abaddon

Have all Christians always believed in a literal hell?

I’m curious because I see people who don’t abide by some very strict and narrow view on a religion labeled as “liberals”.

The implication is that “real Christians” are the ones who stay closest to the strictest, most literal interpretation of scriptures, and that literal interpretation is presumably how the earlier (less "sophisticated"?) Christians saw things and how the writers of those texts saw things.

Whenever I hear “Christianity is [true, false, stupid, wholly reliant on a literal hell, or whatever]”, then I wonder, “Which Christianity is this person talking about? It’s such a complex phenomenon that I don’t see how you can talk about it, or any religion, as just this one monolithic thing”. I want to find out if I’m right to think they’re narrowing the topic (Christianity) down to something easier to “debunk” (down to an overly narrow literalist interpretation -- “hell means hell, and just that! or you’re liberal!”). And I don’t know Christianity’s history well enough to answer my own question.

So, is a “metaphorical” or “poetic” treatment of at least some of the myths actually a recent thing? Did Gnostics take them the same as more orthodox Christians? Weren’t there less literal, more metaphoric or psychological (or “liberal”), takes on these stories in the religion’s history?

Thanks!

GakuseiDon

No, not true. A non-literal view of Scriptures was there from the earliest times, and probably predates Christianity via its Jewish roots.

Here is Origen, in "Contra Celsus", writing 1800 years ago (my bolding):

And who is so foolish as to suppose that God, after the manner of a husbandman, planted a paradise in Eden, towards the east, and placed in it a tree of life, visible and palpable, so that one tasting of the fruit by the bodily teeth obtained life? and again, that one was a partaker of good and evil by masticating what was taken from the tree? And if God is said to walk in the paradise in the evening, and Adam to hide himself under a tree, I do not suppose that any one doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance, and not literally.

Joan of Bark

I would say that a more literal interpretation of the Bible was held in medieval Europe than in ancient historical times, at least by the average peasant in the field. I believe that the Church always claimed that interpretation was necessary, mainly because it gave the clergy power over any literate rebels who might use the Bible as a weapon against it.

Huon

There is a great difference between the Light, the Firmament, the World, which can be seen or touched, and "must" have been created (by the Logos or some avatar of God), and the garden of Eden, which was never found, seen, smelled or touched. The garden of Eden can be figurative.

There is no contradiction between some literal interpretations, and some "metaphorical" or "poetic" interpretations of some other passages of the Bible. The problem arrives when the same passage is considered "literal" by a guy, and "metaphorical" by another guy (and meaningless by a third unbeliever ).

Doug Shaver

No. There is nothing that all Christians have always believed in, except maybe the existence of God and Jesus. And I wouldn't bet the rent that that's an exception, either.

bacht

Before the Jewish revolt, the Sadduccees were supposed to have been the least speculative about the scriptures, rejecting "Persian" ideas like angelology and resurrection [the Torah doesn't have a developed concept of afterlife or hell].

Toto

aa5874:

Your posts and their replies have been split off here

Some of us who try to be charitable think that English is not your native language. The less charitable - I won't go into that. But this has got to stop.