I’ve been continuing my study concerning Hinnom Valley. I refer to it as Hinnom Valley and not Gehenna because it helps to highlight that it, Hinnom Valley, was a REAL location with a REAL history and provided a REAL context to what Jesus said concerning the judgment/punishment/devestation of sin. As you know, Hinnom Valley was where Judah became so hard hearted, so hardened by evil within and without that they actually sacrificed their children, burning them alive in the fires of the idol Molech. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back, the point when God said, “Enough is Enough!” and set things in order for the destruction of Jerusalem, Hinnom Valley being filled with dead bodies being consumed by maggots, vultures, dogs, and wild animals, and the Jews being carried off into Babylonian captivity!
This is where sin will lead you. You’ll become so hard hearted, so bound by your idols that you’ll sacrifice your own children to satiate the driving evil within you, and all that you love, all whom you love will be destroyed by this evil! That’s why Jesus said we should take sin seriously, so seriously that we’d cut off our hands, pluck out our eyes if it would deliver us from sin, the idolatry of our own hearts!
By divorcing Hinnom Valley from its Real location, Real history, and Real context, the early Latin church read into it something that it was never meant to imply - ECT. St Jerome mistranslated Gehenna as Infernum (lower regions); and infernum was later so closely associated with fire that the Italian word inferno meant a place of fiery heat and destruction, and was related to the concept of Hell. And of course, it was ultimately mistranslated as Hell in the first English translations and continues to be mistranslated today, completely divorcing it from its real-life context.
By divorcing Hinnom Valley from its sitz em labin, real life context, it is so spiritualized that it becomes no earthly good. Frankly, Jesus’ warnings were for the children of God, those who believed themselves to be the called, the elect of God. It was meant to encourage them to repent from sin, to seek holiness of heart, mind, and living. But by spiritualizing it, believers can say, “Oh that doesn’t apply to us because we’re saved, we trust in God. That’s where unbelievers will be cast.” And unbelievers don’t care what it says for they don’t believe anyhow. So by misinterpreting Gehenna as Hell it nullifies the power of this passage to bring people to repentance, with believers saying “that doesn’t apply to me”, and unbelievers saying “I don’t care what it says.”
If you’ve read my previous notes on Hinnom Valley (Gehenna), you might have noticed that the Pharisees’ use of Hinnom Valley as a theological metaphor similar to Purgatory really impacted me. And I still believe that Jesus could have also been referencing this for them, but I’ve come to appreciate more the real-life context of Hinnom Valley.
It’s possible that Jesus meant all of the following:
- Geographical, if it was a trash dump, metaphorical of a trashed, worthless, good-for-nothing life.
- Historical - devestation of evil within and without as discussed above.
- Historical - destruction of Jerusalem and bondage to another nation, prophetic of the coming destruction of Jerusalem and oppression of the Jews by Rome.
- Cultural - Pharisees’ theological metaphor and the possibility of purifying punishment in the life-to-come. Mk. 9:49 seems to take this perspective especially.
Jesus often spoke in parables and in terms that were meant to enable people to wrestle with them to hear what God would say to them personally. For some, the threat of a trashed, worthless life would cause them to repent. Others are moved by love others, especially their children. Others are moved by love for their culture and community. And yet others are moved by the fear of God. And most of us are moved by all of these, rightly so. Hinnom Valley, when understood in its real-life context emotionally speaks to all of these powerfully!
