The Valley of Hinnom . However the Tyropoeon Valley is usually no longer associated with the Valley of Hinnom because during the period of Ahaz and Manasseh, the Tyropoeon lay within the city walls and child sacrifice would have been practiced outside the walls of the city. In rabbinic literature, Gehenna is also a destination of the wicked. By 70 AD, the area was not only a burial site but also a place for cremation of the dead with the arrival of the Tenth Roman Legion, who were the only group known to practice cremation in this region. Valley of Hinnom, c. 1900. The traditional explanation that a burning rubbish heap in the Valley of Hinnom south of Jerusalem gave rise to the idea of a fiery Gehenna of judgment is attributed to Rabbi David Kimhi's commentary on Psalms 27:13 (ca. In the Hebrew Bible, Gehenna was initially where some of the kings of Judah sacrificed their children by fire. The watercourse is know to this very day as the Wady en-Nar (Arabic: The Streambed of Fire). Dalman, G. 1930. Whence was the beginning of the valley of Ben-Hinnom: which, running out below the city southward, at last bent into the west. [43] Annihilationist Christians, however, imagine Gehenna to be a place where "sinners" are tormented until they are eventually destroyed, soul and all. About the 4 th century A.D., the Kidron valley was also called the Valley of Jehosophat which means in Hebrew, the Valley of Judging. In OT times it was used for human sacrifices to the pagan god Molech (cf. God says, "And they go on building the high place of Topheth, ... Josephus in his Wars of the Jews book 5, chapter 12, verse 3, states that during the Roman siege of Jerusalem the Jews were no longer able to bury the dead in the city. The Bible speaks of Judahites who sacrificed their children to Molech in Jerusalem’s Ben Hinnom Valley; the practice was forbidden and considered abominable (Jeremiah 32:35; Leviticus 18:21; 2 Chronicles 28:3). [citation needed] Unlike Gehenna, Hades typically conveys neither fire nor punishment but forgetfulness. 11:30 to the exiles returning from Babylon camping from Beersheba to Hinnom. [4] Gehinnom is not Hell, but originally a grave and in later times a sort of purgatory where one is judged based on one's life's deeds, or rather, where one becomes fully aware of one's own shortcomings and negative actions during one's life. As can be seen by the contour lines of constant elevation, the steepest gradients are on the south of the city, where the deep Kidron and Hinnom valleys rise sharply to the Upper City on the Western Hil, the Lower City just below, and to the Temple Mount (Moriah), separated from the rest of the city by a central valley that Josephus calls the Tyropean Valley. the valley of Rephaim, as it is called ( 2 Samuel 5:18) , and here Mount Moriah, as it was to the west of the valley of Hinnom, it was to the north of the valley of Rephaim; which valley, as Josephus F14 says, was not far from Jerusalem, twenty furlongs from it. [34] Instead of being sent to Gehenna, the souls of the wicked would actually get annihilated. There is evidence however that the southwest shoulder of this valley (Ketef Hinnom) was a burial location with numerous burial chambers that were reused by generations of families from as early as the seventh until the fifth century BC. Remarkably, Josephus later describes how during the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans, ... the first recorded reference to fires in the Valley of Hinnom comes from a commentary on Psalm 27 by Rabbi David Kimhi, dating from around 1200 AD. In the Qur'an, gehenna(Gehennem, Jahannam, جهنم) is a place of torment for sinners or the Islamic equivalent of hell. Valley of Hinnom, c. 1900. HINNOM, VALLEY OF, hĭn’ əm (גֵּ֣י הִנֹּ֗ם. This huge pool is one of a series of large public reservoirs built around the city. [35], In the synoptic Gospels the various authors describe Jesus, who was Jewish, as using the word Gehenna to describe the opposite to life in the Kingdom (Mark 9:43–48). The valley of the sons of Hinnom was a delightful vale, planted with trees, watered by fountains, and lying near Jerusalem, on the southeast, by the brook Kidron. [36] In certain usage, the Christian Bible refers to it as a place where both soul (Greek: ψυχή, psyche) and body could be destroyed (Matthew 10:28) in "unquenchable fire" (Mark 9:43).[37]. The Mishnah names seven Biblical individuals who do not get a share in Olam Ha-Ba: Jeroboam, Ahab, Menasseh, Doeg the Edomite, Ahitophel, Balaam, and Gehazi. by, II Kings 23:10; Jer. The valley is south of the city. Child sacrifice is well attested in the ancient world, especially in times of crisis. It corresponds to the modern el-Biqa`, which falls away to the Southwest from the lip of the valley of Hinnom. Therefore, the Water-gate led into the valley of Kedron: but the Horse-gate into the valley of Hinnom, at that place touching on the valley of Kedron. 1200 AD). HINNOM, VALLEY OF, hĭn’ əm (גֵּ֣י הִנֹּ֗ם. While no evidence of child sacrifice has been uncovered in the Hinnom Valley, scholars today debate whether child sacrifice was practiced at Phoenician sites in the western Mediterranean. A final purely geographical reference is found in Neh. Tyropoeon Valley (i.e., "Valley of the Cheesemakers") is the name given by Josephus the historian (Wars 5.140) to the valley or rugged ravine, in the Old City of Jerusalem, which in ancient times separated Mount Moriah from Mount Zion and emptied into the valley of Hinnom. 5. Jeremiah warns the inhabitants of Jerusalem that they face invasion by the Chaldeans, and one of the consequences will be that the bodies of the dead will be buried in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom because there will be no room elsewhere (Jer. [12], Child sacrifice at other Tophets contemporary with the Bible accounts (700–600 BC) of the reigns of Ahaz and Manasseh have been established, such as the bones of children sacrificed at the Tophet to the goddess Tanit in Phoenician Carthage,[13] and also child sacrifice in ancient Syria-Palestine. Josephus as an eyewitness to the Roman siege of Jerusalem, corroborates Lendering's account about how the dead were cast into the valleys outside of Jerusalem: Frequent references to 'Gehenna' are also made in the books of Meqabyan, which are considered canonical in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. ", P. Mosca, 'Child Sacrifice in Canaanite and Israelite Religion: A Study on Mulk and "pa' (PhD dissertation. - I can hardly imagine that; btw. The name is derived from a geographical site in Jerusalem known as the Valley of Hinnom, one of the two principal valleys surrounding the Old City. name Ge-ben-Hinnom (Ge-Hinnom) became corrupted into Gehenna, which in the NT is used to designate the place of eternal punishment. Of these hills, that which contains the upper city is much higher, and in length more direct. It is recorded that Josiah destroyed the shrine of Molech on Topheth to prevent anyone sacrificing children there in 2 Kings 23:10. He was not a very experienced general, but his assistant was Tiberius Julius Alexander, who had been governor of Judaea in 46-48 and knew how to fight a war. Day, Heider, and Mosca believe that the Molech cult took place in the valley of Hinnom at the Topheth. With its pagan history and its burning sewer stench, Jerusalem's Hinnom Valley serves as a vivid metaphor for both the Christian and Jewish concept of hell King Manasseh of Judah added to the … The name in ancient times may perhaps have covered a larger area, including practically all the land between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, where the head-waters of Nahr Ruben are collected. [24] Gehenna is considered a purgatory-like place where the wicked go to suffer until they have atoned for their sins. “It is located by Josephus between Jerusalem and Bethlehem (Ant., VII, iv, i; xii, 4). Presently, the Central Valley runs under the Damascus Gate south, then southeast through the middle of the Old City, to the Pool of Siloam and meets the Hinnom and Kidron valleys south of the City of David. The location of the valley has been much disputed. From then on, the perversion of Scripture by the Jews and evangelical Christians went out of control. 7:32). In favor of the eastern or Kidron valley we have the facts that Eusebius and Jerome (Onom) place "Gehennom" under the eastern wall of Jerusalem and the Moslem geographical writers, Muqaddasi and Nasir-i-khusran, call the Kidron valley Wady Jahamum. A central valley, apparently referred to by Josephus as the Tyropoeon Valley (or “the Valley of the Cheesemakers”), bisected the city area into eastern and western hills or spurs. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 1975), (J. 5. This is known in the Hebrew Bible as Gei Ben-Hinnom,[6] literally the "Valley of the son of Hinnom",[7] and in the Talmud as גיהנם‎ or גהנום‎ Gehinnom. n. 11. The same is said of Ahaz' grandson Manasseh in 33:6. Cambridge Bible Lk.12:5 “The Valley of Hinnom…was a pleasant valley outside Jerusalem, which had first been rendered infamous by Molech worship, then defiled by Josiah with corpses; and lastly kept from putrefaction by large fires to consume the corpses and prevent pestilence.” This valley also became a prophesied place of slaughter, filled with human corpses. A central valley, apparently referred to by Josephus as the Tyropoeon Valley (or “the Valley of the Cheesemakers”), bisected the city area into eastern and western hills or spurs. Whence was the beginning of the valley of Ben-Hinnom: which, running out below the city southward, at last bent into the west. 4. Any drawback, however, was compensated for by the city’s being surrounded on three sides by steep-walled valleys: the torrent valley of Kidron on the east and the Valley of Hinnom on the south and west. Below is the account provided in Easton's Bible Dictionary: Gehenna: ... punished with eternal torment" -Josephus Wars 2.8.14. [33] Gehenna became a metonym for "Hell" due to its morbid prominence in Jewish religious texts. [32] After this the soul will move on to Olam Ha-Ba (the world to come), be destroyed, or continue to exist in a state of consciousness of remorse. 1999, p 182 "The sacrifices of children and the cult of Molech are associated with no other place than the Hinnom Valley. Isaiah refers to it, although not by name, as a place where the dead bodies of the unbelieving shall lie, and where their worm shall not die and the fire is not quenched (Isa 66:24). —The Heb. The Valley of Hinnom is the modern name for the valley surrounding Jerusalem's Old City, including Mount Zion, from the west and south. The city of Jerusalem was fortified with three walls, on such parts as were not encompassed with unpassable valleys; for in such places it had but one wall. The valley of the son of Hinnom - This valley begins on the west of Jerusalem at the road to Joppa, and turning southeastward round the foot of Mount Zion joins the deeper valley of Kedron … : Scholars Press, 1975). The valley of Hinnom has a detailed history in the Bible. the valley of Rephaim, as it is called ( 2 Samuel 5:18) , and here Mount Moriah, as it was to the west of the valley of Hinnom, it was to the north of the valley of Rephaim; which valley, as Josephus F14 says, was not far from Jerusalem, twenty furlongs from it. As you've pointed out, Gehenna (γέεννα) is just a transliteration of the Hebrew for "Valley of Hinnom" (גֵּי הִנֹּם) and the Aramaic for the same (גֵיהִנָּם / ܓܗܢܐ). 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