"Hell"

Basically, there are only three words translated as "hell" in the entire Bible. The word "hell", as we in our time have mythologized it actually NEVER occurs in the entire Bible. It was inserted by the King James translators...and others with the vested interest of controlling the masses through spiritual and literal fear.

The words associated with "Hell"

New Testament (NT) link: www.biblegateway.com/keyword/
(substitute the word Gehenna in each instance that "hell" is used...)

Gehenna (greek)
In the OT, the word for hell is 'ge-hinnom' (hebrew) meaning "Valley of Hinnom." It was a place to the southwest of Jerusalem. This place was once "called 'Topheth' and derived from an Aramaic word meaning 'fireplace.' It was here that some pagan kings practiced human sacrifice by fire (2 Chron. 28:3; 33:6; Jer. 7:31; 32:25). This is probably why in the NT the word came to be associated with destruction by fire, as human sacrifices were once stacked like cordwood there and burned in fiery conflagration. Hence, the "burning forever" in torment concept was most likely formed in relation to this valley. The word 'Gehenna' is found in the NT 14 times and every instance is spoken of by Jesus. In the NT, "gehenna" is an actual physical location, the city dump!
The Jews believed this valley to be cursed, and it was turned into a refuse heap, the city dump. It was a jagged crevasse where refuse was hurriedly thrown, since the land there was not fit for any other purpose. Even in modern times, the organic waste in a dump...if left to rot, may eventually spontaneously combust. Such was the case with this valley outside of Jerusalem. I can imagine it to be the very vision of "hell", with the acrid smoke, and smell, perpetual burning and cursed history. I can imagine Jewish parents teasing their children, "If you do not behave, we will take you out to Gehenna and leave you there." Children may have had the task of helping to carry refuse, and knew the place and its horrors well.
This place was within the consciousness of every Jerusalem Jew, and if they needed a reminder, they simply needed to cast their gaze off to the southwest, and the smoky stench rising from it was clearly visible. It is how the desolate vision of hell came into the modern human consciousness. The rest is pure myth supplied by Dante, Milton, and other writers with apocalyptic views.
"Hell" is a word never in the Bible, and "Gehenna" was the word used - for the smelly dump outside the city gates!

Hades
This word only occurs in the NT, ten times, and corresponds to the OT word "sheol." Jesus uses the word four times: Matt. 11:23; 16:18; Luke 10:15; 16:23. The other six occur in Acts 2:27,31; Rev. 1:18; 6:8; 20:13,14.
It was probably the "subterranean abode of all the dead until the judgment. It was divided into two departments, paradise or Abraham's bosom for the good, and Gehenna or "hell" for the bad." In particular, in the account of Lazarus and the Rich man of (Luke 16:19-31), it is a place of the conscious dead in waiting.

Sheol
"The Hebrew word Sheol is probably derived from a root "to make hollow," and was seen as the common receptacle of the dead and in the great many places the word appears in the OT, it is referring to the grave. It is a place and is mentioned in Gen. 37:35; Num. 16:30,33; Psalm 16:10, etc. Sheol has many meanings in scripture: the grave, the underworld, the state of the dead. It was supposed to be below the surface of the earth (Ezek. 31:15,17; Psalm 86:13).

These two concepts (Hades/Sheol) are ancient and borrowed from the Greeks and stories and myths back into prehistoric times...to the very earliest memory. The concept of purgatory also springs from them.

Hell is pure mythology, at least as we know it...and is wholly unsupported by the Bible. It is a case of rewriting Biblical statements to support a foregone conclusion. Not one of accepting what is actually written and why.


Tartarus

Tartarus is the lowest region of the world, as far below earth as earth is from heaven. According to the Greek poet Hesiod, a bronze anvil falling from heaven would take nine days and nights to reach earth, and an object would take the same amount of time to fall from earth into Tartarus. Tartarus is described as a dank, gloomy pit, surrounded by a wall of bronze, and beyond that a three-fold layer of night. Along with Chaos, Earth, and Eros, it is one of the first entities to exist in the universe.

While Hades is the main realm of the dead in Greek mythology, Tartarus also contains a number of characters. In early stories, it is primarily the prison for defeated gods; the Titans were condemned to Tartarus after losing their battle against the Olympian gods, and the hecatoncheires stood over them as guards at the bronze gates. When Zeus overcomes the monster Typhus, born from Tartarus and Gaia, he hurls it too into the same abyss.

However, in later myths Tartarus becomes a place of punishment for sinners. It resembles Hell and is the opposite of Elysium, the afterlife for the blessed. When the hero Aeneas visits the underworld, he looks into Tartarus and sees the torments inflicted on characters such as the Titans, Tityos, Otus and Ephialtes, and the Lapiths. Rhadymanthus (and, in some versions, his brother Minos) judges the dead and assigns punishment.

There may be minor Biblical associations with the word Tarturus....in the same vein as Hades/Sheol.

Interesting that all of these concepts are not Christian in any way...but much older ones. I doubt very seriously if Jesus Christ himself taught fear of any of them. The only word he ever used was Gehenna...which was NOT "hell". It was a psychological mindset separated from God's and represented by the Valley of Hinnom, a cursed valley turned into the city dump of Jerusalem! Nothing more! There is NO HELL waiting to burn anyone in torment for eternity! But, if you love suffering and torment and MUST have it in your philosophy and/or religion, knock yourself out!