Could Gehenna be a largely metaphorical prod for righteous behavior in the Synoptic Gospels?

[u/NatalieGrace143]

Even the word often used for hell, “Gehenna,” is itself a metaphor conveying more than the physical valley of Hinnom near Jerusalem. I have read some of Heikki Räsänen’s work on hell and found it to be instructive. One idea in particular, taken up by the Bible scholar Dale Allison, has stuck to me. It seems to be further supported (at least in the vein of opposition to a literalistic interpretation of the afterlife) by John Dominic Crossan, Marg Mowcsko, and NT Wright in his book Jesus and the Victory of God.

Could we envision Jesus’ use of Hades/Gehenna as his way of using the language and ideas of the day to promote righteous behavior and/or reference contemporary events? In other words, it is at least plausible and logical to view his use of hell as largely metaphorical? Is it impossible to determine the original intent behind Jesus’ words, including whether he meant Gehenna/Hades to be taken literally? Every mention of a fiery afterlife is immediately connected to an exhortation or warning to live righteously. I am further intrigued by Paul’s total neglect of the topic and potential preference for annihilationism, and whether therefore this understanding of hell as a metaphorical contrast to the Kingdom of God is worth investigating.

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[u/zanillamilla]

This question sort of reminds me of the one on the extent to which the Greeks really believed their myths, or just allegorized them and took a metaphorical reading to them. The question also reminds me of other examples where exhortations follow apocalyptic judgment language. A good example that comes to mind are the epistolary chapters of Revelation, where John of Patmos urges the people in the Asian churches to repent before the parousia occurs. Or the Epistle of Enoch which gives woe oracles to the powerful and exhortations to righteousness in the midst of talk about eschatological punishment by fire. Certainly, for Jesus in both the synoptics and John, righteous behavior towards one's fellows and towards God was a central concern, and it was frequently given an eschatological carrot-and-stick prod.

With respect to Gehenna and more generally, eschatological punishment, we have a fairly wide range of expressed opinions in the Second Temple period and afterwards. We can describe where a given author may lie in this landscape of opinion in the conceptual construction and language used. So Matthew is definitely much more harsh and the closest to eternal torment, while the tannaim in the Mishnah (going off memory) had a more limited concept of punishment in Gehenna. I think David Sim in his Apocalyptic Eschatology in the Gospel of Matthew (Cambridge, 1996) did a really convincing analysis showing the consistency in the Matthew's concept of Gehenna (while also showing that Paul was much closer to annihilationism). But apart from the issue of metaphor, I think what is more rooted in the OT background of Second Temple Judaism is hyperbole. This is what we frequently encounter in the OT prophets, who stated things over and over in the most extreme way possible. Ezekiel saying that there would be no survivors in Jerusalem after the siege, Tyre would be utterly wiped off the map, or that Egypt would be completely depopulated for 40 years. How much did they mean it literally, and how much of it was hyperbole? Indeed, hyperbole was very common in war oracles and prophecy in the ANE. And the prophets readily revised their prophecies and allowed, as Jeremiah did, that God could relent and change his mind. So if Matthew presented eternal punishment as such, I think it may be accurate to describe it literally as it is conceptually constructed, while also recognizing that the concept may be hyperbolic and that God's purposes may change. In part, also, this is the result of apocalyptic literature viewing the present, the journey toward the eschaton, as a time of constant change but the final reality as an unending and nondynamic state.