The Concept Of Hell! Series

Tom Lowe

2/3/2012

The Concept of Hell!

There is no mention of hell in the Old Testament. The Old Testament talks about Sheol, which is a watery underworld where everyone went, whether they were Jew or Gentile, good or bad. In its archaic sense, the term hell refers to the underworld, a deep pit or distant land of shadows where the dead are gathered. From the underworld come dreams, ghosts, and demons, and in its most terrible precincts sinners pay—some say eternally—the penalty for their crimes.

Hell, in many religious traditions, refers to the domicile, usually beneath the earth, of the unredeemed deceased or the spirits of the damned. From the underworld come dreams, ghosts, and demons, and in its most terrible areas malefactors (reprobates) pay—some say eternally—the penalty (consequences) for their crimes. The underworld is often imagined as a place of punishment rather than merely of darkness and decomposition because of the widespread belief that a moral universe requires judgment and retribution—crime must not pay. More generally (, hell figures in religious *cosmologies -

*Definition of cosmology (Merriam Webster)

1a: a branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of the universe

b: a theory or doctrine describing the natural order of the universe

2: a branch of astronomy that deals with the origin, structure, and space-time relationships of the universe

- the opposite of heaven, the nadir (the opposite of the cosmos, and the land where God is not.) In world literature the journey to hell is a perpetual motif of hero legends and quest stories, and hell itself is the preeminent symbol of evil, alienation, and despair.

*Definition of nadir (Merriam Webster)

1: the point of the celestial sphere (domain) that is directly opposite the zenith and vertically downward from the observer

2: the lowest point

The Old English hell belongs to a family of Germanic words meaning “to cover” or “to conceal.” Hell is also the name, in Old Norse, of the Scandinavian queen of the underworld. Many English translations of the Bible use hell as an English equivalent of the Hebrew terms She?ol (or Sheol) and Gehinnom, or Gehenna (Hebrew: gê-hinnom). The term Hell is also used for the Greek Hades and Tartarus, which have markedly different connotations (meanings) . This confusion of terms suggests, the idea of hell has a complex history, reflecting changing attitudes toward death and judgment, sin and salvation, and crime and punishment.

Mesopotamia

Mesopotamian civilizations from the 3rd to the 1st millennium BCE (BCE is short for Before Common Era.)

Mesopotamia produced a rich literature dealing with death and hell, much of it designed to impress upon the hearer the vast gulf separating the living from the dead and the fragility of the cosmic order on which vitality and fertility depend. In Mesopotamian traditions, hell is described as a distant land of no return, a house of dust where the dead dwell without distinction of rank or merit, and a sealed fortress, typically of seven gates, barred against invasion or escape.

In a cycle of Sumerian and Akkadian poems, the god-king Gilgamesh, despairing over the death of his companion Enkidu, travels to the world’s end, crosses the ocean of death, and endures great trials only to learn that mortality is an incurable condition. Hell, according to the Gilgamesh epic, is a house of darkness where the dead “drink dirt and eat stone.” More details of this grim realm emerge in the poems about the Sumerian shepherd and fertility god Tammuz (Akkadian: Dumuzi) and his consort Inanna (Akkadian: Ishtar), who in her various aspects is the mistress of date clusters and granaries, the patroness of prostitutes and alehouses, a goddess associated with the planet Venus and spring thunderstorms, and a deity of fertility, sexual love, and war. Inanna is also the sister of Ereshkigal, queen of the dead. An impulsive goddess, Inanna, according to some versions of the myth, is said to have threatened, in a fit of pique (temper), to crush the gates of hell and let the dead overrun the earth. In the poem Descent of Inanna, she sets forth to visit Ereshkigal’s kingdom in splendid dress, only to be compelled, at each of the seven gates, to shed a piece of her regalia. Finally, Inanna falls naked and powerless before Ereshkigal, who hangs her up like so much meat upon a drying hook. Drought descends upon the earth as a result, but the gods help revive Inanna, who escapes by offering her husband as a replacement. This ransom secures the fecundity (fertility) of the earth and the integrity of the grain stores by reinforcing the boundary between hell and earth. It is the better part of wisdom, the tradition suggests, for mortals to make the most of earthly life before they are carried off into death’s long exile.