Regarding Gehenna, we quote from Smith's Bible Dictionary: under "Hin'nom":

http://www.biblestudytools.net/Dictionaries/SmithsBibleDictionary/

(lamentation ), Valley of, otherwise called "the valley of the son" or "children of Hinnom," a deep and narrow ravine, with steep, rocky sides, to the south and west of Jerusalem, separating Mount Zion to the north from the "hill of evil counsel," and the sloping rocky plateau of the "plain of Rephaim" to the south. The earliest mention of the valley of Hinnom is in (Joshua 15:8; 18:16) where the boundary line between the tribes of Judah and Benjamin is described as passing along the bed of the ravine. On the southern brow, overlooking the valley at its eastern extremity Solomon erected high places for Molech, (1 Kings 11:7) whose horrid rites were revived from time to time in the same vicinity the later idolatrous kings. Ahaz and Manasseh made their children "pass through the fire" in this valley, (2 Kings 16:3; 2 Chronicles 28:3; 33:6) and the fiendish custom of infant sacrifice to the fire-gods seems to have been kept up in Tophet, which was another name for this place. To put an end to these abominations the place was polluted by Josiah, who renders it ceremonially unclean by spreading over it human bones and other corruptions, (2 Kings 23:10,13,14; 2 Chronicles 34:4,5) from which time it appears to have become the common cesspool of the city, into which sewage was conducted, to be carried off by the waters of the Kidron. From its ceremonial defilement, and from the detested and abominable fire of Molech, if not from the supposed ever-burning funeral piles, the later Jews applied the name of this valley --Ge Hinnom, Gehenna (land of Hinnom)--to denote the place of eternal torment. In this sense the word is used by our Lord. (Matthew 5:29; 10:28; 23:15; Mark 9:43; Luke 12:5)

Like many others, Smith believed that Jesus used this valley as a symbol of eternal torment, although Jesus never said anything about anyone being tormented there. Under the same word Easton gives this:

Hinnom: a deep, narrow ravine separating Mount Zion from the so-called "Hill of Evil Counsel." It took its name from "some ancient hero, the son of Hinnom." It is first mentioned in Josh. 15:8. It had been the place where the idolatrous Jews burned their children alive to Moloch and Baal. A particular part of the valley was called Tophet, or the "fire-stove," where the children were burned. After the Exile, in order to show their abhorrence of the locality, the Jews made this valley the receptacle of the offal of the city, for the destruction of which a fire was, as is supposed, kept constantly burning there. The Jews associated with this valley these two ideas, (1) that of the sufferings of the victims that had there been sacrificed; and (2) that of filth and corruption. It became thus to the popular mind a symbol of the abode of the wicked hereafter. It came to signify hell as the place of the wicked. "It might be shown by infinite examples that the Jews expressed hell, or the place of the damned, by this word. The word Gehenna [the Greek contraction of Hinnom] was never used in the time of Christ in any other sense than to denote the place of future punishment." About this fact there can be no question. In this sense the word is used eleven times in our Lord's discourses (Matt. 23:33; Luke 12:5; Matt. 5:22, etc.).

We agree that Jesus did use the word Gehenna as a symbol of punishment, but he never spoke of it as a symbol of eternal torture. He used it as a symbol of destruction. -- Matthew 10:28.

While he used symbols that the Jews had come to use, he did so, not to adopt the philosophies that the Jews had derived from heathen philosophies, but to illustrate some point. Jesus did not go against all the body of the Hebrew scriptures regarding the condition of the dead and the hope of the dead being raised.

Some say that Gehenna should be translated hell. Some have even gone so far as to say that sheol and hades should not be translated "hell" at all. The English word Hell comes from an Old Germanic-Anglo word helan, meaning "to conceal or cover". The word Gehenna hardly corresponds with such a meaning. The old English word "hell" corresponds more with the meaning of the Hebrew word sheol (and its Greek equivalent: hades), the hidden realm of death; gravedom. -- Ecclesiastes 9:10.

Modernists have given the English word "hell" the meaning of a place where human souls are roasting for all eternity. They obtain this belief from a combination of heathen philosophy and some figurative statements in the Bible.

Gehenna is not a symbol of the eternal roasting theory, for Jesus speaks not only of the soul being thrown into this valley, but also of fleshly bodies. (Matthew 10:28) In a different setting Jesus speaks similarly of the fleshly body being thrown into the fires of Gehenna, thus if one views Gehenna as meaning eternal torture, one would have to also conclude that this eternal torture would come to human bodies. Of course, such is nonsense, since our bodies of flesh return to the dust. -- Matthew 5:29,30.

See also:

Matthew 10:28 and the Human Soul

What Does the Bible Actually Say About Hell?

For more on the topics of hades, sheol, Gehenna, lake of fire, the human soul, etc., see:

Biblical Resources on Life After Death

Translation in Different Bibles of the Words Sheol, Hades, Gehenna and Hell

The Gehenna of Fire Concordant Studies

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