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The location of the hell in Jesus' statements was no mystery, Gehenna, the word Jesus used, was/is the Aramaic name of a valley below Jerusalem where the refuse was thrown and the garbage burned in those days (the Valley of Ben Hinnom). He used the literal place of burning as a symbol of the greater waste of eternal condemnation. If we were in need of a similar symbol today to explain the concept, where might we look? HINNOM, VALLEY OF
[HEN nahm]-a deep, narrow ravine south of Jerusalem. At the HIGH PLACES of Baal in the Valley of Hinnom, parents sacrificed their children as a burnt offering to the pagan god Molech (2 Kings 23:10). Ahaz and Manasseh, kings of Judah, were both guilty of this awful wickedness (2 Chron 28:3; 33:6). But good King Josiah destroyed the pagan altars to remove this temptation from the Hebrew people.
The prophet Jeremiah foretold that God would judge this awful abomination of human sacrifice and would cause such a destruction that "the Valley of the Son of Hinnom" would become known as "the Valley of Slaughter" (Jer 7:31-32; 19:2,6; 32:35). The place was also called "Tophet."
Apparently, the Valley of Hinnom was used as the garbage dump for the city of Jerusalem. Refuse, waste materials, and dead animals were burned here. Fires continually smoldered, and smoke from the burning debris rose day and night. Hinnom thus became a graphic symbol of woe and judgment and of the place of eternal punishment called HELL.
Translated into Greek, the Hebrew "Valley of Hinnom" becomes gehenna, which is used 12 times in the New Testament (11 times by Jesus and once by James), each time translated in the NKJV as "hell" (Matt 5:22; Mark 9:43,45,47; Luke 12:5; James 3:6). (from Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Copyright (c)1986, Thomas Nelson Publishers)
I saw in the US News and World report recently that there is no Hell after all.
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