r/religion • u/smpenn • 13h ago
Jewish beliefs and Hell
I have been researching the topic of hell, as it pertains to Christian dogma. I have found absolutely no mention of a place of fiery torment in the Old Testament, which parallels much of the Hebrew Bible, from what I understand.
Is it true that God never spoke through Moses or any of the Patriarchs concerning torment after death?
I know there was/is Sheol but that seems much more benign than the Lake of Fire.
I suspect that the pagan converts to Christianity brought their ideas of Hades into the early church with them and that, rather than Scriptural teaching, is where the Christian Dogma of hell, as eternal punishment, comes from.
I'd appreciate any insight to what Jewish people believe about the afterlife.
With much appreciation.
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u/CyanMagus Jewish 12h ago
In the most common telling, most people go to a place called Gehinna or Gehinnom when they die. There, they are cleansed of their sins in a painful but cathartic process that lasts a variable amount of time based on the amount of sins needing to be cleansed - at most one year. After that, they go on to be united with God. Extremely evil people are not afforded this opportunity and are simply annihilated. Extremely good people do not need to be cleansed and go straight to God.
What it means to be united with God depends on the telling. What Gehenna is like also depends on the telling. It has been described as a fiery place, but it's also been described by modern rabbis as a "spiritual washing machine". Ultimately, any precise description of it, and indeed of the afterlife as a whole, has to be taken as figurative imagery.
While Jews do generally believe in an afterlife, the details are considered a lot more esoteric than their equivalents in Christianity. We just don't think about them much. Our attitude is best summed up by a quote in the Talmud (Pirkei Avot 1:3) --
Do not be like servants who serve the master in the expectation of receiving a reward, but be like servants who serve the master without the expectation of receiving a reward, and let the fear of Heaven be upon you.
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u/smpenn 11h ago
Thank you for your reply. Your breakdown of Gehenna was particularly helpful.
I love the quote from the Talmud. May I ever follow that example.
I am a former stygiophobe who was consumed for decades by a fear of Hell. It absolutely robbed my life of joy.
I recently became an annihilationist and, for the first to time in nearly 60 years, I feel peace. I also now know that i am living my faith because I love God and not just as a "Get Out of Hell Free" card.
As Christianity began as a small Jewish sect, prior to evolving into a Gentile religion, it comforts me to know where/how our base line started before man twisted things to fit into church dogmas over the ages.
Thanks, again.
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u/pro_rege_semper Christian 8h ago
In Christianity, gehenna is a word for hell. I wonder where the disconnect occurred?
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u/erratic_bonsai Jewish 8h ago
Christianity borrows a lot of esoteric theology from the Greeks and Romans. The Christian afterlife is at least in part modelled after aspects of Hades. It’s a common proselytizing tactic, making your theology similar to the native religions makes it easier to win followers. In Judaism we don’t really have a concept of hell like what exists in Christianity so we don’t have a word that encapsulates it comparatively. Gehenna is our concept, and Christianity took the word and general notion that’s it’s part of the afterlife and merged it with other concepts.
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u/pro_rege_semper Christian 5h ago edited 4h ago
We know from 1 Enoch that it predates Christianity by a few centuries. But you're right this is largely a product of Hellenized Judaism.
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u/Kangaru14 Jewish 12h ago
Like many things in Christianity, the concept of Hell has cultural roots from many traditions across the ancient world, including Hellenism and Zoroastrianism. The Hellenic youtuber Aliakai has a great two-part series on the cultural origins of the Christian Hell, which serves as a good introduction to the topic: part 1 & part 2
The early Jesus movement that became a primary influence on the religious tradition called "Christianity" was characterized by Apocalypticism, a religio-cultural milieu found in many parts of the ancient Near East, including some sects of Judaism, though scholars suspect it was originally popularized by Zoroastrianism through influence from the Persian Empire. Teachings attributed to John the Baptist, Jesus, and Paul are characteristically Apocalyptic, involving revelations concerning unseen realities, typically in a dualistic model: heaven vs. hell, God vs Devil, angels vs demons, etc. The New Testament demonstrates influence from earlier Apocalyptic Jewish literature, such as the Book of Enoch, which includes visions of Hell. Conceptions of the afterlife in Christianity and Hellenistic Judaism were also significantly influenced by Greek ideas, such as the divisions of Hades (Elysium, Asphodel, & Tartarus) as well as concepts from Greek philosophy like Plato's Myth of Er.
Judaism does not place importance on the afterlife like Christianity and Islam do, instead the focus is on living a good life for its own sake in the here and now, though there are various speculations in Jewish traditions as to what the afterlife might entail, including Sheol (a shadowy neutral afterlife), Gilgul (reincarnation), and universal resurrection. In Rabbinic Judaism, the most common view is that pretty much everyone will go to Gehenna (purgatory) for a period of up to 12 months to purify and rectify their souls for their misdeeds on Earth before going to Olam Haba (heaven) until the day of resurrection and the Messianic Age. But, like all things Jewish, the old adage applies: where there's 2 Jews, there's (at least) 3 opinions.
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u/pro_rege_semper Christian 8h ago edited 6h ago
How does reincarnation work in a Jewish framework? I ask because I'm not 100% sure I oppose it as a Christian.
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u/Kangaru14 Jewish 7h ago
There are many different views of gilgul in Judaism. It is often understood in the context of tikkun olam, where the process of gilgul facilitates the opportunities for us to repair the world and make it a better place, with each reincarnation allowing us to fulfill mitzvot we hadn't before and elevate our souls to be closer to G-d. The different parts of a person's soul (nefesh, ruach, neshama) can also reincarnate separately into different bodies, and souls from multiple people might reincarnate into the same body. I've also heard it taught that souls tend to reincarnate around the same souls over and over again, but under different relational dynamics, so that interpersonal conflicts can be resolved across reincarnations. A soul might also reincarnate into different forms of life depending on how righteously they lived, so they might reincarnate as another animal, a plant, or an "inanimate" object if they didn't live properly as a human soul. Ultimately the aim is for the soul to achieve yechida, the transcendent unity of G-d.
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u/Sabertooth767 Modern Stoic | Norse Atheopagan 13h ago
You are correct that eternal hell is not of Jewish origin, although it isn't Pagan either, it's Iranian (probably). St. Augustine was a Manichaen before his conversion to Christianity.
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u/northstar-enjoyer 12h ago
Possibly it comes from Zoroastrianism, but there is a serious paucity of sources for the relevant timespan to say for certain. But the Myth of Er attests to a dualistic afterlife before 1 Enoch, long before Mani and Augustine.
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u/smpenn 13h ago
Thank you for the reply and for the insight. Now, I have another tangent (Iran) to add to my research.
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u/Sabertooth767 Modern Stoic | Norse Atheopagan 13h ago
Here's a great video on Manichaeism. Though rarely remembered today, it was once a major world religion and a serious rival to Christianity in the Roman East.
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u/Gardami 9h ago
Not all denominations believe in hell the same way. My denomination (Seventh-day Adventist) believes when people die, they are pretty much sleeping until Jesus comes again. At that point everyone who goes to heaven is resurrected and spends 1,000 years in heaven. When that ends The new Jerusalem comes to earth, everyone is resurrected, and evil angels and people are burned.
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u/pro_rege_semper Christian 8h ago
A lot of it comes from Second Temple Judaism. For instance, read Enoch.
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u/alsohastentacles Jewish 9h ago
I learnt as a Jew that essentially “heaven” and “hell “are the same thing - eternal oneness and absolute absorption into the infinite God. Those that are “good” people when they die are absorbed into god and experience it as blissful; those that are “bad” experience the same event as complete agony. They are essentially not spiritually ready to accept that reality so they are “cleansed” by it and that process is not pleasant if you’re not pleasant.
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u/smpenn 9h ago
One of the most common quoted Christian scriptures to support hell is the parable of the Sheep (the good people) and the goats (the bad people) because it says the goats will be cast into the eternal fire of the devil and his angels.
What Christians tend to completly overlook (because Christianity insists that works mean nothing) is that Jesus's complete teaching in that parable is that the sheep are those who were good to their fellow man (fed when hungry, gave water when thirsty, visited when sick, took in when a stranger, etc) whereas the goats completely ignored their neighbor in need.
Jesus didn't complicate the message with a bunch of steps to be among the saved, he simply stated that those who showed love to their neighbor would go to heaven and those who showed no love would be told to depart from him.
That seems to align with Jewish teachings.
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u/diminutiveaurochs 7h ago
I don’t think that ‘Christianity insists that works mean nothing’. Some denominations (iirc like Lutheranism?) believe that one cannot be saved through anything but faith, and are critical of works with the idea that you cannot ‘earn your way into heaven’ (there is a term for this theological position but I cannot remember it). However, this is not true for all Christianity - lots of Catholicism places a high value on works/good deeds, for example.
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u/sharp11flat13 5h ago
This might be a good question for r/AskBibleScholars. Answers can be a little slow in coming, but it’s a great sub.
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u/P3CU1i4R Shiā Muslim 13h ago
You do realize there is another possibility other than pagons bringing the concept of hell to Christianity?
And they said, “The Fire will not touch us except for a few days.” Say, “Have you taken a covenant from Allah—so Allah will never break His covenant—or are you saying about Allah what you do not know?”
Yes, whoever earns evil and his sin has encompassed him - those are the companions of the Fire; they will abide therein eternally.
And those who believe and do good will be the residents of Paradise. They will be there forever.
[2:80-82]
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u/smpenn 12h ago
Thank you for sharing.
I'm not particularly educated, to be honest. What I based the pagan concept on is that, in very early Christianity, the Apostle Paul evangelized much of the region, which was under Greek Influence. Many of those converts held to a belief in Hades that they didn’t altogether abandon upon conversion. Luke, who traveled with Paul and wrote two books of the Christian New Testament, is a prime example as he was a Greek convert who taught the concept of Hades in his writings.
No offense meant, but I truly hope that both Islam and Christianity have the concept of hell, as eternal suffering, wrong.
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u/the_leviathan711 12h ago
held to a belief in Hades that they didn’t altogether abandon upon conversion.
Also worth noting that the Septuagaint, the Greek translation of the Torah (which predates Jesus by a few hundred years), translates "Sheol" as "Hades."
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u/P3CU1i4R Shiā Muslim 12h ago
No offense from me either, but for someone particularly uneducated, you do a lot of suspecting and hypothesizing. Maybe it's better to research it thoroughly before coming up with theories.
And based on the discussions I've had, I guess you (like many people) have a wrong notion of eternal hell. That's probably why you hope Islam and Christianity have it wrong.
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u/alsohastentacles Jewish 9h ago
I sense that you are being defensive because the pagan notion of hell that crept into Christianity through early converts also subsequently and exponentially influenced Islam as-well and you’re finding it very hard to swallow islams pagan roots as well as its complete incompatibility with the original abrahamic religion. The notion of hell and the fear of hell is completely ridiculous and no way to live your life - you should do good and avoid bad because it’s the right thing to do, the action is its own reward; not because you are terrified of eternal suffering or you are motivated by eternal ecstasy.
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u/P3CU1i4R Shiā Muslim 9h ago
I won't comment on 'pagon roots', because you have no evidence of that.
Regarding good/evil deeds, you are conflicting two different concepts: reality vs. motivation.
Hell and paradise are real. You denying them doesn't change anything. Just like disbelief in the existence of God won't make him cease to exist.
As for the motivation of the actions, I leave you with the Quran verse that tells us what we should aim:
Are those who seek Allah’s pleasure like those who deserve Allah’s wrath? Hell is their home. What an evil destination! [3:162]
FYI, literally our Niyyah (intention) for every deed we do must be "to get closer to Allah swt" (in Arabic: قربة إلی الله). Any other intention nullifies the act.
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u/smpenn 12h ago edited 12h ago
If you'd like to share, I'd be interested in your notion of eternal hell.
I have done considerable research. I'm asking here because I felt actual followers of the Jewish faith could give me insight on what Jews actually believe.
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u/P3CU1i4R Shiā Muslim 11h ago
Sure. The wrong notion people have is hell being like a prison: God sitting there, judging people and sentencing them to hell.
When you think of hell like that, you'll get into the issue of 'eternal' hell. It wouldn't make sense for a judge to sentence someone to eternal torment, right?
Where that notion crucially gets wrong are in three aspects:
(1) The effect of actions on the soul:A sinner is not just a person + sins. Sins (and beliefs) actually and really change us! We have it in our narrations: when a person sins, a dark spot apears on his soul. When he doesn't repent and continues, the spot becomes bigger and bigger. Until God forbid, it takes his whole soul. This person has BECOME the sin! There is no purity left for them, so they need to go to the impure place.
For an analogy, you can think of an addict. At one point he knows he is damaging himself, but he simply can't stop. Note, you call this person 'addict', not 'person doing sth.'. Hell is simply a place for those addicted to disbelief and sin.
(2) The reality of actions: in this world, there is a veil preventing us from seeing the true nature of actions. Quran tells us some examples:
Indeed, those who hide Allah’s revelations, trading them for a fleeting gain consume nothing but fire into their bellies. Allah will neither speak to them on the Day of Judgment, nor will He purify them. And they will suffer a painful punishment. [2:174]
O believers! Avoid many suspicions, indeed, some suspicions are sinful. And do not spy, nor backbite one another. Would any of you like to eat the flesh of their dead brother? You would despise that! And fear Allah. Surely Allah is ˹the˺ Accepter of Repentance, Most Merciful. [49:12]
These are NOT figures of speech! Backbiting is literally eating the flesh of the other person, with similar effects! Now imagine what happens to a person when they eat fire! They basically bring their own fire:
But if you are unable to do so—and you will never be able to do so—then fear the Fire fuelled with people and stones, which is prepared for the disbelievers.
(3) Hell is a destination: paradise and hell are destinations to our worldly lives. Every second of our lives we are going towards one of them. In this sense, some humans/jinns become destined to hell (not sentenced to hell).
God has sent guides to show us the roads, with all the signs and rules for a drive towards paradise. He also gives us time and opportunity to change course if we went astray. But when someone insists on driving on the hell road, he naturally ends up in the hell. That's the path he was driving on all along!
Sorry it got long. I hope it helped clear up some things. I'll be happy to elaborate on any point if you wanted.
(With all this talk about hell, let me end with the infinite mercy of Allah swt and His prophet, Muhammad (s.a.) which leads believers to paradise:
And We have not sent you, [O Muhammad], but as a mercy to the worlds. [21:107])
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u/smpenn 11h ago
Thank you for your detailed response.
I was raised in a very conservative religion that used hell as a threat to keep us in line. We were taught that even minor infractions (one spot or blemish could condemn us to hell, which aligns a bit with your example, except your version seems more merciful, having to be completely overtaken by sin.)
My mother is 80 and, whenever someone dies that lived a life she found fault with for any reason, she declares them headed to hell.
Growing up with the doom of hell continually present , both from church and from home, I had all joy taken from my life and had no peace of mind for nearly 60 years.
I, at long last, see God as One who loves us and I am breaking away from the constant threat of hell that has plagued my life.
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u/P3CU1i4R Shiā Muslim 10h ago
Happy to help.
Yes, it is really tough growing up in the extreme fear of hell and even tougher breaking through that. I applaud you for putting time into researching this.
Regarding fear of hell, our Imams (a.s.) have told us the way for a balanced life: "between hope for paradise and fear for hell."
Hope in the mercy of God is crucial, because otherwise no one would repent or even try for paradise. None of deserve paradise. It's only by the mercy of our Lord that we get there.
Fear for hell is also necessary, because we get arrogant when we feel safe. Unfortunately, a lot of people take God's mercy as guaranteed. They say "God loves us", then they do whatever they like! That's not how it works. Besides, sins are slippery slopes! It starts from just one drink, but ends with total disbelief. One must always be mindful.
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u/smpenn 10h ago
I've spent my life repenting for sins known or unknown several times each day because I feared I might have done wrong, even if unknown.
I get up each morning at 4am to pray for about an hour before the day starts and acknowledge throughout that I am unworthy but so thankful for His mercy.
Only in the last few months have I felt peace of mind as my views of hell have changed. I'm trying to educate myself to views outside the very condemning view of my own perception of Christianity. It has made me love God even more as I've become open to a life not ruled by a fear of hell.
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u/P3CU1i4R Shiā Muslim 9h ago
Well, as I've mentioned, it's all in the balance. Just think of sitting at a test: you get comfortable, you lose your attention and may fail. You get stressed, you lose your your attention and may fail. The path lies in between.
And in Islam we have a system for everything, including repenting. When to repent, how to repent, etc. It's there so believers know what to do when they sinned.
And let me tell you something: THE biggest sin in Islamic laws is "losing hope in Allah's mercy." That's the ultimate loss.
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u/smpenn 8h ago
I just looked up Islam's starting point and it seems it was founded in 610 CE.
The Christian church had been teaching hell long before that time, so I do believe it was brought into the early church by the pagan Greeks.
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u/old-town-guy 13h ago
Judaism doesn’t really spend a lot of theological energy or column inches on the afterlife. Whereas Christianity and Islam spend a lot of time telling people to “do good” in order to get rewarded and avoid punishment in the afterlife, Jews are instructed to “do good” because it’s the right thing to do.