Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Origin of the word "Hell"

While doing research for my upcoming book, "What the Hell? Simple Answers to Life's Most Burning Questions", I did some looking up of the english meaning of the word Hell.

An online source I found useful was here:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/hell

Notice it gives a nice etymology and background for the word Hell.

Is it possible that our understanding of Hell has been skewed over the centuries?

We'll find out!

JC Masters

2 comments:

Tyrone Ferrara said...

Dear Friend,

When I think of hell, I think of the story told by Jesus of the rich man and Lazarus.

In particular, when the rich man is asking Abraham to send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool his [the rich man's] tongue. And Abraham says, among other things, that a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.

I believe this to be a literal narrative of hell rather than just a parable; after all, Jesus would know.

Scott Bayles said...

Provident360,

The problem is the story of the rich man and Lazarus isn't set in hell. It's set in hades! It says nothing ofr final judgement; rather it takes place prior to the Second Coming while departed spirits still await the resurrection. Even if you take it literally, it still doesn't teach anything pertaining to eternal conscious torment.