Hell - Part 3 - Hellfire and Darkness
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This article continues the series on “hell” by discussing the Greek words that Jesus used referencing the punishments of fire and the “outer darkness.” In both, we focus on the words Jesus used and their meaning at his time as opposed to the meaning these ideas have been given since.
Hell as Fire
Jesus uses various images of fire, especially in his parables. This is usually related to the analogy of gehenna, the perpetually burning trash heap outside of Jerusalem (see this article). In Jesus’s very last parable, the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, he describes a separation of the worthy from the unworthy. This ends with the unworthy being sent into "everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matthew 25:41). A similar image is used in the Parable of the Weeds, where the weeds are thrown in an "oven" at the end (Matthew 13:42).
These seem to get us much closer to the Christian idea of hell, but in none of these related verses does Jesus describe the fire as eternal punishment. Nor would that be assumed by his listeners at the time. Yes, being burned is painful, but being burned in a trash heap is primarily destructive. In the first verse, the fire is described as everlasting, but the word means "perpetual" just like the perpetual fires of the trash heap, Gehenna. The fire may be continual, but this doesn't mean what was tossed into it is eternally burning. What is burnt is destroyed, but the fire itself continues because it always has new fuel. The process of destruction of what is worthless is on-going. This is so obvious as to be a truism.
Fire destroys. It is painful, but only for a while. It is not perpetual torment. What is destroyed by the fire Jesus describes? The Parable of the Sheep and Goats tells us that the fire was prepared for "devils and their angels." Does this refer to beings or aspects of people’s character? The word translated as "devil" (diabolos) means "slanderous," and "backbiting." So "devils" malicious lies or our tendency to tell them (see Demons 1, 2, 3 and Satan). The Greek term for "angels," aggelos, means "messengers" (see this article). So it refers to those who repeat malicious lies. So what is destroyed by fire? This malevolent part of us. That destruction is painful.
But fire is also productive. The type of oven mentioned in the Parable of the Weeds is specifically a type of bread oven, one that is fueled in Galilee by the waste foliage. Jesus describes the “lilies of the field,” the ones dressed more beautifully than Solomon, as being eventually used to fuel these fires. Many areas of Galilee and Judea did not have trees so dried foliage was used as the fuel for ovens. In other words, the seed-producing grain for flour is actually baked into bread by the burning of “false wheat,” a more accurate translation of the Greek word translated as “weeds.” So even the false (the lying) becomes productive through its destruction in fire.
Notice that both the productive and destructive roles of fire are connected to its role in producing light. The power of light, that is, knowledge, destroys that which is built on lies. Truth does not torture untruth, it simply destroys it, as Jesus says gehenna destroys the dishonest self, the "self" built on lies. However, the heat of that destruction produces light, the knowledge that transforms the dough into bread.
The Outer Darkness
This brings us to the last and most humorous phrase Jesus uses to describe what happens to the worthless parts of people. They are cast into "outer darkness” where there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth." This phrase is used in Matthew 8:12, Matthew 22:13, Matthew 25:30, and nearly in Matthew 24:51. Notice in Matthew 13:42, however, the same “weeping and gnashing of teeth” is applied to fire. So there is a paradoxical connection between fire and this darkness. Notice that the "crimes" involved in these verses seem relatively minor—“not trusting,” not wearing a wedding garment, not investing wisely, and misusing one’s position. This threat, therefore, seems to be primarily a humorous exaggeration, but an instructive one.
To understand “the darkness,” it helps to know one more thing about the afterlife of Sheol, the Hades to the Jews. In the apocryphal books of Jesus’s era, Sheol was described as a series of underground caves. In one of those caves, the central one reserved for the law-abiding, there was light. The rest of the caves, those for those who were not law-abiding, were in darkness. This may be the source of Jesus’s description of “the darkness, the outer one.”
This "outer darkness" seems to be the opposite of "fire," but it is really the opposite of the light of knowledge. The "gnashing of teeth" phrase captures the idea of "backbiting," that is, the liar getting revenge, but those same words also mean "the chattering of teeth," which indicates cold. While the darkness, the outer one, is an image of cold, not hot, in Matthew 24:51, Jesus describes this as the place where "actors" go. For Jesus, actors are an analogy for liars. The image is one of living a lie as living in darkness, burning with the pain of resentment.
Conclusions
All these images are valuable, clarifying the difference between a useful life and a useless one. All of Jesus’s teaching urges us to useful life, but as the basis for the Christian ontology of an afterlife as perpetual pain or perpetual bliss, it is difficult to see.
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