Scot McKnight reviews a portion of Edward Fudge's Book, Hell: A Final Word. Fudge makes the following five points:
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1. Gehenna, Jesus' typical term, is a trope for the place of destruction/fire south of Jerusalem. It cannot be proven to have been the dump in the 1st Century.
2. What happens there? The wicked are destroyed, they perish there. Matt 10:28: "fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell/Gehenna."
3. Gnashing of teeth means anger, not pain. Cf. Acts 7:52-54.
4. Eternal punishment fits with other uses of "Eternal" as an adjective: salvation (Heb. 5:6), redemption (9:1), judgment (6:2), punishment (Matt. 25:46), destruction (2 Thess. 1:9). Big conclusions: the term refers to something in the Age to Come, it is endless and it refers to the result of an action. An action leads to something being permanent: one is not redeemed forever, one is redeemed and then lives forever; one is not judged forever, one is judged and then has consequences forever.
5. Rich man and Lazarus: it's a parable; Fudge sees Jewish folklore at work here; it's Hades not Gehenna; this parable says nothing about hell; it's not literal; it aims to motivate Jesus' contemporaries to care for the poor with the threat of irreversible consequences.
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The details are here.
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