Did the ancient Jews believe in the doctrine of hellfire?

Answer 1

Yes...

HELL/ SHEOL/ TOPHET IN THE TORAH AND TENAKH:

she'owl, sheh‑ole', Hebrew 7585; or she'ol, sheh‑ole'; from Hebrew 7592 (sha'al); hades or the world of the dead (as if a subterranean retreat), including its accessories and inmates :‑ grave, hell, pit.

Hell in Christian theology, eternal abode of those damned by God. Souls in hell are led by SATAN and deprived forever of the sight of God. In legend it is a place of fire and brimstone, where the damned undergo physical torment. Islam has a similar hell. In the ancient Jewish Sheol or Tophet, souls wander about unhappily, but Sheol later became much like the Christian hell. The ancient Greeks believed souls went to an underworld called Hades.

Genesis 37:35 - And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted; and he said, For I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning. Thus his father wept for him.

Genesis 42:38 - And he said, My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he is left alone: if mischief befall him by the way in the which ye go, then shall ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.

Genesis 44:29 - And if ye take this also from me, and mischief befall him, ye shall bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.

Genesis 44:31 - It shall come to pass, when he seeth that the lad is not with us, that he will die: and thy servants shall bring down the gray hairs of thy servant our father with sorrow to the grave.

Numbers 16:30 - But if the Lord make a new thing, and the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up, with all that appertain unto them, and they go down quick into the pit; then ye shall understand that these men have provoked the Lord.

Numbers 16:33 - They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation.

Deut. 32:22 - For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. (Could this be Tartarus, far below Hades (the "lowest" hell?)

1 Samuel 2:6 - The Lord killeth, and maketh alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up.

2 Samuel 22:6 - The sorrows of hell compassed me about; the snares of death prevented me;

1 Kings 2:6 - Do therefore according to thy wisdom, and let not his hoar head go down to the grave in peace.

1 Kings 2:9 - Now therefore hold him not guiltless: for thou art a wise man, and knowest what thou oughtest to do unto him; but his hoar head bring thou down to the grave with blood.

Job 7:9 - As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away: so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more.

Job 11:8 - It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know?

Job 14:13 - Oh that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me!

Job 17:13 - If I wait, the grave is mine house: I have made my bed in the darkness.

Job 17:16 - They shall go down to the bars of the pit, when our rest together is in the dust.

Job 21:13 - They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave.

Job 24:19 - Drought and heat consume the snow waters: so doth the grave those which have sinned.

Job 26:6 - Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering.

Psalm 6:5 - For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?

Psalm 9:17 - The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.

Psalm 16:10 - For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.

Psalm 18:5 - The sorrows of hell compassed me about: the snares of death prevented me.

Psalm 30:3 - O Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave: thou hast kept me alive, that i should not go down to the pit.

Psalm 31:17 - Let me not be ashamed, O Lord; for i have called upon thee: let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in the grave.

Psalm 49:14-15 - Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling. 15But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave: for he shall receive me. Selah.

Psalm 55:15 - Let death seize upon them, and let them go down quick into hell: for wickedness is in their dwellings, and among them.

Psalm 86:13 - For great is thy mercy toward me: and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell. (Tartarus, far below Hades)

Psalm 88:3 - For my soul is full of troubles: and my life draweth nigh unto the grave.

Psalm 89:48 - What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death? shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave? Selah.

Psalm 116:3 - The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow.

Psalm 139:8 - If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

Psalm 141:7 - Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth, as when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth.

Proverbs 1:12 - Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit:

Proverbs 5:5 - Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.

Proverbs 7:27- Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.

Proverbs 9:18 - But he knoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell.

Proverbs 15:11 - Hell and destruction are before the Lord: how much more then the hearts of the children of men?

Proverbs 15:24 - The way of life is above to the wise, that he may depart from hell beneath.

Proverbs 23:14 - Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.

Proverbs 27:20 - Hell and destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are never satisfied.

Proverbs 30:16 - The grave; and the barren womb; the earth that is not filled with water; and the fire that saith not, It is enough.

Eccles. 9:10 - Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.

Song 8:6 - Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.

Isaiah 5:14 - Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it.

Isaiah 14:9 - Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.

Isaiah 14:11 - Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee.

Isaiah 14:15 - Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

Isaiah 28:15 - Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:

Isaiah 28:18 - And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.

Isaiah 38:10 - I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave: I am deprived of the residue of my years.

Isaiah 38:18 - For the grave cannot praise thee, death can not celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

Isaiah 57:9 - And thou wentest to the king with ointment, and didst increase thy perfumes, and didst send thy messengers far off, and didst debase thyself even unto hell.

Ezekiel 31:15-17 - Thus saith the Lord God; in the day when he went down to the grave I caused a mourning: I covered the deep for him, and I restrained the floods thereof, and the great waters were stayed: and I caused Lebanon to mourn for him, and all the trees of the field fainted for him. 16I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to hell with them that descend into the pit: and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth. 17They also went down into hell with him unto them that be slain with the sword; and they that were his arm, that dwelt under his shadow in the midst of the heathen.

Ezekiel 32:21 - The strong among the mighty shall speak to him out of the midst of hell with them that help him: they are gone down, they lie uncircumcised, slain by the sword.

Ezekiel 32:27 - And they shall not lie with the mighty that are fallen of the uncircumcised, which are gone down to hell with their weapons of war: and they have laid their swords under their heads, but their iniquities shall be upon their bones, though they were the terror of the mighty in the land of the living.

Hosea 13:14 - I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.

Amos 9:2 - Though they dig into hell, thence shall mine hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down:

Jonah 2:2 - And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice.

Habakkuk 2:5 - Yea also, because he transgresseth by wine, he is a proud man, neither keepeth at home, who enlargeth his desire as hell, and is as death, and cannot be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations, and heapeth unto him all people:

Answer 2

as said, no.

Judaism does NOT have a hell like christianity.

Judaism actually has extremely little stated official opinion on the afterlife.

but definitely does NOT have this "we're right and everyone else is punished for eternity" thing.

in fact Judaism even allows for belief in Reincarnation.

edit: another detail, is that Judaism doesn't have a concept of "original sin" either. ... we are born innocent.

Answer 3

there is no such thing as hell in judaism. and there never has been. the idea of hell is completely blasphemous to us. we don't believe in hell, we don't believe in original sin, we don't believe that you have to be jewish to be accepted by G-d, we don't believe in any crap like that.

you should read this wikipedia article comparing jewish and christian beliefs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparing_and_Contrasting_Judaism_and_Christianity, it contrasts the differences between jewish and christian beliefs on things like the afterlife, abortion, the death penalty, etc, its very interesting

EDIT

and not only that, but the idea that of hell doesn't make any sense to us in the first place. when you are dead, you have no body. how exactly can the body you don't have burn in hell?

Answer 4

I believe the concept of heaven and hell was brought about by Christianity but more strongly so after it was Europeanized. It was quite useful w/ warlike, aryan pagan groups in creating equilibrium. Fear is what they lived by so fear had to be instilled in most of them to be just.

Answer 5

No, its an Xtian invention intended to scare people into submission so they can hold power over them. Ther eis no 'hell' in Judiasm. Its putely an invention. And the one who said yes is probably a 'messianic Jew', or Jew for Jesus. We do not consider these people to be Jewish. Their hearts might be in the right place, but they are not Jews.

edit. I am familiar with the lonliness of sheol, my sister. However, there are things that we choose to accept and choose to reject. Our notion of Sheol is not intended to induce fear, or subjugate people into a particular belief. It is just a part of our tradition.

Answer 6

No . Lighting bolts from God were more prevalent and faster.

Answer 7

Jews don't believe in hell

Answer 8

probably