Final Destination

I was reading something the other day; a guy claims to have found evidence that the early church believed that, although devout Christians would go to Heaven when they die, everyone else would go to a kind of a waiting place, and be allowed to repent, and work their way into Heaven later. According to this guy, the Roman Catholic Church suppressed this knowledge, for the sake of keeping better control over its members (do what we say, if you want to go to Heaven).
I have to say that my skepticism kicked in right away. This "waiting place" sounds an awful lot like purgatory to me. Now you want me to believe that the early church believed in purgatory, but the Catholics killed that idea? That sounds exactly backwards to me. Granted, purgatory is a little different; most Catholics believe that you have to be Catholic just to get into purgatory. Still, if this idea really did exist in the early church, it would seem to be the basis for the idea of purgatory, at least. Why would the Catholic Church suppress this? Is it because they would have had to add some heavy nuance to the idea to make it fit what they wanted purgatory to be? Sorry, I just have a hard time believing that.
Upon further reading, this person quotes someone named Gregory (probably Gregory of Nazianzus) as preaching this doctrine in the late fourth century. Fourth century? I thought we were talking about the early church here. I'm sorry, but to me, the early church would be the first century, maybe early second century. If you read about the Council of Nicea in the early fourth century, it quickly becomes clear that a lot of confusion had crept into the beliefs of many of those who called themselves Christians.
Unfortunately, this guy wants me to buy his book to learn more of his conspiracy theory, and, of course, I will not. I suspect that he will probably sell a lot of books to people who really just want to argue with him, and he may sell a few to people who will actually believe him. I have a feeling that the more I learn of what he is selling, the less believable it will become...
It is true that there are two different Greek words translated as Hell in the New Testament: Hades and Gehenna. Hades was where the Greeks believed evil people would be sent after death for eternal punishment, and Gehenna, derived from the Hebrew term, "Ge Hinnom" which means, the valley of Hinnom. The valley of Hinnom was just outside of Jerusalem, and it is a place that was used to burn garbage. Quite frankly, it is an apt metaphor for Hell, because the fire in Ge Hinnom was never allowed to go out, and whatever went into it never came out again.
Some people believe that the term Gehenna was intended to refer to a place of purification, or refinement, as in a purifying fire, or a refiner's fire. That might make more sense if it were not for the fact that the literal Ge Hinnom had never been used for such. It was used to get rid of undesirable things, such as garbage. The Bible does say, where a tree falls, there shall it lie. On the surface, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense; dead trees get moved all the time, just never of their own accord. If you stop to think in terms of can one be reconciled to God after death (since a tree that falls is generally dead), then it would seem that, no, just as a dead tree has no control over its final resting place, so too, we cannot influence judgment after our own passing. Furthermore, even if Gehenna is purgatory, or something like it, then why is Hades mentioned at all? Doesn't that indicate that, at the very least, some people are going to Hell?
Of course, the argument would be that if Hades and Gehenna were the same place, why did Jesus use two different terms to describe it? Why not use one or the other all the time? I would have to suggest that Jesus knew His audience. Some of the people that He preached to would not have been familiar with Gehenna (for example people that didn’t live in Jerusalem might not have been familiar with it), while others might not have been familiar with the Greek idea of Hades, so Jesus would have used the terms that made the most sense to the people that He was addressing at the time.
By the way, some people also gripe that the word Hell actually comes from the Hebrew word Sheol (not true, by the way), which simply means, grave, but, the word Hell in the New Testament, as I mentioned earlier, is translated from the Greek word, Hades, meaning place of eternal torment. Just for the record, the dictionary says that the word Hell comes from the Norse (or Viking) term, Hel, which was a place of torment for evildoers and those not fortunate enough to die in battle. Unlike Hell, though, Hel was reputed to be very cold...