Gehenna, The Greek Name For The Valley Of Himmon, Is A Valley Surrounding Jerusalem And Is Often Referred

Gehenna, the greek name for the Valley of Himmon, is a valley surrounding Jerusalem and is often referred to as a place of divine punishment.

In the Hebrew Bible, the Book of Joshua states in 28:3 that King Azah “burnt incense and children in the valley.” 33:6 mentions that his grandson continued this ritual. The children were sacrificed to the god Moloch. In 7:31Jeremiah(prophet) says to end the practice and all the shrines for it. So King Josiah answers this call and destroys the shrines to prevent the sacrifices. Important to add that this was never proven in any sense. The name Moloch only appears 8 times in the hebrew bible, so its not 100 percent confirmed that its even a god. A lot of theologists think that this ritual wasn’t actually a sacrifice but more like a rite of passage for a child. Plus that its actually just anti-pagan propaganda of that time.

In Aramaic translations of the hebrew bible, Gehenna is used for verses about resurrection, judgement and fate of the wicked.

In the christian Bible, Jesus refers to it as a dump where the habitants burn their trash and criminals. He calls it the pit of eternal fire which never burns out. Jesus uses Gehenna to symbolise the eternal suffering of the second death(The second death here refers to the punishment of sinners after death.). Its not the same as the eternal lake of fire as in the Book of Revelation but it corresponds to it. So gehenna is not Hell itself but more a symbol of it.

The reason why a lot of people call it hell is because 16th century translaters translated hades and gehenna both as hell. In Islam, the islamic name for hell, Jahannam derives from the word Gehenna!

So originally, Gehenna was just a valley but then became a place of sacrifice BUT this may be misinformation and it actually was used for rite of passages. It then became a dumping place, where the wicked were burned. It was never referred to as Hell but became synonymous with it after 16th century translations and the concept being analogous to the eternal lake of fire in BoR. The word Gehenna itself is referred to in verses about resurrection.

But how does this correspond to The summer Hikaru died?

A lot of those points fit the story very well! Like how they sacrificed their own people to a pagan god and how the village sacrificed heads to Unuki-sama. Im not entirely sure about this one point about the misinformation aspect. We know that the village believes that Nounuki-sama is some inherently evil spirit. But it’s not actually true, it’s more a man made thing. The villagers came to Nounuki-Sama. Like how Gehenna wasn’t inherently associated with hell but more so over the years. It also fits How Gehenna is often used in verses about resurrection, which kind of is what happened to Hikaru after being taken over by Nounuki-sama. AND how Josiah abolished the shrines and therefore the rituals may be what will happen in the story, how Yoshiki (and Hikaru) will overcome the village tradition and kind of put an end to what the elders and everyone before them have been doing. Maybe maybe idk these r just my thoughts would love more thoughts on this