Rob Bell takes the view in Love Wins that in Jesus’ day Gehenna was the “city dump”: “There was a fire there, burning constantly to consume the trash.” It is a metaphor for the terrible consequences of rejecting “the good and true and beautiful life that God has for us”. But in particular, Bell seems to be saying, it was a metaphor for the devastating historical consequences for Israel of “straying from their God-given calling and identity to show the world God’s love”.
He continually warns them how tragic the suffering will be if they actually try to fight Rome with the methods and mind-set of Rome…. Because of this history, it’s important that we don’t take Jesus’s very real and prescient warnings about judgment then out of context, making them about someday, somewhere else. That wasn’t what he was talking about.
Francis Chan, on the other hand, has questioned the garbage dump theory: “Much of what Bell says about hell relies upon a legend from the Middle Ages.” Hell is not just human suffering; it’s not a place where stuff just gets burnt up and is no more. “All I know is that from my best understanding of Scripture, hell is a real place for those who choose to reject God”—though in an interview with Mark Galli on the Christianity Today website Chan seems unsure whether hell is eternal conscious torment or annihilation.
Anyway, the question is this: Did Jesus speak of a “Gehenna of fire” because fires burnt continually in the Valley of Hinnom? If not, what are the implications for our understanding of hell. I think Rob Bell wins on points here, but it should really have been an exegetical knockout.
1. Jeremiah warns the inhabitants of Jerusalem that they face invasion by the Chaldeans, and one of the consequences will be that the bodies of the dead will be buried in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom because there will be no room elsewhere (Jer. 7:32). The valley outside the walls of Jerusalem had been defiled by association with the practice of human sacrifice by burning to the god Molech (2 Kgs. 23:10; Jer. 7:31). The bodies of the dead will become “food for the birds of the air, and for the beasts of the earth, and none will frighten them away” (Jer. 7:33; cf. 19:7). God will make the besieged city “a horror, a thing to be hissed at. Everyone who passes by it will be horrified and will hiss because of all its wounds” (Jer. 19:8). Apart from the reference to human sacrifice, there is no mention of fire.
2. Remarkably, Josephus later describes how during the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans, corpses were thrown over the walls into the encircling valleys because there was no longer room to bury them in the city (Jos. War 5.12.3).
3. Chan is right. There is no actual evidence for the commonplace belief that the city’s refuse was burnt in the Valley of Gehenna at the time of Jesus—apparently, the first recorded reference to fires in the Valley of Hinnom comes from a commentary on Psalm 27 by Rabbi David Kimhi, dating from around 1200 AD. We may still, however, consider the notion historically plausible.
4. The introduction of fire into the Gehenna imagery probably came about through association with Isaiah 66:24: the nations will come to restored Jerusalem; they will go outside the city and they will “look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched (ou sbesthēsetai), and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.” This is a description not of “hell” but of the aftermath of God’s judgment on Israel. It is easy to conflate this image of burning corpses lying outside Jerusalem with Jeremiah’s image of the dead being thrown into the Valley of the Son of Hinnom during the seige by the Babylonians.
5. The connection is directly apparent in Mark 9:43-48, where Gehenna is a place of “unquenchable (asbeston) fire”, “where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched (ou sbennutai)”. Matthew’s “Gehenna of fire” would be an abbreviated version of this conflation.
I would argue, therefore, that when Jesus speaks of unrighteous Jews being thrown into the “Gehenna of fire”, what he has in mind is not eternal punishment in a post mortem “hell”, as traditionally understood, but judgment on Israel in the manner presupposed by Isaiah and Jeremiah and described by the historian Josephus. Whether the city’s rubbish was burnt in the Valley of Hinnom is not greatly significant: the allusion is literary, not topographical.
It is worth noting, finally, that Jewish apocalypticism appears to have conceived of Gehenna as a place of subterranean torment (4 Ezra 7:36; Sib. Or. 1.103; 2.290-92). But these texts are likely to postdate Jesus and, more importantly, have clearly been influenced by the Greek concept of Tartarus: “down they went into Tartarean chamber terrible, kept in firm chains to pay full penalty in Gehenna of strong, furious, quenchless fire” (Sib. Or. 1.101-103). I think we are on much firmer ground if we read Jesus simply against the Old Testament background. Gehenna is a symbol of God’s judgment on his people. Gehenna as a Tartarean place of punishment after death has its origins elsewhere.
Comments
Good p.ost.
Re: Intertestamental Writings (ca. 200BCE-200CE), and other apocalyptic literature, such as can be seen in Mishnah/Talmud, there's a very wide range of beliefs as to what may happen in an afterlife. Josephus reported that Pharisees believed in a resurrection of only the Elect, while the souls of the wicked would be tormented in an underworld. In this huge corpus of texts, the beliefs of different schools were probably as varied as what we see today--and maybe moreso.
Since you're so into narrative-historical readings, (and so am I!): you said: "I think we are on much firmer ground if we read Jesus simply against the Old Testament background." Hmmm. Most commentators and Christians think resurrection was "clearly taught" in Daniel 12:2. But was it? (I lean toward this refering to a kind of 'spiritual resurrection' of the just in Israel. That is, a "coming to life" in the Valley of Dry Bones, cf. Ezekiel 37, esp. Ez 37:10). Has implications for what being "born again" could mean too (John 3).
So now, I'm wondering what the implications of Matt 10:28 might be. Could Jesus have been giving His Own halakah in contrast to Pharisees and other sects?
I used to see Matt 10:28 as a primary text that supports Conditional Immortality, and still do. However, if the "Gehenna of fire" was truly rooted in Jesus' warnings to His generation (cf. Matt 24), well, I have a lot to think about here...thoughts?
Thanks!
I was going to mention what Josephus has to say about the Pharisees, but I wasn’t sure what to make of it and decided to keep it simple. Perhaps it has some relevance to the story of the rich man and Lazarus.
I tend to think of Daniel 12:2 as borderline. Given the context of the Maccabean crisis and the suffering of the saints, and the fact that personal resurrection certainly is found in the martyr stories in the Maccabean literature, I don’t think we can entirely rule out a realistic notion of resurrection in Daniel.
I suggest here that Matthew 10:28 has the same Old Testament background that I outlined in this post but also reflects reflects a Hellenistic martyr theology in the unexpected dualism of soul of body.
what about the "....and does it matter?" part of your title? Maybe what matters is not whether Bell or Chan wins on points, but whether an exegetical wrangle over Gehenna is a neat way of avoiding questions like why we don't have sermons on hell today? As a preacher, what would you want to say about these passages from Mark and Matthew? Bell moves on to the resurrection, and says "This is crucial for understanding the story, because the story is about Jesus' listeners at that moment. The story, for them, moves from then to now. Whatever the meaning was for Jesus' first listeners, it was directly related to what he was doing right there in their midst." Is he saying that we can't understand the rescue of God unless we understand the wrath of God? So do we have to scare people into the kingdom? Do we need a doctrine of Hell before we can preach salvation?
That wasn’t quite the sense in which I meant “does it matter?” to be taken. My point was that it doesn’t make any difference to the meaning of Jesus’ words whether rubbish fires burned in the Valley of Hinnom. Sorry for the ambiguity.
Nevertheless, it’s a valid question.
I’m not sure about Bell. What I would say is that we need a doctrine of the radical contrast between the old creation, the end of which is decay, destruction, and death, and the new creation, the end of which is, well, new creation, the remaking of the cosmos.
I certainly do not think that we need a doctrine of hell in order to preach salvation; and I would argue that any doctrine of salvation ought to be preceded in any case by a doctrine of election, if we could find a good way of articulating it. This is going to sound a bit clumsy, but I would say that people do not need to fear hell in order to be saved; they need to be called in order to be “saved”.
Thanks for a great post I agree with you. Just one thought. When I recently visited Jerusalem our guide (who also was a theologian) showed us the temple and and described the trenches where the blood from the sacrificial animals poured into the Valley of Hinnom where the remains were burned. It was quite a big activity at that time and it certainly was some spillage. So when Jesus talks of worms and fire it was a actual description of what was going on. The thought that the place also became a public place of garbage does not seem entirely farfetched. On location in Jerusalem it seemed like a credible explanation.
But as you explained, that's nor really important.
Thank you for a great blog by the way!
Your guide (theologian) was/is grossly misinformed! The Temple does not exist!! Neither do trenches for blood into the Hinnom - nor to any where else.
Some thoughts on the “was the valley of hinnom a trash dump.” I’m going to say yes for a few reasons…one common sense…the other archaeological.
1. Notice the topography of Jerusalem. Built on a hill sloping south with its lowest point where the Hinnom valley and the Kedron Valley. They merge and lead down to the dead sea. So if you are living in Jerusalem in 50 b.c. and your donkey dies…which way are you going to drag it? Uphill or down? If you head downhill you end up tossing the body into the valley of hinnom. A great use for the valley considering its history. If you have trash? Uphill or down hill? If you are emptying your chamber pot into the ancient sewer system…which way is it going to “roll”? Downhill. So at the bottom of this hill was quite an unpleasant place. And yes when you have been underseige (as in Jeremiah) you through the bodies over the wall downhill. Additionally, how do you eliminate dead bodies and trash? Light them on fire. If one is going to argue that the hinnom valley ISN’T the dump…I would ask them “where is it then?”
2. My second comment is regarding Francis Chan and Preston Sprinkle. I was quite disappointed in their research for their book “Erasing Hell”. As quoted above they say there has never been any evidence that it was a trash dump. This is incorrect. In 1997 Bargil Pixner discoverd the Essene gate right above the valley of hinnom. Why did the Essenes need a gate there? Deut 23:12 “designate a place outside the camp where you can go relieve yourself” Would you go relive yourself “uphill” from the camp or city? nope. You relieve yourself in the valley of hinnom where it will continue the downstream journey. Bargil Pixner also discovered the latrine system which was set up by the Essenes.
If gehenna wasn’t the dump…where was it? Surely a city of 80K needed a place for this.
Have you come across this book?
http://www.amazon.com/Erasing-Hell-about-eternity-things/dp/0781407257/
I'd be interested in your thoughts on this from a high-level point of view.
I agree completely that Jesus’ comments about Gehenna in the New Testament come essentially from Jeremiah and Isaiah. This has been impossible to see for modern eschatological futurists because they have ignored the importance of the sacking of Jerusalem in 70AD. Jesus was warning the people listening to him that if they didn’t repent and follow him they would be burned up with the rest of the bodies during the national military disaster that he would bring on the nation for all the atrocities done to God’s people over the centuries, including his own martyrdom.
But for those concerned about “hell” (and Old English word that simply means “hidden”, and so a decent translatin of Sheol in its original sense), keep in mind that there is still the Lake of Fire from Revelation 20. I consider Gehenna and the Lake of Fire to be two distinct events, with the Lake of Fire representing what most people think of as “hell”. So, it’s not that there isn’t a final judgment with a destructive element, it’s just that it’s not called “hell”.