Is hell a pit of fire?

Answer 1

The name "hell" in The Bible has many different meanings.

In the Old Testament, the world "sheol" is hell and it basically means the grave.

In the New Testament, we have the words "Hades", "Tartarus", and "Gehenna".

The word Hades means "the grave".

The word Tartarus means "a place of darkness or restraint".

The word Gehenna means "a place of real fire".

Now the real place of fire for those who are lost will not be a place where they burn for all eternity. The place of real fire for the lost will be the "lake of fire" at the end of this world where they are burned and destroyed, never to exist again.

Answer 2

It is certainly described as such, however this could well be symbolism for a state of tremendous torment.

//Hell is a real, literal place. During His ministry, Jesus spoke often of the eternal lake of fire, the fiery pit, the lake of fire, endless smoke, undying lake of fire. He was very clear on this subject. He also made it very clear that the majority of mankind will spend eternity there, the place of unending torture. Originally hell was for Satan and his legion of fallen angeles, humans were never supposed to go there, but with the original sin of Adam and Eve, humans were tainted. Enter Jesus, the ultimate sacrafice. We now have the opportunity of paradise again.

From scripture, it is implied that hell is somewhere inside the earth. Scientists know that the earth's core burns continuously at an extremely high temperature. This is where the real hell is. Study of NDE (near death experiences) gives weight to this location as the real hell. The stories of these people that almost died and then recovered tell eerily similar tales of the presense of this horrible place.