THE ORIGINAL ARAMAIC UNDERSTANDING OF HELL

 

THE ORIGINAL ARAMAIC UNDERSTANDING OF HELL

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

JESUS AND ARAMAIC

 

1. If you have read my earlier writings, you will understand that Aramaic was the original language of Jesus. It was a pre-cursor to the Hebrew language. While Hebrew was more commercially used, Aramaic was more domestically spoken and written.

Jesus spoke in Aramaic to his disciples and the common people (many were illiterate, and can only understand Aramaic).

 

2. Jesus used the word "hell or hell-fire" in Matthew 5:22 (KJV) in our English translations. We are going to see what he meant.

 

Matthew 5:22 (KJV) - But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

pictures here: Taken from : https://www.thearamaicscriptures.com/

 

3. The actual Aramaic words spoken are as above. The spoken word in interlinear English Translation would be "Gehenna dnoora"

 

4. The word "Gehenna dnoora" is an Aramaic Idiom.

 

5. IN Aramaic, "Gehenna dnoora" means "Regret", "Mental torment", "Destruction", "Remorse", "Mental suffering", "Mental agony".

 

6. "Gehenna dnoora" does NOT mean an INFERNO where God burns people forever!

 

7. According to Aramaic scholars, they confirmed that the Aramaic-speaking Church Fathers of the 2nd to 5th centuries AD uses the word "Gehenna dnoora" (English translated as "hellfire") to denote "torment of the mind", and not a fiery place where people are burning forever.

 

8. It was only much later, that the term "hell or hellfire" became translated as a designated place of eternal punishment for the wicked and unbelievers.

 

 

WHAT IS HELL? WHERE IS HELL?

 

1. Some cultures and ancient beliefs taught that it is an underground (middle earth, or subterranean) torture pit where living souls are tormented and burnt for eternity.

 

2. Some beliefs teach that hell is a spiritual place of unending separation from the presence of God.

 

3. These thoughts and concepts of hell as a fiery punishment came from (a) certain misunderstood biblical passages and (b) some cultural and contemporary misinterpretations of early church leaders like Augustine and Tertullian.

 

4. Prior to these concepts of hell, it was NOT conceived or taught as a place where God torments "disobedient" human beings.

 

5. Jesus NEVER taught such an idea, and it was not presumed to be such by his followers. When Jesus used the Aramaic term "Gehenna dnoora", he used it as a common Aramaic idiom that means "mental torment".

 

 

WHERE DID WE GET THIS WORD "HELL" IN OUR ENGLISH?

 

1. The origin of the English word "hell" comes from the Anglo-Saxon (old English language) words "hel" meaning "a hidden place", and "helan" meaning "to hide".

 

2. In our English translated bible, the translators had used the word "hell" to translate from 2 Aramaic terms "sheol" and "gehenna dnoora". And this was wrong.

 

3. "Sheol" and "Gehenna dnoora" are actually two very extremely different Aramaic (and Semitic) terms, yet the English translators had used the word "hell" to represent both.

 

4. "Sheol" comes from the Hebrew word "shalal" meaning "to be still or quiet".

 

5. In those ancient Hebrew days, the Hebrews believed that "sheol" was a place below the surface of the earth where the dead, BOTH GOOD AND BAD, remained there quietly and inactive. (This could be a borrowed cultural belief of the Assyrian and Babylonians that had such beliefs. Remember that the Jews were in captivity and under these over-lording masters for several generations i.e. hundreds of years).

 

6. The ancient Hebrews believed that their dead will wait in "sheol" until it is judgement day for them, the good guys and the bad guys. This term "sheol" is used more in the older text of the Hebrew Tanakh (similar to the Old Testament).

 

 

"GEHENNA DNOORA" IS ALSO A PHYSICAL PLACE

 

1. Yes, I said that "Gehenna dnoora" is an Aramaic idiomatic expression meaning "mental torment", but it is also an ancient "physical place".

 

2. I bring the similar example of our Malaysia term "Jinjang". When we say a person is very "jinjang", it is an idiomatic expression to mean that he/she is "backward", "uneducated", "uncultured". BUT "Jinjang" is also a "physical place" where the Jinjang residents are "gangster-like", "a place without law or order". We have many other idioms like these.

 

3. The physical place of "Gehenna dnoora" means the "Valley of Hinnom".

 

4. During the time of Jesus, the "Valley of Hinnom" was a place outside of Jerusalem where the Jews burned their rubbish!

 

5. But BEFORE the time of Jesus, during the ancient time of the early kings, the "Valley of Hinnom" was a place of sacrifice to the pagan god of the Ammonite (the residents of Canaan) called Molech. Read 2 Kings 23:10 and 2 Chronicles 33:6 (KJV). The physical location of "Valley of Hinnom" is described in Jeremiah 19:2.

 

 

FROM THE BOOK by ROCCO A. ERRICO,

"THE MESSAGE OF MATTHEW: AN ANNOTATED PARALLEL ARAMAIC-ENGLISH GOSPEL OF MATTHEW, "HELLFIRE - GEHENNA", page A-17"

 

[ The name "Gehenna" - "Gei Hinnom" in Hebrew - derives from the infamous valley of Ben Hinnom, southwest of Jerusalem. After the fall of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, Assyria made the southern Kingdom of Judah pay tribute. 2 Chronicles 28 tells us that the Judean King Ahaz (735 - 715 BCE) took some precious silver and gold temple ornaments to appease the King of Assyria. Ahaz worshiped and offered sacrifices to idols. In the Valley of Hinnom in Jerusalem the King condemned his son to the flames as a sacrificial offering to pacify the gods.

It was because of these horrible atrocities and practices that the valley, "Gei Hinnom", became a Hebrew term for "hell". During the time of the New Testament, the Hinnom Valley became a place to burn rubbish and the bodies of plaque victims.]

 

 

 

CONCLUSION

 

Our Western trained minds had been brainwashed by modern contemporary wrong translations and have misinterpreted "hell".

 

Review another of my post on "hell":

https://advancingtruth.blogspot.com/2020/04/hell.html

 

 

 

(to be continued...)

 - Later posts will deal with other passages containing the word "hell" in the bible text, and what they originally referred to.

 

 

 

 

Hell?

Contrary to popular religious teaching Jesus NEVER - not one time - EVER spoke about "hell". That is a fact! The word was not even invented until 725 AD. He spoke very clearly and specifically about Gehenna, or the Valley of Hinnom, a very real place just outside of the city walls of Jerusalem with a dreaded history where the Jews once sacrificed their children and had them burned alive.

Both Jeremiah and Isaiah referred to this place in their prophecies about the fate of the inhabitants of Jerusalem during the destruction of the city in 586 BC when the Babylonians laid waste to Jerusalem and threw hundreds of thousands of dead Jews into that cursed valley where they were burned up and consumed. Jesus was warning the Jewish leaders of the same fate which was going to come upon them within one generation if they did not repent and receive Him as their Messiah.

This is, in fact, exactly what happened in 70 AD, as chronicled by Josephus in his work, "The Jewish Wars" when the Roman general Titus laid siege to the city of Jerusalem and massacred almost the entire population and threw the dead bodies of the Jews into that very same valley of Gehenna where they were consumed by fire and eaten by worms.

"Hell" is NOT some future mythological place of eternal torment for people who don't accept Jesus. That is a man-made religious myth used to control and manipulate the masses ever since the Dark Ages of Roman Catholicism and has been carried over into Evangelical tradition. It should have been renounced and cast out of the belief system of the church along with the worship of the saints, the infallacy of the papacy, the selling of indulgences and many other pagan practices rejected during the Reformation.

Unfortunately Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, et. al, did not go far enough in the 16th century. It is time to finish the work started during the Reformation and purge the Church of the pagan false belief in a place of eternal punishment called "hell".

Lee O'Hare