Question regarding Gehenna

[WhiteWings]

Attached a 20 page article from the Oxford dictionary. Definitions, etymology and quotes from ancient sources.

[WhiteWings]

I thought the Greeks had no concept of eternal/everlasting.  Is it possible this is an English interpretation  of what Josephus actually said - with the idea/word eternal added?

Also, what was Josephus' perspective?  I got the idea he was more of an "outside" historical observer/reporter.  Maybe not.  However, some of this info isn't fitting together...

His family is one of Jewish (high) priests. He was adopted by the Romans. He was seen as traitor by many Jews because he often sided with the Romans.
As shown in my above posts Josephus seems not to be the only one with such a view.

Well, I thought it was cool in Eaglesway's post about fire not being attached to "hell" until hundreds of years after Jesus' earthly ministry.

Maybe Eaglesway should change the dating of his post and everything is correct  :winkgrin:
Jerusalem was a very central place in the ancient world. It wasn't a city of Jews. Greeks, Romans and other cultures mixed with them. Not to forget Jews were enslaved by pagan nations for very long periods of time. So perhaps they even had a hell concept when they left Egypt.

The Greeks used "Hades" as their translation for "Sheol"(Septuagint, 132 BC).  "Hades" had a definite, clear place in the "cosmology" of the Greeks, and was also the name of the "god" who ruled Hades, their underworld. This brought new meaning the word and began to distance it from "sheol". Now a reader saw what a believer in the Greek cosmology (their mythical pantheon) believed, not what the original Hebrew speaker believed.

Don't you find it odd that a Greek god gets a prominent place in the LXX. The LXX was seen as very accurate. In case of dispute the Hebrew version was  the one to be followed.
(One of) the reason(s) for that translation was that many Jews only spoke Greek. Or Hebrew was their second language. That shows Jews mixed with Greeks. Imo that almost always means they picked up religion things from the pagan family next door.
For me the use of Hades is like a translation for Iranian Christians which uses allah and mohamed instead of God and Jesus.

[WhiteWings]

I thought the Greeks had no concept of eternal/everlasting.  Is it possible this is an English interpretation  of what Josephus actually said - with the idea/word eternal added?

As you surely know Josephus didn't write in English. So to really know what he wrote we need to study the original language.
Gary spends half of his time explaining the word aion. Assuming Josephus uses the word aion it's no big step to assume that a UR teacher would translate the word as "age" while the ETs would use "for ever"

Long post ahead. Read it all. Sometimes the explicit statements of for ever contradict themselfs the next paragraph. At least it seems so at first sight. Their concept of forever isn't the same as our.

Who for us
men and for our salvation came down (from heaven) and was incarnate (of the Holy Ghost and the
Virgin Mary) and made man (and was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate), and suffered (and was
buried), and rose again the third day (according to the Scriptures), who ascended into heaven (and
sitteth on the right hand of the Father) and cometh again (in glory) to judge quick and dead (of whose
kingdom there shall be no end). And in the Holy Ghost, (the Lord and giver of life, who proceedeth
from the Father, who with the Father and the Son, together is worshipped and glorified; who spake by
the prophets; in one holy Catholic, Apostolic Church; we acknowledge one baptism for the remission
of sins; and we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.)" 9
This last clause was not in the original Nicene creed, but was added in the Constantinopolitan. The
literal rendering of the Greek is "the life of the age about to come."
The first Christians, it will be seen, said in their creeds, "I believe in the æonian life;" later, they
modified the phrase "æonian life," to "the life of the coming æon," showing that the phrases are
equivalent. But not a word of endless punishment. "The life of the age to come" was the first Christian
creed, and later, Origen himself declares his belief in æonian punishment, and in æonian life beyond.
How, then, could æonian punishment have been regarded as endless?

A star had arisen on the borders of the
grave, dispelling the horror of darkness which had hitherto reigned there; the prospect beyond was
now cleared up, and so dazzling was the view of an 'eternal city sculptured in the sky,' that numbers
were found eager to rush through the gate of martyrdom, for the hope of entering its starry portals." 16
Says Ruskin: "Not a cross as a symbol in the Catacombs. The earliest certain Latin cross is on the
tomb of the Empress Galla Placidia, A.D. 451. No picture of the crucifixion till the Ninth Century,
nor any portable crucifix till long after. To the early Christians Christ was living, the one agonized
hour was lost in the thought of his glory and triumph. The fall of theology and Christian thought dates
from the error of dwelling upon his death instead of his life." 17 Farrar adds: "The symbols of the
Catacombs, like every other indication of early teaching, show the glad, bright, loving character of the
Christian faith. It was a religion of joy and not of gloom, of life and not of death, of tenderness not of
severity. We see in them as in the acts of the apostles, that the keynotes of the music of the Christian
life were 'exultation' and 'simplicity.' And how far superior in beauty and significance were these early
Christian symbols to the meaninglessness and pagan broken columns and broken rose-buds and skulls
and weeping women and inverted torches of our cemeteries. We find in the Catacombs neither the
cross of the fifth and sixth centuries nor the crucifixes of the twelfth, nor the torches and martyrdoms
of the seventeenth, nor the skeletons of the fifteenth, not the cypresses and death's heads of the
eighteenth. Instead of these the symbols of beauty, hope and peace."
For example, the Pharisees, according to Josephus, regarded the penalty of sin as torment without
end, and they stated the doctrine in unambiguous terms. They called it eirgmos aidios (eternal
imprisonment) and timorion adialeipton (endless torment), while our Lord called the punishment of
sin aionion kolasin (age-long chastisement).
Use of Gehenna.
So of the place of punishment (gehenna) the Jews at the time of Christ never understood it to
denote endless punishment. The reader of Farrar's "Mercy and Judgment," and "Eternal Hope," and
Windet's "De Vita functorum statu," will find any number of statements from the Talmudic and other
Jewish authorities, affirming in the most explicit language that Gehenna was understood by the
people to whom our Lord addressed the word as a place or condition of temporary duration. They
employed such terms as these "The wicked shall be judged in Gehenna until the righteous say
concerning them, 'We have seen enough.'"5 "Gehenna is nothing but a day in which the impious will
be burned." "After the last judgment Gehenna exists no longer." "There will hereafter be no
Gehenna."6 These quotations might be multiplied indefinitely to demonstrate that the Jews to whom
our Lord spoke regarded Gehenna as of limited duration, as did the Christian Fathers. Origen in his
reply to Celsus (VI, xxv) gives an exposition of Gehenna, explaining its usage in his day. He says it is
an analogue of the well-known valley of the Son of Hinnom, and signifies the fire of purification.
Now observe: Christ carefully avoided the words in which his auditors expressed endless punishment
(aidios, timoria and adialeiptos), and used terms they did not use with that meaning (aionios kolasis),
and employed the term which by universal consent among the Jews has no such meaning (Gehenna);
and as his immediate followers and the earliest of the Fathers pursued exactly the same course, is it
not demonstrated that they intended to be understood as he was understood?

The Apocryphal Book of Enoch.
More than a century before the birth of Christ 12 appeared the apocryphal Book of Enoch, which
contains, so far as is known, the earliest statement extant of the doctrine of endless punishment in any
work of Jewish origin. It became very popular during the early Christian centuries, and modified, it
may be safely supposed, the views of Tatian, Minucius Felix, Tertullian, and their followers. It is
referred to or quoted from by Barnabas, Justin, Clement of Alexandria, Irenæus, Origen, Tertullian,
Eusebius, Jerome, Hilary, Epiphanius, Augustine, and others. Jude quotes from it in verses 14 and 15,
and refers to it in verse 6, on which account some of the fathers considered Jude apocryphal; but it is
probable that Jude quotes Enoch as Paul quotes the heathen poets, not to endorse its doctrine, but to
illustrate a point, as writers nowadays quote fables and legends. Cave, in the "Lives of the Fathers,"
attributes the prevalence of the doctrine of fallen angels to a perversion of the account (Gen. vi: 1-4)
of "the sons of God and the daughters of men." He refers the prevalence of the doctrine to "the
authority of the 'Book of Enoch,' (highly valued by many in those days) wherein this story is related,
as appears from the fragments of it still extant." The entire work is now accessible through modern
discovery.
A little later than Enoch appeared the Book of Ezra, advocating the same doctrine. These two
books were popular among the Jews before the time of Christ, and it is supposed, as the Old
Testament is silent on the subject, that the corrupt traditions of the Pharisees, of which our Lord
The Apocryphal Book of Enoch.
More than a century before the birth of Christ 12 appeared the apocryphal Book of Enoch, which
contains, so far as is known, the earliest statement extant of the doctrine of endless punishment in any
work of Jewish origin. It became very popular during the early Christian centuries, and modified, it
may be safely supposed, the views of Tatian, Minucius Felix, Tertullian, and their followers. It is
referred to or quoted from by Barnabas, Justin, Clement of Alexandria, Irenæus, Origen, Tertullian,
Eusebius, Jerome, Hilary, Epiphanius, Augustine, and others. Jude quotes from it in verses 14 and 15,
and refers to it in verse 6, on which account some of the fathers considered Jude apocryphal; but it is
probable that Jude quotes Enoch as Paul quotes the heathen poets, not to endorse its doctrine, but to
illustrate a point, as writers nowadays quote fables and legends. Cave, in the "Lives of the Fathers,"
attributes the prevalence of the doctrine of fallen angels to a perversion of the account (Gen. vi: 1-4)
of "the sons of God and the daughters of men." He refers the prevalence of the doctrine to "the
authority of the 'Book of Enoch,' (highly valued by many in those days) wherein this story is related,
as appears from the fragments of it still extant." The entire work is now accessible through modern
discovery.
A little later than Enoch appeared the Book of Ezra, advocating the same doctrine. These two
books were popular among the Jews before the time of Christ, and it is supposed, as the Old
Testament is silent on the subject, that the corrupt traditions of the Pharisees, of which our Lord
warned his disciples to beware, 13 were obtained in part from these books, or from the Egyptian and
Pagan sources whence they were derived. At any rate, though the Old Testament does not contain the
doctrine, 14 Josephus, as has been seen, assures us that the Pharisees of his time accepted and taught it.
Of course they must have obtained the doctrine from uninspired sources.
That the Old Testament does not teach even post-mortem punishment is universally conceded by
scholars, as has been seen; and that the Egyptians, and Greek and Roman Pagans did, is shown
already.
The oldest Christian document since the New Testament, explicitly avowing the doctrine of
universal restoration, is the "Sibylline Oracles."1 Different portions of this composition were written at
different dates, from 181 B.C. to 267 A.D. The portion expressing universal salvation was written by
an Alexandrine Christian, about A.D. 80, and the "Oracles" were in general circulation from A.D. 100
onward, and are referred to with great consideration for many centuries subsequently.
......
As late as the Middle Ages the "Oracles" was well known, and its author was ranked with David.
......
The reader must not fail to observe that the "Sibylline Oracles" explicitly state the deliverance of
the damned from the torments of hell. They repeatedly call the suffering everlasting, even "immortal,"
yet declare that it shall end in the restoration of the lost.