Highlights from "Inventing Hell"
I just finished the book Inventing Hell by Jon Sweeney. In his book, Jon explains that over the course of history a few key figures have played a pivotal role in forming the modern-day idea of Hell. The author looks as far back to the B.C. days of Homer, Hesiod, Plato, and Socrates. He also discusses keys on several Biblical passages and authors, and then fast-forwards all the way to the 13th century days of the venerable poet Dante, who is infamous for his Inferno.
In this post, I will highlight some of the author's main points that I found particularly important for an individual to have a proper understanding of the historical formation of the word hell.
1. In his Republic, Plato is the first known to make popular the idea of God as the judge of persons after their death.
"Prior to Plato, the dead were simply judged by the living. Friends, families, communities, and reputations were the collective judge of what sort of person someone was, for eternity. People's passions and sins were buried with their bodies, and their bodies and souls (the whole package) went to whichever after-hours place under the topsoil you choose. That's all that existed in the Hebrew Bible." (page 88)
2. Plato was the first known to make famous the idea of the soul being separate from the body, suggesting that after death the soul would leave the body and move on to some eternal realm, that realm being determined by the one and only judge-- God.
"According to the Hebrew Bible, a human soul couldn't be separated from its body.....Occasionally, one would sing to God that his life force, his spirit, would somehow be grabbed hold of and his spirit renewed--but that was a purely spiritual yearning. In either case, body and soul remained together. Not so in Athens four hundred years before Christ. A soul that separates from the body after death added to the complexity of what it meant to be human, and made the possibilities for afterlife endless." (page 85)
3. In 1611, the King James Bible changed "Sheol" to "Hell." Simply meaning, "a subterranean cavern", Sheol is the word that predominantly existed in place of the word Hell in the Old Testament prior to this 1611 change. Sheol had no correlation to an eternal afterlife and was the destination for EVERYONE, not just the wicked. (page 28)
4. Hades (another word Biblical word that was changed to Hell) was a Greek myth created by Homer in B.C. times. In Homer's Odyssey, he introduces the god of the underworld--Hades. The Greeks were polytheists, so they often deified aspects of the cosmos that were beyond their comprehension.
"The setting of Homer's Hades was the subterranean unknown, where the character of an evil god ruled." (page 48)
5. From "Valley of Hinnom" to "Gehenna" to "Hell." Centuries ago in the Valley of Hinnom, Jews sacrificed their own children to the fire god Moloch. It's difficult to grasp, but this was not an abnormal practice in these days because it was a common idea to believe that gods needed human sacrifices to remain pleased. Fast-forward to the time of Jesus where people referred to the valley as Gehenna and it was now a garbage dump that continuously burned.
"If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell [GEHENNA]. (Matthew 5:29) Jesus was speaking in metaphor.
That's all I'm going to comment on for this post. I did a lengthy post called Rethinking Hell 2.5 years ago, so if you care to dive in more feel free to check out my post or I would highly recommend reading Inventing Hell for a great introduction to the topic of Hell.
In this post, I will highlight some of the author's main points that I found particularly important for an individual to have a proper understanding of the historical formation of the word hell.
1. In his Republic, Plato is the first known to make popular the idea of God as the judge of persons after their death.
"Prior to Plato, the dead were simply judged by the living. Friends, families, communities, and reputations were the collective judge of what sort of person someone was, for eternity. People's passions and sins were buried with their bodies, and their bodies and souls (the whole package) went to whichever after-hours place under the topsoil you choose. That's all that existed in the Hebrew Bible." (page 88)
2. Plato was the first known to make famous the idea of the soul being separate from the body, suggesting that after death the soul would leave the body and move on to some eternal realm, that realm being determined by the one and only judge-- God.
"According to the Hebrew Bible, a human soul couldn't be separated from its body.....Occasionally, one would sing to God that his life force, his spirit, would somehow be grabbed hold of and his spirit renewed--but that was a purely spiritual yearning. In either case, body and soul remained together. Not so in Athens four hundred years before Christ. A soul that separates from the body after death added to the complexity of what it meant to be human, and made the possibilities for afterlife endless." (page 85)
3. In 1611, the King James Bible changed "Sheol" to "Hell." Simply meaning, "a subterranean cavern", Sheol is the word that predominantly existed in place of the word Hell in the Old Testament prior to this 1611 change. Sheol had no correlation to an eternal afterlife and was the destination for EVERYONE, not just the wicked. (page 28)
4. Hades (another word Biblical word that was changed to Hell) was a Greek myth created by Homer in B.C. times. In Homer's Odyssey, he introduces the god of the underworld--Hades. The Greeks were polytheists, so they often deified aspects of the cosmos that were beyond their comprehension.
"The setting of Homer's Hades was the subterranean unknown, where the character of an evil god ruled." (page 48)
5. From "Valley of Hinnom" to "Gehenna" to "Hell." Centuries ago in the Valley of Hinnom, Jews sacrificed their own children to the fire god Moloch. It's difficult to grasp, but this was not an abnormal practice in these days because it was a common idea to believe that gods needed human sacrifices to remain pleased. Fast-forward to the time of Jesus where people referred to the valley as Gehenna and it was now a garbage dump that continuously burned.
"If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell [GEHENNA]. (Matthew 5:29) Jesus was speaking in metaphor.
That's all I'm going to comment on for this post. I did a lengthy post called Rethinking Hell 2.5 years ago, so if you care to dive in more feel free to check out my post or I would highly recommend reading Inventing Hell for a great introduction to the topic of Hell.
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