What do you think?
Rate this book
Hell': A Hard Look at a Hard Question: The Fate of the Unrighteous in New Testament Thought
I welcome this rigorous examination of some of the many questions which are raised by the doctrine of hell. At a time when it is rare to hear even heaven spoken about in our churches, it is encouraging that this sober theme is once more in our sights. It was plainly often on the lips of Jesus. - Nigel M. de S. Cameron, Trinity International University Dr Powys has pursued a rigorous examination of the Scriptures . . . He rivets our attention on what the New Testament actually says about the fate of the unrighteous. This is a seminal work. - David Claydon, Federal Secretary, CMS, Australia The author, writing from a position of biblical conservatism, has presented a powerful, convincing and scholarly case for the view that the unrighteous will forfeit resurrection life in the Kingdom of God. It is, in my judgment, the most thorough treatment of the issue in recent years. - John W. Pryor, Macquarie University This book is an impressive, thorough discussion of a thorny question. Dr Powys is at home in many branches of biblical studies . . . He examines the biblical evidence carefully and sets his case out lucidly and with real insight, showing convincingly how ill-founded are many ancient and many recent views on the fate of the unrighteous. His own solution of a set of complex exegetical and theological issues is judicious and clearly the end result of careful thought. - from the Foreword by Graham Stanton, University of Cambridge David Powys has made a significant contribution to an increasingly important debate. His book's real strength lies in its very careful study of New Testament teaching in the light of a comprehensive analysis of the Old Testament and Jewish literature. This literature is rightly seen not merely as background but as the key to a right understanding of the New Testament teaching. I wish that such a clear discussion had been available when I first began engaging with these questions. - Stephen Travis, St John's College, Nottingham David Powys was educated at The University of Melbourne. He gained degrees in arts and social work, studied theology at Ridley College, and was ordained in 1981. Dr Powys has ministered in four Melbourne parishes. He is an Examining Chaplain to the Archbishop of Melbourne and a member of Archbishop in Council and National Synod. He was awarded the Doctor of Theology by the Australian College of Theology in 1994 for his The Hermeneutics of 'Hell'. The present volume is a slightly abbreviated version of that dissertation.
- GenresTheology
518 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1969
1 person is currently reading
21 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 22, 2012
Seeing as how this book is often on the lists of must-read books that attempt to prove the doctrine of conditional immortality (the idea that the lost the unsaved will not live forever in Hell but instead will one day be destroyed and killed in the ultimate sense), I find it overrated (and I am a conditionalist!). It is pretty liberal in its approach to the Bible, it is too dismissive of traditionalist arguments (which, though wrong, still need to be better addressed), and, although it may have been fixed in subsequent editions, the way its footnotes are arranged make things very difficult for the reader. It is saved by its treatment of intertestamental literature, which can make is a useful reference.
Negatives
Why do I say Powys is a bit liberal in his approach to the Bible? Well, in Chapter 3, I was very dismayed to read him assert form the beginning that the Old Testament teachers various (and contradictory) ideas about God's final judgment and the afterlife (or lack thereof). I don't mean he said Israelites weren't all on the same page; that's not a problem for those who hold to biblical inerrancy. But his take is that the Bible's teaching progressively changes because Israelites realized their hopes for God delivering them on earth were not well-founded, so their prophets decided to say other things. That’s not an uncommon position among secular Bible scholars, but that's a real problem if you are f the impression that the prophets and the authors of Old Testament books were inspired to make their predictions by God. I was also a little unsure of what to make of a comment he made in the concluding chapter. After acknowledging that John 5:29 and Revelation 20:11-15 definitively teach a resurrection of the wicked, he acknowledges it as a “possibility” that the New Testament teaches a resurrection of the dead. This goes beyond simply denying inerrancy and thinking that maybe when Mark said the jar contained 12 frogs it really had 11 (I just made that up).
Many traditionalist arguments and prooftexts, though touched upon, are not dealt with too in-depth. This is in part because his approach is to look at something in a very systematic way, and then reject what doesn’t fit. For example, the chapter on Paul only touches upon 2 Thessalonians 1:9, and doesn’t even touch a lot of passages fellow conditionalists point to. Instead, he focuses on arguing that God’s judgment and wrath aren’t seen as retributive in Paul’s writings (which I don’t think he does very convincingly). From there, a few brief statements about 2 Thessalonians 1:9 are seen as sufficient. When looking at Jesus’ teachings in the Synoptic Gospels (Chapter 8), the bulk of the chapter is spent trying to demonstrate that when Jesus speaks of Gehenna, He didn’t mean to refer to anything specifically about eternal judgment at all. Not a lot is said about passages that are commonly used to support the admittedly unbiblical doctrine of eternal conscious punishment in Hell. At times, traditionalist prooftexts are passed off as figurative, or rhetorical, or not meant to be speaking of final judgment at all. That in itself is not necessarily invalid, as long as a good, persuasive explanation is given. Too often, however, it is not the case. It doesn’t leave us annihilationists in a good position when the main argument that Revelation 14:9-11 isn’t speaking of eternal torment is that John wanted to emphatically warn Christians not to apostasize so he was just being hyperbolic (which is a crude but essentially accurate description of his main argument there).
Also, the formatting is very problematic (although this may have been fixed in the later edition). He uses endnotes. That is, all of his citations and explanatory notes are reserved to the end of the chapter (those may be considered “footnotes” still, but either way). Lots of books do this, but few books of them have so many substantial, explanatory footnotes as this book does. These aren’t just citations of the works used; many of the notes are entire paragraphs long and are pertinent to the actual stuff being said. Typically, in scholarly works like this, these are put as footnotes on each page so that when you see the note, you can look down and read what it says. By having all of this put to the back, you are stuck with a dilemma. Do you turn to the back of the chapter every time you see a note, since it may be an extended and material explanation of something? Or do you wait until the end and read all of them, not necessarily knowing what some are referring to? I often would take the middle ground, reading the notes after x number have been made. But it is very inconvenient tot the reader to have to do even that when many chapters have 150+ notes and many are explanatory, not just citations of the source used. Also, the notes are in tiny font, which makes it all the more pleasant. Compared to the content this isn’t as big of a deal-breaker, but it was bothersome.
Positives
Because Powys goes into a lot of discussion about intertestamental literature (Tragums, rabbinic writings, the pseudipigrapha), stuff that may have influenced Jesus and his listeners, this book is a useful reference for those really interested in the topic of Hell (as I am). This is because ti is argued that words (e.g. Gehenna) and motifs Jesus used when talking about Hell were always seen as speaking of eternal torment (they weren’t)< and thus we would imagine that was what He meant. Having someone really go in-depth (like more traditionalists who make this claim fail to do) is helpful.
Conclusion
In short, this book does not belong on the must-read list of conditionalist works like Edward Fudge’s The Fire that Consumes or Henry Constable’s The Duration and Nature of Final Punishment. However, it may be useful for total theology nerds like myself to have on hand.
Negatives
Why do I say Powys is a bit liberal in his approach to the Bible? Well, in Chapter 3, I was very dismayed to read him assert form the beginning that the Old Testament teachers various (and contradictory) ideas about God's final judgment and the afterlife (or lack thereof). I don't mean he said Israelites weren't all on the same page; that's not a problem for those who hold to biblical inerrancy. But his take is that the Bible's teaching progressively changes because Israelites realized their hopes for God delivering them on earth were not well-founded, so their prophets decided to say other things. That’s not an uncommon position among secular Bible scholars, but that's a real problem if you are f the impression that the prophets and the authors of Old Testament books were inspired to make their predictions by God. I was also a little unsure of what to make of a comment he made in the concluding chapter. After acknowledging that John 5:29 and Revelation 20:11-15 definitively teach a resurrection of the wicked, he acknowledges it as a “possibility” that the New Testament teaches a resurrection of the dead. This goes beyond simply denying inerrancy and thinking that maybe when Mark said the jar contained 12 frogs it really had 11 (I just made that up).
Many traditionalist arguments and prooftexts, though touched upon, are not dealt with too in-depth. This is in part because his approach is to look at something in a very systematic way, and then reject what doesn’t fit. For example, the chapter on Paul only touches upon 2 Thessalonians 1:9, and doesn’t even touch a lot of passages fellow conditionalists point to. Instead, he focuses on arguing that God’s judgment and wrath aren’t seen as retributive in Paul’s writings (which I don’t think he does very convincingly). From there, a few brief statements about 2 Thessalonians 1:9 are seen as sufficient. When looking at Jesus’ teachings in the Synoptic Gospels (Chapter 8), the bulk of the chapter is spent trying to demonstrate that when Jesus speaks of Gehenna, He didn’t mean to refer to anything specifically about eternal judgment at all. Not a lot is said about passages that are commonly used to support the admittedly unbiblical doctrine of eternal conscious punishment in Hell. At times, traditionalist prooftexts are passed off as figurative, or rhetorical, or not meant to be speaking of final judgment at all. That in itself is not necessarily invalid, as long as a good, persuasive explanation is given. Too often, however, it is not the case. It doesn’t leave us annihilationists in a good position when the main argument that Revelation 14:9-11 isn’t speaking of eternal torment is that John wanted to emphatically warn Christians not to apostasize so he was just being hyperbolic (which is a crude but essentially accurate description of his main argument there).
Also, the formatting is very problematic (although this may have been fixed in the later edition). He uses endnotes. That is, all of his citations and explanatory notes are reserved to the end of the chapter (those may be considered “footnotes” still, but either way). Lots of books do this, but few books of them have so many substantial, explanatory footnotes as this book does. These aren’t just citations of the works used; many of the notes are entire paragraphs long and are pertinent to the actual stuff being said. Typically, in scholarly works like this, these are put as footnotes on each page so that when you see the note, you can look down and read what it says. By having all of this put to the back, you are stuck with a dilemma. Do you turn to the back of the chapter every time you see a note, since it may be an extended and material explanation of something? Or do you wait until the end and read all of them, not necessarily knowing what some are referring to? I often would take the middle ground, reading the notes after x number have been made. But it is very inconvenient tot the reader to have to do even that when many chapters have 150+ notes and many are explanatory, not just citations of the source used. Also, the notes are in tiny font, which makes it all the more pleasant. Compared to the content this isn’t as big of a deal-breaker, but it was bothersome.
Positives
Because Powys goes into a lot of discussion about intertestamental literature (Tragums, rabbinic writings, the pseudipigrapha), stuff that may have influenced Jesus and his listeners, this book is a useful reference for those really interested in the topic of Hell (as I am). This is because ti is argued that words (e.g. Gehenna) and motifs Jesus used when talking about Hell were always seen as speaking of eternal torment (they weren’t)< and thus we would imagine that was what He meant. Having someone really go in-depth (like more traditionalists who make this claim fail to do) is helpful.
Conclusion
In short, this book does not belong on the must-read list of conditionalist works like Edward Fudge’s The Fire that Consumes or Henry Constable’s The Duration and Nature of Final Punishment. However, it may be useful for total theology nerds like myself to have on hand.
September 14, 2024
AN AUSTRALIAN THEOLOGIAN LOOKS IN DETAIL AT THE QUESTION
This 1997 book is a "slightly abbreviated" version of Australian theologian David Powys' doctoral dissertation. He explained in the Preface, "the matter to be addressed below ... will be restricted to the consideration of the fate of those who die without having entered into the salvation of God in Christ Jesus... such people will be referred to as 'the unrighteous.' ... it will be limited to the matter of post-mortem fate... It will thus not be possible to address several related but separate questions... what may be said of the fate of the unrighteous in the light of the New Testament data?" (Pg. xviii-xix)
After reviewing the various opinions of the Church Fathers, he says, "What can account for these divisions of opinion? In small part this divergence is attributable to the ambiguity of the biblical data. In larger part it may be attributed to the diversity of opinion generated through strong recourse to human reason. For the most part, however, the divergence is rooted in divergent presuppositions..." (Pg. 37)
Of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31, he suggests, "The purpose of the story was not to affirm the reality of Gehenna, but rather to demonstrate the inadequacy of Pharisaic piety... 'Gehenna,' 'reward and punishment' and 'the world to come' were paraded not to affirm them as true, but to lampoon them as incapable of promoting true faithfulness... The Pharisaic conceptualization of destiny was not only false, it was also impotent to motivate true response to God." (Pg. 227)
He observes, "'Gehenna' was not equivalent to the Hebrew 'Sheol'. That concept was rendered by the Greek word 'Hades', which referred to the abode of ALL dead people. 'Gehenna' on the hand was the exclusive domain of the wicked... It was the place of post-mortem suffering, the vehicle of divine justice, the prospect that vindicated and motivated faithfulness. Gehenna was a major plank in the expectation of individual post-mortem compensation." (Pg. 276)
He argues about Rev 14:9-11, "The passage does not concern the unrighteous in general, but only apostates. Is it indicative of their fate?... the language is stronger than literal intent would permit. To be made to consume the undiluted heat of God's anger would presumably amount to extinction, not torture. Fire and Sulphur are agents of destruction not pain. Fire destroys, it cannot burn someone for ever and ever... This language must be figurative, its strength attributable to the immediacy and the terror of the threat of persecution and to the depth of division and resentment caused by apostasy." (Pg. 367)
He adds, "ongoing torture in the 'lake of fire' is not attributed to any humans... the 'second death' is attributed to apostates, major sinners, others not in the 'book of life' and to Death and to Hades... the 'lake of fire' appears to have been an elastic concept capable of covering divergent prospects... the data indicates that 'the second death' was something from which the righteous would be delivered (2:22, 21:7-8)." (Pg. 371)
He concludes, "To the extent that the fate of the unrighteous is discernible within the New Testament, it is construed chiefly in terms of loss of life and/or consignment to death... the predominant New Testament stance on the question: the unrighteous will cease... their lot will be death without end. They will not be raised at the Parousia to participate in the fulfilled Kingdom of God...
"There is certainly no support within the New Testament for an expectation of ongoing conscious suffering for the unrighteous... There is little or no New Testament warrant either for the expectation that the unrighteous will undergo ongoing post-mortem retribution, or that the unrighteous will be made righteous and restored... The tentative finding of this study is that the unrighteous will have no life after death, save possibly to be raised temporarily to be condemned... they will be no more." (Pg. 415-416)
This is a theologically and historically detailed study, that will be of considerable interest to anyone studying the question of eternal punishment---whether they agree with Powys, or not.
This 1997 book is a "slightly abbreviated" version of Australian theologian David Powys' doctoral dissertation. He explained in the Preface, "the matter to be addressed below ... will be restricted to the consideration of the fate of those who die without having entered into the salvation of God in Christ Jesus... such people will be referred to as 'the unrighteous.' ... it will be limited to the matter of post-mortem fate... It will thus not be possible to address several related but separate questions... what may be said of the fate of the unrighteous in the light of the New Testament data?" (Pg. xviii-xix)
After reviewing the various opinions of the Church Fathers, he says, "What can account for these divisions of opinion? In small part this divergence is attributable to the ambiguity of the biblical data. In larger part it may be attributed to the diversity of opinion generated through strong recourse to human reason. For the most part, however, the divergence is rooted in divergent presuppositions..." (Pg. 37)
Of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31, he suggests, "The purpose of the story was not to affirm the reality of Gehenna, but rather to demonstrate the inadequacy of Pharisaic piety... 'Gehenna,' 'reward and punishment' and 'the world to come' were paraded not to affirm them as true, but to lampoon them as incapable of promoting true faithfulness... The Pharisaic conceptualization of destiny was not only false, it was also impotent to motivate true response to God." (Pg. 227)
He observes, "'Gehenna' was not equivalent to the Hebrew 'Sheol'. That concept was rendered by the Greek word 'Hades', which referred to the abode of ALL dead people. 'Gehenna' on the hand was the exclusive domain of the wicked... It was the place of post-mortem suffering, the vehicle of divine justice, the prospect that vindicated and motivated faithfulness. Gehenna was a major plank in the expectation of individual post-mortem compensation." (Pg. 276)
He argues about Rev 14:9-11, "The passage does not concern the unrighteous in general, but only apostates. Is it indicative of their fate?... the language is stronger than literal intent would permit. To be made to consume the undiluted heat of God's anger would presumably amount to extinction, not torture. Fire and Sulphur are agents of destruction not pain. Fire destroys, it cannot burn someone for ever and ever... This language must be figurative, its strength attributable to the immediacy and the terror of the threat of persecution and to the depth of division and resentment caused by apostasy." (Pg. 367)
He adds, "ongoing torture in the 'lake of fire' is not attributed to any humans... the 'second death' is attributed to apostates, major sinners, others not in the 'book of life' and to Death and to Hades... the 'lake of fire' appears to have been an elastic concept capable of covering divergent prospects... the data indicates that 'the second death' was something from which the righteous would be delivered (2:22, 21:7-8)." (Pg. 371)
He concludes, "To the extent that the fate of the unrighteous is discernible within the New Testament, it is construed chiefly in terms of loss of life and/or consignment to death... the predominant New Testament stance on the question: the unrighteous will cease... their lot will be death without end. They will not be raised at the Parousia to participate in the fulfilled Kingdom of God...
"There is certainly no support within the New Testament for an expectation of ongoing conscious suffering for the unrighteous... There is little or no New Testament warrant either for the expectation that the unrighteous will undergo ongoing post-mortem retribution, or that the unrighteous will be made righteous and restored... The tentative finding of this study is that the unrighteous will have no life after death, save possibly to be raised temporarily to be condemned... they will be no more." (Pg. 415-416)
This is a theologically and historically detailed study, that will be of considerable interest to anyone studying the question of eternal punishment---whether they agree with Powys, or not.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews