Page:The New View of Hell.djvu/56

 And in the Old Testament the Hebrew word for Hell in this passage is Sheōl, and in the New it is Hades,—proving that these words have one and the same meaning.

Such being the plain literal import of the Hebrew Sheōl, and its Greek equivalent Hades, some theologians have contended that our English word hell ought to be restricted in its meaning to the natural world; for, according to the strictly literal import both of the Greek and Hebrew word, it means simply the grave, or a low and dark place—a place underground; and has no reference whatever to the condition of the wicked in the other world, or to anything beyond the natural realm.

And if the Bible is to be literally interpreted—if it contains no meaning beyond that which lies upon the surface, and which is obvious to the merely natural or sensuous mind, these theologians certainly have the best of the argument. What answer can the literalist consistently give? For how, according to his theory, is this word hell made to refer to the condition of the wicked in the other world? Why should it not be restricted in its meaning, to that which it literally denotes, viz., the grave, or a dark subterranean region?

Yet there are insuperable difficulties which those who contend for such a limitation of the meaning of this word, have to encounter. For, to be consistent in their hermeneutics, they should limit the meaning of the term heaven in precisely the same way. They should insist on restricting the meaning of this word also to the realm