When was hell first mentioned

In early Christianity, the fate of those in hell was described in different ways. Some theologians taught that eventually all evil human beings and even Satan himself would be restored to unity with God. The image that dominated in antiquity eventually prevailed.

Hell was where the souls of the damned suffered torturous and unending punishment. Even after the resurrection of the dead at the end of the world, the wicked would be sent back to Hell for eternity. By the beginning of the fifth century, this doctrine was taught throughout western Christianity. It was reaffirmed officially by popes and councils throughout the Middle Ages. Gluttons lie in freezing pools of garbage, while murderers thrash in a river of boiling blood.

Today, these images seem to be part of a past that the 21st century has outgrown. It omits the gory details found in earlier attempts to describe the hellish experience, but restates that the chief pain of hell is eternal separation from God.

The Vatican insisted that the pope was misquoted by the journalist. But theologians have pointed out that Pope Francis has stressed the reality of hell several times in recent years. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. When both men die, Lazarus the beggar is "carried to Abraham's side" in heaven and the rich man is sent the opposite way. The first real graphic descriptions of hell and its torments come outside of the New Testament canon in the Christian apocryphal texts of the second century C.

One of the most colorful visions of hell is recorded in the Apocalypse of Peter , which was widely known in Christian circles at the time, though not considered part of the biblical canon. After describing heaven as "exceeding bright with light Each punishment in hell is fitted to the crime. Murderers were "cast into a certain strait place, full of evil snakes, and smitten by those beasts" while the souls of the murdered looked on with satisfaction.

Those who blasphemed and slandered the righteous were forced to "[gnaw] their own lips In modern times, many theologians have downplayed the images of horror and stressed that the worst part of hell is not the snakes and the fire which are likely not literal but rather, being separated from God. Satan wasn't always a red demon with horns, cloven feet and a pitchfork. When we first meet him in the Old Testament Book of Job , he's presenting himself to God along with several "sons of God" and comes up with the idea of testing the faith of Job by stripping him of everything he possesses.

To the ancient Hebrews, Satan was an adversary, tempter and an accuser of man, but not pure evil, says Trumbower. That later view of Satan, he says, was probably borrowed from Zoroastrianism, the religion of Persia, which ruled over the Jewish people for years from to B. The Persians also believed in an 'end time' and a final conflagration.

By the time of Christ, Jesus' Jewish followers would have absorbed this Persian version of Satan as the source of all evil and the chief opposition of God. As for the horns and hooves, that imagery was likely borrowed from pagan gods like Moloch and Pan, and medieval authors like Dante gave Satan bat wings in his " Inferno " to contrast with the feathered wings of the angels.

In , the Catholic Church formalized the existence of purgatory from the Latin "to purify" , a temporary place of punishment for "venial" sins not repented for while alive. The Eastern Orthodox Church never accepted purgatory. Sign up for our Newsletter! Mobile Newsletter banner close.

Mobile Newsletter chat close. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Chronologically, when was the concept of Hell first mentioned in the Bible? Asked 6 years, 9 months ago. Active 5 years, 11 months ago. Viewed 33k times. Improve this question. Community Bot 1.

Jim G. CRags: There are a few words translated as "hell" in English translations of the Bible. So, the OP needs to explicitly state which one he is concerned about. Does he mean "hell" as in the grave, or "hell" as in the place of eternal punishment? H3br3wHamm3r81 Why not both? There's only one or two others, right? Because some questions require more research than that. I actually do Google all yes, all questions I ask before I ask them. If I find something relevant, then I may not ask, or I may change the question I was going to ask.

This site isn't Christianity. If you hover over the up- and down-vote buttons on questions, they mention "research effort. I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is a verse search question. Show 3 more comments. Active Oldest Votes. Most of this information was found in the Jewish Encyclopedia. Improve this answer. Affable Geek Christopher Salvatore Christopher Salvatore 89 3 3 bronze badges.

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Add a comment. If by hell, you mean the final destruction of the wicked, it is first mentioned by Enoch as described by Jude And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.