The strong among the mighty shall speak to him out of the midst of hell with them that help him: they are gone down, they lie uncircumcised, slain by the sword.
(Ezekiel 32:21) KJV
It’s universally believed today that hell, translated from either the Hebrew sheol or Greek hades is mythological, after all, there’s no world below where souls go when their bodies die, right? Is there?
Popular science (SciPop) rejects the existence of the human soul on the basis that it can’t be detected, therefore it doesn’t exist. Ironically gravitational waves were first detected in September 2015 so, by the same logic, before that they didn’t exist.
In older Bible translations the word hell occurs often. In the Old Testament it’s a translation of the Hebrew word sheol which means, broadly speaking, the underworld realm of the dead. It’s modified in a variety of ways which fall into logical groupings which align with the major regions of the internal structure of Earth.
The Levels of Hell
| Level | Grave (sheol) Pit (sahat/bowr) | Earth (erets) | World (tebel) |
| Crust | sheol | erets | tebel |
| Mantle | mibbeten sheol tavek sheol yerekah bowr | tachti erets erets tachti | mowcadah tebel |
| Great Gulf (outer core) | bad sheol | erets beriach matsuq erets mayim tachath erets | |
| Core (inner core) | sheol tachti tachti erets bowr, shachath missahat beli | mowcadar erets |
In the New Testament the word hell is a translation of three Greek words: hades, tartarus and gehenna. Hades is a general term used as sheol is, while tartarus is specific. Tartarus refers to a place lower than hades which we equate to the molten core. The usage of hades encompasses that of tartarus.
The other Greek word translated hell which is Gehenna. This is conceptually different from hades because it’s used to refer to burning trash in the vale of Hinnom outside Jerusalem where, it’s said, the smoke of burning bodies went up continually. Jesus used this to picture what the fires of hell are like.
Sheol and hades include the molten core of the Earth (inner core), the chasm of open space between the surface of hell and the lower mantle (outer core), the pillars of the earth that extend from the lower mantle to the core, and the chambers in the lower mantle where the Old Testament saints had to await the coming of the messiah (Abraham’s bosom). As such, sheol or hades is indeed an underworld realm of the dead, but it has structure and form which is fitted to its function.
The midst of hell is what we would today call the mantle. It’s what Jonah referred to as the belly of hell. If you’re skeptical that there really is an underworld realm of the dead you should consider two things:
- the deepest hole ever drilled is 12 km deep,
- the Lehman Discontinuity is at approximately 220 km deep.
The Naked Prophet 