Firstly, I've looked this all up in Greek NTs and found that it's true. I've also asked the only Ancient Greek teacher at my school and he says it's correct as well:

Firstly, the Old Testament doesn't contain the slightest hint of eternal torment. 'Hell' is always translated from the word Sheol which is simply the abode of the dead. Just as Satan is personified, death is 'place-ified'.

In the New Testament, Jesus talks about 'the fires of Gehenna'. Gehenna means the Valley of Hinnom, which was a garbage dump outside of Jerusalem where people cast rubbish and dead bodies into. The fire was always burning and the maggots which collected never died ('the worms died not'). You would expect Jesus to introduce hell as if it was new, because it wasn't in the Jewish scriptures, but instead he treats it as if the Jews already know what he's talking about (and they do). Jesus first introduces 'hell' in the parable of the sower (I'll get to this later). Jesus was talking about trials of judgment from the Jewish council. To be 'cast into Gehenna' scared the crap out of the Jews because it was ultimate punishment... they wouldn't get a tomb, plus it was insulting.

Jesus also uses the word 'Hades'. This word is used as a substitution for Sheol (they were speaking Greek). We know this because when the Jewish scriptures are quoted in the New Testament, the word Hades is used instead of the word Sheol.

The words for 'eternal' and 'everlasting' in the New Testament are derived from the word 'aionios', which in Greek scriptures ALWAYS means 'age-ly', 'age-lasting' or 'pertaining to the ages'. It was only translated as everlasting to scare people shitless, and because English has no word for 'agely' or 'eonly'. Becuase of the context, we can go as far as to say that when 'agely punishment' is mentioned, the word aionios is used to DISTINGUISH it from everlasting punishment, simply to show that it was for a finite time. This, due to context, is the same punishment as described in the parable of the sower. If 'eternal' had meant to be conveyed, the Greek word 'aidios' would have been used. This word DOES mean 'eternal' or 'everlasting', but it is only used twice in the New Testament. In both cases, it is reffering to God, and not hell.

In summary, no word used for hell means the 'hell' we are all farmiliar with. The 'furnace of fire' or 'lake of fire' is age-lasting as Jesus said (note also that 'agely life' actually means the KNOWLEDGE of Jesus Christ, as defined explicitly by John in his letters, it does NOT mean immortality).

Paul also says in 1 Corinthians (3:11-5), "If any man's work be burned, he shall suffer loss, but HE HIMSELF shall be saved, yet as so by fire".

There's one you don't hear in hellfire sermons.

'Fire' is often used as a symbol for God and the Holy Spirit. "Our God is a consuming fire", "The fire will try every man's work", to be baptised "by fire". In fact the Greek word for fire is 'puros', where we get the word 'purification' from. In Greek language, the word for fire and purification could be used interchangebly in a similar way to how 'fire' can both mean real fire and 'enemy fire' in English. It can be proposed that the Lake of Fire is God's Holy Spirit which burns away the sins from the wicked cast into it.

The only other hurdle is that there is no third resurrection mentioned in revelation (from the lake of fire). If there were, this would pretty much be cracked in my opinion.

Interesting, no?