At least since the publication of Jeremias’s discussion of ἅδης and γέεννα (Jeremias, TDNT, Vol. 1), the discussion of these two words has tended to revolve around distinguishing between them at a semantic level. Do they refer to different conceptions of eschatological punishment (Chaim Milikowshi, “Which Gehenna,” NTS 34 [1988]: 238-249)? Do they refer to different locations within the afterlife (Jeremias; Erickson, Christian Theology, 3d ed, 2013: 1085)? Or, is there another answer that better accounts for the usage of ἅδης and γέεννα within the NT? Following a brief review of this discussion, I argue that within the New Testament the primary differentiation between ἅδης and γέεννα is the audience receiving the written document. In other words, the authors have chosen the word that best communicates the idea of punishment and separation based upon the audience receiving the original work. The argument develops in the following movements. First, I review the possibility that the choice between ἅδης and γέεννα was determined by the audience within the narrative (for those passages that are set within a narrative). Second, after dismissing this possibility, I survey the patterns of usage of ἅδης and γέεννα with emphasis upon how different authors use the words based upon the supposed readers of the work. Third, I consider the possibility that similar patterns hold for the use of ἅδης and γέεννα within other extant Koine Greek. Although this paper will not solve the issues of personal eschatology, the author and audience centered solution provides a more solid lexical foundation for utilizing the NT in describing personal eschatology and its variations than that provided by geographical characterizations of the language or those driven by attempts to circumscribe the language within eschatological systems.