There was no consensus on the state of the soul, for example, the Sadduccees didn't believe in an afterlife at all - and they were the priestly class!
However, the words had meaning even if one didn't believe them. That there WAS "Gehenna" wasn't universally accepted, but what "Gehenna" meant, was understood.
Example: "The Rapture".
It has a meaning. Catholics don't believe in it. Neither do the Orthodox. Neither do a lot of Protestants. But there is no Christian adult who doesn't know what "The Rapture" means when a Christian preacher uses it.
Now, "Rapture" is also a song by Blondie. And "rapture" in general means overwhelming ecstasy. But nobody hearing a televangelist talking about The Rapture thinks he's talking about pop music or a generic state of ecstasy. There isn't any confusion at all. What he MEANS is the Christian Rapture, believed by some and not by others, but generally understood in its meaning by EVERYBODY.
The doctrine of Gehenna was not universally held in the first century Judaism. And it is not universally believed by Jews today. But every Jew knew what the word meant, then and now. They either believed in the doctrine of Gehenna or didn't, like The Rapture, but they were not confused by the term. Jesus wasn't using a strange term he needed to EXPLAIN. Like "korban", Gehenna had a meaning.
Yes, Gehenna was also the name of a valley outside of Jerusalem. A nasty valley with an evil reputation, where human sacrifice has apparently been peformed and which was used as a burning waste dump. It made a great visual. Hell is also a town in Michigan, down in the industrial and tornado and blizzard belt. Paradise is a town in Michigan up in the splendor of the northwoods, near beautiful waterfalls, on the shores of Lake Superior. Paradise and Hell were named for the thoughts they inspired.
Now, whether Gehenna the horrible valley was named after Gehenna the horrid idea, or the idea of the burning horrible place of purgation and punishment was named Gehenna after the identifiably horrible valley of burning refuse and human sacrifice is unknown. What is clear is that the idea of Gehenna as Jewish Purgatory/Hell, although by no means universally accepted by the Jews of the 1st Century (or the 21st Century either) was UNDERSTOOD back then as it is now. Jews in the first century who believed in Gehenna and purgation didn't think that the dead went to the literal valley, any more than Christians in Michigan think that the good, when they die, go to the Upper Peninsula. Jews who DIDN'T believe in Gehenna in the first century, as a place of purgation of the soul and eternal hell for the wicked, were not ignorant of the word, and they didn't think the people who did believe in Gehenna thought that Hell was a valley outside of Jerusalem.
We cannot allow ourselves to be that obtuse.
I am a Catholic, not an evangelical Baptist, but when the Reverend Michaels starts talking about the Christian Rapture, I know he's not talking about Blondie. I know PRECISELY what he is talking about, even though I don't believe a lick of it.
Similarly, when Jesus spoke of punishment and torment in Gehenna, for sins, everybody didn't believe that bad souls go to Gehenna, but everyone knew what he MEANT.
And he didn't believe the eponymous valley was Hell.
That's obvious.
Why, then, is the point made?
Let's be honest here.
Most Christians don't know anything about Judaism past or present. Finding out that Gehenna is Jewish Hell/Purgatory is a SURPRISE to virtually every Christian who discovers it, including well-educated Christian clergy. Christian bibles talk about the eponymous valley outside of Jerusalem, but they DON'T talk about Gehenna having the religious meaning of Hell/Purgatory to Jews. They don't. Page to the footnote in your favorite Bible. It might tell you about the valley. It will be SILENT about the Jewish spiritual understanding of the word. The reason for that silence is mainly ignorance. Christians aren't Jews, and simply didn't know that.
But the knowledge, once imparted, certainly cleans a lot of things out. Suddenly, the plain meaning of what Jesus said becomes clearer. What his audience understood becomes clear. That's USUALLY a good thing, Biblically. However, in this case, that piece of knowledge has a problem connected to it: Jesus' use of the Jewish term "Gehenna" also makes Jesus' COSMOLOGY a lot clearer.
And that is ALARMING.
Why?
Because Catholics and Protestants, ignorant of the Jewish meaning, have written reams, volumes, of doctrine trying to work out a heaven/hell/purgatory cosmology. Catholics have described a Purgatory, but incorrectly said it's a product of reason, not Scripture. Actually, it IS Scriptural: in Jesus' own words. Gehenna doesn't just mean the valley of Gehinnom any more than Hell is town in central Michigan. It had a universally understood, if not accepted, cosmological meaning too, back in Jesus' day and in ours. Medieval Christians, not being Jews, and having driven all the Jews away, had no inkling of that. But Purgatory is NECESSARY, given Scripture, so they postulated Purgatory. Correctly. But they didn't know that it was also Scripture, and actually in Jesus' mouth with that one word: Gehenna.
One would think that one would hear a great rush of exultant Catholic relief and chest thumping to discover the Jewish meaning of this word. But pride is a terrible thing, and instead there is considerable Catholic ANGER that all of the piles of doctrine about Purgatory should simply be folded into one word, Gehenna, and Purgatory be found to be Scriptural after all, in that one little word. The pride in vast learning and argumentation makes some want to fight for that pile of learning overly hard, and not just accept the obvious in Jesus' use of the word.
And on the Protestant side? Protestants, as ignorant of Judaism as Catholics, have been bashing Catholicism over the head about the unscripturality of Purgatory for years. To have Jesus' words made clearer, illuminated by knowledge of Judaism, usually would make people who love Scripture exult, just as archaeological finds which tend to support the Bible do. But here, the archaeological find, the theological meaning, to Jews, of Gehenna (whether they believed in the cosmology or not), loses in one blow a 5 century argument with Catholicism. "Purgatory", of a Jewish sort, is Biblical.
And thus the reactions on this thread and the other.
A lot of silence.
And then a Catholic snarling at me with piles of medieval documents which are supposed to override JEWS' understanding of Jewish words! Pride.
And on the Protestant side?
Mostly silence too. But an effort to assert, essentially, that Hell is a place in Michigan, because there is a place in Michigan called Hell.
Whether the Jewish concept of Gehinnom was named after the nasty valley, or the nasty valley was named Gehinnom for its likeness to the Jewish cosmoligical concept we will never know. And it doesn't make any difference. Jesus was talking about Gehinnom spiritually, about a place where one is thrown wholly for committing sins. He wasn't talking about a garbage dump. Rapture doesn't mean the car-eating Martian sung about by Deborah Harry.
It's obvious.
The reason there is resistance is because it forces a change of cosmological view, based on one little word of Scripture repeated a few times from the mouth of Jesus.
It means both sides of a half-millennial debate being wrong: it IS Scriptural (contrary to Catholic assertion in documents that it isn't), and it IS purgatorial, which is difficult for Protestant cosmology.
You are free, of course, to post again and again that because everybody doesn't believe in The Rapture, that it means a song by Blondie, and that Hell is a place in Michigan. But even you don't really believe it.
Gehenna is Jewish Purgatory and Hell - same place, two functions, depending on the disposition of the soul who enters there. There's an eponymous valley near Jerusalem named for it, or it got its name from the valley. Either way, First Century Jews all knew what Gehenna meant, whether they believed it or not. Which is why Jesus could use the word without defining it or correcting anyone.
No first century Jews believed that the souls of the dead went to a valley near Jerusalem. And even the worst First Century Jews, criminals, were not thrown into the garbage heap but were buried. When Jesus said "whole body thrown into Gehenna" no Jew thought "They're talking about throwing my body into the garbage", because Jews were buried, not thrown in the garbage. Even the crucified criminal Jesus was put in a tomb.
Gehenna means Hell/Purgatory. That's what it means, and meant, to Jews. Even Sadduccees, who didn't beleive in the place, knew what it meant. The Rapture from the mouth of a Christian minister isn't a rap song by Blondie. Gehenna from the mouth of a Jewish rabbi talking about sin and outcomes was not a valley outside of Jerusalem.
It's obvious.