When dealing with conditional immortality (annihilationism), there are a lot of words that we need to clarify so we might better understand the overall topic at hand. For example, annihilationists typically say that the destruction of an individual necessarily means non-existence. But, is that what the Bible teaches? Does destruction mean that people are annihilated or that they have a continuous conscious torment? Either possibility is logically possible. But, which is correct? The way to find out would be, for example, to see how God uses the word “destruction” as a relates to every instance in the New Testament. That way, we can learn what God teaches, not what we impose upon the text.

Now, because the majority of the discussions take place in the context of the New Testament, I have focused mainly on New Testament vocabulary. As you can see from the list of words I’ve examined, it became rather lengthy. Since the New Testament interprets the Old Testament and since most of the relevant discussions focus on the NT, I’ve done far more word studies in Greek, than Hebrew.

At first, this series of word studies began with a single word: destruction. I soon discovered that there were other words related to the topic such as punishment, pruning, tearing down, admonishing, executing judgment, etc. One thing led to another, and I decided to continue to do word studies on other topics related to conditional immortality and eternal conscious torment such as immortal, incorruptible, Gehenna, Hades, eternal fire, etc. I then tried to assign a basic meaning to each of the words used in different contexts. Of course, I admit that my analysis may be off here and there and is a bit subjective, but I sought to analyze words in their context and to accurately represent them. Such a large undertaking proved difficult at times. Word usages varied considerably: metaphors, literal, spiritual, physical, intention, etc. Nevertheless, I attempted to look at every instance of various words related to the topic at hand, in the context, so that I might better understand what God was saying.

Each word study is in three columns¹occasionaly there is a fourth column – sample below. What you will notice on the right of the tables is the “Meaning” column. I have sought to accurately represent what the word means in the verses in which it is used. I am sure people will disagree with different assessments, but my goal has been to get the basic understanding of its usage and to represent them in their contexts accurately. That way, hopefully, patterns of usage can emerge, and we can apply what we learn to the issue at hand.

These word studies became a huge project. In fact, I believe there’s more information that I have produced than is really necessary regarding the topic of annihilationism. But, I went where my studies led me and put these studies on CARM so that others might be able to do some research as well.