I guess the hard part to understand would be this:
If Hell means just being dead, and if you're already dead, then why resurrect someone only to let them die after judgment.
If Hell means a fiery death, then you have already done that if you're cremated, so why repeat it.
If Hell means an eternal torment, what would be the point. There is nothing to be gained from tormenting people forever.
If Hell means an eternal separation from God, then dead sinners already have that.
So, as you can see, it gets a bit confusing.
My suggestion would be to dig a bit deeper and try to understand the medieval mind, or if you can, the pre-Roman mind.
I found Genesis 1 made more sense to me when I was asked to read it and then think why the writer described a three tiered universe and the relationship humanity has with the natural world. The question was actually, "What is the viewpoint of the storyteller in Ch 1?" Obviously, thought I, he is standing on a mountaintop, looking at the sky above, the landscape before him, and thinking about the living creatures that inhabit the land, the sea and the sky.
He thought about it and realised that it was all good, and that mankind is a part all of it. Genesis 1 probably wasn't written down until the exile in Babylon. Before that it was passed from generation to generation orally and the structure of the text strongly suggests that to be true.
Our Australian indigenous culture passed on secret and sacred knowledge just this way. They did this by the campfire at night, through cave art and rock carvings and songs. They performed ceremonies of celebration for the gifts of creation and some stories were secret from certain members of the tribe. There was women's business and separately, men's business, that no boy could learn until after his initiation into manhood. Women who spied on men's business ceremonies could be killed.
As a young teen, I was horrified by the brutality of the account of the Hebrew attack on Jerricho. My 20th century sense of justice could not cope with the killing of one of the Hebrew soldiers for keeping for himself some of the spoils of the battle. It wasn't his killing that stirred me up - it was that they killed his wife and children as well! I could not believe that God would ask for that, and if God did, I most certainly did not like God.
I was really much too young to understand how such stories were fashioned in ancient civilisations, and for what purpose. Wisdom only comes much later in life when we have acquired broader knowledge of history and humanity and take the time to think about the more esoterical matters. That process is never over until we draw our last breath.
