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IMAGES OF HELL IN THE

TOURS OF HELL: ARE THEY TRUE?

by Eldon Woodcock, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus of Bible

Nyack College, Nyack, New York

This paper contains excerpts from a book that has not yet been published. The tentative title is
"An Impetus to Witness: The Biblical Doctrine of Hell."

INTRODUCTION

An intriguing feature of both Jewish and Christian treatments of Hell is the literary genre

that some have called Tours of Hell (or Tours of Hades). The most famous example of this genre
is Dantes Inferno. Yet there were examples of it well over 1,000 years before his time. This
genre is characterized by the authors claiming to have received an angelic revelation or vision in
which an angel (or a saint) took him on a tour of Hell and explained the often grisly sights.

Going far beyond anything revealed in Scripture, the authors speculative imagination

was freely expressed. Often he described a repulsive punishment that he claimed to have seen,
and then recorded the explanation that he claimed to have received from the angel, describing the
sin for which the individual was being punished. The authors descriptions of what he saw in
Hell contain some especially vivid and even gross verbal portraits of its horrors.

II. OLD TESTAMENT PSEUDEPIGRAPHA: JEWISH TEXTS

Since the earliest tours of Hell are found in the Jewish writings of the Old Testament

Pseudepigrapha, these samples of this genre should be considered first.

A. 1 Enoch

The oldest extant records of these tours appear in 1 Enoch which records two of them: (1)

17-20; (2) 21-36. In each of these tours Biblical Enoch (Genesis 5:21-24) is described as being
guided and instructed by such angels as Uriel and Rufael. The description of the second tour is
longer and more detailed. It includes both Heaven and the extremities of the earth. Among the
samples of punishments for the wicked are the retribution of plague and pain forever for those
who curse (22:11) and of being accursed forever for speaking unworthily against the Lord
(27:2).

B. Apocalypse of Zephaniah

Part of a short tour of Hades recorded in the Apocalypse of Zephaniah 10:3-11

(Akhmimic text) is as follows:

I saw the sea which I had seen at the bottom of Hades. Its waves came up to the clouds. I