Do Jews believe in hell?
Ask this question and you are really asking two: what does the Hebrew Bible itself say about punishment after death, and what have Jewish teachers made of it. Commentators handle both, and they do not all read the evidence the same way.
The words the Old Testament actually uses
Much of the confusion is a translation problem. One English word covers two very different Greek words, and only one of them is the place of final punishment.
J. N. DarbyTwo words are translated "hell" in the English Bible — Hades and Gehenna: one meaning the temporary state of departed spirits, the unseen world, without saying more; the other used for the fire that never shall be quenched. Its meaning is, in origin, the valley of Hinnom, where people offered their children to Moloch, and which was defiled by Josiah.
The Hebrew word behind the older translation "hell" is sheol — sometimes rendered "grave" or "pit". One reference work argues that the note of judgment was never absent from it.
Morrish Bible DictionaryIt refers to an invisible place or state, which may have several applications, according to the connection of each passage… "The wicked shall return to Sheol" (Ps. 9:17)… But for the redemption which faith looked for, sheol must have had for Old Testament believers the character of eternal punishment.
A nation divided over life after death
In Jesus' day there was no single Jewish answer. The two leading parties disagreed at the root, and the argument was fought over the text of Scripture itself.
C. E. StuartThe resurrection of the body was denied by the Sadducees, who claimed, along with the Pharisees, to accept the Pentateuch as authoritative divine revelation. With what an air of triumph a Sadducee might hold the roll of the law in his hands and challenge the Pharisee to point out one passage where the term resurrection could be found, or where man's existence after death was affirmed.
Rabbinic teaching: punishment, but with an exit
Later Jewish teaching kept punishment while limiting it. One writer describes a system where hardly any Israelite finally stays there.
J. N. DarbyThe Jews' idea was this: they say there is no place of repentance after death… But then they make almost all Jews get out of the place of punishment, because God has punished the best for all their faults, and, after punishing the wicked, must reward what they have done right. Even if one commandment is kept, a Jew will be blessed… They judge that it would not be just for a man to suffer eternally for crimes which have often been light ones. So they have a purgatory for offenders in Israel, those who are neither entirely good nor entirely bad. They pray to get souls out of it.
The evidence is genuinely disputed
Writers differ sharply on what the Jews as a body believed. One position, quoted at length and then challenged, is that endless torment was never part of the Jewish idea of Gehenna.
Frederick William Grant"But, let it be solemnly observed, the Jews, to whom and in whose figurative sense the word was used by our blessed Lord, never did, either then or at any other period, normally attach to the word Gehenna that meaning of endless torment which we attach to 'hell.'… it meant not a material and everlasting fire, but an intermediate, remedial, figurative, terminable retribution."
The reply is that this leans on the rabbis while ignoring an early historian's testimony about the two strictest parties.
Frederick William GrantTo this is added a note in which the Jews as a body are said never to have held either the finality of the doom passed, or the doctrine of endless torment… For this he quotes various authorities, among them the most explicit statement of the Talmud, that "the just shall rise to bliss; ordinary sinners shall be finally redeemed; the hopelessly bad shall be punished for a year, and then annihilated."… He does not notice the views of either Pharisees or Essenes, who both held eternal punishment, as Josephus plainly states.
Jesus spoke to Jews in their own language
When Jesus told of the rich man and Lazarus, He used pictures His Jewish hearers already knew — and one writer stresses that the setting is Jewish while the reality is not merely a picture.
W. W. FeredayLazarus was in Abraham's bosom; the rich man was in torments. The Lord was speaking from the Jewish standpoint when He spoke of "Abraham's bosom." Abraham was the father of the Jewish nation… The rich man was in Hades, not yet in Gehenna: and neither he nor Lazarus had yet experienced resurrection.
That story is also used to press a question on anyone who accepts half of it.
A. J. PollockJust as plainly as Scripture tells us Hades is for the believer a condition of BLISS, so does the Lord tell us that Hades is for the unbeliever a condition of TORMENT. Can we believe the one statement and refuse the other? Surely not!
Where the answer has to come from
Tradition, on this subject, is not treated as the deciding voice — the same Scriptures the Jews held are.
Frederick William GrantBut let us see now where the Jews drew (or might have drawn) their views of Gehenna. We have the Old Testament as they had, and from it alone all right views, such as the Lord Himself adopted, must surely be taken. Revelation alone could be a light beyond the grave.
Summary
- Words — English "hell" hides three things: sheol/Hades, the unseen state of the dead, and Gehenna, the valley of Hinnom used as the picture of unquenchable fire.
- Divided — Jewish opinion split: Sadducees denied resurrection, angels and spirits; Pharisees confessed all three.
- Softened — rabbinic teaching kept a place of punishment but built exits from it: a purgatory for the in-between, prayers to release souls, and almost all Israel finally out.
- Disputed — writers differ over what the Jews as a whole believed; the Talmud is quoted for limited punishment, while Josephus is quoted for Pharisees and Essenes holding eternal punishment.
- Decided — the question is not settled by tradition but by revelation; the Lord used Jewish imagery, yet what He said about torment and bliss beyond death stands on its own.