Hello,
I’m new to the blog, so let me know if I’m doing something wrong.
I’ll get to how it relates to the historical Jesus, just bare with me, but it’s somewhat tangencial on it, so I’m not sure if here’s is the right place, I just couldn’t find a better one.
Recently I’ve been talking to my grandma about religion. She’s a seventh day adventist and has explained to me their view of the afterlife.
According to her, according to them, after we die, we are all put in a state of dormancy. After a certain time, Jesus will resurrect and bring back the dead ones (in body, soul and spirit, wich are one and the same), to earth. Some to be punished, some to a glorious rein, presided by Jesus.
In the meantime, Jesus is judging all those who have lived.
I recall Bart saying that no modern religion understands the afterlife the same way the historical Jesus did, however, the version my grandma told me seemed quite similar to what I’ve learned about his beliefs from the Misquoting Jesus podcast.
Is anyone familiar with their doctrine and can tell me how it approach and differs from the one of the historical Jesus? Specifically on the after life, I mean. Am I correct in assuming that those are quite similar views of the afterlife?
I’ve not been able to find proper analysis of this topic from sources that seemed enough trustworthy. It’s not a big religion, so most content about it is produced by them.
As we are on it, is this view of the Seventh day adventists part of any tradicion of biblical interpretation or just the personal interpretation of it’s founder directly from the bible? Because it would be interesting to see if elements of Jesus thoughts were reconstructed in the modern era, or never lost outside of the orthodoxy. Or somewhere in between, of course.
LenaFerrari said
According to her, according to them, after we die, we are all put in a state of dormancy. After a certain time, Jesus will resurrect and bring back the dead ones (in body, soul and spirit, wich are one and the same), to earth. Some to be punished, some to a glorious rein, presided by Jesus.
That is actually correct. With an ad-up that the Kingdom of God is based on a restored Creation and it is eternal, how God intended it to be. Bodies will be restored, they will receive a soul, people will be immortal, and they will live on a new restored or renewed earth, with Jesus as their King, for ever and ever. It’s not actually a Heaven of souls.
I recall Bart saying that no modern religion understands the afterlife the same way the historical Jesus did, however, the version my grandma told me seemed quite similar to what I’ve learned about his beliefs from the Misquoting Jesus podcast.
Well, first of all, Bart lies and he peddles a propaganda that I will not elaborate here.
Second, Bart agrees about the earthly Kingdom of God, except that he lies saying it is not eternal; that Jesus believed he was to be resurrected in his lifetime and set as a King over the Jews (and then die of a natural death like any other because that makes sense lol). Bart’s Kingdom of God is just a political organization on earth, and not the after-life.
Am I correct in assuming that those are quite similar views of the afterlife?
I’ve not been able to find proper analysis of this topic from sources that seemed enough trustworthy.
No, never assume something to be true coming from Bart. You need to be able to separate truthful statements of his propaganda and I don’t think you are ready. But you instinctively detect that some sources are not enough trustworthy, which is good.
By the way, the “historical Jesus” is not a scientific creation. It’s just naive speculation. There are no physical evidence of a) Jesus’ existence and b) even more, how he looked like and actually said. Bart uses “historical Jesus” as a prop to separate Jesus from his divinity, making him to look like a clumsy rabbi, a failed prophet, that, in his wake, other people come up with a religion. Read Richard Carrier – he actually debunks the historical Jesus and completely destroys Bart Ehrman very well and he is honest; he is still an Atheist that believe Jesus never existed, so don’t be too keen on him either.
As we are on it, is this view of the Seventh day adventists part of any tradicion of biblical interpretation or just the personal interpretation of it’s founder directly from the bible?
Not sure, and I never studied the Adventists, but care must be employed, simply because they were (or are) a cultish sect of Americans. They have no tradition, the founders were not educated, they haven’t read the Founding Fathers (the Christian Founding Fathers) books, and thus they are subjected to many errors. I would assume they are like Mormons, a tribal shamanistic half pagan cult that relies on personal and primitive interpretations of the Bible. I wouldn’t consider them Christians. But that is very harsh out of me.
Weird things are coming from the WASP Americans. For example, Thomas Jefferson created what he called “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth” — commonly called the Jefferson Bible — where he removed all miracles, the resurrection, and anything supernatural, keeping only Jesus’ ethical teachings. Well, that’s not Christianity… Evangelists and Fundamentalists came up with flat Earth theory, young Earth theory, creationism and others. Christianity, real Christianity of the Greeks and Romans, historically never came up with this non-sense literal interpretations, they knew they were allegories.
Welcome Lena!
It’s always enjoyable to greet new folks. There’s little you can do wrong. Just chime in!
Recently I’ve been talking to my grandma about religion. She’s a seventh day adventist and has explained to me their view of the afterlife.
According to her, according to them, after we die, we are all put in a state of dormancy. After a certain time, Jesus will resurrect and bring back the dead ones (in body, soul and spirit, wich are one and the same), to earth. Some to be punished, some to a glorious rein, presided by Jesus.
In the meantime, Jesus is judging all those who have lived.
I’m not familiar with the details of Seventh Day Adventist belief but from what you described this sounds a lot like the doctrine of “Soul Sleep”. When the believer dies they are unconscious until the last judgement when all are raised and either blessed or condemned. My people were baptists and we were taught this was a wrong idea. We went straight to Jesus when we died! I have to say though that the SDA view is probably a lot closer to the views of the early Christians.
The idea of a human as a fleshly shell with an immaterial spirit that survives death post-dates the New Testament. To the ancients there was no life without the body. That’s why they believed in a bodily resurrection. Their speculation was about the actual nature of this resurrection body.
Robert said
dansanta2003 said
Second, Bart agrees about the earthly Kingdom of God, except that he lies saying it is not eternal; that Jesus believed he was to be resurrected in his lifetime and set as a King over the Jews (and then die of a natural death like any other because that makes sense lol). Bart’s Kingdom of God is just a political organization on earth, and not the after-life.Where does Bart say the historical Jesus taught that the Kingdom of God was not eternal, that Jesus believed he was to be resurrected in his lifetime, and then die of a natural death like any other?
Why some of it is from Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife. Not sure why are you asking this, since you yourself are mentioning this book above; are you trying to use this opportunity to gaslight and advertise Bart’s book without even reading it? Why people do not need to buy such a miserable subproduct of propaganda with no scientific value, they can just simply snatch their ** you do not have permission to see this link ** and consult it to see how crooked it is themselves.
lol.
This is literally the jewish conception of the Messiah: an earthly king that will come to destroy the enemies of Israel and make Israel great again, and they, the Jews, will rule the entire planet. It does not involve after-life as we know it, this “Kingdom of God” is purely an earthly political organization and the King is just a man, that dies eventually. The “immortality” or “eternity” of this Kingdom is not that members are immortal and are living for ever, individually, it’s that they, as a tribe, will continue to live earthly, by living, marrying, making babies, and dying. The Kingdom lives on, over generations, not by its individuals. This idea is the same today in the Jewish circles. Surprisingly some rabbis copied the afterlife from Christians, see here ** you do not have permission to see this link **.
It seems that in some places Bart formulates some sentences that transpire an “individual eternal living” in the Kingdom of God, but he carefully avoids to focus too much on the subject; then carefully and cunningly shifts the message on the after-life of the wicked, that will be destroyed (and not living for ever) in the fire. However, one cannot successfully employ too very contradicting views without some clumsiness.
This is chapter 8, Jesus and the Afterlife
Jesus believed this would happen very soon. As he told his disciples directly, “Some of those standing here will not taste death before they see that the Kingdom of God has come in power” (Mark 9:1). Jesus is not saying that people will go to heaven. He is saying that some of his disciples will still be alive when the end comes and God’s utopian kingdom arrives on earth.
[…]
Jesus did not teach that when a person died they would go to heaven or hell. He taught that the Day of Judgment was soon to come, when God would destroy all that is evil and raise the dead, to punish the wicked and reward the faithful by bringing them into his eternal, utopian kingdom.
In this case, Jesus seems to present the same ancient idea. The Kingdom is raised on earth with the resurrection of the dead, and while the “eternal” word is mentioned, Bart doesn’t really say that these people will live forever. It’s a carefully constructed ambiguous statement.
Look at this one:
One of my theses is that a close reading of Jesus’s words shows that in fact he had no idea of torment for sinners after death. Death, for them, is irreversible, the end of the story.
This is despite Jesus speaking of eternal fire and gnashing of the teeth and Bart acknowledging in the prior chapter that ancient Jews did believe in eternal torture.
Lies:
Ancient Israelites did not subscribe to the view of the immortality of the soul. Souls are not inherently deathless, destined for an eternal existence. In ancient Hebrew thought, there was no “soul” in the Greek sense. This can be seen by the different terms used. The closest equivalent to the Greek psychē is the Hebrew nephesh . The nephesh , though, is not a soul, set in contrast to the body. Hebrew anthropology was not dualistic (body and soul) but unitary. Nephesh means something like “life force” or “life” or even “breath.” It is not a substance that can leave a person and exist independently of the body. It is the thing that makes bodies live. When the body stops breathing, it becomes dead matter. In modern terms, when you stop breathing, your breath doesn’t go somewhere. It just stops. So too with the Hebrew nephesh . The person is then dead.
Here Bart abuses a term definition. A living being = body + God’s breath. Hence, this is the verse that lead to the belief that resurrection must be in body: a living being must have both of these in order to be a living being. It’s very dual. The substance that leaves the body is God’s breath, that simply returns to God; oppose to what Greeks believed, this spirit is not carrying the memories of the deceased; the body is. That’s why the burial and the preservation of the body is necessary. Bart here says that God’s breath is just a human breath that “doesn’t go somewhere”.
And I can go on for ever and ever… but that’s not the topic of the discussion.
I put some store in people’s individual spiritual experiences. For some reason, over the past few years, I’ve been encountering a lot of stories about people’s near-death experiences (NDEs). There’s even an MD who has written a book on this, though I can’t remember his name.
The vast majority of these people state that they went to someplace wonderful, full of light, and full of peace and bliss. They still had their bodies, though their physical bodies were still lying in the ER or somewhere else.
These were regular people. A good half of them didn’t seem to be religious believers. Many were people who wouldn’t have believed something like this if they hadn’t experienced it themselves.
I’m just recounting what I’ve encountered over the past few years. I’m not telling anyone what they have to believe or how they have to think about these things.
Dandantas2003 said:
Not sure, and I never studied the Adventists, but care must be employed, simply because they were (or are) a cultish sect of Americans. They have no tradition, the founders were not educated, they haven’t read the Founding Fathers (the Christian Founding Fathers) books, and thus they are subjected to many errors. I would assume they are like Mormons, a tribal shamanistic half pagan cult that relies on personal and primitive interpretations of the Bible. I wouldn’t consider them Christians. But that is very harsh out of me.
Weird things are coming from the WASP Americans. For example, Thomas Jefferson created what he called “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth” — commonly called the Jefferson Bible — where he removed all miracles, the resurrection, and anything supernatural, keeping only Jesus’ ethical teachings. Well, that’s not Christianity… Evangelists and Fundamentalists came up with flat Earth theory, young Earth theory, creationism and others. Christianity, real Christianity of the Greeks and Romans, historically never came up with this non-sense literal interpretations, they knew they were allegories.
I know not much about the history of the SDA church, but from what I know you are not far off when it comes to it’s creation.
But when it comes to it’s beliefs, I’d say, from what I’ve learned from my grandma, they are mostly quite orthodox, the one “weird” thing is that they don’t eat everything (they don’t have to eat kosher, but they follow several old testament restrictions) and their view of the afterlife.
I’ve heard of the SDA church being referred to as a cult before, and for what I know of it’s origins it tracks, and maybe because she’s a highly educated non-american, who doesn’t live in the US, things are different on her case, but her religion doesn’t come off as a cult at all to me, and I’m one of the firsts to call something a cult lol
Biblical literalism is definitely not something she believes, not any other of the things you mentioned.
She’s more liberal than her religion, but as you mentioned something about ‘woke’ in another comment, her religion is not like that at all.
LenaFerrari said
Hello,
I’m new to the blog, so let me know if I’m doing something wrong.
I’ll get to how it relates to the historical Jesus, just bare with me, but it’s somewhat tangencial on it, so I’m not sure if here’s is the right place, I just couldn’t find a better one.
Recently I’ve been talking to my grandma about religion. She’s a seventh day adventist and has explained to me their view of the afterlife.
According to her, according to them, after we die, we are all put in a state of dormancy. After a certain time, Jesus will resurrect and bring back the dead ones (in body, soul and spirit, wich are one and the same), to earth. Some to be punished, some to a glorious rein, presided by Jesus.
In the meantime, Jesus is judging all those who have lived.
I recall Bart saying that no modern religion understands the afterlife the same way the historical Jesus did, however, the version my grandma told me seemed quite similar to what I’ve learned about his beliefs from the Misquoting Jesus podcast.
Is anyone familiar with their doctrine and can tell me how it approach and differs from the one of the historical Jesus? Specifically on the after life, I mean. Am I correct in assuming that those are quite similar views of the afterlife?
I’ve not been able to find proper analysis of this topic from sources that seemed enough trustworthy. It’s not a big religion, so most content about it is produced by them.
As we are on it, is this view of the Seventh day adventists part of any tradicion of biblical interpretation or just the personal interpretation of it’s founder directly from the bible? Because it would be interesting to see if elements of Jesus thoughts were reconstructed in the modern era, or never lost outside of the orthodoxy. Or somewhere in between, of course.
I’m afraid I don’t know much about Seventh Day Adventists.
There are about 45,000 different Christian denominations on Earth right now. This doesn’t include the Independents and the Non-Denominationals.
Fortunately, most of them are getting along at least fairly well.
I myself think that all of the denominations have something to offer, and something to put aside or discard as well. I’m sorry I don’t know more about SDA. I’m sure they have some ideas that are very interesting to offer.
I don’t think one will find one interpretation of what Jesus thought and taught concerning the afterlife, or one interpretation of what is said in the Bible. Myself, I think I am leaning towards the perspective that I posted earlier.
Jesus is recorded as having said to the thief being executed next to him, “Tomorrow you will be with me in Paradise”. This is in one of the gospels; I believe it’s the gospel of Luke. This statement seems to indicate that ‘tomorrow’, both of them will be in paradise.
Anyways, I don’t know if any of this is really helpful or if it answers any of the questions you have asked, but I’m hoping so, even if just in a small way.
Welcome again to the forum. ~ Hope You Have A Very Good Day! ~
Helen Young said
LenaFerrari said
Hello,
I’m new to the blog, so let me know if I’m doing something wrong.
I’ll get to how it relates to the historical Jesus, just bare with me, but it’s somewhat tangencial on it, so I’m not sure if here’s is the right place, I just couldn’t find a better one.
Recently I’ve been talking to my grandma about religion. She’s a seventh day adventist and has explained to me their view of the afterlife.
According to her, according to them, after we die, we are all put in a state of dormancy. After a certain time, Jesus will resurrect and bring back the dead ones (in body, soul and spirit, wich are one and the same), to earth. Some to be punished, some to a glorious rein, presided by Jesus.
In the meantime, Jesus is judging all those who have lived.
I recall Bart saying that no modern religion understands the afterlife the same way the historical Jesus did, however, the version my grandma told me seemed quite similar to what I’ve learned about his beliefs from the Misquoting Jesus podcast.
Is anyone familiar with their doctrine and can tell me how it approach and differs from the one of the historical Jesus? Specifically on the after life, I mean. Am I correct in assuming that those are quite similar views of the afterlife?
I’ve not been able to find proper analysis of this topic from sources that seemed enough trustworthy. It’s not a big religion, so most content about it is produced by them.
As we are on it, is this view of the Seventh day adventists part of any tradicion of biblical interpretation or just the personal interpretation of it’s founder directly from the bible? Because it would be interesting to see if elements of Jesus thoughts were reconstructed in the modern era, or never lost outside of the orthodoxy. Or somewhere in between, of course.
I’m afraid I don’t know much about Seventh Day Adventists.
There are about 45,000 different Christian denominations on Earth right now. This doesn’t include the Independents and the Non-Denominationals.
Fortunately, most of them are getting along at least fairly well.
I myself think that all of the denominations have something to offer, and something to put aside or discard as well. I’m sorry I don’t know more about SDA. I’m sure they have some ideas that are very interesting to offer.
I don’t think one will find one interpretation of what Jesus thought and taught concerning the afterlife, or one interpretation of what is said in the Bible. Myself, I think I am leaning towards the perspective that I posted earlier.
Jesus is recorded as having said to the thief being executed next to him, “Tomorrow you will be with me in Paradise”. This is in one of the gospels; I believe it’s the gospel of Luke. This statement seems to indicate that ‘tomorrow’, both of them will be in paradise.
Anyways, I don’t know if any of this is really helpful or if it answers any of the questions you have asked, but I’m hoping so, even if just in a small way.
Welcome again to the forum. ~ Hope You Have A Very Good Day! ~
Thank you for your kindness and for welcoming me.
Personally, I believe the afterlife will be good for those who tried to do good and bad for those who tried to do evil, perhaps neutral for those who didn’t do much? I don’t really know, but I believe it will be fair. I think life doesn’t make much sense if it doesn’t help determine what happens to us for the rest of eternity, since it’s such a short part of our existence (if somehow part of us lives eternally, wich I believe, but I don’t have proof). But I’m open to the fact I don’t know and can’t know for sure.
I agree all denominations and forms of faith have something to learn from, both good things you should take from them and bad things to avoid.
You seem like a very nice person. Thank you again
I think life doesn’t make much sense if it doesn’t help determine what happens to us for the rest of eternity, since it’s such a short part of our existence…
Well life is fleeting but priceless precisely because of that. We unbelievers are often accused of nihilism because we say that this life is all there is (I’m not saying you are doing this, Lena) but I can’t imagine a point of view more nihilistic than one which says that this life has no point other than to determine our eternal destiny. (Once again Lena I’m not putting words into your mouth.)
And the fleeting view of life serves as a firm foundation for ethics. Since our time is so short and we’re all in the same boat, we should do our best to ensure that everyone has a healthy and happy tenure on this planet. Much too frequently God is used as an excuse not to identify with others.
LenaFerrari said
There are about 45,000 different Christian denominations on Earth right now. This doesn’t include the Independents and the Non-Denominationals.
Fortunately, most of them are getting along at least fairly well.
I myself think that all of the denominations have something to offer, and something to put aside or discard as well. I’m sorry I don’t know more about SDA. I’m sure they have some ideas that are very interesting to offer.
I don’t think one will find one interpretation of what Jesus thought and taught concerning the afterlife, or one interpretation of what is said in the Bible. Myself, I think I am leaning towards the perspective that I posted earlier.
Jesus is recorded as having said to the thief being executed next to him, “Tomorrow you will be with me in Paradise”. This is in one of the gospels; I believe it’s the gospel of Luke. This statement seems to indicate that ‘tomorrow’, both of them will be in paradise.
Anyways, I don’t know if any of this is really helpful or if it answers any of the questions you have asked, but I’m hoping so, even if just in a small way.
Welcome again to the forum. ~ Hope You Have A Very Good Day! ~
Thank you for your kindness and for welcoming me.
Personally, I believe the afterlife will be good for those who tried to do good and bad for those who tried to do evil, perhaps neutral for those who didn’t do much? I don’t really know, but I believe it will be fair. I think life doesn’t make much sense if it doesn’t help determine what happens to us for the rest of eternity, since it’s such a short part of our existence (if somehow part of us lives eternally, wich I believe, but I don’t have proof). But I’m open to the fact I don’t know and can’t know for sure.
I agree all denominations and forms of faith have something to learn from, both good things you should take from them and bad things to avoid.
You seem like a very nice person. Thank you again
You seem very nice yourself.
We can’t know everything; I just try to know enough for where I’m at and perhaps for my age group.
Welcome again!
Stephen said
I think life doesn’t make much sense if it doesn’t help determine what happens to us for the rest of eternity, since it’s such a short part of our existence…
Well life is fleeting but priceless precisely because of that. We unbelievers are often accused of nihilism because we say that this life is all there is (I’m not saying you are doing this, Lena) but I can’t imagine a point of view more nihilistic than one which says that this life has no point other than to determine our eternal destiny. (Once again Lena I’m not putting words into your mouth.)
And the fleeting view of life serves as a firm foundation for ethics. Since our time is so short and we’re all in the same boat, we should do our best to ensure that everyone has a healthy and happy tenure on this planet. Much too frequently God is used as an excuse not to identify with others.
I’m not saying you’re saying or not saying this, Stephen,
Can’t we do both? Both care about all time & eternity and care about this earth & eachother?
White americans, regardless of religion, they will be always woke. They will worship blacks, immigrants, jews, Israel, cats and dogs, homosexuals and many others; such are their gods. I had a Jehovah’s Witness friend in US and I was quite surprised when he told me they don’t like gays. Wow, that’s a breath of fresh air, I said. My opinion is that woke ideology is just a branch of degenerate Protestantism; it spread on the historical regions of Protestantism, filling the minds and souls left empty of liberalism and secularism of the masses. The masses were never educated.
Robert, how long do we have to endure this open undisguised bigotry? If I was a newbie and I saw this kind of thing left unchallenged I would think, boy howdy am I in the wrong place. It speaks poorly of the rest of us who participate.
dansanta is a bigoted, racist, ignorant fool and I for one do not wish to share this forum with him.
Stephen said
White americans, regardless of religion, they will be always woke. They will worship blacks, immigrants, jews, Israel, cats and dogs, homosexuals and many others; such are their gods. I had a Jehovah’s Witness friend in US and I was quite surprised when he told me they don’t like gays. Wow, that’s a breath of fresh air, I said. My opinion is that woke ideology is just a branch of degenerate Protestantism; it spread on the historical regions of Protestantism, filling the minds and souls left empty of liberalism and secularism of the masses. The masses were never educated.
Robert, how long do we have to endure this open undisguised bigotry? If I was a newbie and I saw this kind of thing left unchallenged I would think, boy howdy am I in the wrong place. It speaks poorly of the rest of us who participate.
dansanta is a bigoted, racist, ignorant fool and I for one do not wish to share this forum with him.
I’ve been feeling much the same way.
Idk how to deal with it.
He did the same thing to me as a newbie.
I might not use as strong words, but I might be thinking of them or something like them all the same.
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