Question 4
Isn't "Hell" a place where the wicked are burning in torment now?
The word "Hell" is found 54 times in the Bible and is translated from 4 different words;
1. "Sheol" which is the Hebrew word for "the grave". This word appears 31 times in the Old Testament. Every time we see the word "Hell" in the Old Testament, it comes from the Hebrew word "Sheol" and it simply means "the grave". See one example text below:
2. "Hades" which is the Greek word for "the grave". The word "Hell" is translated 11 times in the New Testament from the the word "Hades". See one example text below:
3. "Tartarus" which is a Greek word meaning "a place of darkness". The word "Hell" is translated from the word "Tartarus" only once in the Bible. See that one text below:
4. "Gehenna" which is a Greek word used for the name where Jerusalem's city dump was located. The Hebrew name for this valley was "The Valley of the Son of Hinnom" or just "Hinnom". This valley was "used as a place to cast carcasses of animals and malefactors, which were consumed by a fire that was constantly kept up.” (See Liddell and Scott’s Greek Lexicon.) The word "Hell" is translated from the word "Gehenna" 12 times in the New Testament. See one example text below:
Answer
No, the bible does not teach that Hell is a place where wicked people are burning now. You can see this by looking at the definitions above. Imagine how much confusion could be avoided if the translators would have used the actual word "Sheol", "Hades", "tartarus", or "Gehenna" instead of the word "hell"! The word Hell actually comes from Greek mythology. In Greek mythology, a certain god was in charge of the underworld where souls would go after they died. This Greek myth was common knowlege in Jesus' day and has slowly crept into Christian thinking.
The word "Hell" in the bible most often means "the grave". Most of the confusion about the word "Hell" comes from the word "Gehenna", which is a place associated with the idea of fire and dead people. Gehenna is the Greek word used for the Hebrew place called "The Valley of Hinnom". This valley is where King Manasseh sacrificed his own sons to the pagan god baal with fire. Later, this valley became the perpetual burning-garbage dump where dead bodies of crimials and animals were placed and where fire and worms continually consumed the decaying bodies. So when Jesus said "Hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched; Where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched", He was not speaking of a place where lost sinners go to receive conscious torment in fire forever. Rather He was refering to Gehenna, or the Valley of Hinnom. Jesus was saying that the fate of the lost would be like a dead body which no longer has life cast into the Valley of Hinnom.