What the Hell is Hell? Book Summary – Part 4

Today we will be discussing the famous story of The Rich Man and Lazarus found in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 16:19–3. The story is so important because over the centuries and to this day it has been taken to be an example of Jesus talking about an afterlife fiery hell. In the story, Jesus tells us there was a rich man who lived well and ate sumptuously every day. Lazarus, a poor and starving man, would camp out at his door, hoping to get any scraps of food that fell from the man’s table. Both men died, and Lazarus was carried away by angels to be with Abraham, while the rich man went to Hades—a place where he was tormented by flames. The rich man begged Abraham to let Lazarus come and cool his tongue with some drops of cool water, but Abraham reminded the rich man that in life he had received good things while Lazarus had received evil, and now, in death, those roles were reversed.

Naturally, for ages, people have presumed this was talking about hell, due to the fact that the rich man was tormented by flames in an underworld. But this is demonstrably not true.

All the other times we see the English word hell in the Gospels it is a translation of the Greek word Gehenna. In the past, for many centuries, the word Hades in Luke’s story was mistranslated as “hell,” but has long since been corrected.

The Hades of Greek mythology is a term that refers to the underworld (named after Hades, the god of the underworld). But whereas our concept of hell was probably influenced by the concept of Hades, our religious beliefs are very different from those of the ancient Greeks. For example, in Greek mythology, the god Hades was not viewed as evil; he was simply the overseer of the underworld, which is very different from the way many of us view Satan, the overseer of hell, as the personification of evil. 

With The Rich Man and Lazarus, Jesus is telling us a story, rather than speaking directly, and he uses Hades as a literary device to tell us there is judgment and punishment for not being righteous. This is very different from the specific admonishments you read earlier in which he tells us to avoid sin so that we don’t end up in the actual valley of Gehenna outside Jerusalem.

The main point of Jesus’ Lazarus story is not to tell us there is a hell, but to indicate that people should be righteous, because who we are has consequences, for better or worse. In this case, if you are rich, you should share what you have and give to the poor.

We also know Jesus was telling us a story, rather than speaking about an actual hell, by looking at the context of where the story appears in the Gospel of Luke. It is the sixth in a series of parables told in Luke and, therefore, like those preceding it, was not meant to be taken literally. A parable, by definition, is a story that conveys a lesson or truth beyond the literal meaning of the words. Jesus often taught through parables in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

The first of the two parables preceding the Lazarus story begins, “There was a man who had two sons…” (Luke 15:11). This is the parable of the return of the prodigal son, who asked his father to give him his inheritance early, which the son then squandered entirely in wild living, ended up broke and starving, and then came back to beg for his father’s help.

This is a story specifically intended to teach the lesson that no matter how bad you’ve been, even though you are “dead,” you can come back to life—be lost and then found—ever loved by your Father in heaven. The next parable begins, “There was a rich man who had a manager…” (Luke 16:1). This is another invented story used to convey a message. Then the story of Lazarus begins, “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple…” We therefore know right away, from how Jesus begins the story, that it, too, is a parable, and his use of a fiery place was not intended literally.

Stay tuned for Part Five tomorrow, when we’ll discuss other places in the Gospels that don’t mention “hell,” but that we have nevertheless interpreted to mean hell.

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