When we read the Bible, we come to it with a lot of assumptions: assumptions about what words mean, assumptions about theology based on what we were previously taught, assumptions about what the passage means based on what others have said the passage means. Often these assumptions are correct, but because we live in a world so different from the biblical authors, sometimes our assumptions prevent us from hearing the text on its own terms. As an example, consider a conversation I had with a friend over lunch while we were both working on our doctorates at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. My friend had just revealed that he was an annihilationist, which troubled me greatly because I was certain that the Bible teaches the eternal conscious torment of the wicked in hell. I immediately responded: “That doesn’t work biblically, because Jesus said that hell is a place ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched'” (Mark 9:48, ESV). I do not recall my friend having offered an interpretation of this, but instead he jokingly asked me what these “eternal hell worms” are like, and I was even more troubled that my friend did not take the Scripture as seriously as I did. But was I being fair to my friend? And was I being fair to the biblical text? Now after eleven further years of study, I can see how many assumptions I was bringing to the text:
- I assumed that when Jesus used the word gehenna (translated in verse 47 as “hell”), he was talking about the place all the wicked souls go when they die rather than the valley outside Jerusalem known by the name Gehenna.
- I assumed that the purpose of the worm and the fire were to torment souls rather than to consume bodies.
- I assumed that because the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched, the human who had died exists forever.
All of these sounded like safe assumptions to me for years, but are they? And are they the assumptions the original audience would have made when Jesus said these words or when Mark wrote them down? Let’s consider them one-by-one.
What Did Jesus Mean by Gehenna?
Gehenna (also known as “the Valley of Hinnom”) was the name of a place Jesus and his disciples were very familiar with. The city of Jerusalem looked down into the valley of Hinnom and two of the main roads to/from Jerusalem passed by it. Popular thought says that it was a garbage dump where people burned their trash, but I am aware of no evidence that this was the case in the time of Jesus. In the time of Jesus Gehenna was particularly significant because it was the subject of biblical history and of biblical prophecy.
According to 2 Chronicles 28:3, King Ahaz, who reigned in Jerusalem from 732 to 716 BC, “made offerings in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom and burned his sons as an offering, according to the abominations of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel” (ESV). King Manasseh did the same two generations later (2 Chronicles 33:6). To prevent this from happening again, Manasseh’s grandson, King Josiah, “defiled Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, that no one might burn his son or his daughter as an offering to Molech” (2 Kings 23:10, ESV).
But Gehenna is also an important location in biblical prophecy. Isaiah mentioned that Topheth (in the valley of Hinnom) will be the place that the king of Assyria will be judged: “For a burning place [lit. Topheth] has long been prepared; indeed, for the king it is made ready, its pyre made deep and wide, with fire and wood in abundance; the breath of the LORD, like a stream of sulfur, kindles it” (Isaiah 30:33, ESV). For Isaiah, who had prophesied in the days when King Ahaz burned his sons at Topheth, Gehenna would be a place where God would burn the Assyrian king!
Jeremiah prophesies that God is going to destroy Jerusalem because of the acts of kings like Manasseh:
For the sons of Judah have done evil in my sight, declares the LORD. They have set their detestable things in the house that is called by my name, to defile it. And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind. Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when it will no more be called Topheth, or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; for they will bury in Topheth, because there is no room elsewhere. And the dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the air, and for the beasts of the earth, and none will frighten them away….
At that time, declares the LORD, the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be brought out of their tombs. And they shall be spread before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, which they have loved and served, which they have gone after, and which they have sought and worshiped. And they shall not be gathered or buried. They shall be as dung on the surface of the ground. [Jeremiah 7:30-33; 8:1-2, ESV]
In Jeremiah 19, Jeremiah actually goes to the Valley of Hinnom after Josiah has defiled Topheth and smashes a clay pot there and says about Jerusalem:
Thus will I do to this place, says the LORD, and to its inhabitants, making this city like Topheth. And the houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah shall be defiled like the place of Topheth—all the houses upon whose roofs offerings have been made to the whole host of heaven, and libations have been poured out to other gods.
You can see why Gehenna became an important place in Jesus’ preaching. Not only was it remembered as a place where kings burned their sons, but it was also identified as a place of future judgment, whether for Israel’s enemies (Isaiah 30:33) or for Jerusalem itself (Jeremiah 7, 19, 32). When Jesus referred to Gehenna, his original audience would not have thought of a place where wicked souls go when people die, but of the valley outside Jerusalem where both Isaiah and Jeremiah said war victims would die and have their bodies either burned or exposed to the elements. They did not bring to Jesus’ words images of Dante’s Inferno or even images of Hades, such as the one Jesus gives in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:23-28). Gehenna was not Hades and Hades was not Gehenna in their minds. Hades was where souls went when a person died, but Gehenna was where bodies were discarded.
What Is the Purpose of the Worms and Fire?
When we think in terms of corpses, the images of worm and fire take on a different sense. Corpses are not in agony as they burn or are eaten by worms. To read Mark 9:48 as describing eternal conscious torment is to misread it. This passage is not about torment but about the final destruction of the body. That this passage concerns corpses is clear when we recognize that Jesus is quoting the end of Isaiah here. Isaiah ends with a picture of Jerusalem’s restoration, God’s victory over Jerusalem’s enemies, the nations coming to it to praise God in Jerusalem, and the corpses of those who rebel against Jerusalem rotting outside the city: “And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh” (Isaiah 66:24, ESV).
The words Jesus quotes in Mark 9:48 come straight from Isaiah 66:24, which is not about souls but about “dead bodies” (Heb. peger). These bodies are not in torment but are “an abhorrence to all flesh,” that is, a hideous sight that serves as a reminder of what happens to those who oppose God. Later rabbis would connect this statement about the dead bodies outside of Jerusalem with Jeremiah’s prophecies about Gehenna. Jesus also merges these two prophecies, using the word Gehenna in verses 43, 45, and 47, and then Isaiah’s words in verse 48. Was Jesus thinking in terms of Jeremiah’s prophecies about the valley of Hinnom?
Jesus’ teaching in Mark 9 happens as he is on his way to Jerusalem. His disciples have just tried to stop someone not under their authority from casting out demons in Jesus’ name (Mark 9:38) and Jesus warns them that if they cause people to turn away from Jesus, it would be better that they have a millstone tied around their neck and be thrown into the sea (Mark 9:42), because the coming judgment will be a far worse death: Gehenna, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched (Mark 9:43-48). Jesus even says that if their hand or foot or eye causes them to sin, they should cut it off or tear it out, because it would be better to be crippled or maimed than to be thrown into Gehenna. So Jesus gives alternatives to Gehenna: either cut off whatever causes you to sin so you can avoid being among the rebels of Isaiah 66:24, bury yourself in the sea, or you will experience the prophesies of Isaiah and Jeremiah.
Later Jesus will quote a phrase from earlier in Jeremiah 7. Remember that Jeremiah 7 is where Jeremiah says the valley of Hinnom will come to be called the valley of slaughter. One of the reasons Jeremiah gives for the destruction of Jerusalem here is that they have turned the temple into “a den of robbers” (Jeremiah 7:11). When Jesus overturns tables in the temple and says they have made the temple “a den of robbers” (Mark 11:17), he is implying a further fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy of destruction, as can be seen in Jesus’ statement that not one stone will be left on another (Mark 13:2). In all of this, Jesus is warning of a fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecies: if you don’t repent, the Romans will destroy this city and you will be thrown into Gehenna, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. This is not about torment of the soul but about bodies becoming an abhorrence, left to the elements in the valley outside Jerusalem, being devoured by worms and consumed by fire.
This means that my first two assumptions when I quoted this verse to my friend at Trinity were wrong. I was misreading this text because I assumed that Jesus was talking about the destination of souls after death and I assumed that Jesus was talking about torment of souls rather than corpse desecration. It is now time to consider my third assumption, that the wicked souls are immortal because “their worm does not die and their fire is not quenched.”
Are the Wicked Immortal?
The idea that souls last forever is a basic idea of Western thought, but it is not originally a Jewish idea. The idea arises in Plato’s Phaedo and becomes common in Greek thought, and some Jews in Jesus’ day adopt this view as their own, but many do not. It is at odds with Jewish conceptions of an ongoing connection between the body and the soul. When we examine the views of Jesus, we find little evidence that Jesus or the apostles adopted the Greek idea of the inherent immortality of the soul. Instead, they see immortality as a gift given by God only to those who believe (Matthew 19:16-21, 29; 25:46; Mark 10:17-21, 30; Luke 10:25-28; 18:18-22, 30; John 3:14-16, 36; 4:13-14, 36; 5:24; 6:27, 40, 47, 54, 68; 10:28; 12:25, 50; 17:2-3; Acts 13:48; Romans 2:6-11; 5:21; 6:22-23; Galatians 6:8; 1 Timothy 1:16; 6:12; Titus 1:1-3; 3:7; 1 John 1:2; 2:25; 3:15; 5:11, 13, 20; Jude 21). This is why Jesus says that that those who do not believe will not live eternally but will “perish” (John 3:16) or that souls can be “destroy[ed]” in Gehenna (Matthew 10:28). This is why Paul says the wages of sin are “death” (Romans 6:23) and that the wicked will “perish” (Romans 2:12; 1 Corinthians 1:18; 15:18; 2 Corinthians 2:15; 4:3; 2 Thessalonians 2:10) or be “destroyed” (Romans 9:22; Philippians 1:28; 3:19; 1 Thessalonians 5:3; 2 Thessalonians 1:9; 2:3; 1 Timothy 6:9). This is why the author of Hebrews speaks of the wicked being “consumed” (Hebrews 10:27) or Peter speaks of “the destruction of the ungodly” (2 Peter 3:7) or John in Revelation describes the lake of fire as “the second death” (Revelation 20:14).
If you come to the Bible with the assumption the soul is naturally immortal, you start seeing all of this language of perishing, destruction, consumption, and death as metaphors, and you reread Jesus’ promise of eternal life as if it were a promise of a different kind of eternal life than the wicked naturally experience. But neither Jesus nor any of the biblical authors brought this assumption to the text. They came with the assumption that the body and soul are connected, and that if the body is destroyed, so is the soul.
This is why burial was so important. Jews (at least the ones who maintained the view of the connection between the body and the soul) would never burn the bodies of their dead like the Romans did. For bones to be exposed to the elements or burned would have been seen as a threat to the soul’s continued existence and to the person’s ability to experience the resurrection.
Isaiah’s image, which Jesus takes up, is a scary image of judgment. Jesus sees this as a very real threat for the people of his day. Notably neither this image nor the word Gehenna (or any other word for “hell”) is taken up by Paul or anyone preaching outside the land of Israel. What Jesus is talking about in Mark 9 is a potential danger for Jerusalem, one that Jerusalem experiences to an extent before that generation passes away, during the Roman siege of Jerusalem.
But didn’t Jesus say their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched? Those worms died, and the fires of Rome are no longer burning. But let’s read that text again. Was Jesus saying those worms would live forever, or simply that they would not die before finishing their job of consuming the corpses? Was Jesus saying that the fire would burn forever, or that the fire could not be quenched before it burns up all that remains there? In a helpful blog post by Joseph Dear, he notes that in Ezekiel 20:47 and Jeremiah 17:27, temporal judgment is described in terms of fire that “will not be quenched.” An unquenchable fire does not mean that the person who burns in that fire continues burning forever. It means that the fire finishes its job.
If a case can be made for eternal conscious torment of souls, it must not be made from Mark 9:48. On the contrary, Mark 9:48 seems to point the opposite direction. It quotes an Isaiah passage about the destruction of bodies and alludes to the Jeremiah prophecies about judgment in the valley of Hinnom. It uses images (worm, fire) that imply consumption and destruction. To my annihilationist friends against whom I used this verse in the past as a proof-text, I am sorry. And to Jesus, whose words I used to support my own views without really listening to them, I am sorry. To the reader, I encourage you to learn from my mistakes, and I lay this before you as an invitation to study Scripture more deeply. Keep asking questions. Keep probing. Look for connections to Old Testament prophecies. Research the original meaning of words like gehenna. Read verses in context. And together, let us learn to interpret the Bible faithfully and with joy at the depths of God’s revelation!
