I always kind of shuddered at the “someday every knee will bow, someday every tongue will confess” songs and references, because of this “I can’t wait until you are writhing in a lake of fire” vibe.
Jesus: Someday you will be with Me in Heaven.
Most of crowd: Hallelujah!
Jesus: Certain others will be in Hell
Joel Berry: WOOOOOOO all right SUCK ETERNAL FIRE, OTHERS [pumps fist Arsenio audience style] WOOF WOOF WOOF
Jesus: . . .
Ehhhh. That depends on a fairly narrow definition of "Hell" - there are verses in Navi about eternal punishment, and the concept of a place where bad people go to be punished after they die is all over the Talmud and Midrash. But we don't anticipate eagerly watching our foes being thrown into fire.
Our Sheol & Gehinnom aren’t the same thing as Christian Hell. Sheol is just an underworld, not a punishment. Gehinnom was conceived as more hell-like in Talmudic & Medieval times (the latter under cultural influence of Christianity), but the punishment was capped at 1 year, max. It’s never eternal.
"It's never eternal."
Well, that's just wrong. See Daniel 12:2 and so much discussion in the Talmud. (I strongly recommend this excellent sourcesheet by the amazing @misfittorah.bsky.social )
And when we start seeing Rabbis using Hell-like language, it’sin Medieval Europe, surrounded by Christians. It’s CERTAINLY not an idea Christians got from Jews.
I deleted comments because I was letting defensiveness drive me into positions I don’t hold.
I understand that the idea of underworld punishment has occurred in the Jewish tradition. My first comment was a somewhat flip reply to a Christian who was being antisemitic. The wording was imprecise. /
The point I was trying to make in saying “Jews don’t have Hell” was something along the lines of “Hell isn’t a significant focus of our tradition the way it is in Christianity, and you didn’t get it from us.” Not that the idea has never occurred within the Jewish tradition. /
My grandfather, who passed a few years ago well into his 90s, was a veteran of ‘48. Born in what was then Poland, English was his third language (Hebrew was his 4th). Most of his career was spent in Africa helping other countries develop independent air forces after throwing off the Brits…
When my son was born, he told me, in a formulation which could only be created by someone for whom British English was merely one of many mastered tongues, “it is said in our tradition that one who lives to see his great-grandson is spared the fire of gehinnom. So, thank you.”
it's also substantially attested prior to the Talmud, and to Christianity - the origins of the idea are apocalyptic, hence Daniel, but it's far more elaborated in the Enoch lit, I've just been browsing Aramaic fragments of that from Qurman - the word עלמא is pretty frequent, it's not super subtle
If we're already mentioning Crusadifiable material, I'm obliged to mention the folkloric addendum that Jesus can be summoned, with the appropriate powers, and he appears in his... container.
