Before Jesus, no one in the Bible speaks of hell. According to Jesus, neither do the apostles. What was Jesus talking about? We must look for the answer in the Gospels, that is, in the time when Jesus was active in Israel.
Jesus speaks of Gehenna
Nowhere in the Bible is the image of a medieval hell mentioned. Jesus does not speak of hell, but of Gehenna. This is clearly included in the basic text. However, many translations prefer to follow tradition here and mistakenly translate as “hell” when Jesus was speaking of something quite different.
The word hell disappears from the Bible as people begin to take the Bible seriously.
There is no reference in the Old Testament to a hell such as Dante Alleghieri once described and whose ideas are omnipresent in some Christian traditions. Accordingly, hell would have appeared at the same time as Jesus as Savior. However, this is a disturbing idea, which is why people have already responded, “If hell only came with Jesus, why did he come? It would have been better if he had stayed away!
It has already been discussed in detail on this website the expressions of the Bible that speak about a hell. However, the following video deals exclusively with the question of whether Jesus taught a hell.
