Q. 1. What is the meaning of the word "Gehenna?"

A. 1. In a short answer, "Gehenna" is a symbolic word for "hell."

In the Old Testament of the Holy Bible, we read of Gehenna as the valley below Jerusalem, where children were sacrificed and where idolatry was practised [II Kings 23:10; Jeremiah 19:6] and where later garbage, the entrails and internal organs of an animal used as food were burned.

In the New Testament, Gehenna got to be known as a place where the wicked are punished after death. It was a place of decay and burning rubbish which represents a place or state of pain and torment.