Hell: Origins of an Idea – Richard Burky, Jeannette B. Anderson vision.org

The authors of this article set out to answer a simple question – “how can anyone worship a god who sets up fallible humans to be forever tormented in hell?” The idea of perpetual torment for the dead that in some way fell short in life is held by most of this world’s religions. This includes two of the three Abrahamic religions (Christian and Muslim) and in some ways Judaism; though with Judaism hell takes on slightly different forms. To understand the source of the idea that people are tortured in an ever-burning hell, we have to go outside the Bible. This concept can be traced to a number of ancient civilizations, some of which are Mesopotamia, India, Egypt, and Greece. These ideas took on new life with the rise of western philosophy at the hands of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Plato became a key figure in concepts relating to immortality of the soul and the judgments in Hades. Many of these extrabiblical ideas found their way into the writings of bishop, Augustine who looked to Plato’s opinions as “sometimes favorable to the true religion.” This was one of the decisive developments in the western philosophical tradition – the eventual widespread merging of the Greek philosophical traditions with the prevalent western Judeo-Christian values. Traditions including, perpetual torment for some of the dead and that humans possess an immortal soul. This all goes contrary to what the Bible teaches. Humans that knowingly and willingly decide to live in opposition to what the Bible calls the “way of life” will have part in the second death (Revelation 20:14) where they will simply and mercifully just cease to live.