A number of ancient civilizations, including those of Mesopotamia, India, Egypt and Greece, held as part of their mythology the concept of an underworldthe realm of the dead. Druj became personified as Angra Mainyu ('false', 'deception'), also known as Ahriman. In the book of Revelation, the word translated as hell is always hades, meaning the grave. For instance, the resurrected Jesus says: I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades (Revelation 1:18). We begin with a brief look at the concept of hell as taught by Islam and Christianity. Most other religions and cultures teach of an evil being who roams the earth wreaking havoc and fighting against the forces of good. The World History Encyclopedia logo is a registered trademark. Many changes entered Christianity when it expanded westward, such as a greater emphasis on the priesthood and hierarchy. In Johns gospel, the Jews can never achieve salvation because they are children of their "true father, the Devil". Christianity: The Best Thing That Ever Happened to Women, The Pursuit of God - A W Tozer - Complete Book. In his epic poem Aeneid, the hero, Aeneas, is also taken on a tour of hell. Such words and phrases as continuance of being, perpetual existence, incapable of dissolution and incorruptible began to appear in so-called Christian writings. Early Christian History / The Theology of Hell D, The Duration And Nature Of Future Punishment - Henry Constable. Updated: March 29, 2023 | Original: September 13, 2017. The Origins of Heaven and Hell | Psychology Today In this role, we can say that he acts as Gods prosecuting attorney. Examine Yourselves as to Whether You Are in the Faith - updated, The Christian's Craving for God's Word - MacArthur, Sproul, Piper, Washer, Chan. Gehenna is found in 12 verses: Matthew 5:22, 29, 30; 10:28, 18:9, 23:15, 33; Mark 9:43, 45, 47; Luke 12:5; James 3:6. Like any court, there were higher and lower officials. . Clinging to a Counterfeit Cross - James P. Shelly w/ audio, A Treatise of Earthly-Mindedness - Jeremiah Burroughs. In Dantes story he takes a guided tour through the afterlife. The second half of this resurrection gospel, in Latin and written in the 6th century, includes a tour of Hell as seen by Christ after his crucifixion but prior to his resurrection. The Valley of Hinnom came to be equated with the hell of the last judgment in apocalyptic literatureextrabiblical Jewish writingsfrom the second century B.C. His work, like Augustines, is considered one of the cornerstones of Western religious ideas. Smithsonian.com.Devil Worship in the Middle Ages. Some Rights Reserved (2009-2023) under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license unless otherwise noted. God wanted to destroy all the demons after the flood, but Mastema asked God to let him have a tenth of them to continue to plague men because "the evil of the sons of men is great" (10:8). In Coptic, Hades was translated as amet, a name of Egyptian derivation which was the equivalent of Greek hades (having been used as such in other literature). And he cried out and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame. Both Matthew and Luke expanded this scene (Matthew 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-13). "Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt." Protestants and Catholics alike accused many people of practicing witchcraft and making deals with the Devil. Christian leaders in the 2nd century CE adopted the method of the personification of evil against Jews, women, heretics, and all things pagan. Other pagan philosophers, along with some of the poets of the day, were repulsed by the immorality of this teaching, and developed the idea of a place where the fleshly body was purified by fire but, at the completion of purification, would find release. When and where did the concept of heaven and hell originate? God tells ha-Satan to destroy all of Jobs prosperity, everything except his life. Why would you be commanded to not contact the dead if the dead were annihilated or unconscious? Does The Bible Provide an Adequate Answer to Suffering? The Book of Enoch (also called 1 Enoch), written in the late 2nd century BCE in Aramaic, also used the word Sheol, but spoke of it not only as an underworld realm but as a place from which forces of destruction emanated. What does the phrase "gnashing of teeth" mean? Thus, they will suffer continuously (Sura 4:56, Khalifa translation). Growing Up With Two Moms: The Untold Childrens View. Isaiah castigated the king who titled himself "day-star" for his hubris of thinking he was divine: "How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn!" What made megalodon such a terrifying predator? In other words, Gods omnipotence remains intact; Satan could not do his work without Gods permission. (John 3:16) If you choose in your free will not to accept then how can you possibly receive the gift of salvation? Still, the Bible doesnt state the Devil will reign over hell, just that hell eventually be banished there. Throughout most of the book of Revelation, Satan remains chained in the pit. The theology of Hell actually grew probably starting in the 5th century, or perhaps later, in western Europe. Ahriman Statue Front ViewTouraj Daryaee (CC BY-NC-SA). Denova, R. (2021, February 18). In modern biblical translations, the Devil is the adversary of God and Gods people. The Origin of Hell | The Real Gospel of Christ Get Nat Geo newsletters plus unlimited access to free content. Ancient bone may be earliest evidence of hominin cannibalism, Blocking 'cellular looting' may help treat brain tumors, The source of Turkey's volcanoes lies more than 1,000 miles away, Bob Ballard and James Cameron on what we can learn from Titan, Explore the world like Indiana Jones at these 11 destinations, 7 of the best places to stay in Uzbekistan, Desert hikes and camping on a budget safari in Namibia, How to plan a family rail adventure around Europe, 10 airport and train station restaurants that are actually good. Hades, Gehenna. World History Encyclopedia. The word, 'to harry' meant a raid or incursion, such as the Viking raids. The demons were now under the control of Satan; he sent them to possess those in darkness to commit evil. In the first century A.D. the term was further extended to cover the place where the ungodly were punished in the intermediate state, but this is not so in the New Testament (emphasis added). Scriptural Evidence for the Necessity of Obedience in Salvation, The Doctrine of Immortality in the Early Church - John H. Roller, Luther's views on soul sleep and the after life, Make Good Use of Your Servitude - Observations on Biblical Slavery, The Consensus of Current Scholarship: The Soul is Not Immortal, Killing the Canaanites - A Response to the New Atheism's "Divine Genocide" Claims. The verses in which Gehenna is found, speak of it as a punishment for wickedness or misconduct; for instance, the first three Matthew verses are: The verses using Hades speak of it as an underworld place, and metaphorically to mean destruction; for instance, the Luke 10 verse: Tartarus, as noted, is only in one verse, and that is as a place of eternal torment for the sinful angels: We can safely say, then, that the word Tartarus was not intended to apply to human beings; Tartarus might, for all we know, be some place other than a Hell in which humans may end up. Based upon feudal relationships, the concept of a pact arose in selling your soul to Lucifer in return for prosperity (the famous story of Faust). - Oscar Cullmann, Immortality of the Soul - by Kaufmann Kohler, Technical Terms and Usages Preclude Innate Immortality - Froom, The Development of the Doctrine of Immortality from the Apostolic Fathers to Augustine, The Doctrine of Immortality in the Early Church. The doctrine has its roots elsewhere. Early Christians did not write extensively on Hell and appear not to have taken these as literally as many do, today. Retrieved from https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1685/the-origin-of-satan/. The Campaign to Eliminate Hell - National Geographic The devil and his angelsor demonsare immortal spirit beings, and the eternal fire represents their ultimate fate: incarceration by God in order to prevent them from wreaking any more havoc on the rest of His creation. At that point, according to the vision the apostle John saw, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them (Revelation 20:13). Most Christians still believe hes literally transformed the world and is responsible for much of the worlds corruption and chaos. The strange saga of Hvaldimir the Russian spy whale. Cite This Work From Michelin-starred menus to gilded historic sites, these restaurants are worth a visitwhether or not youre a tourist. Origen Adamantius, a third-century theologian, believed the wicked were punished after death,. Last modified February 18, 2021. We see mention of Hell in works such as those of Tertullian (especially in De spectaculis), but we must remember he was a Carthaginian, or central-empire Christian, and not from the east as so many others were. Hell - Wikipedia Hades, Hell, Similarly, Jesus told His disciples that the gates of hell [hades] shall not prevail against the Church He established (Matthew 16:18). This is when exorcism rituals were developed that are still taught to certain Catholic priests. Other phrases used were the soul to remain by itself immortal, and an immortal nature. * There is no such place as purgatory. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word often translated as hell is sheol, though it actually means the grave. The Bible teaches that when we die, we simply go to the grave (see Psalm 49:1011 and Ecclesiastes 3:1920). He evolved during the height of the Persian Achaemenid Empire (beginning c. 550 BCE) and was adopted by Jews living under Persian rule at the time. Many religious groups portray God as a being who tortures people eternally for their sins. In the writings of the Jewish sect of Essenes who settled at Qumran (c. 150 BCE), we have our first literature that created a method known as the personification of evil. We have no choice as to its continuance, even if we were to commit suicide to end it. Mark utilized a common stereotype to describe the ministry of Jesus, that of a charismatic exorcist who both preached and performed miracles throughout the Roman Empire. - Bullinger, Rise Of The Theory Of Universal Restoration - Henry Constable, Universal Restoration Substituted for Eternal Torment, Absent From The BodyPresent With The Lord, Cross Purposes: Atonement, Death and the Fate of the Wicked. The idea that the Devil governs hell may have come from a poem by Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, published in the early fourteenth century. Each nation of people had a different name for the land of the dead and this place was always under the earth. The Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible comments, Nowhere in the Old Testament is the abode of the dead regarded as a place of punishment or torment. While the Bible states that Hell was made for the Devil and his angels (Greek, aggelos, meaning, "sent ones") it does not specify a particular time (Matt 25:41). This is how Satan got his hooves and horns. World History Encyclopedia. Death itself will be destroyedmade obsolete. Religion and Spirituality: Hell: Origins of an Idea | Vision According to Jeremiah 7, the Israelite inhabitants of the region had erected idols in the temple of God, and in the adjacent valley they had set up altars to these false gods. The lower deities, daemons (in Greek), were originally neutral but over time were blamed for evil. This was the prevailing view of the afterlife in the entire Near Eastern world. The Bible is clear that our choice, for Him or against Him, is made in this world, here and now. He postulated that the wicked would be forgiven and restored by God and so in the end all would be saved. Thus, most references to the Gospel of Nicodemus usually mention this work. ; I will give their dead bodies for food to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the earth.. Hades is found in 10 verses: Matthew 11:23, 16:18; Luke 10:15; 16:23; Acts 2:27; 1 Corinthians 15:55; Revelation 1:18; 6:8; 20:13, 14. But this malevolent beingand his legion of demonscontinue to strike fear in people as the antithesis of all things good. This means that Jesus the Saviour can never see an end of the sin and misery He came to die for. 428347 B.C.E.) Theres usually some degree of dissent on how to interpret early texts, and texts about the Devil are no exception. With Christianity being the worlds largest religion, it seems only reasonable to explore what the Book of books, the Bible, has to say on the subject. This is referred to in Revelation 20:14 as the second deatha permanent cessation of life. 19th century CE. Their disobedience led to mans struggles to produce food and womans pain in childbirth. At first, drawn black, red became the standard color in his association with hellfire. The Puritans living in New Englands early colonies were petrified of the Devil. But what does the Bible itself say on the subject? A Short History of Hell | HowStuffWorks However, the official textbook of Catholic Christianity, the "Catechism of the Catholic. Denova, Rebecca. Gehenna is analogous to this lake of fire, which in the end will burn up everything temporal, including the incorrigibly wicked. There is a presumption of life after death, as well as a possible resurrection during the Messianic Age, however, the nature of these is not disclosed in the Christian Old Testament, which is at issue here. His gruesome picture of hell has taken root in Western society, having inspired such notables as Michelangelo, Gustave Dor, Sandro Botticelli, John Milton and T.S. The valley is first mentioned in Joshua 15:8: Then the boundary goes up by the Valley of the Son of Hinnom at the southern shoulder of the Jebusite (that is, Jerusalem). At this time Jerusalem was in the hands of the Jebusites, and the valley marked the boundary between the lands inherited by two of the sons of Jacobalso known as Israelnamely, Judah and Benjamin. 'Charismatic' (Greek, 'gifts') is the claim that their abilities were a gift from the gods. An exorcist was someone who drove out demons. Although the Devil is present in some form in many religions and can be compared to some mythological gods, hes arguably best known for his role in Christianity. Dantes guide through the netherworld was Virgil, the first-century-B.C.E. By 1439 the teaching of purgatory, with services and prayers for the dead, to spare them years of this pain, was fully accepted in the Western Catholic world Italy, Spain, England, France, and was ratified by Pope Eugenius IV. In it, God created hell when he threw the Devil and his demons out of Heaven with such power that they created an enormous hole in the center of the earth. When Jerusalem was conquered and destroyed by the Neo-Babylonian Empire (587 BCE), some Jews were taken into captivity in Babylon. The compromise view sees the body being resurrected and rejoining its soul again and then both being tormented together by fire. But this idea derives from philosophy, not divine inspiration. . He is tossed into the "lake of fire", the Dead Sea (Rev. This fear gave rise to the infamous Salem Witch Trials in Salem, Massachusetts. Something went wrong. World History Foundation is a non-profit organization registered in Canada. In Hell (called infernus in the original Latin, just as was in the Vulgate), Christ gathered Adam and other righteous souls, taking them to paradise and delivering them to the care of the archangel Michael. The latter also refers to people being resurrected to physical life. What Is The Evidence For/Against The Existence Of God? His familiar phrase, that believers now live in Christ, referred to Christs protection against the influence of Satans demons in the universe. Submitted by Rebecca Denova, published on 18 February 2021. The God of Israel is shown as the opposite; he is never capricious, there is a divine plan, and everything he created is deemed good. Here's how to prepare. While Marks disciples are often confused over the identity of Jesus, all the demons know him and recognize his superiority. Creation myths often designated a high god or a king of the gods, who controlled everything including the other gods as well as nature. The Origin of Satan. the pharaoh was considered a god-on-earth, and his officers and agents were sometimes also deified, or simply treated as if they had special divine favor due to their offices). The Waldenses who had fled to the mountains to remain free from the heresies that were developing in the Catholic Church and also to escape persecution, taught the sleep of death and instant destruction by fire at the resurrection of the wicked. In the Beginning In its earliest years, Christianity didn't have a consensus on the nature of hell. In Egyptian myth ology, Duat (pronounced "do-aht") (also Tuat and Tuaut or Akert, Amenthes, Amenti, or Neter-khertet) is the realm of the dead. The prophet Malachi notes that the wicked will be reduced to ashes (Malachi 4:3). Religion scholar Bart Ehrman says the notion of eternal rewards and punishments isn't found in the Old Testament or in the teachings of Jesus. Please note that some of these recommendations are listed under our old name, Ancient History Encyclopedia. The controversial man behind the atomic bomb, Discovering time-honored traditions in Texas, 4 French royal mistresses who made their mark on history. Its origin is in the thinking of Greek philosophy. Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection? Lucifer became the most popular name in the Middle Ages. Help us and translate this article into another language! Playing a key role in the development of the Christian doctrine of an ever-burning hell was Augustine, the influential fourth-century bishop of Hippo in North Africa. There is no mention of a second chance in the Bible, or a time when all people will be changed and restored to the Lord. The name gehinnom thus came to be used for the eschatological fire of hell. It is interesting that Mark did not have to explain the character of Satan; he assumed his readers knew. If hellfire has come to mean anything else through religious tradition, its important to realize that the Bible does not teach that. Sign up for our free weekly email newsletter! Numerous verses relegate unbelievers to this fiery hell, wherein they abide forever., Christianity, including Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism, is also largely framed within concepts of judgment and, for those who fail to meet the necessary criteria, eternal suffering in hell. [Article revised on 3 December 2020.] Is My Church Really A New Testament Church? But how can anyone worship a god who sets up fallible humans to be forever tormented in hell? Also 1 Timothy 4:10. To continue, enter your email below. Thus the incorrigibly wicked will be put out of their misery, as pictured by the fires of Gehenna.
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