The Hell You Say!
Recently Dr. Bart Ehrman, of NC Chapel Hill, published an article in TIME Magazine, the gist of which is that Jesus never endorsed a belief in eternal suffering for those who did not believe in Him. The article runs to about 2,500 words and is typical of Ehrman, who is something of a minor celebrity. A former evangelical turned atheist, Professor Ehrman has published many books and spoken many times, attacking the credibility of the New Testament, claiming that it is impossible to get back to the original wording.
In this most recent TIME article Ehrman, as usual, is making far greater claims than the data allow. And Ehrman does this through a rhetorical trick called “equivocation”. What this means is that he uses common nouns as technical terms, and technical terms as common noun, switching back and forth and not letting people know that that’s what he’s doing. This is his modus operandi and one he uses to great effect both in his books, and on daytime TV, and in formal debates. Ehrman makes a controversial claim that the vast majority of people will reject. But when he defends his claim, he has tightened up his language to the point that it seems tame. And of course, because he’s highly intelligent and respected and an atheist (so you know he’s unbiased) he’s rarely challenged for his clear logical fallacies.
Now, just because Ehrman is deceptive in his presentation, doesn’t necessarily make him wrong. A person can be foxy and have facts. However, in this instance Ehrman is not only wrong, but he is laughably wrong. But you need to watch his language carefully. Because he always phrases things “just so” so that he has an escape route when his whoppers are revealed as such.
Let’s give an example of how Ehrman deceives and then we’ll get to the heart of why he’s wrong. In the TIME article Ehrman makes this claim: “Neither Jesus, nor the Hebrew Bible he interpreted, endorsed the view that departed souls go to paradise or everlasting pain.”
This cannot be sustained. For example, in Luke 23:43, Jesus tells the repentant thief on the cross that “today, you will be with me in Paradise.” The word Jesus used is Paradise, from the Greek παράδεισος (para-day-soss). This is, on its face, a plain and clear rebuke to Ehrman. Now, in speaking with a group of theologians who defend Ehrman’s view, they say, that “well, what Ehrman meant was Paradise in the sense that we mean it, with harps and wings and all that.” Or they say, “Well, Paradise also means a garden, so maybe Jesus meant that the thief will be buried with Him in the garden.”
What utter nonsense! The thief clearly expects Jesus to ascend to kingship AFTER his death, because he asks Jesus to “remember him”. The thief anticipates that both he and Jesus will have a life after death. Jesus’ words of comfort are that the thief will be with him in Paradise: TODAY! There will be no delay for the repentant believer, no soul sleep, no purgatory! He will be with Jesus immediately after their deaths.
Moreover, many are unaware that Paradise is a bit of a technical term, especially among Evangelical Christians known as Dispensationalists. While it would take far too long to explain in this article, Paradise is not simply a “catch-all” for Heaven and the happy-afterlife, but is a specific place which receives departed souls for a specific period of time. Jesus’ narrative about Lazarus and the Rich Man gives us a close look at Paradise, otherwise known as “Abraham’s Bosom”.
Importantly, later in the article, Ehrman admits that Jesus did talk about eternal life here on earth for resurrected followers of Jesus! Which, by the way, is 100% correct. The clearest reading of the New Testament makes it plain that Heaven (the realm God created to be his Throne Room) is not the ultimate final home of redeemed humanity, but the New Earth, whereupon the New Jerusalem descends and settles. Ehrman criticizes a view of Christianity that is, essentially, pagan and gnostic: the body is bad and we are made perfect when freed from the body. Ehrman is right to criticize this view, because it IS unbiblical. The Bible’s view is that the Earth is our eternal home and that our bodies are good and are an intrinsic aspect of our being.
So, Ehrman makes a splash with his claim that Jesus never teaches about Paradise. But we see that he’s simply wrong or equivocating and not telling us so (which in common parlance is called a lie). But where he’s right, he contradicts his initial claim. But, if Ehrman simply said, up-front, what he says at the end: “Christians oughtn’t to think Heaven will be their home because Jesus and the whole Bible teach it will be the Earth”, then nobody would care! It wouldn’t be a “shocking”, “faith-shaking”, “Evangelical-challenging claim”.
However, Ehrman doesn’t stop with correcting a popular misconception about “Heaven”. The real controversy comes in his claims that neither Jesus nor the Old Testament teach about “Hell”. He says: “Most people today would be surprised to learn that Jesus believed in a bodily eternal life here on earth, instead of eternal bliss for souls, but even more that he did not believe in hell as a place of eternal torment.”
Now, Ehrman feels safe making this claim because he can always try to slip out with word-play. Yes, words matter, and we ought to look very closely at the words we use, so let’s get something clear up-front, so we leave Ehrman no room to wiggle free. “Hell” is not in the Bible. One of Jesus’ favorite words to describe the place of torment is “Gehenna”. Ehrman claims that “Gehenna” was a putrid, perpetually burning garbage dump, located outside Jerusalem. And that Jesus warns that wicked people will receive a bad burial. But is Gehenna a dump? Does the Bible say that? No. Is there any archaeological evidence for that? No. Are there any writers saying that Gehenna was a dumpster-fire in the 1st Century? No. 2nd? No. 3rd? NO! 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, or 12th? No!! Not until a European Rabbi named David Kimhi did anyone make this claim. And Kimhi claimed that Gehenna was figurative for the suffering of the wicked!
Another pair of words we need to be clear on are two that the KJV translates into “Hell”: “Hades” in Greek or “Sheol” in Hebrew. Both words are used to mean the “realm of the dead”. Yes, they both also mean a “grave” or “tomb”, but these are often and importantly used metaphorically, as the “realm of the dead”. It’s figurative sense is so pervasive and obvious that you have to come to the text INSISTING on taking the word ONLY in the sense of grave to come to the conclusion that it isn’t used figuratively. This is called the Fallacy of Definition. Just because a word has ONE meaning doesn’t mean it can’t have others! One of my Greek professors used to use the example: “The Cowboys melted the Cheeseheads at the Frozen Tundra.” If you try to understand that sentence with just a standard English dictionary, you’re gonna be in trouble!
What we think of as Hell, the Lake of Fire, is only mentioned, specifically, in Revelation 20. Death and Hades are cast into the Lake of Fire, along with all those whose names are not written in the Book of Life. So, while “Hell” H-E-L-L (a Germanic Word) is not “in the Bible”, the Lake of Fire is! And it is a place where people are cast after the General Resurrection and the Final Judgment. That people’s bodies are resurrected for this judgment and that they consciously stand in judgment makes it abundantly clear that there is some level of conscious life after death – death is not extinction or extinguishing.
Now, Ehrman will claim that this is the teaching of Revelation and thus it isn’t what Jesus taught, and Revelation wasn’t actually written by the Apostle John, anyways, so this isn’t reliable. But what of Luke 16? Again, the narrative about Lazarus and the Rich man is pretty clear that the rich man is in torment after his death. Even if Ehrman accepted this as reliable for doctrine (which he can’t) he would say that there is no evidence that the rich man’s sufferings are eternal. In places where the punishments for unbelievers ARE described as eternal, such as the inextinguishable flames, Ehrman says that just because the flames are inextinguishable doesn’t mean that humans consciously suffer their heat!
This is ludicrous wordplay! It is not seeing the forest for the trees! Sure, the text doesn’t SAY that people eternally experience the flames – but does it need to? Why would Jesus mention the eternality of the flames if they weren’t part and parcel of the punishment?! Why would a judge tell a man: “Unless you stop breaking the law, you’re going to die a natural death and afterwards we’re going to put your corpse in a really mean and nasty prison forever and your corpse will never get out.” Who cares?! If death means a total end of consciousness, then who cares what happens to one’s body? If you really like raping and pillaging and thieving, why stop simply because your unconscious body will experience insulting treatment?!
Ehrman does this often and it is tiresome. Twisting words and expressions out of the natural sense. Sure, he can make his claims, and attack each passage individually! He can say that the “fire is eternal but the consciousness isn’t.” He can claim, “Gehenna is just a garbage dump”. He can argue, “Jesus meant a garden by paradise”, and “Lazarus and the Rich man is just a parable” and on and on – but at a certain point, when we consider Jesus’ teaching as a whole, it becomes preposterous to claim that there is not eternal conscious torment for those who reject God.
Does this mean literal fire and brimstone? Maybe. I’m, personally, not convinced that “Hell” involves literal flames. I think it is just as likely that God is not torturing people but is sending them exactly where they want to go: to a place where God is not. Being in an eternal place with no God and without ever becoming more than you already are would be Hell, would it not?! Can you imagine being stuck with yourself and all your frailty and bitterness and self-loathing and guilt and hatred and jealousy and self-pity and fear forever? A place where you never grow? A place where all the blessings of God are not? I imagine that that would be just as terrible as flames, and even worse because it would be a prison of one’s own making.
I’m, of course, speculating, and speculating is dangerous. But I’m merely saying that good, Bible believing people, have serious questions about Hell. This isn’t a topic we ought to be afraid to discuss frankly. The question of God’s justice is a serious one that must needs be taken seriously! Overly simple answers don’t satisfy. And it is certainly OK to admit when we have question and concerns about the justice of God! Abraham cried out to God asking, “will not the Judge of all the earth do right?!” God didn’t rebuke Abraham, but answered him gently, as a friend, and showed that yes, God will do what is right. We may not understand how eternal punishment is just, but can’t the God who died to save us from our sins be trusted to judge our sins justly? Doesn’t God deserve the benefit of the doubt? Of course, I have questions, so does every serious Bible scholar. The difference, however, between the orthodox believer and the heretic is that the orthodox believer begins with the presupposition that even if we don’t understand how God is right, we can trust that God is right. The orthodox believer, when questioning God’s justice says: God is right and I am wrong, or at least confused. The heretic begins with the presupposition that God must agree with him, or God is wrong.
In closing, I want to be clear that this isn’t just some obscure doctrine for theologians to play with in the academic sandbox. The question of what happens after death is crucially important. To everyone. Because everyone will die! Solomon says that the wise man spends his time at funerals and with those mourning and the fool spends his time feasting and partying. Contrary to Ehrman’s claim in his article, fear of death and the hereafter SHOULD spur us on to change our life.
Jesus warns of “Hell” because He does not want ANY to perish, but for all to have eternal life. In the midst of Coronavirus it is good to consider what will happen when we die. As this wretched virus kills people and the economy and destroys businesses and lives, the old hymn’s questions have never been more important! “Are you washed in the blood, in the soul-cleansing blood of the Lamb; Are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?”
Ehrman would have you to ignore that question. He would have the lost and straying to blithely go through life unafraid of the consequences of their names not being written in the book of life! He would have you ignore Jesus’ words: “But I will show you whom to fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into Gehenna. Yes, I say, fear him.” Ehrman concludes his article with these words: “when, in the end, we pass from this earthly realm, we may indeed have something to hope for, but we have absolutely nothing to fear.” The Hell you say! Not according to Jesus – and in the end, it is what Jesus says that matters.