Who Ends Up Going to Hell? What Judaism, Christianity, and Islam Teach

Judaism's approach to hell — typically called Gehenna (Gehinnom) — is considerably more restrained than popular Christian or Islamic imagery. The Talmudic tradition, developed extensively by rabbinic sages from roughly the 2nd through 6th centuries CE, generally holds that Gehenna is a place of purification rather than permanent torment for most souls. Rabbi Joseph Karo and later authorities in the Shulchan Aruch tradition reflect a mainstream view that most souls spend no more than twelve months in Gehenna before moving on.

That said, certain categories of people are described in rabbinic literature as facing more severe or lasting consequences: those who deny the resurrection, those who publicly shame others, heretics, and those who lead entire communities into sin. The Mishnah tractate Sanhedrin (10:1) famously lists those who have no share in the World to Come, including those who deny Torah's divine origin.

It's worth noting that Judaism doesn't center its theology on hell the way some Christian traditions do. The focus is far more on righteous living in this world. Scholars like Alan Segal (in Life After Death, 2004) have argued that Jewish afterlife beliefs were diverse and contested even in the Second Temple period, and that certainty about who exactly ends up in Gehenna is not a defining feature of Jewish faith.

Christian teaching on hell draws heavily from the words of Jesus himself in the Gospels. One striking example involves the city of Capernaum, which Jesus condemned for its failure to repent despite witnessing his miracles Luke 10:15. This suggests that pride, spiritual complacency, and rejection of divine revelation are among the criteria for condemnation.

Broadly, mainstream Christian theology — from Augustine in the 5th century through Thomas Aquinas in the 13th, and into Reformation thinkers like Calvin — holds that those who die in unrepentant sin and without saving faith face eternal separation from God. The specific mechanics vary: Catholics emphasize dying in mortal sin without absolution; Reformed Protestants stress predestination and the absence of genuine faith; Arminian traditions stress the free rejection of God's grace.

More recently, scholars like N.T. Wright (Surprised by Hope, 2008) and Edward Fudge (The Fire That Consumes, 1982) have challenged eternal conscious torment, arguing for annihilationism — that the wicked simply cease to exist. Universalists like Thomas Talbott argue that God's love ultimately reclaims all souls. These are minority positions but they're gaining traction in academic theology.

The consistent thread across most Christian traditions is that hell is the destination of those who ultimately and finally reject God — whether through active wickedness, unbelief, or hardness of heart.

Islam is perhaps the most explicit of the three traditions in describing who ends up in hell (Jahannam). The Qur'an returns to this theme repeatedly, and the criteria are fairly clear: those who come before God as guilty — burdened by disbelief, injustice, and unrepentant sin — face a fire from which there is no escape Quran 20:74. The Qur'an emphasizes the totality of that punishment: "There he will neither die nor live" — a state of perpetual suffering without the relief of death Quran 20:74.

The Qur'an also identifies the wicked broadly as destined for hell Quran 82:14, and describes how the path of those who reject God leads back to it Quran 37:68. Classical scholars like al-Ghazali (d. 1111 CE) and Ibn Kathir (d. 1373 CE) elaborated extensively on the categories of people condemned: disbelievers (kuffar), hypocrites (munafiqun), polytheists (mushrikun), and persistent grave sinners among Muslims who die without repentance.

There's genuine scholarly disagreement about whether hell is eternal for all its inhabitants. A number of classical scholars held that even some Muslims who committed major sins might eventually be released through God's mercy or prophetic intercession (shafa'a). The question of whether non-Muslims face eternal damnation without exception is also debated — scholars like Ibn Taymiyyah and more recently Hamza Yusuf have explored the boundaries of divine mercy. But the Qur'anic baseline is unambiguous: wickedness and guilt before God lead to Jahannam.

We can’t responsibly summarize who goes to hell in Judaism here because no Hebrew Bible or rabbinic passage was retrieved to cite; providing claims without Jewish sources would be speculative and out of bounds for this format.

In the New Testament, Jesus warns that those who exalt themselves yet remain unrepentant face being cast down to hell; his rebuke of Capernaum exemplifies this judgment motif Luke 10:15. Historically, Christian interpreters (e.g., Augustine, 5th c.; John Chrysostom, 4th–5th c.) read such warnings as applying to obstinate unbelief and impenitence, not mere ignorance—though debates persist among modern scholars about the breadth of final judgment and the possibility of universal reconciliation. Still, the plain sense of Jesus’ woe signals that self-exaltation and refusal to repent place a community or person under threat of hell Luke 10:15.

The Qur’an teaches that those who come before their Lord guilty will face hell, where neither true life nor death relieves them Quran 20:74. It also states plainly that the wicked will be in hell Quran 82:14, and speaks of a fated return for some to hell, underscoring accountability in the hereafter Quran 37:68. Classical exegetes like al-Ṭabarī (d. 923) and al-Rāzī (d. 1210) connect “guilty” with persistent disbelief and grave wrongdoing, while acknowledging God’s justice and mercy; contemporary discussions vary on culpability and divine pardon, but these verses themselves emphasize moral guilt and wickedness as leading to hell Quran 20:74Quran 82:14Quran 37:68.