The four hells.

C.S. Lewis famously wrote a book called The Four Loves, about four of the five Greek words which tend to be translated “love.” Two are in the New Testament—ἀγάπη/agápi and φίλος/fílos. Two aren’t; they’re in the Septuagint, and only teachers of classic literature like Lewis would know ’em; ἔρος/éros and στοργή/storyí. There’s another Greek word, ξενία/xenía, which has some related words in the Septuagint… but Lewis only cared to highlight the first four, talk about their differences in meaning, and riff from them about how people “love” in different ways.

People hear of this book and assume, “Wow, Greek is so precise and exact. It’s got four different words for love!” Yeah… but so do we. These five words can easily be translated charity, friendship, romance, affection, and courtesy. Plus check out any thesaurus; you’ll find we have way more than five words for love. English is just as precise as we want it be.

I say this by way of introduction: There are three ancient Greek words we tend to translate “hell.” Problem is—same as with “love”—translators won’t always bother to distinguish between them. Some bibles do, and good on ’em. But whether our bible translations do or don’t, it’s important Christians know there’s a difference.

’Cause I’ve discovered Christians have no idea there’s a difference. Nor that they’re describing different things. Nor that none of them describe popular culture’s idea of hell as a dark, torturous underworld for bad people.

I said there were three words, right? So why’d I title this article “The four hells”? Well the fourth hell is pop culture hell. I’m gonna deal with that idea first.

1. Pop culture hell.

Longtime Christians probably know this already: Pop culture hell, with its caves of fire, red devils with pitchforks, ironic tortures, and bad famous people, is fiction. And comes from fiction. Comes from a mishmash of pagan mythology and Christian mythology. Because Christians don’t read our bibles, and learn what little it has to tell us about hell, we adopt pop-culture ideas instead, and insert ’em where they don’t belong.

The Christian mythology about hell largely comes from the epic poems Inferno by Dante Alighieri, and Paradise Lost by John Milton. These novels in turn borrow a boatload of ideas from Norse and Greco-Roman mythology. Medieval Christians were pretty sure ancient pagans were worshiping demons anyway, 1Co 10.20 so it was okay to repurpose those gods and mythological figures, and make ’em part of hell. I had to read ’em in school, but not every school makes it a requirement, so you may not have read ’em. But if you do read ’em, you’ll immediately recognize where all the pop-culture ideas about hell come from.

And this doesn’t include all the recent novels, comic books, TV, and movies which depict hell. Say you’re a big fan of Adam Sandler’s ridiculous movie Little Nicky. Or the Netflix series Lucifer (based on the comic book), in which Satan quits hell and opens a piano bar. If you watch this stuff, I guarantee you some of the wacky ideas from these shows are gonna unconsciously leak into your ideas about Satan and hell.

Of course there are many Fundamentalists who would never touch any non-Christian media about hell, for fear of its corrupting influences. But these folks have their own fictional depictions of hell. Ever read a Chick tract? I don’t recommend it… but Chick had no problem with depicting devilish wraiths surrounded by hellfire, plotting against Christians. With nary a thought about how none of this imagery comes from bible.

If they don’t do reincarnation, pagan religions generally have two afterlifes: A good place, and a bad place. (Yep, exactly like the TV show.) Those who had good karma, or otherwise pleased the gods, got to go to a good place; everybody else went to a bad place. Many ancient religions believed in an underworld. It wasn’t necessarily underground, in caves; that’s a Greek idea. It could be on another world, like the Norse believed; or the far side of our world, like the Egyptians believed.

The Norse afterlife was called Hel, which was either its own world, or a kingdom on the world Niflheim, ruled by Loki’s daughter Hel. (She got changed into Odin’s daughter Hela in Thor: Ragnarok.) Hel is where the Norse believed people go after they die of old age or disease. It wasn’t torment… but those who died in glorious battle got to go hang out in the best afterlife, with Odin in Valhalla or Freyja in Folkvangr. Hel, in comparison, was gloomy and creepy.

Hel became the English word for the afterlife, and initially we Christians used it to refer to the afterlife—both the good and bad places. We grew over time to only think of it as the bad afterlife.

2. Gehenna.

The word Jesus used was the Aramaic ܓ݂ܺܗܰܢܳܐ/gíhanna, which comes from the Hebrew הִנּם גַּיְא/gai Hinnóm, “Hinnom ravine.” In the Old Testament it was called the הִנּם בֶן גַּיְא/gai ben Hinnóm, “Hinnom’s son’s ravine.” 2Ch 28.3, Jr 7.31 Today it’s called the wadi er-Rababi, “Rababi ravine.” But Jesus’s word was converted into the Greek word γέεννα/ghéhenna.

Gehenna was a ravine just south of Jerusalem, likely named for one of the inhabitants of Yevús (as Jerusalem was called before David conquered it). It marked the boundary line between the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. Js 15.8 The city’s “dung gate” opened to it, and the “tile gate” Jr 19.2 was either near it or the same gate. The names of the gates should tip you off: Jerusalem’s inhabitants threw their dung and broken tiles into it. Their trash. It was Jerusalem’s dump, ashheap, landfill; whatever word you use for big pile of garbage.

We don’t know whether Gehenna was always a landfill. We do know in the 600s and early 500s BC, it was the location of a “killing place” set up to Molékh, or Milkhom, one of Ammon’s gods. Molékh was into human sacrifice, particularly children. King Josiah ben Manasseh destroyed the worship site by defiling it, 2Ki 23.10 though how he defiled it, we don’t precisely know. Maybe by turning it into a landfill; either way it had to offend Molékh-worshipers enough to drive them away.

Ancient cities, to keep their landfills from growing impossibly large, burnt their trash. And that’s how travelers knew they were coming upon a city: Look for the smoke. Jerusalemites were almost constantly burning trash. Which made Gehenna stinky and hot, and it quickly became the perfect Pharisee euphemism for the bad afterlife. Pharisees believed God would resurrect the righteous to eternal life… but everyone else was destined for “Gehenna”—a dry riverbed of flame and sulfurous feces. Where the fires were constantly smoldering, because there was no reason to ever put them out.

And y’know, a pool of fire and sulfur which burns forever and ever, located just outside New Jerusalem, sounds exactly like Gehenna outside old Jerusalem. Whatever hell looks like, it likely resembles Gehenna.

But is this what Jesus means by Gehenna?—that this is what the bad afterlife looks like, or this is what’ll become of people who get resurrected but can’t enter his kingdom? Or does Jesus only mean these lousy people are the same sort of rubbish you’d throw into Gehenna?—unfit for humanity, left on the dungheap of history?

Well, in this passage it really does look like he’s talking about the “second death.” Rv 20.13-15

Matthew 18.8-9 NET

8“If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. 9And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into fiery hell.”

Contrastng “eternal fire” in verse 8, with “fiery [Gehenna]” in verse 9, kinda gets rid of a lot of the ambiguity.

3. Sheol or Hades.

The KJV regularly used “hell” to translate the Old Testament word שְׁאוֹל/šeol, or as the ESV and NRSV transliterate it, “Sheol.” (Those bibles capitalize it, as if it’s a proper name. I don’t, because it’s not.) It means “grave.”

By “sheol” the Hebrews usually meant a literal grave, a hole in the ground in which you put corpses. But as poets, they often also meant the realm of the dead, the ghosts of everyone who’s dead and gone, waiting to receive you when you die too. Is 14.9 ’Cause everybody dies, and since God hadn’t yet told ’em otherwise, they assumed all the dead went to the same place.

When the Pharisees translated the Old Testament into Greek, they used the word ἅ́δης/ádis, “hades,” the Greek realm of the dead, for sheol. It’s all the same thing, right?

Well… the probem is Greek mythology. It adds a lot of baggage to the word “hades.”

To the Greeks, hades (same as Mt. Olympus) actually had a physical location on the map: It was part of the underground caverns of Cumae, Greece. Greeks figured they could actually go there, and talk to the ruler of hades, whom they personified as the god Hades, and maybe talk him into letting them take back their dead to the land of the living. Maybe you’ve heard the myth of Orpheus and how he talked Hades into giving him back his wife Eurydice—and he woulda got her back too, if he hadn’t looked back to make sure she was keeping up.

Maybe the Pharisees knew of these myths, but they didn’t care. Sheol was translated hades… and the KJV translates both these words as “hell.”

The problem: Hades is the afterlife. It means, same as sheol in the Old Testament, both the bad and good afterlifes. Paradise is part of hades. Jesus went to paradise, Lk 23.43 yet the Apostle’s Creed reminds us he descended to hades/sheol/“hell.” And got out, ’cause he has its key. Rv 1.18 For the rest of us, it’s where the dead await resurrection—some to eternal life, and some not. Da 12.2

In Jesus’s Dives and Lazarus Story, he described it thus.

Luke 16.22-31 NET

22“Now the poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23And in Hades, as he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far off with Lazarus at his side. 24So he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in anguish in this fire.’ 25But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things and Lazarus likewise bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in anguish. 26Besides all this, a great chasm has been fixed between us, so that those who want to cross over from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ 27So the rich man said, ‘Then I beg you, father—send Lazarus to my father’s house 28(for I have five brothers) to warn them so that they don’t come into this place of torment.’ 29But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they must respond to them.’ 30Then the rich man said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ 31He replied to him, ‘If they do not respond to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

Jesus’s story jibes with Pharisee mythology, which divided hades into a place of rest and a place of torment. And this story is pretty much our only description of sheol/hades. The rest of our info comes from hints—from extrapolating things from the very little information we’re given about the afterlife.

We know, fr’instance, that God’s everywhere, and is therefore in sheol/hades just as much as he is anywhere. Ps 139.8 We know Jesus went there, but didn’t stay. Ac 2.27, 31 We know its gates can’t hold back the church, Mt 16.18 provided we actually storm those gates instead of passively standing outside them.

Yep, if you thought hades was hell, the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and its angels, Mt 25.41 it’s not. In fact death and hades get thrown into that fire. Rv 20.11 In New Heaven and New Earth there’s no more need for a realm of the dead.

So when the Apostles Creed describes Jesus as having “descended into hell,” that’s what it means. Not that he went there to give Satan notice of a new change in dispensations—as if Satan reigns over the underworld like Hel or Pluto. Nor even that he went to free the Old Testament saints from the afterlife and take ’em to heaven with him, a popular Christian myth that’s not anywhere in the bible. He simply “descended to the lower regions,” Ep 4.9 NET meaning the grave. Same as everyone who dies.

However, Christians hate the idea that when we die, we won’t be standing directly in God’s physical presence, nor giving Jesus a big weepy hug. So we’ve invented various myths which teach otherwise. I’ll discuss them at another time.

4. Tartarus.

The one other “hell” we find in the bible is at 2 Peter 2.4, and is the Greek word ταρταρώσας/tartarósas, “thrown into Tartarus.” Simon Peter used it to describe when rebellious angels were thrown into the ἀβύσσος/ávyssos, “abyss” (KJV “bottomless pit”), an angelic prison supervised by the angel Avaddón. Rv 9.11 It’s where evil spirits begged Jesus not to send them, Lk 8.31 and where God’s gonna eventually stick the devil for 10 centuries. Rv 20.3

The word Tartarus also comes from Greek mythology. Originally it was a dungeon for the gods. Later myths turned it into a place where the gods sent all sorts of evildoers, and for fun assigned them ironic punishments. Dante’s Inferno borrows that idea to describe hell, so that’s why pop culture hell loves those ironic punishments.

Pretty sure Peter wasn’t trying to claim Tartarus was a real place. Just borrowing an interesting word to describe God sentencing angels to the abyss. Since angels don’t die, they can’t really go to any afterlife, good or bad. But in the end, if they don’t repent (and plenty of Christians actually believe God doesn’t do grace when it comes to angels, so they never get such an option), they too are going to hell.

What I mean by “hell.”

Though there are four ideas attached to the word “hell,” lemme sort out for you which of them I mean when I use that word: That’d be the second one, gehenna.

Sheol and hades is the afterlife, and I just call ’em the afterlife. Tartarus is the abyss where fallen angels are sent; it’s not a place we’re ever gonna go. And pop culture hell is ridiculous and stupid… but sometimes I’m trying to be ridiculous too, so I’ll joke about it. “You do that, and Satan’s gonna use you as a Fleshlight in hell.” But no, I don’t believe Satan dispenses ironic punishments; it’s too busy tempting people, and honestly it’s not that clever anyway. Context, folks.

But yeah, whenever I refer to hell, I mean the burning lake of sulfur that’s used as the second death. I mean what Jesus alluded to with Gehenna. And what the apostle John described thisaway:

Revelation 20.10-15 NET

10And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet are too, and they will be tormented there day and night forever and ever.

11Then I saw a large white throne and the one who was seated on it; the earth and the heaven fled from his presence, and no place was found for them. 12And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne. Then books were opened, and another book was opened—the book of life. So the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to their deeds. 13The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and Death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each one was judged according to his deeds. 14Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death—the lake of fire. 15If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, that person was thrown into the lake of fire.

This is the final punishment for humans and angels who want nothing to do with God, who won’t turn to him and be forgiven. Which means they suffer the consequences of their sins and evil deeds. They go into fire.

That’s hell, despite the King James Version’s various mistranslations, and Christians’ various misinterpretations.