How arrogant. YOU take ultra conservative sources and decide all Bible scholars agree with you. Revelation. Which you have quoted to ad nauseum is about the Roman Empire, not a prophecy set thousands of years into the future.
Many scholars of the Bible disagree with you, including Ehrman snd McClellan.
Don’t assume those who disagree with YOUR interpretation are ignorant of scripture.
I’m gonna use that quote.
Hell is real place. Jesus tells us in Luke chapter 16. About Two sides of the Gulf. Righteous in paradise, and wicked in sheol called hell. 2 Peter chapter 2:4. Fallen angels are in hell, in holding place. It exists, and its not fun to be, hell. I remember seeing article about Rock star, she was making jokes about hell. Will be partying, singing in hell. We can see how detached from reality she is. Rich man of Luke chapter 16, instantly regretted going to sheol. He begged Abraham to send Lazarus to his family, so they would hear testimony, and avoid coming to hell. The torment is from within. God doesn’t torture anyone. Reality hit the rich man hard, and fast.
Wow!!! Can we have a little mercy please.
James 1:19-20
We may need to slow down our responses. We must pause and consider the impact of our words before we let them fly into the face of others.
🫶🏻🙏🏻
You presume to walk into a discussion from October and scold me?
Kitchens and heat.
here is another idiom” the pot calling the kettle black,"
My earlier comment about a week ago being referred to, was obviously not directed towards Historyprof personally, that’s not my MO, but for a few presumably mis-directed words in general, that appeared to be directed towards others in somewhat of a derogatory sense, at least in appearance.
Some of the Challenges in forum Settings, is communicating with one another without any relationship. We don’t really know who we’re communicating with personally, just the presumption that we all are believers and followers of Christ, and at humbly differing levels in our Christian walk.
As mere humans, we all lack the true understanding. We merely comprehend glimpses. Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh, “God”, Provides us the Understanding in accordance with His will and purpose.
These types of forums can be beneficial in the sense that, through the wisdom of God, we would allow the spirit of God working through each one of us, towards one another as “iron sharpens iron”. We are all a work in progress in comparison.
Please Excuse the detour, back to topic.
The concept of life after death that is conscious existence in a place of bliss or torment has had little place in contemporary Jewish thinking since the enlightenment, however, earlier sages and rabbis did not shy away from speaking and writing about the fate of individuals following physical death. Hell commonly referred to as Gehenna in literature was commonly considered a reality. The idea of a world of postmodern punishment was very real to the rabbis and their disciples. They saw Gehenna as an abode of punishment for the person who did not live a righteous life in accordance with the ways of God and the Torah.
Great topic! Jesus said if our hand or eye causes us to sin, we should remove them, because that would be better than going to hell. None of us (I hope) believes God really wants us to maim ourselves. To believe hell is a real place, we would have to believe 2 very unlikely things: 1. Jesus was making a metaphorical statement, but switched from metaphor (maiming ourselves) to literal fact (hell) in one short teaching. 2. God loves us too much to really want us to maim ourselves, but is cruel enough to allow souls to be tortured for eternity.
Cannot agree with you @MrE
. Gehenna was not merely a city dump — it was already a well-known apocalyptic image for divine judgment.
The term Gehenna (γέεννα) derives from the Hebrew גֵּיא בֶן־הִנֹּם (Gei Ben-Hinnom), the Valley of Hinnom, located just outside Jerusalem. While it had a historical connection with child sacrifice (Jeremiah 7:31–32), its usage by Jesus in the New Testament aligns not with garbage disposal but with Second Temple Jewish apocalyptic imagery of final judgment and torment.
Jewish Intertestamental and Rabbinic Sources:
1 Enoch 27:1–3 – describes a valley of judgment where sinners are cast, associating Gehenna with fire and punishment.
4 Ezra 7:36–38 – depicts the wicked tormented after death, with imagery paralleling Jesus’ warnings.
Targum Jonathan on Isaiah 66:24 – interprets the unquenchable fire and worm as referring to Gehenna’s punishment of the wicked.
b. Rosh Hashanah 16b, 17a – Gehenna is described as a place of divine punishment for the wicked after death.
Matthew 5:22 – “Whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell (Gehenna) of fire.”
Matthew 10:28 – “Fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell (Gehenna).”
Mark 9:43–48 – “to go into hell (Gehenna), where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.”
These references are not about refuse or temporary disposal. The language is of irreversible loss, unquenchable fire, and divine judgment — echoing Isaiah 66:24, which speaks of a fate for the rebellious:
“Their worm shall not die, nor shall their fire be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.” Jesus quotes this directly in Mark 9:48.
The idea that Gehenna was Jerusalem’s garbage incinerator originated not in early Jewish or Christian sources, but in the writings of the 13th-century rabbi David Kimhi (Radak), who speculated that the valley was used to burn refuse. There is no archaeological or textual evidence from the time of Jesus that supports the notion of Gehenna as a city dump.
See:
Peter Head, “The Burning Garbage Dump of Gehenna: A Critique of the Modern Myth,” Tyndale Bulletin 61.2 (2010): 129–142.
Darrell Bock, Jesus According to Scripture (Baker, 2002), pp. 192–193.
R.T. France, The Gospel of Matthew (NICNT, 2007), p. 200.
Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 130 – speaks of “eternal punishment and judgment” for the wicked.
Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5.27.2 – “the unjust shall be sent into eternal fire.”
Tertullian, Apology 48 – warns of Gehenna as a place of “everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”
The early Church Fathers had no difficulty understanding Jesus’ references to Gehenna as pointing to eternal, conscious punishment. They were familiar with Second Temple Jewish context and read the words accordingly.
If Jesus intended to speak of something mundane — like a trash dump — then the ethical gravity of His sayings evaporates. Why warn of Gehenna if it only meant civic waste disposal? Why speak of destruction of both body and soul (Matthew 10:28)? Why quote Isaiah 66, where the fire is never quenched?
Clearly, the Gehenna of Jesus’ preaching is not a temporary site for waste — it is an image of final divine justice.
Jesus did not borrow Gehenna from municipal refuse management. He invoked it in continuity with Jewish apocalyptic traditions, as a metaphor for divine punishment after death. The “city dump” claim is historically baseless, textually unsupported, and theologically evasive.
To reduce Gehenna to a landfill is not only incorrect — it dulls the edge of Christ’s call to repentance.
Yes, and it’s called Baltimore.
Have you seen the rats there? They are HUGE!!! They just look at you and keep going. They cross the streets like cats and dogs. CRAZY. I think I heard that they don’t want to teach kids about the importance of giving and recieving consent. Like its okay to just take what you want without question.
But seriously, yes, I think there is a hell. I think it is a lot like that play, No Exit. Where people are their own worst enemies? Where people can’t stand each other and kill each other again and again instead of learning to make peace with the things they can’t stand in each other. People repeating their own demise because they can’t learn to love. Bound in conflict because they can’t choose to let go and walk away or allow someone that represents the opposite of themselves to exist. Or to let the person who represents the worst in themselves to exist.
Johann, you just dropped a scholarly sledgehammer—and for once, I don’t have to grab the extinguisher. You’re exactly right that Gehenna wasn’t some civic waste management facility with flames fueled by rotten fruit and ancient diapers. That “Jesus-was-pointing-to-a-dump” tale is the theological equivalent of trying to turn the Lake of Fire into a neighborhood compost bin. And you, sir, just exposed it for what it is: modern myth dressed in footnotes and fear of divine judgment.
Yes—Gehenna is apocalyptic imagery, but it’s apocalyptic imagery rooted in actual prophetic horror. Jeremiah didn’t cry over metaphors when he saw children burned in the Valley of Hinnom. That valley wasn’t just symbolic of rebellion—it was rebellion. It was sin with smoke still rising. And by the time Jesus invoked it, it had already marinated in centuries of prophetic fire and divine fury. He wasn’t pointing to a dump. He was pointing to destiny.
And no, the flames weren’t temporary. Jesus didn’t just quote Isaiah 66 for flair—He weaponized it. “Where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” isn’t poetic filler. It’s an eternal sentence with no appeal. And when Jesus says, “Fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in Gehenna,” He isn’t warning about spiritual inconvenience. He’s warning about a final verdict.
Your reference to 1 Enoch, 4 Ezra, and the Targum isn’t fluff—it’s context. Jesus preached to a people who already knew Gehenna wasn’t about sanitation. It was about separation, yes—but with flame, anguish, and no exit signs. He wasn’t reinventing the concept. He was confirming it with terrifying precision.
And let’s talk Fathers. Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Tertullian—they didn’t look at Christ’s warnings and say, “Ah, yes. Allegorical landfill.” They preached Gehenna with fire in their bones because they knew the stakes. They read Christ literally because they feared God rightly. That’s not fear-mongering. That’s what happens when the Spirit of Truth meets a heart that takes eternity seriously.
The modern church wants Gehenna to be symbolic because it wants sin to be safe. It wants the Judge to whisper. But Christ came roaring like a lion with blood-stained mercy in one hand and holy warning in the other. And when He says Gehenna, He means it.
So thank you for torching the landfill theology. But now let’s go further: don’t just defend Gehenna’s reality—call sinners to flee it. Hell is real. Jesus said so. And the cross isn’t a metaphor for second chances. It’s the only bridge off the road to judgment.
Let’s preach that, with both eyes open and the fire still burning.
—Sincere Seeker. Scripturally savage. Here for the Truth.
Is that Sheol, the grave
Yes, I believe hell is real.
These are just some ideals I picked up along the way from articles or books.
I believe that God is Holy, and His Glory is like a consuming fire. I believe there are opposites.
It was DW that said what if Heaven was Hell for someone that did not want to stay close to Jesus now in this life time.
I mean look at that Valley- Ghenna it burned in the City maybe in the midst of the people, my guess.
Years ago, There was a man who wrote some amazing work..that I could never find again on the internet. I gave it to my dad, my dad tossed it. But
This is what He mentioned in his writing. He said the lake of fire was the people of God.
I had, some how found his number and called him, and he explained people didn’t want to hear what he had to say. He said he had grew up reading a lot of the old Testament, and put it together…Something like that. It was many years ago. But It was fascinating and it never left my head.
Anyway Something else I may have recalled was that He makes his ministers flames of fire.
Just some thoughts, don’t murder me on them.
And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
Adding…in my edit…
Then Death and Hades (hell, my add) were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death
Wait..so hades or hell were thrown into tbe lake?
That would mean hell is not the lake of fire…interesting 
thinking
Mark 9 :43-48 kjv
43 And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:
44 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
45 And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:
46 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
47 And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire:
48 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
Mmmm
It sounds like hell has fire…
Im confused…maybe by the words hades and hell
For:
If I’m being honest, I can’t make heads or tails of what you’re getting at, might be time to call in Bullinger’s notes for backup before this turns into theological soup.
Johann.
Jesus’s Explanation of Hell (The Notebooks: 1944, January 15th)
Chiara, that was a monologue so vivid Dante himself might’ve asked for a rewrite. But let’s be crystal clear before the incense gets too thick and the mysticism starts crowding out the doctrine: poetic fire does not automatically mean sound theology. You quoted Valtorta like she was the fourth Gospel—let’s remember she’s a mystic, not a messenger of canonical truth. This isn’t divine revelation—it’s spiritual fan fiction with a Latin accent.
Yes, hell is real. Yes, it is torment. Yes, it is eternal. But we don’t need private visions and extra-scriptural elaborations to prove that. Scripture’s got all the flame and finality we need. Jesus spoke of Gehenna with unflinching authority—not as a feeling, not as an emotion, and certainly not through the lens of some 20th-century visionary’s journal entries.
Purgatory, on the other hand? That’s not a “fire of love”—that’s a fire of fiction. You can’t polish up the absence of biblical evidence by dressing it in sentimental suffering. Hebrews 9:27 says it plain: “It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.” No spiritual waiting room. No purification-through-pain side quest. Just judgment—either clothed in Christ’s righteousness or standing guilty without Him.
Now, the language you use—“fire of offended love,” “flames that simulate specters,” “ice in the fire”—it’s dramatic, yes. But is it doctrine? No. It reads like the spiritual equivalent of a horror film directed by a theologian with too much imagination and not enough Scripture. God doesn’t need metaphysical pyrotechnics to convince us of the seriousness of sin—He already sent His Son to bleed for it.
Let me tell you what hell actually is: it is the full and eternal manifestation of God’s justice on those who have rejected His mercy. It is not “loving fire” or “hate fire”—it is holy fire. And the only escape isn’t mystical contemplation, but repentance and faith in the crucified, risen Christ.
So thank you for the drama, but I’ll stick with the Word. It has all the fire, all the clarity, and none of the speculation.
—Sincere Seeker. Scripturally savage. Here for the Truth.
Here are Jesus’ words in Matthew and Luke:
Mat_8:12 while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Mat_13:42 and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Mat_13:50 and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Mat_22:13 Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
Mat_24:51 and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Mat_25:30 And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
Luk_13:28 In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out.
On October 17th, 1944, in response to Maria Valtorta’s friend, Giuseppe, calling The Poem of the Man-God the “5th Gospel”, Jesus said the following:
Now we come to the so-called 5th gospel.
There are four Gospels. Now I am explaining them in order to bring to light others which are lost or downplayed. But I am not creating another Gospel. There are four, and four they will remain. Understood in detail or left in their broad outlines, four and no more. (The Little Notebooks)
On January 28th, 1947, Jesus said the following:
The Work which is given to men through little John [Jesus’s nickname for Maria Valtorta] is not a canonical book. But it remains an inspired book which I am giving to help you understand certain passages in the canonical ones and especially to comprehend what My time as Master was like and know Me—I, the Word, in My words. Neither I nor, much less, the spokesman, who, because of his utter ignorance in this field, is not even able to distinguish between dogmatic theology and mystical or ascetical theology and does not know the subtleties of definitions or the conclusions of Councils, but is able to love and obey—and this is enough for Me, nor do I want anything else from the spokesman—neither I nor he say that the Work is a canonical book. In all truth, though, I tell you that it is an inspired book, for the instrument is not capable of writing pages which he does not even understand unless I Myself explain them to him to take away his fear. (The Notebooks: 1945-1950)
Soul, you’re quoting Jesus like He’s endorsing a bonus track on the Gospel album—as if the risen Christ handed out divine commentary post-Ascension. But here’s the stone-cold truth wrapped in scriptural steel: Jesus doesn’t add footnotes to His finished Word. Revelation 22:18–19 makes it blisteringly clear—add to this book, and God will add to you the plagues written in it. That’s not poetic hyperbole. That’s holy warning.
Now let’s cut through the sentimental fog: no, the “Poem of the Man-God” is not the “5th Gospel.” Jesus Himself didn’t stutter when He said, “It is written.” Not “It is being written.” Not “It might be updated in the 1940s.” The canon was closed—full stop—by the time John wrote the final Amen on Patmos. Every verse from Genesis to Revelation carries the breath of God. Every “extra revelation” that claims to fill in the gaps does nothing but reveal the gap in our discernment.
And don’t be fooled by the language of “inspiration” that Maria Valtorta (or her devotees) love to throw around like theological glitter. Biblical inspiration, as defined in 2 Timothy 3:16, is God-breathed. Not mystically felt. Not emotionally charged. Not dictated through dreams to someone who “doesn’t understand theology.” God doesn’t hand out revelation to those He admits can’t discern truth from mysticism. He inspired prophets, apostles, and eyewitnesses—men grounded in the Spirit and confirmed by miracles and the Body of Christ—not private mystics scribbling from sickbeds centuries later.
When the Church Fathers fought heresy, they didn’t quote “The Little Notebooks.” When Paul warned about “another Jesus” or “another gospel” (Galatians 1:8–9), he wasn’t worried about Romans in togas—he was warning about this exact thing: revelations that sound spiritual, feel holy, but subvert Scripture. And no amount of heavenly-sounding diction can sanctify deception.
So no, soul, this isn’t a harmless supplement. It’s spiritual smokescreen dressed as devotional prose. The “fifth gospel” isn’t Gospel—it’s drift. And once you drift from Scripture, you’re not heading deeper into truth. You’re drifting off the map.
Stick to the four. The Holy Spirit preserved them. The Church confirmed them. And Christ Himself fulfilled every word in them.
Everything else is either commentary—or counterfeit.
—Sincere Seeker. Scripturally savage. Here for the Truth.
I believe hell is the circumstances we find ourselves in when our sin has gone too far.
