The Bible and Hell

[Nationalist State of Knox]

We've already concluded that Jesus never legitimised the Church to teach the Word of God, merely Peter.

Incorrect. You've concluded that and, in doing so, dismissed our entire conversation because the conversation challenged your predetermined position stated in the OP.

Show me where Jesus directly legitimised Peter's successors. If you can't, then you and your entire argument is incorrect.

[The Merchant Republics]

How do you mean memory?

The Holy Spirit is with us, this is the spirit of God. It is with us, it is real, it is alive, and so then, is Christ.

Dogma is not fact.

However the presence of the Holy Spirit is not a dogma to the church. It is a fact, upon which all other aspects of Christianity hinge. If the Spirit of God is not with man, there is no Christian church. There is nothing.

Of course, I realize that proves nothing to you.

[Death Metal]

And now the pitch is on Mars, just like I predicted.

We do not share similar faiths, DM. Of course my reasoning would seem foreign to you.

Even though I knew you would say that and posted such on this very topic.

[Distruzio]

Incorrect. You've concluded that and, in doing so, dismissed our entire conversation because the conversation challenged your predetermined position stated in the OP.

Show me where Jesus directly legitimised Peter's successors. If you can't, then you and your entire argument is incorrect.

Show me where Jesus requires direct legitimization for Peter's successors. Since you cannot, then you and your entire argument is incorrect.

[Distruzio]

We do not share similar faiths, DM. Of course my reasoning would seem foreign to you.

Even though I knew you would say that and posted such on this very topic.

Yes, I read it before I posted.

[Nationalist State of Knox]

Show me where Jesus directly legitimised Peter's successors. If you can't, then you and your entire argument is incorrect.

Show me where Jesus requires direct legitimization for Peter's successors. Since you cannot, then you and your entire argument is incorrect.

You're the one claiming that the Church is infallible and legitimate. This isn't my burden.

[Death Metal]

Show me where Jesus directly legitimised Peter's successors. If you can't, then you and your entire argument is incorrect.

Show me where Jesus requires direct legitimization for Peter's successors. Since you cannot, then you and your entire argument is incorrect.

Well by that logic you can't prove that Jesus didn't name me his successor. Thus, you are obliged to worship me.

[Truziodis]

Show me where Jesus requires direct legitimization for Peter's successors. Since you cannot, then you and your entire argument is incorrect.

You're the one claiming that the Church is infallible and legitimate. This isn't my burden.

Incorrect. I've established, in the links I offered you, how the Church justifies it's legitimacy. You have challenged this assertion by the Church without any credible reason to do so, and maintain this position, despite my counters, despite being routed time and again.

[Truziodis]

Show me where Jesus requires direct legitimization for Peter's successors. Since you cannot, then you and your entire argument is incorrect.

Well by that logic you can't prove that Jesus didn't name me his successor. Thus, you are obliged to worship me.

I cannot prove that, no. But you would have to prove that He did. Where is your apostolic succession?

[Nationalist State of Knox]

You're the one claiming that the Church is infallible and legitimate. This isn't my burden.

Incorrect. I've established, in the links I offered you, how the Church justifies it's legitimacy. You have challenged this assertion by the Church without any credible reason to do so, and maintain this position, despite my counters, despite being routed time and again.

Incorrect. My credible reason is that for the Church to have the authority of Jesus, he has to have given it to them in the first place. Since he has not, the Church cannot be considered as being the legitimate teachers of the Word of God, and rather the Bible should remain the primary authority.

[Death Metal]

Well by that logic you can't prove that Jesus didn't name me his successor. Thus, you are obliged to worship me.

I cannot prove that, no. But you would have to prove that He did. Where is your apostolic succession?

Peter
Lolth the Spider Queen
(Records lost due to a fire)
Atilla the Hun
(More records lost due to another fire)
Oscar Wilde
HP Lovecraft
Anton LaVey
Me

And so because I am his successor and thus infallible, the above list is correct and unquestionable, on penalty of eternal damnation in the unholy pits of Tampa, Florida.

[Temacht]

Hell, in the Christian faith, is a place of eternal damnation. In Christianity, this ‘damnation’ is supposed to be the punishment for refusing Christ and failing to repent one’s wrongdoing (or sin) against God. There are, of course, varying interpretations of ‘hell’; some argue that it is a place of spiritual suffering, whereas others describe intense physical torment for eternity. Sin itself is worthy of death in God’s eyes, from simple (but inexcusable) sins as wearing two types of cloth, to the most heinous sin of coveting an ox.

However, the actual Bible definition of ‘Hell’ is vague, so vague in fact that it doesn't actually exist. Yeah, that is pretty vague if you ask me. “Huh? What is he rambling on about now?” I hear you ask. I urge you to hear me out. The Bible doesn't actually mention “Hell” as the Church teaches it, and it can be argued that it isn't even mentioned at all. How? Well, I shall be spending the remainder of the argument explaining how.

Mistranslation

The Bible uses four words to mean “hell”. Well, it doesn’t really, it would be correct to say that these four words have been commonly mistranslated from their original language to mean hell (I’m looking at you, KJV). Now, before I explain this, I’m going to discuss the number of occurrences of the word ‘hell’ in each of the editions of the Bible.

‘The Latin Vulgate’, which was the edition used by the Catholic Church for a millennium, contains 111 occurrences, with 87 and 24 in the Old and New Testaments, respectively. It is interesting to note, however, that the King James Version contains 54 (31 and 23), and the Young’s Literal Translation contains exactly 0 occurrences of ‘hell’. Notice how each edition doesn’t agree with each other at all, and how the edition used by the Medieval Church contains the most occurrences of ‘hell’ of any other edition. This can be explained rather simply:

Here, the Greek verb ‘ταρταρόω’ or ‘throw down to Tartarus’ is used. For those of you unfamiliar with Greek Mythology, Tartarus was one of the possible destinations in the Greek afterlife, along with the Asphodel Meadows (where ordinary souls would be sent) and the Elysian Fields (where the great, heroic souls would be sent). Tartarus, however, was a place of darkness for the evil souls. With this context in mind, the fully (literal) translated verse makes more sense:

For if God messengers who sinned did not spare, but with chains of thick gloom, having cast [them] down to Tartarus, did deliver [them] to judgment, having been reserved,

What we can therefore deduce from this verse is that the ‘fallen angels’ are to be confined to Tartarus (not hell) until they are judged (not eternity). This also specifically addresses angels and not men, thus making any reference to this to support the concept of man’s damnation utterly futile.

שְׁאוֹל or ‘Sheol’ is another word that was mistranslated. The actual meaning of ‘Sheol’ is ‘the pit’ or ‘the grave’, and instead of being a place of damnation, it is meant to be a resting place for both the righteous and the unrighteous. Therefore, that verse would be better translated as:

Yet thou shalt be brought down to the grave, to the sides of the pit.

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εἰ δὲ ὁ ὀφθαλμός σου ὁ δεξιὸς σκανδαλίζει σε, ἔξελε αὐτὸν καὶ βάλε ἀπὸ σοῦ:συμφέρει γάρ σοι ἵνα ἀπόληται ἓν τῶν μελῶν σου καὶ μὴ ὅλον τὸ σῶμά σου βληθῇεἰς γέενναν.

A transliterated form of the Hebrew ‘Gehenna’ is used here, γέεννα. In many versions of the Bible, this is translated as ‘Hell’, but once again, this is a mistranslation. Gehenna is in fact a physical valley, known as a ‘place of burning’. It was known as this because ‘Gehenna’ was Jerusalem’s waste dump, with a fire kept constantly alight to incinerate all of the waste. Therefore, a correct translation is:

But, if thy right eye doth cause thee to stumble, pluck it out and cast from thee, for it is good to thee that one of thy members may perish, and not thy whole body be cast to Gehenna.

Indeed, none of the manuscripts ever talk about a fire that will torture and punish the sinful at all. If there is indeed a spiritual meaning to this, I refer you to Malachi 3:2, in which God is described as a “refiner’s fire”, which suggests that this ‘Gehenna’ is merely intended as being a cleansing fire rather than a horrendously torturous fire.

The Greek word ᾅδης or ‘Hades’ is used here in place of ‘Sheol’, which I have covered earlier. Therefore the KJV is wrong yet again, as the Bible is in fact referring to a place of the dead and not ‘hell’.

Pagan Origin of ‘Hell’

Now that I have explained that the Bible doesn’t contain any reference to the ‘Hell’ that is so widely taught in Christianity. However, there has to be a reason why this teaching was introduced.

Firstly, it should be noted that Jewish teachings of ‘Sheol’ began to alter slightly around the time of the Second Temple, when the Jews were under occupation by the Persians. Whilst never actually taught in the Bible, certain Jewish teachers began to teach that ‘Sheol’ was a place solely for the wicked; whereas others continued to teach that it was for both the righteous and the wicked.

This can be explained rather simply, as these teachers were clearly influenced by the Persian ‘Zoroastrianism’, the first religion of its kind to teach the idea of a ‘hell’, because they were being occupied by the Persians when this teaching first began appearing. Further evidence of this can be seen in the Book of Daniel:

And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to long-lasting* life, and some to shame and long-lasting* contempt.

*The Hebrew word עוֹלָם or ‘olam’ here is often mistranslated as ‘everlasting’ (as in ‘lasts forever’), but in fact correctly translates as ‘long-lasting’.

Although slightly vague, this passage is the first hint in the Bible to a form of ‘resurrection’ or ‘life after death’, which is also a Zoroastrian belief. Conveniently, the Book of Daniel was written at the time of the Persian occupation.

With this in mind, Paganism also began to affect the teachings of Early-Christians after the death of Jesus. In A.D. 70, the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem and exiled the Jewish population to parts of the Roman Empire. With the Early-Christians now scattered to Greece and Rome, they began to adopt some of the Pagan teachings there, specifically the idea of punishment after death, which evolved into the Christian concept that we now call ‘Hell’.

The Medieval Church and the Latin Vulgate

The doctrine of ‘Hell’ began to flourish beginning in the 5th Century, as can be seen through ‘The Gospel of Nicodemus’. The aforementioned Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible was indeed the worst offender of mistranslating words into ‘hell’, and interestingly enough the Latin Vulgate was the sole edition of the Bible used by the Church for over a millennium. Indeed, many were persecuted for attempting to translate the Bible into English, most notably John Wycliffe.

This allowed the Medieval Church to heavily exaggerate the concept of ‘Hell’ despite not actually existing in the original translation. The intent of this was to terrorise the masses with the threat of eternal damnation and suffering, which not ensured the absolute loyalty of the People, but also ‘encouraged’ them to make donations of land and money and purchase ‘indulgences’. Indeed, this influence is even powerful today, as ‘Hell’ still remains a doctrine of most if not all Churches of Christianity across the world, and still plays an important factor in the faith of many Christians.

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Conclusion

The Church has been spreading false teachings of the Bible for almost two millennia now, which is the result of mistranslation in certain texts and pagan influence from the Greeks and Romans. Whilst this may come as a shock to many Christians, this also means that they need not fear ‘Hell’, unless they still wish to subscribe to the teachings of the world’s many Churches.

Sometimes, as a Christian, you have to choose to believe what the Bible teaches or what the Church teaches.

I'm all for this Sola Scriptura approach, you could even go on to explain how the Bible uses forever and eternal in reference to the fire commonly called "hell" is not the same as what it means when it refers to eternal life. If you'd like to know more feel free to look this site over: http://www.helltruth.com/

It's extremely relevant to the discussion.

[Distruzio]

Incorrect. I've established, in the links I offered you, how the Church justifies it's legitimacy. You have challenged this assertion by the Church without any credible reason to do so, and maintain this position, despite my counters, despite being routed time and again.

Incorrect. My credible reason is that for the Church to have the authority of Jesus, he has to have given it to them in the first place. Since he has not, the Church cannot be considered as being the legitimate teachers of the Word of God, and rather the Bible should remain the primary authority.

And my threads I offered you explain, in great and easy too read detail, why this position of yours is unsustainable.

So often, Protestants and Atheists alike criticize the more liturgical sects of Christianity of engaging in "corrupted practices." Of putting the "traditions of men" before the Word. Of course they base this assumption on misrepresentations and misunderstandings of actual text. Such mistakes lead them to believe that the first Christians were exactly like evangelicals of today! Carrying a bible to Church every Sunday, thumping it at every sinner on the corner, text proofing with one another and worshipping by the "Word alone."

Needless to say, this is nonsense. People of this perspective forget how few individuals could read before the 20th century. Moreover, the printing press wouldn't exist until the 15th century. This means that of the early Christians, almost none of them could read their Bibles and, most embarrassingly for the modern bibliolater, those Bibles that none of them could read didn't exist and wouldn't for another few hundred years. Remember, the canon didn't exist until the 4th century.

You OP = discredited.

[Mikland]

Dont give a shit about hell. Just stay out of American politics and I will be happy.

[Nationalist State of Knox]

Incorrect. My credible reason is that for the Church to have the authority of Jesus, he has to have given it to them in the first place. Since he has not, the Church cannot be considered as being the legitimate teachers of the Word of God, and rather the Bible should remain the primary authority.

And my threads I offered you explain, in great and easy too read detail, why this position of yours is unsustainable.

So often, Protestants and Atheists alike criticize the more liturgical sects of Christianity of engaging in "corrupted practices." Of putting the "traditions of men" before the Word. Of course they base this assumption on misrepresentations and misunderstandings of actual text. Such mistakes lead them to believe that the first Christians were exactly like evangelicals of today! Carrying a bible to Church every Sunday, thumping it at every sinner on the corner, text proofing with one another and worshipping by the "Word alone."

Needless to say, this is nonsense. People of this perspective forget how few individuals could read before the 20th century. Moreover, the printing press wouldn't exist until the 15th century. This means that of the early Christians, almost none of them could read their Bibles and, most embarrassingly for the modern bibliolater, those Bibles that none of them could read didn't exist and wouldn't for another few hundred years. Remember, the canon didn't exist until the 4th century.

You OP = discredited.

That's irrelevant when discussing who has the authority of the Word of God.

[Bundesdeutschland]

I'm beginning to get a clearer picture here. You believe that the Church is infallible because it has divine authority passed on from Jesus to his disciples, who began the Church. You also reject the authority of any Church other than the Eastern Orthodox, including the Catholic and the Protestant Churches, correct?

I only reject the non-apostolic churches. Protestants aren't Christian, in my opinion. The Catholics, Orientals, Nestorians, and others are merely schismatic rather than heretical. I may disagree with certain doctrines of theirs, but I recognize them as Christian.

I'm Protestant. How are they not Christians?

[Genivaria]

I only reject the non-apostolic churches. Protestants aren't Christian, in my opinion. The Catholics, Orientals, Nestorians, and others are merely schismatic rather than heretical. I may disagree with certain doctrines of theirs, but I recognize them as Christian.

I'm Protestant. How are they not Christians?

You're both equally Christian as far as I'm concerned.

[Bundesdeutschland]

I'm Protestant. How are they not Christians?

You're both equally Christian as far as I'm concerned.

Eastern Orthodox or not, we're still Christian.

[Frisbeeteria]

You're both gravediggers as far as I'm concerned.