Embed Notice

@royal @dan @RevEricBurrowsStone It is useful to stop using the overloaded term hell, and start referring to the following:

– Hades: the generic abode of the dead. In Greek mythology, both the evil and the good crossed the Styx and arrived here. The righteous inhabited the Elysian Fields within Hades.

– Sheol: the Hebrew cognate of Hades; simply the abode of the dead.

– Gehenna: The place of judgment after death. This is a hellenization of a Hebrew word.

– Tartarus: The abyss of eternal punishment in Greek mythology. This term is also used in many patristic writings.

– Abaddon: the Hebrew cognate of Tartarus.

So Hades and Sheol are synonymous, Tartarus and Abaddon are synonymous, and Gehenna usually carries roughly the same connotation as Tartarus or Abaddon.

In Norse mythology, Hel is a person/place pretty much equivalent to Hades (also both a person and a place); but in English usage hell has taken on the meaning of Gehenna.