[1] Jeremias, J., in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Kittel, G., Vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, 1964) 657–8Google Scholar. Jeremias', articles in the Theological Dictionary concerning Gehenna and Hades (Vol. 1, 146–9)Google Scholar have been criticized forcefully by Boyd, W. J. P., ‘Gehenna – According to J. Jeremias’, Studia Biblica 1978, Vol. 2Google Scholar: Sixth International Congress on Biblical Studies, 3–704 1978, ed. Livingstone, E. A.Google Scholar(Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series, 2; Sheffield, 1980) 9–12Google Scholar. However, he is correct only in attacking Jeremias' harmonizational tendency, but is incorrect in many of the specific exegetical points he raises. Boyd, like Jeremias, does not distinguish between different eschatological schemes in the Synoptic Gospels; we note 31 below.

[2] The form gehinnam, with a qamaẓ, is attested in the most important manuscript of the Mishna, the Kaufmann manuscript, and in all other early vocalized Mina manuscripts. Though this name is spelled in the Bible with a holam, Rabbinic Hebrew has retained the Aramaic form, without the lengthening of the final vowel; see Kutscher, Y., Millim ve-toldoteihen (Jerusalem, 1974) 66–7.Google Scholar

[3] All five occurrences in Jeremiah and the two occurrences in Chronicles have gy' bn hnm (at 2 Kings 23. 10 the ketiv is gy' bny hnm, but the qeri has bn); Jos 15. 18 and 18. 16 have in each verse both g' bn him and gy hnm; and Neh 11. 30 has gy' hnm.

[4] See Jer 7. 31, 19. 2–5, 2 Kings 23. 10.

[5] See also Isa 31. 9.

[6] Isa 66. 24 and Mal 3. 19. The notion of retribution by fire, i.e. a single retributive act or retribution to a single person or group, (found occasionally in the Bible) and punishment by fire, i.e. fire as the means of punishment, (rare in the Bible but common in later Jewish literature) are not identical but are closely related. A similar development, from fire as retribution to fire as punishment, occurred in Greek thought, though Cumont, F. (After Life in Roman Paganism [New York, 1959] 175–6)Google Scholar attributes this to Near Eastern influence. The role of fire in the future eschatological judgment as found in various Jewish texts of late antiquity, acting both as a destructive and a purgatorial force (though not within a hell but as part of the world conflagration), is discussed by Flusser, D., Yahadut u-mekorot ha-nazrut (Tel Aviv, 1979), 98–103Google Scholar. See also Hengel, M., Judaism and Hellenism (London, 1974), Vol. 2, p. 135, note 607Google Scholar, and Schurer, E., The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, revised and edited by Vermes, G., Millar, F., and Black, M., Vol. 2 (Edinburgh, 1979) 538–9, note 88Google Scholar, for a discussion of, among other points, possible Greek or Persian influence.

[7] 1 Enoch is generally dated to the second and third centuries before the common era. A survey of recent views on the dating of the various sections of Enoch can be found in Nickels-burg, G. W. E. Jr, ‘The Books of Enoch in Recent Research’, Religious Studies Review 7 (1981) 212–13.Google Scholar

[8] See also 1 Enoch 54. 1; the ‘deep valley with burning fire’ may very well bé Gehenna.

[9] Punishment, according to the two passages cited in the text, occurs after the future day of judgment. Other passages in Enoch speak of the punishment meted out to the souls of the sinners. According to 22. 1–13 the wicked are punished in an intermediate state until the great day of judgment. 1 Enoch 103. 5–8 states that the souls of the sinners will descend into Sheol, ‘into darkness and chains, and a burning flame’. Though the immediate context does not speak of any future judgment, we 104. 5. In this section the two notions of retribution have not been harmonized as in chapter twenty-two. For our purposes it is important to note that the place of spiritual punishment is not Gehenna, nor is it even identified as a valley.

[10] See the relevant handbook entries and encyclopaedia articles concerning the dates of these works. For possible interrelationships, see Nickelsburg, G. W. E. Jr, Resurrection, Immortality, and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism (Harvard Theological Studies, 26; Cambridge, Mass., 1972) 141Google Scholar. According to one of the two textual traditions extant, the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch (2 Baruch) 85. 13 – this chapter is part of the Letter of Baruch appended to the end of the Apocalypse, but found as well in many Peshitta Bible manuscripts – also knows of an eschatological Gehenna.

[11] See Albeck, Ch., ed., Shishah Sidrei Mishnah: Seder Neziqin (Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, 1959) 478–9Google Scholar, in his additional note to M. Eduyyot 2. 10.

[12] This transformation in meaning indicates how fluid and impermanent ideas of after-life were in Judaism of late antiquity; rarely was there a sense of confrontation and opposition. (Compare, though, the parable of the lame and the blind discussed below.) A similar metamorphosis, though in the opposite direction, is attested with regard to the word Tartarus. In Orphic eschatology the souls of the wicked are punished there after death; in Sibylline Oracles 4. 186 it has become the place where the wicked are sent after their resurrection.

[13] Though other conceptualizations of Gehenna are theoretically conceivable, none is found in rabbinic literature. Concerning the possible presence of the body in an immediately post-mortem hell, we note 23 below. And, on the other hand, the future eschaton is so closely linked in rabbinic thought to the resurrection, there is no trace of a body-less future World to Come, where the righteous receive their reward and the wicked their punishment. Such a notion may underlie Wisdom of Solomon 3. 1–9, where two distinct phases of after-life are distinguished: 1) immediately after death, and 2) after the ‘just blaze forth in the moment of Go's gracious dispensation’ (verse 7; translation from Winston, D., The Wisdom of Solomon [The Anchor Bible; Garden City, N.Y., 1979] 124)Google Scholar. For a discussion of Wisdom's eschatology, see Nickelsburg, , Resurrection, Immortality, and Eternal Life, 87–90Google Scholar, and Cavallin, H. C. C., Life After Death (Coniectanea Biblica, New Testa-ment Series, 7. 1; Lund, 1974) 126–34Google Scholar. or other possible traces of a future resurrection of a body-less man, (see Nickelsburg, , Resurrection 178–9.)Google Scholar Rabbinic literature does contain traces of a very distinct, but nonetheless related, concept: the spiritualization of the body in the future World to Come. Several classic statements relating to such a spiritualization are found in the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 15. 35–37 and the Synoptic parallels, Mark 12. 18–27, Matthew 22. 23–33 and Luke 20. 27–40, and it is also found in other Jewish texts of late antiquity, see Stemberger, G., Der Leib der Auferstehung (Analecta Biblica, 56; Rome, 1972)Google Scholar, and Cavallin, , Life After Death. However, in rabbinic literature ‘mythic’ images of resurrection predominate and little evidence of spiritualization can be locatedGoogle Scholar. Davies, W. D., Paul and Rabbinic Judaism (New York, 1967) 306–8Google Scholar, has only two passages, both amoraic (Davies mistakenly thinks that the Yohanan, R. cited by R. Hiyya b. Abba in Sanhedrin 99a is the first-century Sage)Google Scholar, which present a spiritualized World to Come when referring to the future eschatological World to Come. See also Stemberger, G., ‘Zur Auferstehungslehre in der rabbinischen Literatur’, Kairos 15 (1973) 263–6Google Scholar. (It is unfortunate that Stemberger does not make use of Higger, M., Masekhet Kallah [New York, 1936] 194Google Scholar, which presents the correct text of Kallah Rabbati 2Google Scholar, – it would have helped his argument – as opposed to the corrupt text which was available to Moore and BWerbeck [cited by Stemberger, p. 263]. In truth, Kallah Rabbati states that this vision of a spiritualized world is the future resurrected world, and not as in the corrupt version, before the resurrected world.) Stemberger's attempt to distinguish between two different types of resurrection, one more materialistic and the other less, and to attribute the first to the messianic era and the second to the ‘endzeitliche Herrlichkeit’ presupposes an unjustified degree of systematization in rabbinic thought and cannot be accepted. Since the para-meters of rabbinic thought are quite clear (notwithstanding the varieties within these boundaries), it is self-evident that the eschatological post-resurrection world is always a corporeal world, though the materialistic aspects of this world may be heightened or lessened in specific passages. Similarly, we shall use such terms as ‘incorporeal’, ‘immediately post-mortem’, and ‘spiritual’ synonymously to refer to the world of souls after death.

[14] The parable is translated here as it is found in Mekhilta d'Rabbi Shimon b. Yohai, Exod 15. 1 (ed. Epstein-Melammed, , p. 76)Google Scholar. It also appears in Mekhilta, Be-Shalah, Shfra 2 (ed. Horovitz-Rabin, ) 125Google Scholar, but since the parable was so well known most medieval scribes of that text did not bother to copy more than the first few words; see the critical apparatus in the edition of Horovitz-Rabin, . The parable is also found in Va-Yiqra Rabba 4. 5 (ed. Margulies, , 87–9)Google Scholar, Sanhedrin, B.T. 91a–b, and in additional texts listed by Margulies in his note on page 87. The lost Ezekiel Apocryphon, quoted by Epiphanius (Haereses 64, 70, 6–17)Google Scholar, knew a slightly different version of this parable. A great deal has been written about this parable; See the studies by Wallach, L. (‘The parable of the Blind and the Lame’, JBL 62 [1943] 333–9)Google Scholarand Stemberger, G. (‘Zur Auferstehungslehre in der rabbinischen Literatur’, Kairos 15 [1973] 250–4), and the references they cite.Google Scholar

[15] See also the parallel, Avot d'Rabbi Nathan, Version A, chapter 25 (ed. Schechter, , p. 79)Google Scholar. The Berakhot text has recently been analyzed from a literary perspective by Fraenkel, Y., Iyyunim be-‘olamo ha-ruhani shel sippur ha-’aggadah (Tel Aviv, 1981) 52–6.Google Scholar

[16] Strack, H. L. and Billerbeck, P., Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud and Midrasch (Munich, 1956), Vol. 4, Part 2, p. 1036.Google Scholar

[17] Neusner, J. (Development of a Legend Studies on the Traditions Concerning Yohanan ben Zakkai [Studia Post-Biblica, 16; Leiden, 1970] 224)Google Scholarsees ‘no reason to suppose’ that Yohanan's, R. statement concerning eternal judgment as well as other elements in the Berakhot passage ‘are not late inventionsGoogle Scholar, coming long after the very simple account of Joshua b. Levi’ (y. Avodah Zarah 3. 1 [42c] = y. Sotoh 9. 16 [24c] ). On the other hand, without claiming that the baraita originates from the time of R. Yohanan b. Zakkai, there is no reason to suppose that these elements do not come long before the time of R. Yehoshu'a b. Levi. Since R. Yohanan b. Zakkai's death-bed scene is introduced by teno rabbanan, this is a priori a tannaitic source. However, the question of amoraic creation and alteration of passages formally presented as baraitot is quite complex. Already in the last century Weiss, I. H. (Dor dor ve-dorshav, second edition [New York and Berlin, 1924], Vol. 2, pp. 242–4)Google Scholar cast doubt on the authenticity of many baraitot in the Babylonian Talmud. An elaborate retort, convincing on most points, was presented by Weiss, A., Le-heker ha-talmud (New York, 1954) 35–63Google Scholar; we also Jacobs, L., ‘Are There Fictitious Baraitot in the Babylonian Talmud?’, HUCA 47 (1971) 185–96.Google Scholar There is a general consensus that baraitot were often reformulated by Babylonian sages, very possibly not only during and as a result of the transmission process but also deliberately; however, within the context of oral transmission of traditional material, there is a line of demarcation, though perhaps not always self-evident, between reformulation, even when it affects content, and creation. M. Moreshet, in a series of articles written in Hebrew (Henoch Yalon Memorial Volume, ed. Kutscher, E. Y. et al. [Ramat Gan and Jerusalem, 1974] 275–314Google Scholar; Archive of the New Dictionary of Rabbinical Literature, Vol. 1 [Ramat Gan, 1972] 117–62Google Scholar, Ibid., Vol. 2 [Ramat Gan, 1974] 31–73), has shown that baraitot in the Babylonian Talmud often underwent linguistic alteration. For an example of a tannaitic text having undergone extensive changes in its amoraic formulation, See Milikowsky, C., ‘Kima and the Flood in Seder ‘Olam and B.T. Rosh ha-Shana: Stellar Time-Reckoning and Uranography in Rabbinic Literature’, PAAJR 50 (1983) 105–32.Google Scholar

[18] See Herr, M. D., ‘The Historical Significance of the Dialogues between Jewish Sages and Roman Dignitaries’, Scripta Hierosolymitana, Vol. 22 (Jerusalem, 1971) 145–9.Google Scholar

[19] Note that the matrona quotes biblical verses which is certainly good reason to question the historical veracity of the incident, if indeed any reason is needed. Since Yose, R. tells the matrona that the souls of the righteous are placed in a ‘treasure-house’ (ozar), final retribution obviously comes after the future judgmentGoogle Scholar. (Though it is of course possible that reward is post-resurrection and punishment immediately post-mortem). Earlier in this section of Qohelet Rabba an unattri buted passage introduced by tani states that the souls of the righteous enter a ‘treasure-house’ while the souls of the wicked are cast about (metorafot) on earth. These traditions are brought in reference to Qohelet 3. 21, ‘Who knows the spirit (ruah) of man whether it goes up and the spirit of the beast whether it goes down to earth’, and cite as proof-text 1 Sam 25. 29, ‘The soul (nefesh) of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life and the souls of your enemies, them all He sling out as from the hollow of a sling.’ In Yore's, R. dialogue, ‘casting about on earth’ has been replaced by ‘descending to Gehenna’, but obviously the former phrase suits ‘goes down to earth’ (Qoh. 3. 21)Google Scholar much better than the latter. Compare also Avot d'Rabbi Nathan, Version A, chapter 12 (ed. Schechter, , p. 50)Google Scholar, and Shabbat, B.T. 152b: in neither of these texts, both conceptually very similar to the Qohelet Rabba passage, is Gehenna contrasted to the storage-place of the righteous soulsGoogle Scholar. (On these texts, see Lieberman, S., Texts and Studies [New York, 1974] 499–502.)Google Scholar The notion of an ‘ozar of souls is known from other rabbinic passages as well as from several pseudepigraphal books, see Sifre Numbers, 139 (ed. Horovitz, , 185)Google Scholar, Sifre Deuteronomy, 344 (ed. Finkel-stein, , 401)Google Scholar, 4 Ezra 7. 32, 95, 2 Baruch 30. 2, 31. 23 (ozara in Syriac), and Pseudo-Philo 32. 13. According to the Qohelet Zuta parallel (ed. Buber, 124), R. Yore b. Halafta tells the matrona that the souls of the wicked ‘cast about from east to west and from west to east’’ and makes no mention of Gehenna. It must be noted, though, that there are obvious corruptions in this text.

[20] Nonetheless, our inability to discern which Gehenna an author intends should not necessarily lead us to conclude that the author had no specific meaning in mind.

[21] In a recent article (‘Gehenna and “Sinners of Israel” in the Light of Seder ‘Olam’, Tarbiz, 55 [1986] 323, note 51 [Hebrew])Google Scholar, I reject the unproven assumptions of Strack, H. and Billerbeck, P., Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud and Midrasch (Munich, 1956), Vol. 4, Part 2, pp. 1060–1Google Scholar, that these texts refer to an ‘intermediate’ state hell; cf. Vola, P., Die Eschatologie der judischen Gemeinde in neutestamentlichen Zeitalter (Tubingen, 1934) 327Google Scholar. In general, Strack and Billerbeck (Ibid. 1029–93) unjustly interpret many passages as referring to a ‘zwischenzeitliche’ Gehenna, even though the context does not sufficiently support such an interpretation.

[22] The term Gehenna is not unique in that it is used to denote both an aspect of the world of souls and an aspect of the future eschatological world. Almost all words used in rabbinic literature within the context of future reward and punishment contain this same ambiguity, as has indeed been noted by many scholars. In the aforementioned article in Tarbiz (above, note 21) 320–2Google Scholar, I briefly discuss the rabbinic evidence pertaining to the meaning of ‘olam ha-ba’, ‘the World to Come’.

[23] When body and soul are explicitly said to be together in Gehenna, we can assume that this is a post-resurrection Gehenna; the description of bodily tortures, however, as in the passage from Luke cited below is insufficient to generate such a conclusion. This same point was made by Gundry, , Soma in Biblical Teology, 114–15Google Scholar, concerning Matt 10. 28, see also 104. Brandon, S. G. F. (The Judgement of the Dead [London, 1967] 117, 161)Google Scholar takes a different position, actually two contradictory positions: physical suffering in hell is dependent upon physical resurrection, or it indicates a very materialistic conception of the soul. On this subject I can do no better than quote Cicero (Tusculan Disputations, I, xvi, 37)Google Scholar:

Though they knew that the bodies of the dead were consumed with fire, yet they imagined that events took place in the lower world which cannot take place and are not intelligible without bodies; the reason was that they were unable to grasp the conception of souls living an independent life and tried to find for them some sort of appearance and shape.

The perceptive remarks of Dodds, E. R. (The Greeks and the Irrational [Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1951] 136)Google Scholar regarding the practice of the feeding of the dead are also worth quoting:

Man, I take it, feeds his dead for the same sort of reason as a little girl feeds her doll; and like the little girl, he abstains from killing his phantasy by applying reality-standards. When the archaic Greek poured liquids down a feeding-tube in the livid jaws of a mouldering corpse, all we can say is that he abstained, for good reasons, from knowing what he was doing.

The presence of material punishment in a spiritual hell is especially prevalent in the so-called tours of hell, of both Jewish and Christian provenance, see Lieberman, S., ‘On Sins and Their Punishments’, in his Texts and Studies, 29–56Google Scholar, and the recent study by Himmelfarb, M., Tours of Hell (Philadelphia, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for analyses of these texts. A central question concerning them centres on their origin: are they primarily Jewish-Christian borrowings from earlier Greek sources, or should this genre be seen, to some extent at least, as an indigenous Jewish development? Perhaps of relevance to this problem, though I have not seen it discussed, is the fact that some of these texts present a vision of a future eschatological hell while others portray a coexistent hell. For example, the Ethiopic Apocalypse of Peter and Sibylline Oracles, II, 184–347Google Scholar, have the former while the Akhnin Greek Fragment of the Apocalypse of Peter, the Apocalypse of Paul and the Acts of Thomas have the latter. (All of these texts are conveniently located in Hennecke, and Schneemelcher, , ed., New Testament Apocrypha, Vol. 2 [Philadelphia, 1965].).Google Scholar

[24] Hanhart, K., The Intermediate State in the New Testament (Amsterdam, 1966) 36–7Google Scholar; Gundry, , Soma, 114–15.Google Scholar

[25] See Gundry, , Soma, 114, note 3.Google Scholar

[26] Essentially identical passages are found at Matthew 18. 8–9 and Mark 9. 43–45.

[27] See also John 5. 29, Acts 24. 15, and Revelation 20. 13–15. Though Glasson, T. F. (‘The Last Judgment in Rev. 20 and Related Writings’, NTS 28 [1982] 530)CrossRefGoogle Scholar argues that no resurrection is mentioned in Matthew, there can be little doubt that Matthew is referring to the Last Judgment after the resurrection. The apologetic and theological tendenz of Glasson's article is quite explicit, especially at its conclusion.

[28] Though it is of course feasible that the sinner will be punished both after death and after the future judgment – such a scheme is found in 4 Ezra and in several passages in rabbinic literature, for example – the absence of any immediately post-mortem hell in Matthew does not allow us to conclude that he knew of two hells, one immediately post-mortem and one post-resurrection.

[29] Luke's eschatology has been the subject of extensive discussion recently; see the short work by Ellis, E. E., Eschatology in Luke (Philadelphia, 1971), with bibliography, 23–25Google Scholar. The theological relevance of Luke's eschatology and understanding of history are very much a factor in these discussions. Thus Ellis, (pp. 9–10)Google Scholar states that Luke 16. 19–31 seems to presuppose a dualistic view of man, but then says that the belief in the departure of the soul to a timeless, eternal realm at death does not conform to the understanding of man and death found in Luke. It seems to me, however, that a close reading of the relevant passages in Luke does indicate a body/soul dualism with reward and punishment basically a function of the soul. But the realm after death in Luke is neither time-less nor eternal and as is clear from Jewish texts of late antiquity this body/soul dualism does not preclude belief in a future resurrection of the whole man. See also the criticism of Cullmann, O., ‘The Immortality of Man’, in Immortality and Resurrection, ed. Stendahl, K. (New York, 1965) 9–47Google Scholar, by Nickelsburg, , Resurrection, Immortality and Eternal Life, 177–80.Google Scholar

[30] Matthew, 22. 23–33, Mark 12. 18–27 and Luke 20. 27–40.Google Scholar

[31] Conzelmann, H., The Theology of St. Luke (New York, 1961) 110–11, 204–6.Google Scholar

[32] Jeremias, and Boyd, (cited above, note 1) ignored the relevance of the differing eschatologies of Matthew and Luke. Boyd (p. 11)Google Scholar mistakenly claims that ‘the Synoptics know of a resurrection of the just’, but this is true only of Luke. Jeremias, (p. 658)Google Scholar states that ‘Hades receives the ungodly only for the intervening period between death and resurrection, whereas Gehenna is their place of punishment in the last judgment.’ Luke, however, knows of no last judgment and subsequent resurrection for the wicked, and for him Hades, as well as Gehenna (they are synonymous), is the permanent place of punishment for the souls of the ungodly.

[33] Somewhat similar to Luke's beliefs concerning retribution and after-life are those Josephus attributes to the Pharisees, War 2, 163Google Scholar, Antiquities 18, 14Google Scholar, we also Josephus', speech at Jotapata, War 3, 362–82.Google Scholar