I guessed from your other thread that you were really scared to “undeath” in the Christian “hell” and now we’re properly on topic
If you’re happy to follow it through from the Old Testament first, I don’t think it will take years to sort out
You can check this yourself by downloading e-sword and referring to the KJV+ (with Strong’s concordance) and seeing what the old testament actually said about hell, and compare that with the Christian “hell”. Remember a lot of Christians regard the OT as completely irrelevant, ignoring the fact that the NT was written by Jews who knew their OT thoroughly. Why might that be?
So we search on “hell” in the KJV+. We find Strong’s number is H7585 and clicking on that reveals it is the Hebrew word “Sheol” – a word that Strong states as being translated in the Authorised Version as “grave, hell, or pit”.
By all means note that Dr Strong is a Christian who regards “hell” as having inmates…. but concentrate on the fact that the translators of the KJV Bible who like Dr Strong also believed in the Christian “hell” were obliged to translate the very same Hebrew word that they wanted to translate as their “hell” as grave or “pit”. You may wonder why that was….
And now we are looking up what the Bible writers said about Sheol H7585 instead of what Christian translators and commentators want to convey about “hell”, a new picture emerges of the real Bible Sheol.
According to the first reference of Sheol, that is where Jacob believes he is going when he dies. Gen 37:35.
But Christ taught that Jacob will be in the kingdom (Mat 8:11) That’s the NT kingdom, not the Christian kingdom by the way – approached from the east or the west, it seems, rather than upwards from the earth.
Mat 8:11 And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.
Mat 8:12 But the children of the kingdom (the Jews that should have inherited the kingdom Jesus was talking about)
shall (instead – instead of the kingdom that Jesus was talking about)
be cast out (where? out, not down?, into the Christian “hell” )
into outer darkness (what, not somewhere lit by the brightly burning fires of of the Christian “hell”?, no back to Sheol)
And that is exactly what what the apostles believed of Christ, exactly what the Apostles Creed says (the original creed in simple language, before the Catholic Christians “improved” on it)
(Jesus) was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended into hell. ( until/then )
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
Paul had a reason for saying that without the resurrection, his faith was vain:
1Co 15:17-18 if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.
anyway, things stay clearer if we stay in the Hebrew OT to start with (to avoid dealing with pagan Greek vocabulary) so I will leave you with three quotes. Just try substituting the Christian “hell” wherever the Christian KJV translators thought it would be better if they put “grave” and see how you get on:
The dead are unconscious:
Psa 6:5 For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave H7585 who shall give thee thanks?
with no knowledge, (either of pain or punishment):
Ecc 9:10 Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave H7585, whither thou goest.
death of a human is like the death of an animal:
Psa 49:14 Like sheep they are laid in the grave H7585; death shall feed on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling.
ask21771 said
what about lazarus and the rich man?
ironic reference to later Jewish philiosophy that you don’t have to bother about if you stay in the OT to start with.
anyway Christians don’t believe that when they go to heaven they will hear the screams of those tortured in hell. whatever this does describe, it doesn’t describe the Christian hell,
and if you accept the references I already quoted it doesn’t describe the OT sheol either
It would be worthwhile to read these two books:
Journey of Souls by Michael Newton
Destiny of Souls by Michael Newton
The worst thing that happens in the afterlife is that you’re given a spiritual lobotomy.
I think it’s possible that self-judgment results in a reincarnated life of hell.
Third, not all hedonists are hell-bound: some people incarnate just to experience a life of pleasure.
ask21771 said
for years I’ve been scared to death of going to hell just for not being christian
I’m very sorry to hear that. I understand the powerful effect religion can have on people having been raised myself in a very very fundamentalist Christian community in a small town in rural Georgia.
To believe what they (and millions more) do you have to suppose that Christians will spend eternity in bliss while at the same time the vast majority of the human race are being tortured in utter unending horror. Could you do that? Could you enjoy heaven knowing that hundreds of billions of people are being tortured at the same time? And for what? The crime of simply not believing in Jesus?
Would you want to spend eternity with a God who would do such a thing? Would you want to spend eternity with people who could enjoy themselves while such horror was going on?
I would not.
Thank god (pardon the pun) the whole story is bullshit!
ask21771 said
link doesnt work
Sorry, The link was for Elaine Pagels book The Origin of Satan.
Hopefully, this one will work. For whatever reason, links I post here don’t work so here is a brief Q and A with Pagels by the Christian Science Monitor on the subject
Q: Contrary to what people may assume, Satan is barely a presence in the Old Testament. What is he like?
A: There about five Old Testament stories in which Satan is kind of an incidental character. In the Book of Zechariah, he’s the devil’s advocate, so to speak, for the Lord. In Book of Numbers, he’s not even a person. He’s an angel.
The Jewish view is that Satan is always under the command of the Lord. Satan is one of his servants, one of his army.
Q: So the Satan of the Old Testament is basically a lackey, a kind of minion?
A: He is. In the book of Job, he can’t do anything that the Lord doesn’t authorize. He says, ‘Let me do this thing,’ and the Lord has to say, ‘I’ll give you this much permission. You can go this far.’ He can’t go any further.
Satan is not a rival to God at all. He’s a servant.
Q: Did the early Jews ever view Satan as evil?
A: The only place I could find that is when Jewish groups split. It’s only when God’s people are divided that you get an angel who turns against the Lord.
It’s a way of defining your enemy as the enemy within. Members of one sect see all the Jews who don’t join the sect as the sons of darkness: We are the sons of light and other Jews are the sons of darkness.
Q: The New Testament offers much more visceral descriptions of Satan and demons. What changes?
A: If you look at the Gospel of Mark, it’s full of demons. In the Gospel of John, Jesus is God incarnate and Satan incarnate is the son of darkness.
And Satan, of course, is in the ** you do not have permission to see this link **.
Satan in the gospels is never identified with gentiles but only with Jews. That got me interested in how Christian anti-semitism comes out of this.
Q: Throughout history, people have described their rivals as agents of the devil. Even the second President Bush referred to the “Axis of Evil.” What sort of harm does that provoke?
A: It really impressed me how you can divide people like that: We are good, and they are evil. It splits groups and is a way of turning people into something less than human beings, making them easier to harm and kill.
Q: What do you think of the way the Pope is talking about Satan?
A: Maybe the Pope doesn’t want to say “Be nice to everyone.” That the liberal Protestant view that I grew up with. It’s pretty boring and doesn’t have much spiritual depth.
Instead, he’s using very traditional language that sounds archaic to a lot of people. But he’s shifting it: He’s trying to say it’s the behaviors that harm people that are evil. And not just the dramatic ones like murder.
Q: So he’s suggesting we all have potential for evil even if we aren’t tempted to commit major crimes?
A: He’s saying people have to be careful not to damage and harm others: You have these impulses to harm people within you. When you’re not cognizant of them and not aware of them, you end up doing harm.
Judith said
ask21771 said
did jesus speak of hellDid He ever! But then He also prayed that God would forgive those headed there and said if He rose, He would take all men with him.
I have heard it said by orthodox Christian that Jesus spoke more about hell than he did about heaven.
I can’t see where he spoke very clearly about either one and you have to ask yourself why not? If you were God coming down from heaven to bring light into the world and show us the way of salvation wouldn’t this be a very important subject to speak clearly about and leave no misunderstanding? Most of the time when Jesus speaks about hell he seems to be speaking metaphorically or as part of a parable and I don’t see anywhere that he clearly lays out the doctrine of eternal damnation as taught by the Christian church. It’s almost like it’s just supposed to be assumed that everybody already knows this to be true but why is this? There is nothing in the Old Testament about it.
As an apostate, I know that Christians believe I am destined for hell if I don’t repent but the thought never enters my mind to cause me the slightest anxiety. First of all, you can’t even make that good of a case from the Bible, and secondly if you think the entire doctrine through it is completely illogical. I would be writing many more paragraphs if I got into all the reasons why.
Nobody knows what is going to happen after you die (except true believing Christians, of course), but the law of probabilities places the existence of the Christian hell so far down on the list of things to worry about that I don’t consider it worth the time and energy.
Grab a Bible concordance and check it out. The vast majority of mentions of Hell in the New Testament come out of the mouth of Jesus. Of course it’s likely that at least some of them were put into the mouth of Jesus. But the apocalyptic world view is a duality. There is the Kingdom of God for the righteous and damnation and destruction for the wicked. See Matthew 25.
As I wrote earlier in this thread the eternal bliss of Heaven for the few presupposes the eternal torture of Hell for the many.
Stephen said
“…[T]he apocalyptic world view is a duality. There is the Kingdom of God for the righteous and damnation and destruction for the wicked
Excellent point. SO where is the shift from the dead all go to sheol to some suffer apocalyptic damnation. This is to ask where is , or is there, a bridge? Reportedly, Daniel represents a matured apocalypticism.
screwtape said
“Most of the time when Jesus speaks about hell he seems to be speaking metaphorically or as part of a parable and I don’t see anywhere that he clearly lays out the doctrine of eternal damnation as taught by the Christian church…”
Yea, you’re probably seeing modern thinking being read back into first century apocalypticism. The question is what can we say about
teachings like the Sheep V Goats( that which you’ve done to the least of my brothers) in terms of historical method? Multiple independent sources? etc
Quartus said Remember a lot of Christians regard the OT as completely irrelevant, ignoring the fact that the NT was written by Jews who knew their OT thoroughly.
I’m a bit skeptical about how thoroughly they knew the OT.
Q
do you think Matthew, Mark, Luke or John was Jewish?
It’s certainly reasonable to assume Matt (every jot, every tittle) was.
Also The NT, given their ignorance of it, is probably just as irrelevant to them, except to the extent they can point to it and say the bible (to them the NT)is inerrant, etc
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
1 Guest(s)