The word “hell” is translated from the Hebrew word “Sheol” and the Greek word “Hades.” Peter showed that these two words have the same meaning by using Hades, as recorded at Acts 2:27, when he quoted Psalm 16:10, which uses Sheol. These words do not convey the thought of a fiery place of torment. The King James Version translated Sheol as hell, grave and pit. At Job 14:13 this Bible version translates Sheol as “grave,” whereas the Catholic Douay Version uses “hell.” The fact that this text tells of Job praying to be hidden in hell gives further evidence that hell is not a place of torment, but the common grave of mankind.

A close examination of how the Bible words for hell are used makes it evident that they do not refer to a fiery place of eternal torment for “damned souls.” Being the common grave of mankind, hell contains dead persons. Revelation 20:13 speaks of hell as giving up the dead in it. The common grave of mankind, where all humans go because of Adamic death, is actually the Bible hell from which multitudes of sleeping dead will be brought back to life.—John 5:28, 29.

Change of Attitude in Quebec

ONE of Jehovah’s witnesses who attended the “Everlasting Good News” Assembly at Trois-Rivières (Three Rivers), Quebec, Canada, related this experience: “I met a man over seventy years of age at the assembly. He had white hair and a kind, yet authoritative face. He had been a policeman, and in 1949 he was very active in driving a police car in Montreal and taking many of Jehovah’s witnesses to the police station. I started to tell some of my experiences with the police at that time. He hung his head, and looking at the floor, he said, ‘I was so ignorant then.’ He loves the truths of God’s Word now and wanted to sit where he could hear every word. He was taking notes so as to look up the scriptures after he returned home. He said he was not baptized yet but hoped to be.”

A change in attitude was also manifested by the radio and television stations and the newspapers, which have not generally been friendly in the past. For the first time there was an interview with Jehovah’s witnesses on CBF, French Radio-Canada, the program being heard in all cities of the province, as well as all the French network in Canada. English CBC in Montreal ran an interview of eight minutes. Montreal radio CKLM gave an interview, and two radio stations in Trois-Rivières commented on the assembly each day of the assembly week. The interviewers on the various stations especially wanted to discuss the beliefs of Jehovah’s witnesses. Also granting an interview was the Quebec City television station, even though the assembly was held seventy-five miles away. The French newspaper of Trois-Rivières, Le Nouvelliste, which had not been favorable in the past, gave more than 100 column inches to the assembly. The larger newspapers of Montreal and Quebec City also covered the assembly, with the weekly Montreal newspaper, Le Nouveau Samedi, giving a report of four pages with many photographs. The report, published in its issue of October 5, 1963, said, among other things:

“What is a witness of Jehovah? Doubtless, many are asking this question. Who are these ‘wicked persons’ about whom we heard in the past, these hell-hounds of Satan, that we heard spoken about as darker than the Devil himself? They are good people, like you and me, family heads, humble workers, professional people, men from all ranks living according to the teachings of the Bible. Each Witness must walk in the footsteps of Jesus Christ and demonstrate his faith by preaching and teaching . . . as did Jesus and his apostles.”

All together, there were over a thousand column inches given in the newspapers to the assembly and the work of the Witnesses. This has no doubt aided in changing the attitudes of many other persons, causing them to be favorably disposed to the message of God’s kingdom.

A householder who rented a room to Jehovah’s witnesses during this assembly at Trois-Rivières, Quebec, telephoned after the assembly to say: “I did not want to miss the opportunity to thank you for the privilege we had to lodge some of your delegates. We have lodged many other people before but never had such kind and distinguished people as your people. We thought that your people were really going to force your religion upon us, but they didn’t. We were the ones that asked questions, and we have learned so much from them.”

Questions From Readers

● How did Adam after his rebellion learn that God said, “Here the man has become like one of us in knowing good and bad, and now in order that he may not put his hand out and actually take fruit also of the tree of life and eat and live to time indefinite,—”? (Gen. 3:22)—E. D., U.S.A.

This text does not say that Jehovah God said this to himself so that Adam could not hear it. Rather, it strongly appears that Jehovah said it out loud so that Adam could hear and know why he was being driven out of the paradise of pleasure. In doing this, God surprised Adam with something that he did not know before, neither he nor his wife, Eve; namely, that in the middle of the garden there was the “tree of life” and that to be privileged to eat of that tree betokened that the eater was deserving of life everlasting in the paradise.

There is nothing in the preceding record to indicate that either Adam or Eve knew of this “tree of life” in the middle of the Garden of Eden, when Eve engaged in conversation with the serpent. Then she mentioned only the trees of the garden and included them all in one group and made an exception only with the “tree of the knowledge of good and bad,” which was prohibited to her and her husband, but she made no mention to the serpent of the “tree of life in the middle of the garden,” this tree that is mentioned in the ninth verse of the second chapter.

So now God says that for the express purpose of preventing them from eating of this tree he is driving them out: “With that Jehovah God put him out of the garden of Eden to cultivate the ground from which he had been taken. And so he drove the man out.” (Gen. 3:23, 24) Doubtless when God drove them out he ordered them out with some verbal expression and told them in effect to “Get moving!” Thus it is most likely that Adam learned of the “tree of life” and of God’s expression here, “Man has become like one of us in knowing good and bad,” by an audible expression on the part of Jehovah God, not by God’s saying this in his heart and then causing some inspired revelation to Adam later on. Then when Adam wrote this second document he could refer to this “tree of life in the middle of the garden” of Eden.

Announcements

ASSEMBLIES FOR 1964

For the benefit of all of Jehovah’s witnesses and others who are interested in God’s Word, the Watch Tower Society is pleased to announce that arrangements are being made for a series of assemblies to be held from June through August of this year. Since there will be a large number of assemblies, one should be relatively close to your home. Make plans now to be in attendance.

Each assembly will provide a most beneficial four-day program, beginning Thursday afternoon