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hell, purgatory and heaven.
Dante is conducted through hell
by the spirit of the Roman poet
Virgil. The trip begihs on Good
Friday, A.D. 1300, in a wooded
area near Jerusalem. Over the gate
of hell the two travelers find a fear–
ful and now famous inscription:
ABANDON EVERY HOPE, YOU
WHO ENTER HERE.
Dante then witnesses in his
imagination the eternal torments
of the wicked. He describes hell
as being divided into various lev–
els, descending conically into the
earth. Souls suffer punishments
appropriate to their sins. Hypo–
crites, for example, wear gowns
brilliant outwardly, but made of
heavy lead instead of cloth. They
must bear the weight of them for–
ever. Gluttons are doomed to for–
ever lie like pigs in a foul-smelling
sty under a cold, eternal rain.
Dante's descriptions are vivid–
and frightening.
Though Dante's primary pur–
pose in writing the poem was to
satirize persons and circumstances
of his day, the theology of bis
work is based firmly on the sys–
tem of Thomas Aquinas ( 1225-
1274), ltalian theologian and phi–
losopher.
The Divine Comedy
is a
relatively accurate dramatization
of medieval Christian theology.
Sorne simple-minded of Dante's
day actually believed Dante had
really visited hell! His work had a
tremendous impression and in–
fluence on popular Christian
thought.
Concentration Camp?
Dante's medieval picture of hell as
a gigantic concentration camp--a
34
nightmarish place of eterna! tor–
ment, horrible beyond imagina–
tion, presided over by Satan and
his demons- largely represents
the thinking of significant groups
of professing Christians to this
da
y.
The concept of a "hell" can be
found in one form or another
among all the world's principal
faiths. Multiple billions around the
world have lived and died over the
millennia believing in- and in fear
of-a place of eterna! torment and
punishment.
Many today continue to wonder,
"Is there
real/y
a hell ?" and "Will
l
end up there?" Many are curious
about just what hell might be like.
It
was with questions such as
these in rnind that
1
set out to
investigate the subject- and to
make an attempt to actually
visit
ject.
he/1!
Three Hellsl
The starting point for
such an investigation can
be none other than the
very book from which
Christians profess to de–
rive their doctrine of
hell- the Bible! By scru–
tinizing its pages, one can
strip away the theological
trappings of ancient and
medieval myth and fabri–
cation and discover the
true teaching on the sub-
One's first surprise is that the
Bible speaks of not one but of
three different "hells"!
In the
widely used King James Version,
three totally differen t Greek
words-words with totally differ–
ent meanings-are translated by
the one English word
he/l.
The
three words are
hades, tartaroo
and
gehenna.
In biblical usage, the Greek
word
hades-used
only 11 times in
the New Testament-is roughly
equivalent to the Old Testament
Hebrew word
sheol,
meaning grave
or pit (compare Acts 2:27 with
Psalm 16:10).
Hades
may be
likened to a hole in the ground. In
the Bible it has nothing to do with
jire.
Most modero biblical translators
admit that the use of the English
word
hell
to translate
hades
and
sheol
is an
unfortunate and mislead–
ing practice.
Why?
Because in seeing the
word
he//,
many readers
impute to it the tradition–
al connotation of an ever–
burning inferno-when
this was never remotely
intended in the Greek
language or in Old En–
glish!
In i ts true biblical
usage,
hades
does indeed refer to
the state or abode of the dead-but
not in the sense of spirits walking
around in sorne sort of "shadowy
realm." Hades is simply the abode
we call the
grave. Al/
the dead go
to this hell.
The Second Hell
The second hell of the Bible,
tarta–
roo,
is mentioned
on/y once
in
scripture-in
11
Peter 2:4: "For if
God spared not the angels that
sinned, but cast them down to hell
[tartaroo],
and delivered them into
chains of darkness to be reserved
unto judgment."
Following their rebellion to
unseat God from His throne (lsa.
14:12-14; Rev. 12:4) , the archangel
Lucifer (now Satan) and a third of
the created angels (demons) were
ejected from heaven (Luke 10:18).
They were cast down to
tartaroo,
a
place or condition of restraint that
God has imposed on the mutinou$
angels as they await ultimate judg–
ment (Jude 6;
1
Cor. 6:3).
Tartaroo,
then, is a "hell" that
applies only to evil, rebellious
angels· or demons. lt is interesting
that the ancient Greeks used this
word to describe the place in which
Zeu s confined the rebellious
Titans. Nowhere .in the Bible is
there any mention of
men
being put
into this particular "hell."
The Third Hell
So far, we have seen that the first
hell of the
Bible- hades-is
sim–
ply the grave. The second hell–
tartaroo--a
place or condition of
restraint for demons. What, then, is
the third hell of the Bible?
Surely it
must
be the old-fash-
The
PLAIN TRUTH