it's not a Jewish concept, so came from somewhere else. A couple of hints in an epistle here and there? Quakers and others have no particular teaching, but tend to discount the idea since there's no evidence of any kind of an afterlife. I guess we can blame Dante for most of this hellish mess. That, and the annoying feeling that Stalin never really paid for his crimes, so the universe has to have something out there to even the score.
Even the Roman Catholics, who are responsible for a lot of our thinking, don't lightly condemn people to hell, with Purgatory there to even things out for light sinners. The Lutheran teachings of my early life said the only sure way to go to hell was to deny God, therefore cutting off any chance of forgiveness. Everyone else went to heaven as long as they had at least a deathbed conversion. Faith, not works, was the trick.
Personally, I tend to ignore those who make a big deal of hell as a real place since most end up being nutcases. And, yeah, if you're going to talk about an afterlife, Heaven is a much more pleasant place. The residents might not be as interesting, but you can read in peace.
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