An excellent analysis of the correct meaning of “hell” in Old and New Testament can be found at HellHadesAfterlife.com.

It shows that the traditional Christian teaching on this subject is actually unjust and morally repulsive.

The most important points it makes are the following:

1. Biblical Judaism as enunciated in the Old Testament does not teach that the soul is immortal. That is a Greek and pagan idea.

2. The Bible teaches that the REWARD for salvation is acquiring immortality.

3. The Bible teaches that this eternal life is enjoyed by a resurrected body, not an immaterial entity.

4. Misunderstanding of the differences between the terms “Sheol” (Hebrew), Hades (Greek), Tartarus (Greek), Gehenna (Hebrew), which are all translated as “Hell,” has led to a commingling of Pagan Greek ideas (eternal torture in hell) with Jewish.

As I’ve pointed out in other cases, literalism is the problem. The misunderstanding of the poetic language of the Bible has led to the belief that the damned are tortured forever, whereas all the metaphors used for it (blighted trees or branches, cut grass, burnt waste) indicate finitude.

Damnation in the Bible is essentially destruction. The human being who is not “fruitful” (spiritually alive) is struck down like a blighted tree and destroyed.

That is perfectly logical, even from a scientific viewpoint, because he has remained base and materialistic and therefore must share the fate of the base and materialistic (dust unto dust).

Apart from this, there are also hints in the Bible that at some point this destruction may be undone and even the most evil may be reconciled with God.

There are hints in the Bible of something akin to reincarnation.