I read about Gehenna It was a dump outside of Jersalem's walls where they burned trash. They also put the bodies of executed criminals and people who couldn't get a proper burial and dead animals there. They added sulfur, aka brimstone, to keep the fires going. Then the concept of such a place broadened into a place for sinners from any part of the world to go to. The word Gehenna was in the Greek texts of the new testament and was translated into hell.
The page also shows where the bible mentions in the old testament that the Jews sometimes worshipped false gods like Molech in Gehenna. When that location was used for that purpose, it was called Tophet. Then King Josiah banned that and changed the site into the dump Gehenna.
The name Gehenna is also used in Islam in the Qu'ran to mean a place for sinners to go to.
So it looks like a real place was the basis of a concept of a general place for sinners, which was reused by Islam, then copied many times in later stories, like the icy hell of Dante and in popular culture. I think of this as an example of a simulacrum. What is a simulacrum?
An example of a simulacrum from the article:
The pop culture hells were based on the religious hells, which were based on Gehenna. The religious hells stand on their own as concepts of a supernatural place or state of being, depending on the person's beliefs, without referring back to Gehenna as a real place and a model. They're where the religons say that "human garbage, sinners, would be consumed and destroyed forever."
Maybe it used refer back to Gehenna as a place that sinners deserved to go to, which was what happened to executed criminals whoese bodies were put there. People living 2000 years ago in Jersalem would have known about that place.
Now the religous hells have gotten decoupled from their model, Gehenna as a geographic location. Then Gehenna became less widely known than the religious hells and the religious hells got lives of their own as concepts. Now religous people have various beliefs about what that hell is, as an underground space, a supernatural realm, or a state of being, such as being seperated from a god or being unhappy in the afterlife. Therefore, the religous and pop culture hells are simulacra based on Gehenna the ancient trash dump.
The page also shows where the bible mentions in the old testament that the Jews sometimes worshipped false gods like Molech in Gehenna. When that location was used for that purpose, it was called Tophet. Then King Josiah banned that and changed the site into the dump Gehenna.
The name Gehenna is also used in Islam in the Qu'ran to mean a place for sinners to go to.
So it looks like a real place was the basis of a concept of a general place for sinners, which was reused by Islam, then copied many times in later stories, like the icy hell of Dante and in popular culture. I think of this as an example of a simulacrum. What is a simulacrum?
An example of a simulacrum from the article:
The pop culture hells were based on the religious hells, which were based on Gehenna. The religious hells stand on their own as concepts of a supernatural place or state of being, depending on the person's beliefs, without referring back to Gehenna as a real place and a model. They're where the religons say that "human garbage, sinners, would be consumed and destroyed forever."
Maybe it used refer back to Gehenna as a place that sinners deserved to go to, which was what happened to executed criminals whoese bodies were put there. People living 2000 years ago in Jersalem would have known about that place.
Now the religous hells have gotten decoupled from their model, Gehenna as a geographic location. Then Gehenna became less widely known than the religious hells and the religious hells got lives of their own as concepts. Now religous people have various beliefs about what that hell is, as an underground space, a supernatural realm, or a state of being, such as being seperated from a god or being unhappy in the afterlife. Therefore, the religous and pop culture hells are simulacra based on Gehenna the ancient trash dump.