 instances, the words refers to punishment in the future yet to come. Thus, the word “hell” in the sense of Gehenna refers to the final punishment of evil angels and impenitent human beings.
The terms used in Scripture to express the idea of future punishment have a great deal of the figurative about them. Perhaps the most horrifying thing about the idea of hell is the banishment from God’s presence that is indicated in Matthew 25:41. To be banished from God is to be forever separated from all good.
In terms of hell being eternal, we have to look carefully at the word “everlasting” or “eternal” used in Matthew 18:8. The parallel passage in Mark 9:43-44 adds some additional phrases of explanation. The phrase “eternal damnation” is also used in Mark 3:29. There’s also the use of the words “eternal” or “everlasting” in Matthew 25:31-46.
Hell is called “outer darkness” by Jesus (Matthew 8:21 22 13; 25:30). Since light and darkness symbolize good and evil, outer darkness would then be absolute evil.
Some people protest that a good God could never send people to hell. That objection to the existence of hell is answered by Jesus scathing question in Matthew 23:33: “You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?”
In at least three places in the New Testament, the phrase outer darkness is followed by the clause “there men will weep and gnash their teeth.” So, clearly, this outer darkness is not a place of unconsciousness or annihilation ad the confused JW would have you believe, but of conscious remorse and suffering.
Among the terms that Paul uses are “death” (thanatos) and “destruction” (apoleia, olethros). As Paul uses them, those words are qualitative rather than temporal terms. The Watchtower publication often appeals to Vine’s Expository Dictionary of the New Testament as an authority. Do you know what Vine says about Paul’s use of “apoleia,” the word often translated “destruction”? Vine says that “apoleia” (or destruction) as used in Romans 9:22 and Philippians 3:19 means “loss of well being, not of being.” Thus, when Paul speaks of “destruction” he does not mean “annihilation.” Indeed, Paul explains that he is talking about “exclusion from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His might” (2 Thessalonians 1:8-9).
Nowhere do Old or New Testament writings say that a human’s final end is total extinction. As I have noted, the New Testament warns that a person may be destroyed (or rather self-destroyed). However, this does not mean annihilation. When a watch gets smashed, it may be destroyed as a watch, but it does not vanish. In its ruined state, that watch is still a watch, even though it is a sad contrast to what it was designed to be. When Jesus taught that "whoever wishes to save his life shall destroy (apolesis) it (Mark 8:35), He did not mean that one would thus vanish. How silly to think such things.
Some have argued that “aionios” which is commonly translated “everlasting” or “eternal” means only “of the ages” and does not necessarily contain the sense of “without end.” However, while this Greek term is used seven times of the future punishment of the wicked, it is used some 51 times of the future happiness of the redeemed. So, if you say that the future punishment of the impenitent is terminated by annihilation, then you have undercut the Biblical argument for everlasting life for the righteous (since the same word is used to say that both the punishment are the reward are “everlasting”.
This is what the experts who study scripture for a living believe. They are experts in ancient Hebrew and also the Greek language. And this is what makes sense to me after careful examination. That you feel you can twist the scripture to suit your needs is not only an insult to every Christian alive, but when you do this you also insult my intelligence as you THINK you know better than those who have dedicated a life time in the study of the Christian Bible. I think they have a pretty good handle on the Bible and the meaning of Hell and Hades.
PS: Tell me where the fallen angels are being held? How do you twist, turn and change the meaning of the passages in Jude and Peter on this one?