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Swiped this from another freeper today! Funny you should ask this question when I had it saved! gehenna "Gehenna, gehenom, or gehinom (Hebrew: גהנום, Greek γεεννα) are words used in Jewish and Christian writings for the place where evil people go in the afterlife (see Hell). The name is derived from a geographical site in Jerusalem known as the Valley of Hinnom, one of the two principal valleys surrounding the Old City. In Jewish tradition this valley was associated with the idea of Hell. The reasons for this association are uncertain. Some believe that it relates to the role of the valley in the disposing and burning of rubbish and unclean animals. However, Jewish tradition suggests the valley had a 'gate' which led down to a molten lake of fire. (Possibly 'The furnace of Yahweh' in Zion to which Isaiah refers 31:9, 30:33). It is unknown whether this 'gate' was an actual geophysical feature within the valley that provided the focus for cultic activity (2 Kings 23:10) or simply a metaphorical identification with the entrance to the underworld that had come to be associated with the valley."

Are Heaven and Hell physical places?

Part of this question imparts meanings which are extraneous to Scripture and frames their existence in a carnal fashion.

Scripture is written of heaven in three different senses.

1) The Abode of God the Father, which is outside the physical universe we perceive separate from God, however since God is immanent, heaven cannot contain Him.

2) The earth and atmosphere around the planet, such as the sky above the firmament where the birds fly.

3) The stellar universe beyond the planet.

Doctrinally, from a trichotomous view of man’s anthropology, being body, soul, and spirit as man was originally formed by God, heaven and hell are locations of human experience in the future and in some cases as believers prior to our resurrected body.

Hell is frequently confused with the Lake of Fire. The Lake of Fire is a place created by God as the final destination of the fallen angels and where things good for nothingness will be cast at a final judgment when God separates all things divinely unrighteous from His presence.

Hell in Scripture is frequently better translated as Hades, or the Greek underworld.

Hades has 4 components from Scripture.
1) The Lake of Fire
2) Tartarus, (a dark prison where chained demons are contained, also released during the Tribulation.)
3) The Torments (The destination of all unbelievers prior to the Great White Throne Judgment.) which is separated from paradise by a great gulf transfixed, and
4) Paradise or ‘Abraham’s Bosom’ ( where the souls of all believers resided after the first death prior to the Cross).

Hades, Tartarus, the Torments, and Paradise are addressed in Scripture as well as in mythology in vivid detail. Studies in this area were extensive at the beginning of the 19th and 20th century and might be found under the topic of Euhemerism, which is also noted by the Ante-Nicene Fathers at this link:

http://www.biblefacts.org/ecf/vol7/anf07-11.htm

Euhemerus the Messenian was commissioned to find historical basis of mythology circa 300BC in a pagan rational program believing all mythology had some historical basis in fact.

Scripture is more trustworthy, but still speaks of heaven and hell as locations of our souls after death and a final destination after the second death.