The Valley of Himmon

To the south of the City of Jerusalem is a valley. Many may never have heard it's name, but it looms large in our imaginations and our folklore.

It is a terrible place to be sure - with the sort of past that any self respecting place would want to forget, if places had any say in the matter.
At first, the Valley was used for Child Sacrifice in the days of Jeremiah  ( Jer 7:30- 34, also Jer 32:35.)
But Josiah decided to purge the place of idolatry, so he turned the place into the city rubbish dump.
( 2Kings 23:8-14).  By the time of Christ, the place had become the place where all sorts of offal and refuse were left to rot - and fires of sulphur were kept burning to consume the waste more speedily. The bodies of executed criminals were cast here, too, for they were deemed unworthy of a proper gave. the name changed somewhat from the Hebrew to Aramaic  - and in that tongue , it was known as ' Gehenna'.

Yet that name still eludes many, for the translators of many editions of The Bible would not use the old name, but rather a similar Saxon word that was adapted. In the original Anglo Saxon , there was Hel, the land of the dead, but many today use the word ' Hell' without knowing its exact meanings - there have been many throughout History, so lets go over them.

The Bible mentions heaven over 400 times, but hell only 13; and where it is used, it tends to be another word that is used and not the original.  Where it is found in one of Peter's Epistles,the original Greek is 'Tarturus', a place of dense darkness where wicked and fallen angels are shut away to await final judgement. Most times, though, 'Gehenna 'is the word used.

Jesus warns the people that , if they are not careful , they too may end up in Gehenna - but what would that mean to a Jewish hearer? An eternity of torment and anguish- or simply that they would be abandoned and forgotten?

For note that Christ says " Fear not those who kill the body , but cannot destroy the soul - rather fear him that can destroy body and soul in Gehenna" You see, Gehenna was a literal place of destruction - annihilation .
the Jews thought of Sheol, the land where most people went after death, as different. ( Eccles 9:5) But whereas Sheol, the Grave, was a place from whence on could hope for a resurrection in time, Gehenna held out no such hope. those sent there were thought to be forgotten by God .

And that was the worst fate a Jew could imagine. Hence the awful reputation of this valley.
If we look at the book of Revelation, we are shown another image- that of a lake of fire. Again , opinion is divided as to what this means and entails for those unfortunate enough to be cast therein.

We should note that Death itself is cast into the Lake of Fire - now , should we expect that Death is really a scythe swinging skeletal figure out of a Terry Pratchett novel, or is this merely allegorical? Is the Lake of Fire symbolic in some way - or is it really a real state that people are cast into to suffer eternal torment?
It is suggested that in the Greek the word ' to torment' also meant ' to capture' , or ' imprisonment' - so could also mean that those there were simply held powerless, and not in any concious suffering at all.

It is something I would like to be clear on , and it will be intersting what other s have to say on this.