Is there free will in heaven?

[Godscreated]

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It's true that tartarus and hades are not the hells we envision. These two are places literally within the bowels of the earth. Hades being a sort of upper level. A dull place devoid of joy or mirth. There is a mention of a sort of separation into two hades, believe the subject of the narrative was abraham. Tartarus is of course "the lowest hades". To give this whole thing a visual feel; hades is a flattened globe beneath our world, at the bottom of which is a "an abyss", a shaft without end leading down to tartarus. You know the reason that the tartarus verse seems so lonely? It was decided that the Book of Enoch was non-canonical. Which is unfortunate, because it's an interesting narrative itself (and is of course found in aramaic fragments on the dead sea scrolls). It's a sort of celestial supermax under the gp. "The Hole", if you will. You cannot remove tartarus from any mention of hades because they are inseparable concepts. One is a part of the other.

Gehenna would be the place we envision when we think of hell. In fact, hell itself is from an entirely different mythology that did not contain a hades, or a tartarus within the same. It did have a gehenna, and that was an easily absorbed mythology. Gehenna is "the lake of fire". It's interesting to point out that this is possibly derived from an actual place. This is the place of punishment, the final stop for unrepentant sinners. Gehenna is fairly well represented in the new testament, as is hades (and by extension tartarus).

All of this was subsumed under the title hell for a long while. It had alot to do with the native cultures that christianity encountered as it crawled across the map. The first beliefs to be incorporated are the ones with analogs in the native population. As the first doctrines absorbed they form a core piece of it. This is of course our understanding from cultural anthropology and studies of comparative religion. European christianity has traditionally been very heavy on the hell bit, and there were reasons for that. As such, this is the hell the believer inherits.

However, one could take the concepts of hades and tartarus as seperate from gehenna. There's no problem at all with separating them like this. It was intended. The trouble is that it does nothing to remove the idea of torture, torment, or punishment from either concepts. You're either burning in gehenna, or shambling about hades whilst ash rains on your head awaiting resurrection or judgement (being thrown in gehenna). All the while the shaft leading to tartarus is there beneath you where demons are held in torment and lie in wait to pour out onto the earth.

Sounds downright pleasant.

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Thanks for sharing all the info, but when it comes down to it all forms of tartarus means to cast down to separate from. The demons were cast to the earth for their first punishment when they rebelled in heaven, the lake of fire is their finial destination where they will be destroyed. Yes hell as we understand it will be a terrible place, good reason to avoid it I think. Still no torture for humans but I agree torment and punishment are for real. The Book of Enoch was not made a part of the Bible because it did not qualify, now why, I do not know, haven't studied that, maybe I will be able to some day.