That's up for debate because sometimes the Bible describes death as spiritual death instead of physical. Like, when God gave instructions to Adam and Eve, He said of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, "on the day you eat of it you will surely die". But did they die PHYSICALLY on that day? NO!! So there are instances in the Bible where something seems like it states something, but may not be meant in that exact way. Now how can the wicked be punished for a lifetime of sin if they're not conscious of anything? A few churches teach "annihilationism", but most believe the unsaved dead are conscious enough to feel the torment, as their punishment. Like, look at the statement "You were dead in your trespasses and sins" (before being saved). Now if the word dead meant only physical, does that mean that an unsaved person is laying in a coffin and "were" dead means when someone preaches the gospel to the corpse, the corpse jumps up and lives again? No!! The Bible can still say it and be true, because it meant spiritually dead, not physically. Whether the unsaved in hell could be defined as "alive" in the strictest sense, that's another issue. But I and I'd say the vast majority of Christians believe they're at least conscious enough to feel the torment, as their punishment. "Eternally dead" could mean eternally separated from God, with no means of redemption.
Another example of a seeming "contradiction" that can be explained is, when describing the Rapture, we read, "The dead in Christ will rise first". But we're told in another Bible verse, "Through Adam all died, but in Jesus Christ all were made alive." How could the dead in Christ rise first, if in Christ all are made alive? Not a contradiction, or that I'm preaching heresy. "Made alive" means not dead in sins. The "dead" in Christ rising first means Christians from years past who in the body, have passed away, but they "go up" and get a glorified body. One is physical, the other is spiritual.
