You thought that last week's post on Gehenna was the last one? Hah! Hell is eternal and so is this series!

There is one last use of the word Gehenna in the New Testament – James 3:6 – where the author says that the human tongue is very dangerous and that its untamed effects can have far reaching consequences. The origin of this danger is ‘hell’ [Gehenna].

In wanting to underline how destructive our speech can be James uses the imagery of fire, saying that a great forest can be set ablaze – and presumably destroyed – by an initial small flame. In the same way our whole life can be defiled by the tongue. Even though wild animals have been tamed by humankind, he says, the tongue has not been so tamed. Indeed it is ‘a restless evil and full of deadly poison’. Hyperbole? Of course – used to great effect in advising us to be rightly careful of what we say.

Since the effects of the tongue have been painted in such hyperbolic terms it is no wonder to see that James also uses a similar rhetorical flourish to say what the origin of such destruction is – the fires of Gehenna. And of course, James must have known well of the fire that constantly burned in Jerusalem’s rubbish tip. Not surprising, therefore, that he should use that putrid place as a metaphor for the origin of a foul tongue. Once again, Gehenna does not have to be interpreted as being a place of eternal conscious torment.

While this concludes the study of Gehenna in the NT it does not conclude the study into hell and I shall return to the subject in a few weeks’ time. 

The previous post on hell can be found here.



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