johntheapostate

I am not questioning that the concept of hell was something that evolved over time, but The Jews must have developed some concept of the afterlife before the 1st century.

Daniel 12:2 " Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake. some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt"

So at the time that the book of Daniel was written some concept of an everlasting reward or punishment had materialized.

Could people not be forgiven for taking this preexisting concept of everlasting shame and with all the talk of fire, combining the two into the concept of hell that is common to Christianity today.

Diogenes the Cynic

Sheol was a Jewish conception of an underworld, similar to Greek Hades, but with the noatable exception that it was not eternal. It was seen as sort of a holding tank for souls until judgement day when good people would receive eternal life and bad people would get eternal death (eventually envisioned as a casting into the flames of Gehenna).

So yes, there was a concept on afterlife in Judaism, just not eternal torture.

rlogan

Hi Jagella.

If we use the word "Gay" today, it means homosexual. It is a snyonym.

That would not be the case in earlier centuries. If you insist Shakespear meant homosexual when he wrote "whether grave or gay" then you'd be wrong.

The questiuon is what Gehenna meant then. Nobody disagrees with you that after the concept of hell was developed an anachronistic translation supplanted the original Hebrew word.

You simply cannot use a later rendering to change the original meaning.

johntheapostate

Luke 16:22-24 " The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. In hell where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire"

I was always puzzled by these verses as they seemed to have skipped the resurrection and judgment day completely. They do seem to indicate an existence of agony. Would the first century reader have simply understood that the rich man would have had period of torture followed by annihilation?

I don't mean to bug you, but this is something I have not resolved in my mind yet.

Diogenes the Cynic

It is kind of weird and I think it shows a Greek influence on Judaism in that the Jewish underworld was starting to form some concept of temporary punishment for bad people and reward for good people. The "side of Abraham" (or "bosom of Abraham") was sort of a subdivision of Sheol for the good people. It wasn't Heaven, just a different part of the underworld. So judgement day hadn't come yet.

Personally, I don't this prable was authentic, though.

Toto

gLuke is very Hellenistic and most likely 2nd century, so that passage does not disprove the general assertion.

Diogenes the Cynic

If it wasn't for the Abraham reference I wouldn't give it any possibility of authentic origin at all.

johntheapostate

I think the whole Bible is a crock, but wouldn't the Christian have to accept and base his belief in the New Testament just as it was canonized in the forth century, or do you believe that verse was added after the New Testament was already canonized?

Diogenes the Cynic

A Christian would but I'm not a Christian. I'm not even saying that the character of Jesus as presented in the gospels can't be shown to be hypocritical if you take it all as accurate, I'm not really trying to argue that greater point. I'm just trying to argue that if there was an HJ, he couldn't have believed in or spoken of Christian hell. It's a historical point not a theological or philosphical or even literary one.

Toto

Diogenes' argument was that Jesus as a first century Jew would not have known anything about the Hell that was part of later Christian beliefs.

gLuke was probably written in the second century, and Yuri will tell you that all of the gospels were continually revised until they were canonized.

I take no position on what Christians have to believe. Some believe in the Bible, some in Church tradition and progressive revelation, some in their own spiritual revelation. Very few actually read the gospels that closely.