Realms
Gehenna
Underworlds
Citation Formats
General Reference
APA Style
BibTeX
Origin Ge-Hinnom is a real ravine named in the Hebrew Bible
A realm of judgment and purification in later Jewish thought, its name drawn from a valley near Jerusalem associated with fire and defilement. It came to denote a place where the wicked are punished or purged after death. It influenced later Jewish, Christian, and Islamic conceptions of the fires of judgment.
Facts
Origins
Origin PeriodGe-Hinnom is a real ravine named in the Hebrew Bible 1Tradition: The Hebrew Bible Origin PeriodPostmortem-punishment sense is a Second Temple and rabbinic development 1Tradition: The Hebrew Bible Origin of the NameAn actual ravine on the southern edge of Jerusalem 1 Origin of the NameFrom Hebrew Ge-Hinnom, the valley of Hinnom 1 Origin of the NameThe name of a place became the name of a fate 1 Disputed
StructureRabbinic sources describe Gehenna as divided into named compartments, most often numbered at seven, though the classical texts do not agree on a single list of names or on the exact count. 2 Talmudic and later midrashic literature repeatedly divides Gehenna into multiple named sections, most commonly seven, but the lists of names differ between sources such as the Babylonian Talmud and later compilations like Emek HaMelech, and no single scheme is treated as authoritative across the tradition. Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting SourceA place before it is a doctrine: Ge-Hinnom, the ravine outside Jerusalem 1Tradition: The Hebrew Bible Meaning in the Attesting SourcePostmortem-punishment sense develops in Second Temple and rabbinic literature 1Tradition: The Hebrew Bible Meaning in the Attesting SourceWhere the prophets condemn child sacrifice 1Tradition: The Hebrew Bible Status
Status Within the Tradition Learn More
From a Valley Outside Jerusalem to the Fires of Judgement
Gehenna is a rare case where a place of punishment in the afterlife can be traced to a specific piece of real geography. The name derives from the Valley of Hinnom (Gei Hinnom) just outside Jerusalem, a ravine that the Hebrew Bible associates with the worst of apostasies, the burning of children in sacrifice to foreign gods under the kings Ahaz and Manasseh (2 Kings, Jeremiah). Defiled by these associations, the valley became in later tradition a byword for divine judgement, and by the Second Temple period Gehenna had been transposed from a cursed valley into a realm of the afterlife: a place where the wicked are punished or purged by fire after death.
In rabbinic Judaism this developed into a nuanced doctrine, Gehenna as, for most souls, a temporary state of purification lasting up to twelve months, rather than eternal torment, after which the soul ascends; only the utterly wicked are destroyed or remain. The New Testament, using the same word (translated "hell" in older English Bibles), draws on this imagery for its warnings of judgement. Gehenna thus stands behind much later Jewish, Christian, and Islamic imagining of a fiery hell, while retaining, in its Jewish form, a strong emphasis on purification and limit rather than endless punishment.
The Valley, the Fire, and a Rubbish Dump That Was Never There
Ge-Hinnom is a real ravine running south and west of the old city of Jerusalem, and it can be walked today. Its reputation comes from the prophets: Jeremiah condemns what was done at Topheth in that valley, where children were passed through fire, and declares that it will be called the valley of slaughter. A place associated with the worst thing the prophets could name became, over the following centuries, the name for the place of judgement.
One very widely repeated explanation should be dropped. The claim that Gehenna was Jerusalem's burning refuse dump, which is why it stands for perpetual fire, appears first in a commentary by David Kimhi around the year 1200 and has no support in any ancient source, in the archaeology of the valley, or in rabbinic literature. It reached English readers through nineteenth century commentaries and is now in a great many study Bibles and sermons. There is no evidence for it.
The rabbinic material is also more temperate than the popular version. A standard position holds that the judgement of the wicked in Gehinnom lasts twelve months, which is one of the reasons the mourner's kaddish is recited for eleven, so as not to imply that the deceased needed the full term. Permanent punishment is a minority view in that literature rather than the default.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Belongs to Tradition
Originates in Language
Sources
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.