The Encyclopedia of World Religions

196 S hell

unpunished in this life, they do not emphasize this belief. Hell properly speaking appears in Z OROASTRIAN ISM , Christianity, and I SLAM . The ancient Israelites had close contact with Persians during and after the Babylonian exile (587–539 B . C . E .). Many schol ars have suggested that the Persian religion, Zoro astrianism, gave its teachings about hell to Chris tianity and Islam. In any case, all three religions conceive of hell as a place where the unredeemed wicked go, generally for eternal torment. Fire has been the most popular torment in hell, but not the only one. Occasionally hell has been thought of as absolutely cold. Both Zoroastrianism and Islam also tell of a narrow bridge over an abyss. After death persons must walk across the bridge. The wicked lose their balance and fall to their eternal torment. Some sayings in Islam indicate that the pun ishment suffered in hell might not actually be eter nal. Christians, too, have at times been reluctant to make hell an eternal abode. The ancient Christian teacher Origen ( c. 185– c. 254) pointed to a refer ence to universal restoration in the N EW T ESTAMENT . According to him all creatures would eventually be restored to G OD . Hell was more like a penitentiary, where those unredeemed on Earth reestablished a proper relationship with God. Many liberal Chris tians in the last two centuries have also reinter preted hell or rejected the idea altogether. Religions of south and east Asia have gener ally handled the idea of hell differently. H INDUISM , B UDDHISM , and J AINISM believe in a lengthy series of rebirths known as SAMSARA . Hell is one place where those whose actions have been particularly bad may be reborn. Indeed, in all three religions hell is more than a single place. Hell is a whole series of worlds or universes. There is no single description of these various worlds that any one of the religions accepts. Instead, the worlds of hell have become a fertile ground for the mythological imagination. Writers and artists have found hell to be a powerful subject. Indeed, some have observed that artists often produce much better works when their subjects involve sin, death, and hell, than when

to model life here on Earth. Jesus taught that the KINGDOM OF G OD or of heaven was at hand. This preaching has inspired some Protestants in North America to try to reform society. Heaven has also inspired artists such as architects. In places as far apart as Spain, Iran, and India Muslim landscape architects have taken the Qur’an’s descriptions of heaven as the basis for the gardens they have designed. An inscription set up in Shalamar Bagh, Kashmir (India), gives evidence of their success: “If there be a Paradise on the face of the earth, it is here, it is here, it is here.” The development of modern astronomy has made it difficult for people to ascribe literally to traditional views of heaven as a realm immediately above the sky. Nevertheless, religions that have traditionally talked about heaven have not aban doned the teaching. Their followers think of it as a spiritual ideal rather than an astronomical place. hell A realm or realms, usually thought of as below the Earth, to which evildoers go after death. Hell figures prominently in the teachings of tradi tional C HRISTIANITY , but many other religions have analogous concepts. Many religions associate the dead with a realm below the surface of the Earth. They often seem to do so because they bury the dead. For them the underworld is not necessarily a place of punish ment, but it is not a place that one would choose to be, either. Such a view appears, for example, in the ancient Mesopotamian story of I NANNA ’s descent to the underworld; in ancient Greek notions of Hades; in the realm to which Izanami, one of the world’s parents in early S HINTO mythology ( see I ZANAGI AND I ZANAMI ), goes after she dies; and in the realm of Xibalba in the Maya EPIC , Popol Vuh. In several of these examples the underworld is associated with testing and trials. The Hebrew B IBLE presents a view of life after death that is very much like the preceding views. Indeed, the Hebrew Bible does not focus on the realm of the dead, and that attitude has carried over into J UDAISM . Although Jews generally believe in a retribution after death for EVIL acts that remain