The Bible Hell, J.W. Hanson, Kenroy Hunter [black female authors txt] 📗

its meaning at this period-that from A. D. 150-195, we find in two Greek authors, Justin and Clement of Alexandria, the first resident in Italy and the last in Egypt that Gehenna began to be used to designate a place of punishment after death, but not endless punishment since Clement was a believer in universal restoration-that the first time we find Gehenna used in this sense in any Jewish writing is near the beginning of the third century, in the Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel, two hundred years too late to be of any service in the argument-and lastly, that the New Testament usage shows that while it had not wholly lost its literal sense, it was also employed in the time of Christ as a symbol of moral corruption and wickedness; but more especially as a figure of the terrible judgments of God on the rebellious and sinful nation of the Jews."

The Jewish talmuds and targums use the word in the sense that the Christian Church has so long used it, though without attributing endlessness to it, but none of them are probably older than A. D. 200. The oldest is the targum (translation) of Jonathan Ben Uzziel, which was written according to the best authorities between A. D. 200 and A. D. 400.

"Most of the eminent critics now agree, that it could not have been completed till some time between two and four hundred years after Christ." Univ. Expos. Vol 2, p. 368. "Neither the language nor the method of interpretation is the same in all the books. In the historical works, the text is translated with greater accuracy than elsewhere; in some of the Prophets, as in Zechariah, the interpretation has more of the Rabbinical and Talmudical character. From this variety we may properly infer, that the work is a collection of interpretations of several learned men made toward the close of the third century, and containing some of a much older date; for that some parts of it existed as early as in the second century, appears from the additions which have been transferred from some Chaldee paraphrase into the Hebrew text, and were already in the text in the second century." Jahn Int. p. 66. Horne's Intro. Vol. 2. p. 160.

Dr. T. B. Thayer in his "Theology," says: "Dr. Jahn assigns it to the end of the third century after Christ; Eichhorn decides for the fourth century; Bertholdt inclines to the second or third century, and is confident that it 'cannot have attained its present complete form, before the end of the second century.' Bauer coincides generally in these views.

Some critics put the date even as low down as the seventh or eighth century. See a full discussion of the question in the Universalist Expositor, Vol. 2, p. 35l-368. See, also, Horne's Introduction, Vol. 2, 157-163. Justin Martyr. A. D. 150, and Clement of Alexandria, A. D. 195, both employ Gehenna to designate the place of future punishment; but the first utters an opinion only of its meaning in a certain text, and the last was a Universalist and did not, of course, believe that Gehenna was the place of endless punishment. Augustine, A. D. 400, says Gehenna 'stagnum ignis el sulphuris corporeus ignis erit.' De Civitate Dei, L. 21. C. 10."

At the time of Christ the Old Testament existed in Hebrew. The Septuagint translation of it was made between two hundred and four hundred years before his birth. In both Gehenna is never used as the name of a place of future punishment. A writer in the Universalist Expositor remarks, (Vol. 2): "Both the Apocrypha, and the works of Philo, when compared together, afford circumstantial evidence that the word cannot have been currently employed, during their age, to denote a place of future torment. . . . From the few traces which remain to us of this age, it seems that the idea of future punishment, such as it was among the Jews, was associated with that of darkeness, and not of fire; and that among those of Palestine, the misery of the wicked was supposed to consist rather in privation, than in positive infliction. . . . But we cannot discover, in Josephus, that either of these sects, the Pharisees or the Essenes, both of which believed the doctrine of endless misery, supposed it to be a state of fire, or that the Jews ever alluded to it by that emblem."

Thus the Apocrypha, B. C. 150-500, Philo Judaeus A. D. 40, and Josephus, A. D. 70-100, all refer to future punishment, but none of them use Gehenna to describe it, which they would have done, being Jews, had the word been then in use with that meaning. Were it the name of a place of future torment, then, can any one doubt that it would be found repeatedly in their writings? And does not the fact that it is never found in their writings demonstrate that it had no such use then, and if so, does it not follow that Christ used it in no such sense?

Canon Farrar says of Gehenna (Preface to "Eternal Hope): "In the Old Testament it is merely the pleasant valley of Hinnom (Ge Hinnom), subsequently desecrated by idolatry, and especially by Moloch worship, and defiled by Josiah on this account. (See I Kings 11: 7; II Kings 23: 10.)(Jer. 7: 31; 19: 10-14; Isa. 30: 33; Tophet). Used according to Jewish tradition, as the common sewage of the city, the corpses of the worst criminals were flung into it unburied, and fires were lit to purify the contaminated air. It then became a word which secondarily implied (1) the severest judgment which a Jewish court could pass upon a criminal-the casting forth of his unburied corpse amid the fires and worms of this polluted valley; and (2) a punishment-which to the Jews a body never meant an endless punishment beyond the grave. Whatever may be the meaning of the entire passages in which the word occurs, 'Hell' must be a complete mistranslation, since it attributes to the term used by Christ a sense entirely different from that in which it was understood by our Lord's hearers, and therefore entirely different from the sense in which he could have used it. Origen says (c. Celsus 6: 25) that Gehenna denotes (1) the vale of Hinnon; and (2) a purificatory fire (eis ten meta basanon katharsin). He declares that Celsus was totally ignorant of the meaning of Gehenna."

JEWISH VIEWS OF GEHENNA

Gehenna is the name given by Jews to Hell. Rev. H. N. Adler, a Jewish Rabbi, says: "They do not teach endless retributive suffering. They hold that it is not conceivable that a God of mercy and justice would ordain infinite punishment for finite wrong-doing." Dr. Dentsch declares: "There is not a word in the Talmud that lends any support to that damnable dogma of endless torment." Dr. Dewes in his "Plea for Rational Translation," says that Gehenna is alluded to four or five times in the Mishna, thus: "The judgment of Gehenna is for twelve months;" "Gehenna is a day in which the impious shall be burnt." Bartolocci declares that "the Jews did not believe in a material fire, and thought that such fire as they did believe in would one day be put out." Rabbi Akiba, "the second Moses," said: "The duration of the punishment of the wicked in Gehenna is twelve months." Adyoth 3: 10. some rabbis said Gehenna only lasted from Passover to Pentecost. This was the prevalent conception. (Abridged from Excursus 5, in Canon Farrar's "Eternal Hope." He gives in a note these testimonies to prove that the Jews to whom Jesus spoke, did not regard Gehenna as of endless duration). Asarath Maamaroth, f. 35, 1: "There will hereafter be no Gehenna." Jalkuth Shimoni, f. 46, 1: "Gabriel and Michael will open the eight thousand gates of Gehenna, and let out Israelites and righteous Gentiles." A passage in Othoth, (attributed to R. Akiba) declares that Gabriel and Michael will open the forty thousand gates of Gehenna, and set free the damned, and in Emek Hammelech, f. 138, 4, we read: "The wicked stay in Gehenna till the resurrection, and then the Messiah, passing through it redeems them." See Stephelius' Rabbinical Literature.

Rev. Dr. Wise, a learned Jewish Rabbi, says: "That the ancient Hebrews had no knowledge of Hell is evident from the fact that their language has no term for it. When they in after times began to believe in a similar place they were obliged to borrow the word 'Gehinnom,' the valley of Hinnom,' a place outside of Jerusalem, which was the receptacle for the refuse of the city-a locality which by its offensive smell and sickening miasma was shunned, until vulgar superstition surrounded it with hob-goblins. Haunted places of that kind are not rare in the vicinity of populous cities. In the Mishna of the latest origin the word Gehinnom is used as a locality of punishment for evil-doers, and hence had been so used at no time before the third century, A. D."

From the time of Josephus onwards, there is an interval of about a century, from which no Jewish writings have descended to us. It was a period of dreadful change with that ruined and distracted people. The body politic was dissolved, the whole system of their ceremonial religion had been crushed in the fall of their city and temple; and they themselves scattered abroad were accursed on all the face of the earth. Their sentiments underwent a rapid transformation, and when next we see their writings, we find them filled with every extravagant conceit that mad and visionary brains ever cherished. Expos. Vol. 2. Art, Gehenna, II Ballou, 2d.

Before considering the passages of Scripture containing the word, the reader should carefully read and remember the following:

IMPORTANT FACTS

Gehenna was a well-known locality near Jerusalem, and ought no more to be translated Hell, than should Sodom or Gomorrah. See Josh. 15: 8; II Kings 17: 10; II Chron. 28: 3; Jer. 7: 31, 32; 19: 2.

Gehenna is never employed in the Old Testament to mean anything else than the place with which every Jew was familiar.

The word should have been left untranslated as it is in some versions, and it would not be misunderstood. It was not misunderstood by the Jews to whom Jesus addressed it. Walter Balfour well says: "What meaning would the Jews who were familiar with this word, and knew it to signify the valley of Hinnom, be likely to attach to it when they heard it used by our Lord? Would they, contrary to all former usage, transfer its meaning from a place with whose locality and history they had been familiar from their infancy, to a place of misery in another world? This conclusion is certainly inadmissible. By what rule of interpretation, then, can we arrive at the conclusion that this word means a place of misery and death?"

The French Bible, the Emphatic Diaglott, Improved Version, Wakefield's Translation and Newcomb's retain the proper noun, Gehenna, the name of a place as well-known as Babylon.

Gehenna is never mentioned in the Apocrypha as a place of future punishment as it would have been had such been its meaning before and at the time of Christ.

No Jewish writer, such as Josephus or Philo, ever uses it as the name of a place of future punishment, as they would