Talk: What the hell? - Claire Lynch

What is hell, and where have we got our ideas about this from? Claire Lynch looks at the stories and images in the Bible that relate to this, and how people in the Bible, including Jesus, communicated by referring to concepts that were meaningful and resonant with their audience. These included ideas drawn from Hebrew and neighbouring cultures, and were quite different from the imagery which became common to describe hell much later in western culture. Could the ideas of eternal, conscious torment and separation from God be based on misunderstandings or misapplications of the Bible? If so, what can we learn from the Bible, its prophecies, teachings and the words of Jesus to give us a better understanding of what God might do with us when we die?